The Last Big Job (21 page)

Danny was already beginning to draw conclusions about the
sort of person she expected this Peter, the owner of
Peter’s Motor’s,
would
be.

A uniformed Constable stood by the door, clipboard in hand,
logging the comings and goings. A DC told her that this particular
officer had been first on the scene. She approached him, listened,
asked a few questions, probed deeper on some issues and told him
what a good job he had done. He appeared suitably
pleased.

Danny entered the garage after skim-reading the officer’s
log.

She was glad that neither a pathologist nor scientific support
had yet landed on the scene. Not that their input and observations
weren’t crucial. It was just that they were becoming increasingly a
pain as more and more films and books appeared portraying them as
detectives; they all wanted to solve the crimes these days, were
always coming up with theories - usually wrong or just misguided -
and were sometimes convinced they had more investigative skills
than real detectives.

Time spent simply observing a scene, drawing conclusions and
hypotheses, was invaluable to a detective. And the more people
there were crawling round, the harder that was to do.

Danny stood inside the threshold, took a deep breath, used her
eyes.

It was not a big garage, but was divided into three distinct
areas. To her right were two hydraulic run-on car ramps, one
straddling an inspection pit. From where she stood she could not
see into the pit and did not want to - yet. The next section of the
garage was an area of concrete long and wide enough to fit a car on
comfortably; beyond that a massive sheet of polythene hung down
from the roof like a huge curtain, dividing off the third section
of the garage. Danny guessed this was the paint shop. She winced
when she thought about the quality of resprays done in there.
Hardly a clinical environment.

Immediately to her left was a door marked
Storeroom.
In front of her was a
rickety wooden staircase leading up to an office above the store.
She could hear voices and movement up there. She ignored that and
looked around the garage again. It was a typical backstreet set-up.
Tools scattered around. Cutting and welding gear. Tyre-repair
equipment. Oily floors. A dirty sink. A kettle and grubby cups. An
old radio with a circular tuning dial. Overalls hung up on hooks.
Copies of the
Sun
on a work-bench. A disgusting four-year-old calendar on the
wall.

And a vehicle inspection pit.

Two chairs were set near to it, one with a puddle on it, the
other smeared with what was obviously excrement. A metal pipe lay
discarded on the floor, next to the chairs. Two planks of wood had
been placed parallel to the pit, one lying on top of the
other.

Think evidence preservation, Danny instructed
herself.

She had been informed there were three bodies in the pit, all
with head wounds, probably caused by a firearm. The oily floor
surrounding the pit - surely a health and safety hazard - had
shoeprints in it. They could be vital. Danny wondered if she really
needed to go and look into the pit at this stage of the game and
risk ruining evidence. Obviously police officers had been to peer
in prior to her arrival, so did she really need to add her
footprints as well?

As senior officer on the scene, she decided she did. She bit
her bottom lip, considering how best to do this without destroying
evidence.

In the end she decided that no one else who was not essential
to the investigation would enter the premises. Bobbies were nosy by
nature, but they would have to be kept at bay. Secondly, she would
indicate a route to the edge of the vehicle inspection pit which
everyone would use until all the necessary surrounding evidence had
been lifted.

She leaned back out of the door and spoke to the PC who was
acting as doorman. ‘No one else comes in here, Tom. My orders - no
one. Got that?’ He nodded. ‘Go to the CID car and get that roll of
cordon tape from the passenger footwell, please.’

Danny decided on the route to the pit - a straight line from
the door which she marked by laying two lengths of cordon tape
parallel to each other on the floor, about a foot apart. When the
path was marked she walked down it and peered into the dark pit
which was about four and a half feet deep.

Her eyes closed momentarily. ‘Oh, Cheryl,’ she said sadly,
‘just what I feared. Shit!’ She shuddered a deep sigh of revulsion
and squatted down on her haunches, spending several quiet minutes
in that position, gazing down at the three bodies lying one on top
of another. Initially she had been looking through sheer
fascination, then her detective mind clicked in and took her on to
analysis and evidence.

‘
Hell of a sight for a woman to see,’ a voice said behind her.
Danny recognised the dulcet tones of Dave Seymour, one of the
detectives on her team. He was very close to retirement, had been
on CID for most of his service and was one of the most persuasive
arguments for disbanding the whole department. He was everything
that was bad about the CID: overweight, sexist, racist, homophobic,
narrow-minded and difficult to supervise. Henry Christie could get
Seymour eating out of his hand; Danny, however, had a lot to prove
to Seymour and the biggest hurdle she faced was that she was a
woman. And women should not be detectives, particularly not
Detective Sergeants - at least, as far as Seymour was concerned.
‘Let’ em do what they’re good at,’ he often said. ‘Looking after
kids and brewing up.’

Danny rose to her feet and noticed Seymour was standing
outside the path margins. She knew, however, he had been up in the
office talking to the garage proprietor, Peter Maynard. Danny
scanned Seymour. In response to his opening remark, she said, ‘Yes,
Dave, you are a hell of a sight, but you’ve got to make the best of
what God gives you.’

Seymour’s mouth dropped. ‘I didn’t mean that.’

‘
I know you didn’t, sweetheart.’ She gave him a triumphant
grin, then indicated the cordon tape. ‘This is the route to the
scene from the door, Dave. For the time being, until somebody tells
us different, that’s what we’ll all keep to. What does the owner
have to say?’

‘
Denies all knowledge, as he would. Says no one but himself
has keys to the place and he doesn’t recognise any of the
deceased.’

‘
Do you believe him?’

‘
No. First of all, there’s no sign of a forced entry, which
tells me the place was either left open, or someone does have the
keys. Secondly, he’s a fly bastard - but he’s very, very
nervous.’

‘
As he should be . . . he’s our first suspect. Let’s speak to
him in the five-star comfort of the copshop.’ Danny raised her
eyebrows, then had a thought. Her original intention had been to
take Peter down to the station. That, however, presented problems
in terms of dealing with him thoroughly. If he was not under
arrest, he had the right to get up and walk away at any point if he
so wished. It would be better if he was arrested. That way he
couldn’t go anywhere, and it gave the police more powers to search
and seize evidence, including bodily fluids and tissue - which
might be a good idea. ‘Lock him up,’ she told Seymour.

‘
Will do.’ He made his way back up the rickety wooden
staircase to the office. It creaked under his weight.

Danny mulled over what she had got so far; pretty soon she
would have to be briefing senior officers.

Three bodies in a vehicle inspection pit. All naked, with
apparent gunshot wounds to the head. Two of the deceased known to
Danny. Local thieves and druggies, and Cheryl a failed drug
importer. The third body was that of an unidentified male, maybe
late forties.

Danny already knew of a good reason for the deaths of Cheryl
and Spencer: ruthless drug dealers who did not take kindly to the
loss of about fifty grand’s worth of junk. Danny would be very
surprised if the killing turned out to be for anything other than
that. That, therefore, would definitely be one avenue for the
investigation. Another would be identifying the other man; once
that was done, other ways forward might spring up.

The other line of enquiry would be through the owner of the
garage. Who is he? What’s his background? Who are his associates?
Digging into his ribs could prove extremely profitable
indeed.

Then there was the scientific evidence, not forgetting that
Cheryl’s flat would need to be thoroughly examined by Search and
Forensic teams now.

The office door opened at the top of the stairs, and Seymour
led out a man with thick, straggly, oily hair, shoulder-length,
wearing a pair of dirty overalls. Peter Maynard. He was about to
begin helping the police with their enquiries. He looked exactly as
Danny had expected.

Seymour led him out of the garage without a word.

Danny walked to the edge of the inspection pit once more and
looked down at the three bodies lying one on top of the other. She
was reminded of a Nazi war grave.

It made her realise just how dangerous the people behind this
were.

Chapter Nine

At noon on Monday, the third day of his ‘holiday’, Colin Hodge
awoke with the most terrifying hangover of his life, brought on by
over-indulgence on San Miguel beer and cheap whisky. The bedroom of
the apartment was in darkness, with the exception of slits of light
filtering in through the cracks and between the curtains. The room
was very untidy now. Clothes, plates and beer bottles were strewn
around. Hodge slowly eased himself into a sitting position,
desperate not to dislodge the ball bearings which seemed to be
rolling around at the back of his eyes.

He breathed deeply and was nearly sick there and then, but he
kept hold of it. The woman next to him in the bed groaned in her
sleep. Hodge squinted at her. She was past her prime and not
exactly on the petite side, but the previous night had verged on
the incredible. Hodge touched his cock, which felt tender. It had
been well abused.

He swung his legs out of the low bed, placing his feet on the
cold floor tiles.

He could tell it was another hot day in Tenerife. So far over
the weekend he had not seen much of the daytime, but was determined
that he would get some sunbathing done today. Pointless to be here
on a freebie and not get the benefit of the sun’s harmful rays. He
stumbled out of the bedroom and tottered into the bathroom where he
had a long shower. He wondered when they would come for him. Apart
from anything else he was running low on his cash reserves. He
needed a peseta injection.

As he stooped to soap down his legs, the shower curtain drew
back. The woman had woken. She stepped in to join him.

Hodge was correct: it was hot in Tenerife. Baking hot at Reina
Sofia Airport where Billy Crane waited impatiently for the
passengers to filter out from the recently arrived flight from
Manchester.

Don Smith was first one through, carrying only an overnight
bag and a briefcase.

They shook hands and left the terminal building, climbing into
the rear seats of a Ssang Yong four-wheel-drive monstrosity waiting
for them. It was driven by Loz, Crane’s business partner and lion
hors d’ oeuvre. His injured left hand was strapped up in a
dirty-looking bandage and was resting. between his thighs. The
vehicle was an automatic with power steering and he was able to
drive safely enough with just his right hand. When the two
passengers were settled into the back seat, Loz pulled
away.

‘
Good flight?’

‘
Cramped as fuck,’ Smith complained. He rolled his neck, which
creaked. He had managed to squeeze in on a spare seat on a holiday
charter flight. ‘My arse is still asleep.’

‘
Where are we up to with our friend?’

‘
Checked him out.’ Smith positioned his briefcase on his lap
and snapped it open. He extracted a file of papers which he handed
to Crane.

‘
Give me the gist,’ Crane said. He would read the file
later.

Loz shifted slightly and cocked an ear rearwards.

‘
OK, the gist is that Colin Hodge is a bit of a sad bastard.
He lives alone at an address in Bispham, north of Blackpool.
Semi-detached house, forty grand mortgage, negative equity. Wife
pissed off about two years ago, shacked up with some guy who guts
chickens in a factory, which kind of indicates just how much of a
boring twat Hodge is. Been working for the same security firm for
eight years as a guard. Been robbed once - on a collection in
Carlisle. Just dropped the money and shat himself, apparently. No
bottle. Gets paid a pittance - something like five or six quid an
hour; has to work all the hours God sends to pick up anything
approaching a decent pay packet. Has a girlfriend ... some slag who
works behind the bar at his local club. Most of the adult male
population of Bispham have been through her,
apparently.’

‘
Why’s he gone bad?’

Smith shrugged. ‘I suppose carting millions around and getting
paid fuck-all for it might have something to do with it. But I’d
say the real reason is debt.’ Smith counted on the fingers of his
right hand. ‘The mortgage, his car’s on HP, and last but not least,
he owes money to a local bookie and to a loan shark, a guy with a
very bad rep.’