One Dead Witness (14 page)

The gun clattered to the floor.

‘
I hope you know what you’re doing,’ Bussola said. ‘Steve,’ he
added.

A jolt, like electricity, whipped through Kruger. It must have
shown on his face.

Bussola smiled. His erection wilted slightly. ‘Yeah, I know
who you are. Surprised? That bitch I married talks of no one
else.’

‘
Move over to the wall,’ Kruger said, feeling somehow that his
advantage had been taken from him. He indicated to Bussola where he
wanted him to stand. The mobster did not move. Just stood there
with a taunting smirk quivering on his lips. ‘Move, Mario,’ Kruger
repeated. ‘The cops’re coming and I’ll tell them all sorts of lies
if I have to. Y’know - about how I had to save a wretched girl’s
life, how you turned on me with a gun. . . all that kinda shit, and
you won’t be able to say anything , cos you’ll be ashes and so will
your fatso pal here.’ Kruger’s gun pointed to the bodyguard, then
flicked back to Bussola. ‘All because you refused to stand next to
the wall. Very intelligent.’

‘
What ... what’s going on?’ Charlie Gilbert blurted from the
bed. He had been watching the events unfolding with
incomprehension. He then vomited spectacularly down his chest,
stomach and genitals, fell forwards on the bed with a groan, huge
ass in the air, and started snoring.

Kruger raised his eyebrows at Bussola. ‘Well?’

Reluctantly he edged towards the wall. His eyes lasered into
Kruger with a fierce anger. ‘You’ll regret this, Steve.’

It was a statement of fact. It told Kruger nothing he didn’t
already know.

‘
In fact you’ll all regret this,’ Bussola declared
blandly.

‘
Get the girls out of here,’ Kruger said to Myrna and Kelly.
The two women entered the room, careful not to step into the line
of fire between Kruger, Jimmy and their two targets. Bussola
watched them through veiled lids, lingering over Myrna. His face
turned back to Kruger. ‘Why the hell are you here anyway, Steve?’
Bussola mused out loud. He licked his lips. The ex-cop felt himself
begin to weaken underneath the tough exterior.

Even naked and exposed, Bussola was every inch a gangster.
He’d paid his dues on the mean streets of New York and Chicago,
punking around with the gangs, terrifying neighbourhoods, but
always thinking about expansion and the future. In his thirties,
with a well-established criminal organisation in those cities, he
decided to move the centre of his operations to Miami where it
expanded to epic proportions. He orchestrated some bloody - and a
few bloodless - coups and continued to grow, though he only ever
made the number two spot. Number one was held by a mobster named
Tony Corelli. Corelli’s unexpected demise at the hands of two armed
women - a case still unsolved by the cops - opened the way for
Bussola to claim top spot. Which he did, ruthlessly taking over
Corelli’s flourishing empire.

Bussola was widely believed to be a billionaire.

He was also widely believed to have personally killed several
people on the way to amassing his fortune. Legend had it that he
once chain-sawed a rival to pieces. This was never proved, but
Kruger believed it.

And Kruger was frightened because he believed everything about
Bussola, and frightened because he believed Bussola’s
words.

He was also totally disgusted at a man who had so much wealth
at his disposal that he could have bought anything legal in terms
of sexual pleasure, yet resorted to a sordid back-street room where
he, together with another man, got his kicks by raping a girl who
did not look twelve years old.

Maybe that was part of the thrill. Doing something which, no
matter what the circumstance, was unlawful - and getting away with
it. The ultimate middle finger stuck up at a society he
despised.

Except this time he would not get away with it.

Kruger found he could not prevent his mouth curling into a
sneer of contempt as these thoughts went through his
mind.

‘
What choo lookin’ at?’ Bussola growled.

‘
Scum.’

Bussola nodded, then winked at Kruger. ‘I’m a very bad person
to have as an enemy.’

‘
So am I,’ Kruger responded. He could see Bussola was not
convinced, whereas Kruger honestly believed the Italian would be a
very bad adversary.

Myrna and Kelly escorted the two girls out of the room, the
younger one of them covered up by a large, soiled towel Kelly had
found on the floor.

This left Kruger and Jimmy facing Bussola, the bodyguard and
the big fat guy spread-eagled on the bed in a sea of
vomit.

Their guns never wavered.

‘
What now, Steve?’ Bussola raised his thick bushy
eyebrows.

‘
Cops.’

‘
And what do you expect to happen?’

‘
Arrest and conviction.’

Bussola blinked as though he could not believe his ears. Then
he roared with laughter, throwing his head right back. His penis,
now limp, jiggled with merriment. Then the laughter stopped. He
became serious. ‘I very much doubt it, Steve. Very
much.’

A cop siren wailed not too distantly. A flood of relief passed
through Kruger. ‘We’ll see, Mario.’ Inside he already had his
doubts.

‘
How about letting us get dressed?’

‘
No - stay as you are,’ Kruger said, not wanting to lose any
forensics. ‘Just as we found you - naked as jailbirds.’

Chapter Five

Although British prisons have had a bad press over recent ears
for their allegedly liberal regimes, it is true to say at even a
prison run along the strictest of lines would not be able to
control inmates 100 per cent of the time - unless they were banged
up in their cells twenty-four hours a day.

And however tightly policed the prison inside which Trent was
incarcerated had been, there is a better than even chance he would
still have been able to plan, prepare and execute the course of
action he had decided to take.

As it was, the fairly laid-back way in which the prison was
run meant that with just a little care and common sense, there was
no earthly chance of him being caught.

Once again he was awake early.

He watched the darkness of night become the brightness of
morning, willing the time to pass, eager to get going.

By the time his cell door opened he was shaved, dressed and
ready for breakfast. He did not show any enthusiasm to the warder
for the day ahead, however, but sloped dejectedly out of the cell
and walked slowly along the landing. He stared blankly ahead of
himself, dragging his feet, trying to give the impression of a dead
man walking.

He joined the queue to the breakfast servery. Coysh was one of
the servers, Trent noticed, and the man slopped wet scrambled eggs
and bacon swimming in grease onto people’s plastic
plates.

Coysh clocked Trent’s imminent approach and surreptitiously
selected a few prime rashers for him.

The two men exchanged a knowing glance. Trent said,
‘Everything okay?’

Coysh nodded.

‘
Keep me informed.’

Coysh turned his attention to the next one in line.

Trent moved on, smiling secretly, grabbed a mug of tea and sat
down at a table. Alone.

‘
I heard about what happened last night, Danny,’ Henry Christie
said. The two of them were in Henry’s office, the door closed, his
phone on divert.

He saw she looked tired and worn-out. Not just because of the
problems of the early morning, but for lessons far more
fundamental. The white, narrow strip of plaster over the sutured
cut on her face did not help matters.

Danny, in turn, eyed Henry. She bit her bottom lip to stop it
from quivering because she wanted to cry. But not here, Not in
front of her future boss. The last thing she wanted was to be
tagged as a pathetic, weeping woman.

She drew in a deep, juddering breath and braced
herself.

‘
Think it was Jack Sands who smashed the window and damaged
your car?’ Henry asked. He leaned his elbows on the
desk.

Danny shrugged noncommittally. In herself she knew damn well
it was Sands. Evidentially, though, she could not prove a
thing.

‘
Want to discuss it?’ Henry offered.

She closed her eyes, shook her head. She was perilously close
to bubbling over. She had spent the last two hours since coming to
work avoiding both Henry and Sands in an effort to steer away from
the problem. She knew that if she encountered either one of them,
the bubble would burst with a messy flood of emotion all over the
carpet. With Sands it would have been anger. With Henry,
tears.

Henry had been the first one to collar her and beckon her into
his office.

‘
No, not really, Henry. I just want to get on with my work.
I’ve got loads of things to get boxed off before I join you. I
don’t want to talk about my private life, if you don’t mind ...
with respect.’

Even as she said the words, she knew they weren’t true. More
than anything she wanted to share her predicament with someone. But
not here, not now. She placed her hands on the chair-arm and
started to stand up . . . about to run away.

Henry stood up quickly and waved her to be seated. He came
round from behind his desk and sat down on the chair next to
Danny.

He said, ‘I’ll bet you’re thinking you’re making one hell of a
bad impression with your new boss, aren’t you?’ She opened her
mouth to say something; Henry held up a silencing finger. ‘I’ll
tell you this, Danny. All I’m interested in - bottom line - is how
you perform in the workplace. However, I know from my own
experience that personal issues often cloud professional judgments.
I know that for a fact, Danny. I’ve been that person in that
situation more times than I care to remember. So what I’m trying to
say, dead clumsily, is that I realise people are more than
machines, more than what they are for eight hours a day at work,
and I’m interested in my team as individuals who have thoughts,
feelings, aspirations, problems ... whatever ... and these are the
things I have to deal with to get the best out of my people.’ He
blew out his cheeks and said, ‘Phew! That was a long one. So, if I
can help you Danny, let me. Okay? Totally confidential.’

She slumped back, regarding Henry’s face slowly. Letting her
eyes take his features in. It was a kind, concerned face. She felt
instinctively she could trust him.

‘
And not only that,’ he reminded her. ‘As you said, I am
involved already. I have some right to know about what happened in
the garage last night ... at the very least.’

‘
Yeah, you’re right Henry.’

She looked away, gathered her thoughts and decided to tell him
the lot. ‘Me and Jack have been having an affair for about six
months. I fell in love with him, I guess. All that lonely female
baloney. But it was going nowhere, except down the tubes. I’ve
tried to end it a few times now, but he’s so overbearing and
clinging and possessive - horrible, really, if I’m honest - and I
just let it go on and on. Night before last I’d had enough and told
him it was over, for good this time. But he won’t let it lie and I
don’t want to hurt his wife. I’m sure she doesn’t know yet. I feel
a complete bitch and I’m not happy at all with the situation. . .
I’m so bloody depressed, actually. I’m dying to get out of that
office onto CID.’ She stopped talking abruptly because she realised
the babbling had started. She swallowed and wiped the beginning of
a tear out of her eye. ‘Sorry, Henry.’

‘
It’s okay.’

‘
What did Jack say last night, after I’d gone?’

‘
Nothing, other than to abuse me.’ Henry leaned forwards,
elbows on knees. ‘What do you want to do, Danny? What’s the best
thing that can happen now?’

She considered the questions a moment. ‘For him to accept it’s
over, leave me alone, and let us both get on with our
lives.’

At eleven-thirty that morning, Trent swigged down the last
dregs of his morning brew. He was alone in his cell, sitting on the
edge of his bunk, leafing idly through one of his teen-girl
magazines. He closed it, slid it onto the pile underneath his bunk
and got to his feet. He walked over to the steel toilet in the
corner of the cell and urinated, his back to the door.

As he finished he heard a movement behind. He zipped up and
turned.

Blake leaned nonchalantly against the door. In his grimy
nicotine-stained fingers he held a self-rolled cigarette from which
a single whisper of smoke rose.

‘
Okay, nonce?’ he sneered. He slurped his tongue around the
inside of his mouth, then spat on the cell floor.

Cold icicles of fear spread rapidly through Trent’s veins.
Literally, his blood ran cold.

‘
What do you want?’

There was a strange, deadly look in Blake’s eyes which Trent
immediately interpreted. When the answer spilled out of the
villain’s mouth, Trent was not surprised.

‘
You. . . I want you - but you’ve always known that, haven’t
you?’