Substantial Threat (6 page)

This time she did not move, just lay there sobbing and choking.

‘No witnesses, Marty,' Ray said. ‘Take care of her and see us down in the car when you've done.'

The words were bliss to Marty's ears. ‘It'll be a fuckin' pleasure.'

It was a mess underneath the settee. There were discarded cigarette packets, matchboxes, a couple of pizza boxes (one with a half-eaten Margarita in it), numerous cigarette and roach ends, some scrunched-up free newspapers and a pair of knickers. All in all, a tinderbox.

The cigarette end which had fallen from JJ's fingers did the trick.

It burned slowly and almost died, but re-ignited when a waft of fresh air rolled through the flat when Marty left the premises after he had finished with Carrie. A tiny ember blew on to a rolled-up fish and chip paper and started to burn. The little flames crackled and licked the underside of the cheap settee, immediately melting the plastic-like fibre and spreading to the foam-filled insides.

In less than sixty seconds the fire had engulfed the piece of furniture and was reaching towards the curtains.

The old man who found JJ's twisted body on the playground did not think to call the police. A paramedic unit was first on the scene. Once they were certain JJ's life was extinct – not a difficult thing to work out – they called the cops and covered the body from the prying eyes of the crowd which had started to gather.

While waiting for the arrival of the boys/girls in blue, they saw the flames begin to pour out of the open window of the flat four floors above.

So they called the fire brigade.

It was going to be a full turn-out for the emergency services.

‘N
ow I remember you, too,' Jacqueline Burrows said. ‘Bit of a messy suicide, wasn't it? You were one of the detectives who came to the house to have a look at the body.'

Henry nodded and raised his eyebrows. ‘Mind if I ask you the question you probably always get asked?'

‘The “why” question?' she said. ‘Why would a girl like you want to become an undertaker? Dead bodies and all that messy stuff? The smell of death, embalming fluid, etcetera, etcetera?'

‘Yeah, the “why” question,' Henry confirmed.

‘Impulse,' she admitted. ‘No great feel for a vocation or anything like that. I was fifteen at the time, a rebel at school, really pissed off, saw an ad in the local rag and thought I'd have a go at it. An undertaker took me on and I really enjoyed it.' She shrugged. ‘Took to it like a duck to water, just loved it. Embalming, making people who'd been smashed to bits look good again so their relatives could have some decent memory of them. Spent a few years learning the trade and my dad set me up in business when I was nineteen. Got a bit bored with it a couple of years ago, so I sold up, bought an empty hotel on South Shore and converted it into flats . . . done that ever since. Very lucrative. Got ten properties now.'

‘Who is your father?' Henry wanted to know.

‘Bill Burrows – transport.'

‘Oh,' said Henry, slightly taken aback. He knew of Burrows Transport and their international fleet of haulage vehicles. It was a very successful business, rivalling the best transport companies in Europe, and Bill Burrows was one of the richest men in the north of England.

‘I thought you'd know him,' she said, seeing Henry's reaction. Then she changed tack and said, ‘So why did you become a cop?'

‘I think I'm here to ask the questions.'

‘Fair's fair,' she insisted.

‘Okay,' he relented. ‘Impulse. Boredom. A desire to shock my mother. And it sounded like a fun job.'

‘And has it been?'

‘It has its moments . . . now, back to business. Somebody was murdered in one of your bedsits about a year ago.'

‘Like I said before – I don't know anything about it.'

Henry paused before speaking again. He liked silence during interview situations, was never uncomfortable with it; it was always the interviewee who got twitchy – usually – but Jack Burrows did not seem to mind. She was a very cool customer, he thought. He hoped this was just a veneer and that underneath she was paddling like mad.

‘I find that very difficult to believe.'

‘It's true,' she replied without any trace of annoyance.

‘Convince me,' he urged her.

‘When I started out in the rental game and had one or two properties, I did all the day to day stuff and I knew everybody who was in the flats. The more properties I took on, the less time I had to do that,' she said, tweaking her fingers. ‘By the time I'd got five places, there was just no way I could personally know all the tenants, so I hired a manager and opened an office in town. He did all the routine tasks for me, including arranging lets to clients. I simply do not know who is in my flats now. I'm too busy buying another block and I'm also negotiating to buy a sea-front hotel. It's go, go, go.' She smiled. ‘And that's why I don't know anything about the girl who was murdered. Obviously it was a tragedy, but . . .' She did not finish what she was going to say but then went on, ‘So it's the manager who knew her and let her have the flat, not me.'

Henry nodded, processing this information. He glanced down at his notes. ‘This would be Thomas Dinsdale, would it? He's the manager?'

‘Was at the time,' Burrows corrected him. ‘He quit shortly after the girl got killed.'

‘Where is he now?'

‘Absolutely no idea.'

‘No forwarding address? Contact number? New place of work?'

She shook her head and pouted.

Henry was just about to get very annoyed with her because he knew she was lying. He opened his mouth but his words were cut short by the pager affixed to his belt, which began to ring. Frustrated he unhooked it and read the scrolling message. He sighed and fitted it back on to his belt, then looked at Jacqueline Burrows.

‘Saved by the bell,' he said coldly. ‘But just for the record, Miss Burrows, I don't believe you didn't know anything about the dead girl, nor do I believe you haven't got a clue as to the whereabouts of Mr Dinsdale.' He finished his tea and struggled out of the settee. ‘So I'll just have to find him myself, won't I? And, as a muscular movie star once said, “I'll be back.” I'll find the front door myself, thanks.'

Burrows, stony-faced, let him go without uttering a word. She watched him from the living-room window as he got into his Vectra. She was feeling very nervous, dithery almost, as though her blood sugar was low. There was something about Henry Christie which made her very wary indeed. It wasn't as though she had not been cautious of the detectives who had interviewed her initially, but she had not felt challenged by them in any way. In fact, when she had lured one of them into her bed, she had known she was completely safe. But Christie was different. There was something about him that worried her and gave her the feeling that even if she could get him into bed, he would still be a danger to her.

She picked up her phone and dialled a mobile number.

Annoyingly the call was immediately transferred to the answer-phone. She slammed the receiver down and swore.

They made their way to a small terraced house in South Shore, not far away from the Bloomfield Road football ground used by Blackpool FC.

Crazy dropped Ray and Marty off at the front door and parked the Astra some distance away and walked back to the house by another route, checking for any signs of surveillance by the cops. It was time to be careful because things were about to get very serious. He walked down the back alley behind the house and entered through the rear door.

Ray and Marty were already upstairs in the front bedroom where they had stripped off and were naked. They were folding their clothes into black plastic bin liners. Crazy joined them and stripped off too, placing his clothes into a third bin liner.

‘It's all in the back bedroom,' came a voice from downstairs. ‘When you're ready.'

The three naked men trudged down the short hallway into the room where everything was laid out on the uncarpeted floor for them.

Each man had a pair of jockey shorts to put on, a pair of black socks, a fairly tight-fitting pair of dark-blue overalls, latex gloves and a ski-mask. Their feet were to be covered by Hi-Tek trainers. It had all been newly bought, but no two things had been purchased from the same supplier, with the exception of the latex gloves, which came in a box of a hundred pairs.

All dressed, but without the masks, they trooped downstairs to the kitchen where the man who was known as the Supplier waited patiently for them, brew in hand, a selection of handguns laid out neatly on the Formica-topped kitchen table.

‘Fuckin' World War Three,' exclaimed Marty.

‘Everything fit okay?' the Supplier asked, appraising the men.

‘Yeah, good,' said Ray. He stared greedily at the guns.

‘Got a bit of a choice for you here,' the Supplier said proudly, displaying his wares on the table with a regal waft of the hand. ‘And every one is guaranteed to be as clean as a whistle.'

‘How do we know that for sure?' Ray asked cynically.

‘Stole them myself. Every gun here is clean and cannot be connected to any other criminal act.' The Supplier smiled. ‘Guaranteed.'

Ray nodded.

The Supplier selected one of the handguns – a 9mm Glock, very light and compact. He removed the magazine, showed the three men that it wasn't loaded and handed it to Ray, butt first. ‘Used by a lot of police forces in the country. Easy to use, reliable, kills people.'

Ray weighed the gun in his hand. ‘Very light,' he admitted.

‘Accurate, deadly,' the Supplier confirmed.

‘Will it jam?'

‘No,' he said with confidence.

Ray handed the weapon to Marty, who appraised it, nodded sagely and passed it to Crazy, who did the same.

‘Twelve rounds in the mag, one in the chamber.'

‘Unlucky for some,' smirked Ray.

‘Eh?' said Marty, a quizzical expression on his face.

‘Nowt,' said Ray, shaking his head. ‘What else you got?' he asked the Supplier, looking down at the table full of guns.

‘I think you'll like this one, too,' the Supplier said. He picked up another weapon and showed it to Ray Cragg.

By the time Henry Christie arrived it was all over. He parked some distance away from the flats and sauntered to the scene, hands thrust deep into his pockets. Now that he was a member of the ‘circus' – the HQ team brought in to assist the local cops to investigate serious crime – he did not like arriving in the time-honoured traditional fashion, bursting into crime scenes, throwing his weight about like they did in days gone by. He liked to do things his way, a way that reflected his personality: quiet and sneaky. So he came on foot, approaching from an oblique angle, taking his time, letting his eyes, ears and nose do the work; coming up from below as opposed to pouncing from above as some senior investigating officers had a reputation for doing.

There was a lot of activity at the flats. Ambulances, fire engines and police cars and all their occupants. It all looked pretty confusing, but Henry was pleased to be able to pick out one of the local jacks, Rik Dean, doing some directing and supervising, getting the uniformed branch to push back gawping members of the public and generally make some room.

Rik saw Henry approaching. He cut off from what he was doing and scurried to meet him.

Henry liked Rik. As a uniformed bobby he had been a good thief-taker with a superb nose for rooting out villains. His transfer to CID could not have come soon enough and he showed himself to be a very capable detective, having recently been promoted to sergeant.

‘Hi, Henry.'

‘Rik.' The DCI nodded.

‘Hope you didn't mind the call . . . just seemed to be a bit of an odd one, that's all.'

Henry shook his head. He never minded the call. ‘What've you got?'

‘I'll show you.'

He led Henry round two fire tenders, stepping over hoses which were coiled like an annual convention of boa constrictors, up a flight of steps leading to a block of flats. Henry had expected to be taken up to the fourth floor where he could see a lot of activity taking place on the landing.

‘We're not going up there?' he asked.

Rik shook his head. ‘Not yet.'

Henry frowned, but kept an open mind.

‘Come on, John, get those kids away from there,' Rik shouted at one of the uniformed PCs who was having problems keeping a bunch of youths away. He continued to walk around the perimeter of the flats, taking Henry to the back where even more things were happening. A group of people – paramedics, firefighters and cops – were gathered around an object on the ground. They all looked up as Rik and Henry came towards them, parting as they got nearer. Henry saw they were standing around a body which had been covered by a green sheet from the ambulance.

Instinctively, Henry glanced upwards, seeing smoke drifting out of a fourth-floor window.

Rik reached the covered body and pulled back the sheet for Henry to see.

At first he thought it was Ronnie Wood from the Rolling Stones, the body looked so similar, but on second thoughts he said, ‘Johnny Jacques.' Henry had been a detective in Blackpool on and off for many years and he knew most of the local low-lifes. He had had some fleeting dealings with Jacques in the past, but nothing too complicated. Henry had always thought of JJ as a pathetic ageing junkie on the periphery of the drug-dealing scene in town who would, one day, wind up dead through an overdose, as opposed to flattened from a fall. ‘Okay,' he said to Rik Dean, ‘what's the crack?'

‘Ambulance get called to a splattered JJ. They arrive and find him dead, look up and see flames shooting out of that flat.' He pointed upwards. The fire brigade arrive, douse the fire and find another dead body in the ashes, that of a woman, believed to be Carrie Dancing⎯'