Seizure (6 page)

‘Has she been awake?'

‘Just for short spells. She was quite lucid. Asked where you were.'

‘Damn. I should've been here.'

Kate squeezed his elbow. ‘She was fine about it. Don't worry.'

He turned to her. ‘I need to go out on a job early tomorrow. The security guard died, so it's a murder now. I need to supervise some raids.'

‘That's OK. I'll be here.'

‘You sure?'

Kate nodded. ‘We'd better get some sleep then, otherwise neither of us will be fit for anything.'

Henry yawned, big and loud, showing all his fillings. He had slept soundly, aided by a microscopic Jack Daniel's, for the five hours available. Even so, he was still whacked.

He checked his watch: eight fifteen a.m. Doors were due to be battered off their hinges in fifteen minutes.

Flynn made his way across the harbour to where
Lady Faye
was moored. He could see activity on board before he got there. Jose, Tommy and the owner, Adam Castle – the man who employed Flynn as skipper, and to whom Flynn owed much for the man's generosity and trust – were busy at work.

Flynn stood on the edge of the harbour and inspected
Faye
's decks. Jose was still dutifully scrubbing away at them, desperately trying to clear away the last vestiges of blood, going into every nook and cranny with a power hose.

‘Hey, what do you call a Spanish fireman?' Flynn called across. The three people on board raised their faces to him. They squinted up against the sunlight, quizzical expressions on all.

‘What do you mean?' Jose asked.

‘He's called Jose – but what's his mate called?'

Jose shrugged. As if he cared.

Adam Castle simply stared at Flynn with his hands on his hips. Tommy, Adam's son, was on the flying bridge with a lopsided teenage grin on his face.

‘We need a chat,' Castle the elder said. He gestured for Flynn to come aboard and follow him into the cockpit. Flynn's cheeks blew out. He walked across the gangplank and stepped on to the boat, glared at by Jose.

‘Where have you fucking been?' the Spaniard demanded.

‘Looking after customers' needs,' Flynn said with a click of the tongue and a wink, just to wind up Jose.

‘I've been here since six.'

Flynn shrugged. ‘I'm glad to hear it,
amigo
.' He gave Tommy a nod and went into the cockpit, his bravado a mask for what might be about to happen.

Stern faced, Castle waited for him, ominously.

Flynn kept up the breezy pretence. ‘OK, boss?'

‘Siddown.'

Flynn sat uncomfortably. He looked tensely at Castle, who had been out of town when the boatload of blood, refugees and dead bodies had arrived back the day before. Castle owned half a dozen similar boats throughout the Canary Islands, as well as a small property business, a couple of well-run night clubs, a travel agency and a business taking tourists out on tours of the island. Of all the boats,
Lady Faye
was his favourite, mainly because with Flynn at the helm it was consistently the most successful in terms of catches and repeat business.

‘First of all, you did a good job yesterday. I don't deny it. As much as these immos are a pain in the rump, you did a fantastic job in rescuing as many as you did. They're all being held by the local authorities now, as you would expect. So, well done.'

‘Thanks, boss,' Flynn said, though he could tell there was a nasty ‘but' coming in from left field. He braced himself. Castle was a well laid back guy, but he also had a powerful broadside in his weaponry.

His eyes hooded. ‘However, the issue of the rifle is something that concerns me. Deeply.'

Flynn swallowed. He'd made Tommy and Jose swear on their lives not to reveal anything about the weapon, but someone had obviously blabbed. Flynn realized his insistence on secrecy had been unfair on the others, but he'd half-hoped it might have lasted a tad longer, at least until he'd had the chance to ditch or hide the Bushmaster. He scratched his head, coughed nervously.

‘What the hell were you thinking?' Castle roared suddenly, catching Flynn unawares and making him jump. Under normal circumstances, Castle did not raise his voice. He was a pleasant guy and very little wound him up. Except of course one of his employees hiding an unlicensed hunting rifle in one of his boats. Castle went into the stateroom and came out bearing the rifle, brandishing it angrily. ‘Do you realize this could completely fuck me up if it comes out? The cops would come down on me like a ton of shit.' He was furious.

‘Sorry,' Flynn said inadequately.

Castle shook his head. ‘Not good enough, Steve.' His mouth clamped shut. He put the weapon down and placed the ball of his thumb over his right eye as though he had a storming headache. Then he looked at the very chastened Flynn. ‘Why have you got it?'

Flynn gave a pathetic shrug. ‘Pirates?' he said thinly. ‘Target practice? A throwback to my army and cop days? I like guns and it was a bargain.'

Castle held up a hand in mock-surrender. ‘Don't, don't,' his voice was weary. ‘Look, Steve, if this comes out, even though the gun was used for a good purpose' – he emphasized the word
good
by tweaking the first and second fingers of both hands – ‘there will be some really tough questions to answer. I'm hoping the illegals won't say anything. I know Jose and Tom won't – but what about Ms Hartland?' Castle looked at him knowingly.

‘She'll keep quiet – promise,' Flynn said. A sliver of relief shimmied through him. He'd thought he was going to get the chop.

Castle picked up the rifle and handed it to Flynn. ‘Get rid, OK?'

Flynn nodded, knowing that would be easier said than done.

The two men regarded each other, then Castle started to smile. ‘Look, man, you're my best skip, so don't blow it . . . OK, today is a very big clean-up op. There's no charters booked and we won't accept any walk-ins today or tomorrow. The cops want to speak, too, so let's accommodate them. Fortunately they're as pissed off as anyone by illegal immigrants, so I don't think they'll probe too deeply.

‘Tonight I want you on the door of the Purple Cane,' Castle said – the job of bouncer at Castle's club in the commercial centre was one of Flynn's other roles. ‘Tomorrow, you'll be taking one of the Jeep safaris – OK.'

‘Got that,' Flynn said with great relief.

‘And I don't care how you do it, Steve, but ditch the weapon – preferably in deep, deep water. I run an honest business.'

With that, Castle left the boat. After composing himself, Flynn went on deck, a serious expression on his face that caused Tommy and Jose to look away guiltily.

‘OK guys, I understand. One of you ratted on me.'

Jose scowled as he stood up from his task. ‘We were not the ones with a rifle,' the Spaniard pointed out. He wiped his hands on a cloth. Next to him was a bucket full of blood-coloured water.

‘I know,' Flynn said, backing off and realizing the wrong words had tumbled out of his mouth. ‘I'm sorry.' Flynn was being very, very humble today.

‘Adam's very pissed off at you.'

‘He has every right to be – although the gun did save the day.'

‘Hey, it don't make it right.' Jose jabbed a finger at Flynn. ‘And how is the customer?' he said, changing the subject without warning.

‘She's been cared for and is recovering well from the trauma,' Flynn said grandly.

‘I'll bet she is.'

‘And not only that.' Flynn held up a finger. ‘She wanted to make a generous gesture towards us all. I told her it wasn't necessary, but she insisted.' Flynn's right hand snaked into his back pocket and reappeared with a flourish, a thin wad of euro notes between his fingers. He saw Jose's eyes widen appreciatively as he peeled off four fifty-euro notes. ‘A little bonus for good fishing and excitement – not to be revealed to the boss, OK?' Jose nodded. His greedy mitts snatched the cash. At the present exchange rate it was almost equivalent to two hundred pounds sterling, money not to be sniffed at.

Flynn glanced up at Tommy, who was watching the transaction with interest from the flying bridge. ‘Some for you, too – on the QT,' Flynn told him and waved a couple of fifty-euro notes in his direction. Tommy's young eyes lit up and he scampered down the steps. ‘She gave us a five hundred bonus to split,' Flynn explained. ‘I reckon this is fair, don't you?'

‘Thanks Steve,' Tommy enthused. He was usually paid a pittance by his dad for working on the boat, which he did for love rather than money anyway, during downtime from school. A hundred-euro windfall was an incredible amount for a fourteen-year-old.

‘No probs. You did good yesterday. How're you feeling?'

‘I'm good.'

Flynn smiled benignly at the members of his crew, aware that a little financial recompense had smoothed the rough edges of a possible rocky situation – and that they would never be aware of the true share of the bonus he had taken from Gill Hartland. He wasn't going to tell them he'd pocketed seven hundred euros and the bonus had actually been a grand. He justified it in his mind, convincing himself he deserved it because he'd done all the work – particularly the extra-curricular stuff – hadn't he?

‘What're you going to do with the rifle?' Jose asked.

Flynn shrugged. ‘Not thought that one through as yet. Maybe ditch it overboard when I get a chance.'

Jose looked at him sceptically. ‘We won't be out on the water for two days – and you can't keep it on the boat,
amigo
. Adam will not allow it.'

‘I know, I'll sort it,' Flynn whined. ‘So, have you finished scrubbing the deck?' he asked, his turn to change the subject without warning.

‘It's come up well, considering, but still needs more work.'

‘Better get cracking, then.'

Jose turned instinctively at the instruction, almost falling for it momentarily, but then he glared at Flynn, his dark Spanish eyes very menacing. ‘A-ha, nearly had me then.' He wagged an admonishing finger. ‘Anyway – what was that you were saying about Spanish firemen? Some kinda joke? I mean, a Spanish fireman is called Jose – so what the hell?'

‘The joke is, his mate is called Hose-B. Gettit? Jose, Hose-B?'

Jose stared blankly at him before returning to his blood-scrubbing duties. ‘
Ingles
,' he muttered. ‘Sheesh.'

There was one thing Henry Christie admired about police raids in the modern era: usually, they were fast, hard and professional. A world away from the ragtag raids he used to take part in when he first joined the job. Back then they were often based on an iffy tip-off to a fat jack who stayed in the CID office, feet up, fag in gob, while the uniforms (a derisory term) ‘spun the drum', as they used to say.

It was good fun, but Henry remembered at least three occasions when he'd been tasked to smash someone's soil pipe and put a net under it to catch the drugs that were likely to be flushed away by the panicked felons in the house. Only to discover it was the wrong house. On-call plumbers and joiners made a small fortune from police callouts in those days.

Nowadays more preparation time went into intelligence gathering and surveillance, and police training, before size eleven boots were applied to doors.

Which is how Henry knew for certain that the house he and Rik were covering
was
the right one, and the occupant they were interested in
was
in. And because of the speed and force of entry, he was captured in just the way Henry liked. Underpants around his ankles, reading a newspaper on the toilet.

When the first uniformed cop booted open the toilet door, the suspect merely looked at him over the top of his paper and said coolly, ‘You'll have to wait your turn, pal, I'm constipated.'

His name was Richard Last – inevitably Tricky Dicky – and during the course of his relatively short life (he was twenty-seven) he'd become one of the north-west's most feared armed robbers. Even so, such villains had stomach problems from time to time. And it was fortunate he was stuck on the toilet because, as his house was searched, two firearms were discovered in the attic and one under his mattress. The latter was a fully loaded automatic pistol, probably kept there for the occasions when someone unannounced came bursting through his door.

He smelled of sleep, sweat and cigarette smoke. He needed a shower and two hours after his arrest, having been conveyed directly to Blackpool nick instead of via Rochdale, he still needed to crap.

‘I'm answering none of your questions,' he stated categorically to Henry and Rik in interview room number one. ‘Not till I've seen a doctor, been given a shit-pill, and then I've seen my solicitor.' The prisoner was now wearing a white forensic suit, commonly called a zoot suit, and sat squirming in the chair, very uncomfortable. ‘I haven't shitted for days and I feel like I'm going to burst, only it won't come. So don't even bother asking me anything until I have done.'

The two detectives, however, remained unmoved by the plight of Tricky Dicky's bowels.

Henry knew that the arrests of Richard Last and his running mate, Jack Sumner – locked up during a simultaneous raid and ensconced in another cell out of earshot of Last, and without either of them knowing the other had been arrested – were acts of hope.

They were two violent robbers who fitted the bill nicely and he guessed their arrests would probably be the first of many fishing expeditions – cloaked by layers of solid intelligence, obviously, just to appease the defence solicitors who would become involved along the way. Henry knew everything had to look above board. Actually he wasn't too concerned by the heavy-handed nature of these tactics. Even if these guys weren't ultimately involved in the supermarket murder, something else – such as other offences or intelligence – was usually thrown up by similar arrests.