That night, as Henry Christie cruised through the streets of Manchester in the firm’s Jaguar XJS, eventually finding a parking spot, the city was heaving with bodies. It was a cold night, but that did not stop most of the young men on the prowl from dressing in jeans and skimpy T-shirts or vests. The women were no more sensible; their skirts were nothing more than wide belts, displaying a mixed variety of legs and ankles, and their tops were paper-thin and appeared to be several sizes too small for their chests.
Henry, with his leather jacket slung casually over his shoulder, did not look too much out of place. He might have felt like the oldest swinger in town, but in the persona of Frank Jagger he swaggered confidently amongst the crowds, smiling at the women, scowling dangerously at the lads who were happy to avoid this older, tough-looking guy, giving him a wide berth.
Music, occasionally muted, blaring mostly, emanated from the licensed premises, betraying their characters: heavy rock, disco, jungle or pop. The smell of greasy fast food invaded Henry’s nostrils as well as the acrid scent of grass.
Everyone was ecstatic. There was not the ever-present lurking atmosphere of violence that was so apparent in other big cities. People were out here to enjoy themselves, though maybe the highly visible cops played their part too.
Henry threaded his way through the city centre until he arrived at the front door of ‘Angel’s Silver’ off Cross Street. It was close to midnight and a long queue waited patiently for admission into the night club. Some people had a horrendously long wait ahead of them as the doormen were allowing only a couple or three people in at a time. Henry knew this was a good club and had he been twenty-odd years younger, he would have meekly joined the queue.
Frank Jagger did not have the time to hang around.
He sauntered down the line, aware of eyes following him, mostly angry ones because they could sense he was about to jump the whole lot of them and walk straight in. He ignored the looks, keeping a thin smile on his face.
When he reached the front, he waited patiently as the doors were opened and a giggling couple admitted. The doormen turned out towards the queue, both dressed in black trousers and dark red T-shirts, probably to hide the bloodstains, Henry thought.
They looked formidable. Non-nonsense bastards. They sneered down their noses at Henry, arms folded across their chests, aware that they could make or break people’s nights out.
‘ What?’ one said. He had a shaved head, goatee beard, earrings and forearms as thick as car tyres, plastered with very tasteful tattoos. He did not wait for an answer from Henry. ‘The back of the queue is that way.’ He raised a forefinger. ‘So fuck off and find it. There’s no favours here, pal,’
Henry moved in close to him. The guy tensed up, expecting violence. ‘I’m here to see Gary Thompson and Gunk Elphick. They’re expecting me. I’m Frank Jagger.’
The bouncer deflated and opened the door with a quiet, ‘Sorry.’
Henry entered the club, accompanied by cat-calls from the patient queue. He gave them a middle-finger salute.
In the steamy seaside resort of Blackpool, someone else was entering a night club at exactly the same time as Henry.
Danny Furness had attended the evening debrief and listened intently as investigating officers brought the SIO team up-to-date with progress so far. In a nutshell there had been none. Although Danny knew she should not have been pleased by the news, in a wicked sort of way she was glad everyone else was getting nowhere. Just like her.
She had been very tired and had made a commitment to herself that she would go straight home to bed.
Her willpower was tremendous.
At the very moment one of her fellow detectives asked her if she wished to join him and a few others for a bevy in a local pub, her resolve to go home came down faster than the Berlin Wall. She said yes. All of a sudden her taste buds were demanding that a cool Stella Artois and lime should be showered over them. Once that image was fixed, there was no turning back for Danny.
It was about time she went out with a group of people from work, she justified to herself. Up to now, since Jack had killed himself, she had only been out with close friends on sour, introverted nights, often ending in tears. She had never let her hair down, hiked up her skirt and had a good laugh.
Danny needed a bit of a bender. She had to move on, stop thinking about the past, stop moping about Henry Christie, get on with her life, get it lived.
And the way to kicks tart it might just be a couple of drinks, a few ciggies, and a belly laugh or two at some inappropriate jokes.
Even before leaving the police station, her intended alcoholic intake had doubled. Still, what was the harm? A couple or three halves
… she could easily drive home on that. Well under the limit. No problem.
The Murder Squad were in good fettle. Despite their lack of progress they were all buoyant and cheerful. It was early days, there were so many things to go on and all were confident of a quick result. And a good team-building session was exactly what was needed to keep the momentum going — that and the fact that for at least another week, overtime was not an issue.
By the time Danny had consumed her fourth half-lager, moved on to dry white wine and soda and fired up her sixth cigarette on the trot, the determination to keep consumption down had disappeared into the smoky atmosphere. She was well into the dynamics of the session, which looked like being a good one and she didn’t give a flying fuck about anyone or anything other than getting ‘rat-arsed’, going to a club for a dance and then getting a mouth-charring Vindaloo.
Which is why she found herself, surrounded by half a dozen male detectives, heaving her way to the front of a queue outside a night club in the resort, ignoring shouts from the people who were waiting, huddled against a fierce biting wind swirling in from the sea and being allowed in on the production of what is affectionately referred to as the ‘International Club Card’ — otherwise known as a warrant card.
The fact that every other detective was a man, each one of them with designs on getting into her knickers, did not put Danny off at all. She was going to thoroughly enjoy the night and tease all their pricks and egos if need be… unless one of them really took her fancy and she did more than tease.
Colin Hodge was more afraid than he had ever been in his life. The fear gripped him like a beast, tearing at his intestines and his chest. He was literally shaking with it. He even held his hand up to confirm it; it vibrated visibly. He reached out and clicked the bedside light off, plunging the room into total darkness for a moment or two before his eyes adjusted.
He rolled off the bed and stood up. His legs were weak. He walked slowly towards the window and pulled the curtain back half an inch. Outside was the garden, big and well-tended. Beyond a line of lime trees was a high wall, illuminated by upward-facing lamps set into the ground. Several lines of razor wire ran along the top of the wall, keeping people in as well as out.
His eyes focused on the ornamental bars just outside his window. It was possible to open the window, but there was no way to climb out and drop the fifteen or so feet to the gravel path and escape.
A movement in the garden caused him to raise his eyes. He frowned as he caught sight of a dark shape moving slowly through the shrubs and trees. Hodge watched the figure carefully, then clocked another figure padding along close behind. A man and a very large dog. The man — Hodge recognised him as the driver of the Mercedes from earlier — clutched something across his chest. A gun of some sort.
Hodge winced. His heart surged and a pain shot across his shoulder, then was gone. Indigestion caused by stress. He let the curtain slip back into place.
He walked across the room, tried the door handle again.
Locked.
He returned to the bed and sat down, dropping his head into his hands.
A prisoner.
The booze and the atmosphere turned Danny into a flirt. She danced shamelessly with each of the men in her party, moving her butt and breasts provocatively to the rhythm of ‘Disco Inferno’ and other such classics. Often she draped her arms around the neck of her dancing partner. Often she ground her pelvis against their hips. In a fairly short time she got every one of them thinking they were in with a chance. The truth was, not one of them did anything for her.
And then she spotted Detective Rik Dean across the other side of the dance-floor. He was watching her antics with a wry smile on his face. Danny knew Rik had a mega-reputation as a seducer of policewomen and she knew why: he was charming, good-looking, with dark eyes which reminded her of Elvis Presley, a nicely toned body with a rear end she would have loved to dig her fingernails into, and (reportedly) he always let the lady come first.
Rik had only recently been transferred on to the CID and normally worked in Preston, though he lived in Blackpool. He had then been seconded temporarily to the Conference Planning Team at Headquarters, the team specifically dedicated to organising the policing operation of the Labour Party conference held later in the year in Blackpool. Rik was on the vetting team.
Drink, that wonderful stripper of inhibition, ensured that Danny weaved unsteadily across the dance-floor and presented herself in front of Rik like a debutante — but without the class. A naughty smile played on her lips. Rik’s wonderful eyes regarded her with a mixture of warmth and humour. They were definitely ‘come to bed’ eyes.
‘ Hi,’ she said, suppressing a hiccup.
Rik nodded.
Danny briefly cast her eyes back to the table around which the Murder Squad were huddled. They glared back, each one with a face like thunder as they saw their chance of a sexual conquest slip through their fingers like sand.
‘ You with anybody?’
‘ Only my mate,’ Rik replied.
‘ Good,’ said Danny firmly. She took a long drink and handed her empty glass to him. ‘White wine and soda.’
Henry lounged indolently at one of the bars in the night club. He surveyed the action taking place in front of him. In his hand was a pint of lager which he sipped very slowly because it had cost him?4.00. He was going to make it last, even if it had been bought on expenses.
‘ Angel’s Silver’ was a big club with several dance-floors dotted around the ground-floor level, accompanied by a number of themed bars. A huge light, sound and video system hung from the ceiling like a clinging insect, thumping out bass lines capable of mushing brain-matter into pulp. Several sets of stairs led up to the first-floor level where there were more bars, a separate dance-floor playing smoochy music, and a restaurant serving anything from burgers to a la carte; several places offered good vantage points down into the lower disco area.
Then there was another set of stairs which led up to the second-floor offices. Henry was positioned at a bar near to these.
On entering the club he had mooched around the place, unable to see Thompson or Elphick. It was simply a matter of waiting. They would show up sooner or later.
He sipped his drink. It tasted as if it had been diluted by tap water, warm tap water at that. Not that he was a beer connoisseur, but Henry knew enough about the stuff to realise when he was drinking shite.
He was desperately trying to keep on track in the role of Jagger, but he was struggling because of the turmoil he had experienced at home over the last couple of days.
To say that his wife, Kate, had been unresponsive to his flowers and sexual advances as a form of appeasement was an understatement. She had not even been at home for him to try initially and he had waited in all that first afternoon wondering where the hell she was on her day off. He learned when his daughters came home from school.
‘ Mummy has gone into full-time work,’ Leanne, his younger daughter, announced to him. ‘She said she might as well because you’re never home’.
‘ And,’ said Jenny, the elder, now in her first year of A-levels, ‘she’s really pissed off at you, Dad.’
That evening, when Kate landed home, tired and irritated, a major row erupted which Henry did not handle well at all. ‘What about the kids?’ he had demanded at one point. ‘You should be at home when they get in from school.’
‘ Should I?’ Kate said. ‘You never have been.’
‘ And what’s all this about full-time work? We don’t need the money. It’s stupid.’
‘ Stupid?’ Kate picked up on the inadvisable word. ‘You’re telling me I’m stupid, are you?’
‘ No, I didn’t mean that. It’s just not necessary for you to work full-time, that’s all I’m saying.’
‘ I wouldn’t work full-time, if you were at home when you should be. I’ve had enough of this. I’m off out to my dance-class.’
‘ Dance-class?’ Henry had exploded. ‘When did you start that?’
She didn’t even bother to reply and did not come home until gone eleven, by which time Henry was in bed, fast asleep.
And that set the tone for his break at home.
A lump of bile rose in his throat. He took another drink of the weak beer, this time a long draught, and realised he should not be here. He should have been at home, sorting out his domestic problems. And yet, there was something inside him that kept him back from going home, and it wasn’t just the job…
At that moment Gunk Elphick came down the stairs which led up to the offices and beckoned Henry towards him.
Frank Jagger clicked into gear.
Elphick led Henry up the stairs, through a heavy door which closed automatically behind him, on to a landing. The sound of the club became muted. Henry was thankful for that. The reduction in volume assisted him to think more clearly. The landing led to a further set of steps which opened out into a wide, deeply carpeted hallway, off which were several doors.
Gunk signalled Henry with a hand gesture and walked down the hall, turning without knocking into the third door along. Henry followed nonchalantly.
There was a small office behind the door containing a desk and chair. Behind the desk was another door which Gunk shouldered his way through, Henry at his heels.
The inner office was much bigger. Henry’s eyes quickly circumnavigated the room. There was a large, leather-topped mahogany desk with executive swivel chair; on the desktop was a blotter and a laptop. Behind the desk was a large window which, if Henry’s geography was correct, looked out over Cross Street. To one side of the desk were two massive Chesterfield settees in red leather — a style of furniture that never appealed to Henry, who was a G-plan man at heart. The Chesterfields faced each other square on, separated by a glass-topped coffee table. Up against another wall was a filing cabinet and on another were a couple of TV monitors, one which had a screen split into half a dozen images, showing scenes from within the night club below, transmitted from CCTV cameras dotted strategically around the club.
Henry’s eyes returned to the Chesterfields. On one sat Gary Thompson; on the other sat a mean, sleek-looking individual, but rather pasty-faced. He reminded Henry of the 1970’s version of Bryan Ferry.
‘ Hey, Frankie baby,’ Thompson boomed loudly, ‘how you doing?’
‘ I’m doing good,’ Henry nodded.
Less than a second later, Henry was not doing good at all.
Gunk Elphick, who had entered the room ahead of Henry — a good, psychological manoeuvre designed to put Henry subconsciously at ease — spun round unexpectedly, at a speed Henry could not have anticipated, and hit him hard on the side of the head. Henry flew across the carpet on to the sharp edge of a filing cabinet. For a moment he saw stars and moons, and it felt like his brain had become detached from its moorings. He did not have any time to consider this, because Gunk danced across the room after him and followed up the first punch with one to the pit of the stomach, and then another to the opposite side of Henry’s head.
Before Henry could sink into disorientated oblivion, Gunk stepped in real close, head-butted the bridge of the detective’s nose and jabbed his right knee into Henry’s testicles. Henry pitched sideways and slithered down the wall, doubled up with the terrible shocking pain roasting up from his balls, yet with both hands cupped over his face, stemming the blood flow from his nostrils.
Gunk was ruthless.
If Henry thought that was the end of the matter, he was wrong. Gunk’s steel-toe-capped Doc Martens booted him several times in the ribs as he lay squirming in agony. Then he lifted Henry on to his back, grabbed the front of his bloodstained jumper and hauled him to his feet.
Henry reeled, uttering gibberish, swearwords and blasphemy.
Gunk dragged him across the room towards the desk, then forced him down on to his knees in a praying position and rammed the side of Henry’s face into the desktop. Gunk stood behind him, knees jammed into his shoulder-blades, pressing Henry’s chest against the desk and skewering his features whilst blood and snot flowed from his nose, mixing with saliva dribbling from his twisted mouth.
Gunk put his mouth to Henry’s ear. ‘Right, you cunt,’ he said. Then he reached down and pulled up Henry’s jumper, running his harsh hands over Henry’s chest, stomach and back.
‘ Nothing there, Gazzer,’ Gunk said to Thompson.
‘ Strip the fucker,’ Thompson shouted. He had been watching the beating from the comfort of the Chesterfield, legs crossed, relaxed.
‘ On your fucking feet,’ Gunk growled. He heaved Henry up. ‘Come on, get up.’
‘ What… Why…?’ Henry spluttered, hardly able to balance.
‘ Now you can do this hard or easy,’ Gunk explained. ‘Get your clothes off.’
‘ But… why?’
Gunk slammed an open hand across Henry’s head, lifting the detective off his feet, reeling him round full circle and depositing him in a heap on the floor. Henry regained his hands and knees, shaking his head, aware of blood dripping on the carpet.
Gunk leaned over. ‘Take your kit off, or I’ll kill you now.’
Henry rocked back on to his haunches and eased the V-neck jumper over his head, dropping it on to the floor. He wore nothing underneath it. He struggled to his feet, stage by stage, unbuckled his belt, waistband, and unzipped his chinos. He let them drop to his ankle. He swayed, only just able to remain standing.
‘ Skids, too,’ Gunk screamed.
Henry pulled his underpants down, left them at his ankles. Gunk circled him, his eyes focused on Henry’s genitals and backside.
Henry panted, racked with pain, one hand at his nose, thanking God he had decided to make this first meeting without a wire.
‘ He’s clean,’ Gunk announced, stepped into Henry and grabbed his sore balls, squeezing. ‘Aren’t you, babe?’
There was some conversation, but not a lot. Rik told Danny a few things about his job on Conference Planning which simply passed over her head. There was a considerable amount of alcohol imbibed between them a lot of dancing done, culminating in several slow numbers leading up to the 2 a.m. finish. It was during these songs that Danny made her intentions clearly and unequivocally known to Rik Dean, if not by word of mouth, by actions.
They actually started the first slow song standing slightly apart. Rik’s hands rested on Danny’s shapely hips. Her arms were snaked around his neck. By the end of that song, other than being completely naked, they could not have got closer together. They kissed greedily, wetly. Their hands slithered up and down each other’s spine and backside. Danny gasped hotly on the first occasion both her hands moulded themselves on to Rik’s bum. It was taut and hard, just as she had imagined, but not as solid as his erection which Danny moved against as they rotated with each other. She took a few less than discreet opportunities to sneak a hand around to the front of his trousers and squeeze, making him groan like a beast.
‘ Let’s go,’ Danny whispered hoarsely, sucking his ear. ‘My place.’
‘ Yeah, c’mon.’
He virtually dragged her off the dance-floor past a table of jeering, boorish and very irate Murder Squad detectives.
Danny was completely swept up by the moment. There was nothing on her mind but the prospect of screwing Rik Dean, the sooner the better. She needed the release of orgasm, multiple ones if possible.
With Gunk’s willing assistance, the naked Henry Christie — trousers and shreddies around his ankle — had reassumed the kneeling position by the desk. Gunk’s knees were pressed into his back, Henry’s hands were jammed down in front of himself and his head was again being squashed into the desktop by Gunk.
Thompson sat on the office chair, reclining it. He swung his heels up on to the edge of the desk. Henry’s leather coat was in his hands and he was rooting through the pockets. He found a wallet which he turned upside down and emptied on his lap. He picked up and scrutinised everything. It all related to Frank Jagger. Henry had no concerns from that angle.
‘ OK, Frank,’ Thompson said, brushing the wallet contents off his legs on to the floor, and dropping the leather coat. ‘Bet you’re wondering what this is about?’
‘ You could thay thasht,’ Henry responded through his distorted mouth.
‘ As you are fully aware, our boss Jacky Lee got taken out the other day by a renegade gunman. Not a nice thing to happen at all. Problem is, that both me and Gunk got hauled in by the bizzies — which was only to be expected, I suppose. They’ve got to be seen to be doing something and I accept that. Reluctantly, of course,’ he said generously. ‘The fact is, though, they really, really, really thought we had something to do with the job. Like we set the whole thing up, or something.’ He tittered at Gunk, who chuckled back. ‘I can half understand their point of view… totally unfounded though it was.’
Henry dribbled on to the desk. Gunk pressed down harder.
‘ But they started asking us some really nooky questions which got me doing a bit of thinking. They were the kind of questions that come via a witness at the scene, who may have seen things happen in a certain way — and the only person or persons I can think of who fit the bill are you and your mate, Eric. You see, every other witness in that cafe was spoken to, discreetly, no pressure, nothing like that, and were told to say they either saw fuck-all, or very, very little. Gunk is my witness liaison officer. As you can see, he has a way with negotiations.’
‘ Yeah, I shee,’ Henry spat. His mind shot back to the briefing with Davison and the reassurance that neither his nor Terry’s statements had been used in the investigation. As Henry half-suspected at the time, Davison had lied.
And now Henry’s life was in danger.
‘ I want to know what you have to say about this. Did you tell the cops what you saw? And if you did, did you finger me and Gunk? And also, if you did, what the hell are you doing here tonight, bold as brass and twice as thick? Answers, not on a postcard. ‘
Gunk released the pressure on Henry’s face, but grabbed his ears, one in each hand, holding Henry’s head between them, screwing his ears as though he were revving a motorbike.
Henry cried out. Gunk stopped twisting.
‘ I… we didn’t go to the cops.’ It was difficult trying to speak with a gushing bloody nose. ‘Think I’m fucking daft or something? I had ten thousand bottles of stolen whisky on that lorry park. I’m not going to go waltzing up to the cops, am I?’
‘ You would say that, wouldn’t you?’ Thompson said.
‘ Only ‘cos it’s the truth. On my mother’s grave, I swear it. I have not been to the cops and nor has Eric. We don’t fucking intend doing so either, but in case they get hold of us, you’d better tell me what you want us to tell them. Help me get my story straight.’
Thompson nodded to Gunk, who released Henry’s ears. Henry dropped his head on to his chest and choked back a sob of fear. ‘Jesus Christ!’
‘ Do we believe him?’ Thompson asked the room. There was no reply.
Thompson dropped his feet and leaned forwards, placing his chin on the desk, looking playfully across at Henry. ‘Benefit of the doubt, Frank. But make no mistake, we’ll be keeping a close eye on you until I’m one hundred per cent. If I find you have gone to the cops, you’re dead meat and so is your pal.’
They jumped into the first available taxi and Danny shouted her address to the driver. Then she and Rik fell greedily into each other’s arms on the back seat of the cab, kissing hard, both driven by lust. Danny could not wait to get Rik’s trousers off him, but for the sake of propriety in the cab, she limited herself to forcing her hand down the front of them and grabbing his pulsating penis. He, in turn, less than romantically, found his way straight up her skirt to the top of her tights and knickers, easing them down and sliding his hand between her legs, cupping her hot sex, inserting a finger which sent a wonderful shiver right up to her nipples.
They bailed out of the cab outside her house. She threw a tenner at the fortunate cab driver and waved him away. She immediately grabbed Rik where they stood at the bottom of her driveway.
Rik rained lascivious kisses all over Danny’s face and neck, whilst expertly dealing with the buttons on her blouse.
She teetered backwards as Rik’s mouth worked down to her fettered breasts. He popped one of the firm, milky-white mounds out of its constricting support mechanism. Danny almost shrieked with ecstasy as Rik’s burning mouth closed around a hard, erect, plum-coloured nipple.
‘ Come on, let’s go inside.’ She hoisted him towards the front door.
Within a moment her key had opened up. They stumbled into the dark hallway. Danny kicked the door shut with a heel and turned to Rik with an expression that said, ‘I am going to fuck your brains out, pal.’
She did not care that one of her lovely breasts was hanging out and that her tights had laddered. She was hungry for orgasms.
Once more they clashed, pitching uncontrollably down the hallway as things progressed.
Danny tore his jacket off, threw it to one side. He did the same with hers and whipped it away down the hall, then pulled her blouse out of her skirt waistband and finished unbuttoning it.
‘ God! Fucking clothes,’ she breathed.
‘ A pain, a real pain,’ he agreed, reaching behind her, unhooking the Marks amp; Spencer bra. She unfastened his shirt, ripped it out of his pants and removed it with his assistance. Now, both their top halves were naked. They embraced again, Danny revelling in the sensation of her breasts being crushed against Rik’s chest.
They lurched further down the hall, bouncing from wall to wall, kissing, fondling, moaning, until they twisted into the kitchen where Danny slammed him up against her new fridge. Still in darkness, no lights.
Here they separated and Danny’s eyes bore into Rik’s. So as to save time, she unhitched her skirt and shimmied it down her hips, at the same time removing her damaged tights, knickers and kicking off her shoes. She was naked in front of him.
She swallowed, moved towards him, her mouth working over his face, across his shoulders to his chest, smooth and hairless, muscled. She sank lower, tongue flickering over his stomach and she thought, Jesus, a real six-pack! And then she was kneeling in front of him, her face inches away from his groin, fingers fumbling with his belt, unbuckling it. Then his flies. She tugged his trousers down to his thighs, revealing white boxers with an unbelievably huge and hard penis outlined inside them.
Almost with dread, she took hold of the boxers and peeled them down, revealing a wonderful, glistening cock which she needed to devour.
‘ No! Fucking hell!’ Rik screamed and pushed Danny away from him, hitching his pants back up.
Danny fell backwards onto her arse, stunned. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘ I can’t do this!’ he shrieked, searching frantically for his shirt. ‘No way.’
‘ Why, why, what have I done?’
‘ It’s too weird. God! This is where he did it, didn’t he? Jack Sands — blew his freakin’ head off in here and we’re going to… no chance, babe.’
He picked up his coat and shirt and ran down the hallway and out of the front door, slamming it shut behind him.
Danny closed her eyes.
She had forgotten, actually forgotten, about Jack Sands — for the night, at least… but it was quite obvious others had not. She sat up and rubbed her face, everything having drained out of her. The ghost of Jack Sands was alive and well and seemed to loom out of the fridge and sneer at her. She started to sob.