One Dead Witness (17 page)

Coysh and Wallwork were sitting huddled over a
chessboard.

Coysh looked up, saw Trent and nodded.

He moved a bishop. ‘Mate,’ he said, and stood.

Trent walked quickly back to his cell where he immediately
stripped naked, bar his footwear, and re-dressed in the cold wet
clothes which had been soaking in the wash-basin. He took the torn
pillowcase and squeezed out some of the excess water.

Before leaving the cell he grabbed the knife.

He knew from experience that the chances of meeting other
prisoners or maybe even a screw were pretty scarce at this time of
day. Most people were down on association or beginning to form an
early queue for the evening meal. Screw activity was focused on
those areas with the occasional officer prowling about ... or, as
Trent knew today, in a cell with a drug dealer sampling some wares.
Trent’s luck would have to be pretty low for him to meet anyone who
mattered on the journey between his cell and level two.

He saw no one.

Quietly he mounted the metal staircase which led up to level
two, peering ahead of him down the walkway in front of the cells,
checking the all-clear.

A second later he was on the landing. Level two. Home to
Blake
et al.

The cell Trent was interested in was the fourth
along.

The other cell which interested him was third
along.

He crept quietly, hearing Blake’s raucous laughter and voice
from the fourth cell. There were other voices too. Trent recognised
them all. They belonged to his tormentors and the black rapist, and
because of what they had done to him, they were all going to
die.

He sneaked into the third cell - empty, as promised - knelt
down by the first bunk and reached for the sports bag which had
been placed there by Coysh just a few minutes earlier. Trent
dragged it out, unzipped it and carefully unwrapped the pillowcase
from around the milk bottles. He placed them side by side on the
cell floor, removing the tinfoil tops.

He picked out the petrol-soaked strips of cotton from the
baked-bean tin and pushed them into the mouth of each
bottle.

Last, but not least, he found the Zippo lighter which he had
previously ensured was safely stored in the side compartment of the
sports bag.

Before lighting the strips, he wrapped several of the
water-soaked strands of torn pillowcase around his head for
protection against any possible backdraught.

The lighter flared first time. He moved the flame towards one
of the bottles.

‘
What the hell y’doin’?’

Trent dropped the lighter, spun round and saw the shape of the
large black man standing at the cell door; it was the one who had
raped him. He had been involved in the card-game next door for
almost two hours and had come out to stretch his legs.

Trent reacted instantly.

His right hand flew round to the back pocket where he had put
the knife and whilst he reached for it he rose and hurled himself
towards the black man with more speed than he knew he had. By the
time he reached him, the knife was in his right hand and executing
an unstoppable upward arc towards the man’s chest. It entered just
below the sternum with such force and at such an angle that Trent
was able to drive the point of the blade into the heart. He
actually felt it enter that organ. Felt the resistance of the
muscle wall, felt it burst through into the right
ventricle.

The man was astounded by the speed. He didn’t have time to
react in any way at all.

Trent double-forced the blade and screwed it horribly as
though he was wrenching the handle of a table football game. At the
same time he grabbed the man’s curly hair and pulled him into the
cell.

He was dead.

Trent eased the limp body down onto his knees, then onto his
face, withdrew the knife, wiped it clean on the man’s back and
returned to the milk bottles and cigarette lighter.

Time was running out.

He lit each bottle. The blue flames faltered slightly until
they took hold.

He picked up two bottles, one petrol, one napalm, and weighed
them thoughtfully in his hands as he wondered just how he was going
to do this.

He decided to take a chance.

The landing was clear, so he quickly placed the burning
bottles in a row outside the cell door.

Then he took two petrol bombs, a deep breath, spun into the
doorway of Blake’s cell and announced, ‘Your time has come, you
bastards!’

The three men inside were sat on the edge of two beds with a
small table between them. Halfway through a card-game, they looked
up, annoyed by the interruption.

At which moment Trent acted.

With all the force he could muster he aimed the first bottle
at a point on the floor in front of the table and smashed it
down.

It burst on impact. With a whoosh of flame the petrol splashed
up and ignited.

Trent immediately bowled the second bottle in.

It crashed and exploded, engulfing the cell in
flame.

Trent bent down, picked up two napalm bombs and they went the
same way as the others - smashing on impact, their contents being
sprayed all over the men in the cell - with the added effect that
the home-made napalm clung and burned fiercely.

Blake avoided the full blast of the first two bombs, but could
not avoid the napalm. He screamed as gobs of fire splattered all
over him. One shot down his throat and burned him from the
inside.

The other two men were victims of the first
firebombs.

One managed to run out of the cell, a demented, writhing
fireball, screaming in agony as he burst his way past Trent. He
stamped frenziedly across the walkway and flung himself over the
railings into space, dropping like a comet into the safety netting
below. Here he thrashed about wildly, suspended twenty-five feet
above the association area, watched by stunned, open-mouthed
inmates and staff. All helpless to assist him.

Without watching this, Trent lobbed the remaining bottles into
the cell, ducking as the heat and flames bellowed out. The fingers
of fire caressed and singed his protective clothing.

The last bottles did not have a great effect because most of
the damage had been done, the first explosions having sucked and
burned up most of the available oxygen.

Trent did not wait. As the last bottle left his hand he turned
and hared for the steps which would take him down to his level. He
knew the majority of people would make their way up onto level two
from the opposite direction, from the steps nearest to the
association area.

In order to aid his passage, he ripped the wet protective
strips off his head and screamed, ‘Help! Fire! Get some help!
People hurt!’ as he tore down the walkway, pointing frantically in
the direction from which he had come.

He pushed his way through the gathering number of people
running towards the scene of the inferno. No one seemed to take a
blind bit of notice of him.

He landed back in his cell probably forty seconds after the
last petrol bomb had exploded. He was breathless, shaking. He
ripped his clothing off and stuffed the wet garments underneath his
mattress, jumped into his own clothing, pulled up his shirtsleeves
and sat on the bed.

His arms were bleeding nicely.

They needed to bleed some more.

He reached for the tin of pig’s blood.

Danny had been a naughty policewoman over the years. In more
ways than one.

Regulations state that all officers must hand in their
pocket-books for safe storage purposes each time one is completed.
Danny had only ever handed pocket-books in during her two-year
probationary period. She preferred to keep them in her locker and
now, fifteen years on, she had a stackful on the top shelf which
she would be hard- pressed to explain if called to
account.

It was, in essence, a complete history of her police service,
minus the first two years.

She reached right to the back of the shelf and found the one
she was looking for. Pocket-book number 12. The twelfth book issued
to her in her third year of service, showing how busy she had been
in those days when she had been bright, keen and conscientious.
Twelve in less than three years was pretty good going.

Of late, Danny recorded little in her pocket-books, just the
bare necessities. The book she was using at that moment was over
two years old.

She smiled when she saw the pink-covered, dog-eared log. Her
memories flooded back fifteen years to those simple, uncluttered
days of her first posting at Blackburn police station in the east
of the county. Flicking the book open to the last page she glanced
down the index of names and incidents she had attended. As she read
them to herself, standing in a locker-room at Blackpool police
station, she found she remembered each one.

Amongst the names were:

Loughlin:
Burglary (he’d broken into
a sweetshop on Eanam.)

Alexander:
Parking offence (that
bitch had been a real cow to deal with.)

Allcock:
Prostitution (one of the
many Blackburn hookers.)

There were numerous other names, all invoking their own
particular reminiscence.

Eventually she saw the name she had been searching
for.

Lilton:
F/arm cert.

Danny riffled to the entry on page 21. Her memory was now well
and truly jogged. She read the entry, then her eyes became misty as
she visualised the day.

Visiting people who had applied for firearms certificates was
a routine job usually carried out by more experienced officers.
That particular day Danny’s shift was 2 p.m.-l0 p.m., and the guy
who usually covered the outer rural beats of Blackburn had reported
in sick. Much to Danny’s surprise, the Sergeant allocated her his
beat for the day. She had been expecting to spend another eight
hours trudging round the town centre, picking up shoplifters and
drunks. The chance to work a mobile beat was pretty rare for a
woman in those days, especially at her length of service. It was a
beat usually given out to the older ‘lads’ as a bit of a
sweetener.

She was handed the keys to the Panda car and the stack of
routine enquiries and told to come in for her refreshments at
six.

Danny could see herself marching confidently down the
corridor. Twenty-two years old, slim as a beanpole. A non-smoker
who hardly drank at all but enjoyed lots of uncomplicated sex with
a variety of guys, mainly detectives. Fit as a flea and a regular
member of the County Athletic Team.

What great days.

As she went out to the car she collected her PR from the comms
room. Whilst fiddling with the radio harness she accidentally
dropped the pile of enquiries onto the floor. The Constable who had
issued her radio, and who was desperate to find his way into
Danny’s knickers, picked them up for her, like the gentleman he
was, or purported to be.

He noticed the Lilton firearms enquiry on top of the
pile.

Danny could not quite recall the exact words. They were along
the lines of, ‘I wouldn’t trust him with a catapult, never mind a
thirty-eight.’ A remark which set Danny’s alarm bells
ringing.

She asked why.

The PC told her. ‘Always beating his wife up. Real volatile
git.’ He handed her the enquiries and changed tack to a more
favourable subject. He asked Danny out for the tenth
time.

And for the tenth time, she politely refused.

He sighed despondently and waddled his short twenty-two-stone
frame back into the radio room.

So that afternoon, before going out on patrol, Danny sat in
the report room and leafed through all the messages, reports and
any references whatsoever to do with Joe Lilton of Head Bank House,
Osbaldeston, Blackburn.

She got the impression the overweight Constable had a
point.

After she turned out from the station, she enjoyed half an
hour tootling round the country lanes, not having a single
deployment. Then she got bored and made her way to Osbaldeston, a
quiet village close to the River Ribble.

There was a fair smattering of wealth in the area and Head
Bank House was a large, detached building surrounded by a couple of
acres of landscaped gardens. Danny knew from his firearms
application form that Lilton described himself as a self-employed
trader. Further digging had revealed he owned six shops which sold
High Street seconds at knock-down prices.

Danny drove down the wide, arcing driveway laid with white
chippings crunching under the tyres of the battered Ford Escort.
She drew up outside the front door next to a brand-new Jaguar and a
slightly older Mini. Danny was calling on spec. It looked as though
she’d struck lucky.

As soon as she stepped out of the car she heard raised voices
from inside the house. A big argument. Man and woman. She stood and
listened and tried to work out what it was about. It seemed to be
about infidelity.