In one corner of the room a news cameraman and a reporter — not the man who had accosted Henry Christie — had set up their equipment. The camera slowly panned the room. August made his way over to them and prepared to be interviewed.
He was in full uniform, with gold braid and sharp creases. He was the captain at the helm, steering the ship, reassuring crew and passengers alike. Secretly he’d always wanted to be an admiral.
The arc light came on and a make-up girl dabbed at the shine on his nose. He stepped forward in front of the camera — which, incidentally, loved him.
Next to him, one pace to his right and slightly behind, but making sure she was in camera shot, stood his aide, Chief Inspector Karen Wilde. Karen wielded a great deal of influence over her boss. Not yet thirty years old, she was a graduate entry to the force — biochemistry being her subject — who had milked the system for all it was worth. She was alleged to be a ruthless manipulator who would sleep with anyone, male or female, of any rank, who could do her good. Part of her myth — an accusation often levelled at career-minded females in the police — was that she’d been afraid of working the streets as a Constable during her two-year probation. She was supposed to have avoided this unpleasantness by long bouts of sickness, suddenly regaining full health once the probationary period was over and Bramshill Police College beckoned her to the fast track.
Like most myths, the one surrounding Karen Wilde was a combination of truth, lies and stereotyping from jealous male officers who hated the competition.
She had been married twice, briefly; her dedication to self advancement had left both husbands gasping for air. It would not be long before her next promotion, and it was widely speculated she could become one of the few women to attain ACPO rank in the country. To make this a reality, her first priority was to ensure that Dave August got the Home Office Inspectorate post he so desired. With him there, pushing for her, the journey upwards would be very much smoother. Ten years tops, she calculated. She did a lot of calculating.
The Chief concluded his interview and turned to her. ‘Well, how was I?’ he whispered.
She fluttered her eyelashes at him. ‘You performed well, sir,’ as always, she said cheekily. ‘However, the shipping metaphors were rather OTT.’
‘ When the day is done,’ he said, ‘I’ll be docking in your harbour.’
‘ Wanna bet?’ she said, and spun away.
Out on the motorway it was getting dark and cold. A wind had begun to howl. The carriageways were still blocked but traffic had started to move sluggishly now that diversions were slowly coming into effect.
Tomorrow the scene would undergo a fingertip search by specialised police, Army and forensic teams. The estimate was that motorway would be closed for up to forty-eight hours while that carried out. A major fuck-up, traffic-wise.
Not that Special Agent Donaldson nor Detective Chief Inspector McClure gave a toss about that. They were too busy trying to find out if Danny Carver was dead or alive.
Having confirmed that he hadn’t caught the Miami flight from Manchester, they concluded that the bomb must have gone off beneath the limousine that the hotel staff had seen him get into.
The problem was that they couldn’t find the Daimler.
Both men stood on the hard shoulder of the motorway looking at the scrapheap-from-hell of vehicles littering the carriageways. They were not allowed to go any closer, the whole scene having been cordoned off. The centre of the area was a crater in the road surface some thirty feet in diameter, two feet deep. Smoke continued to rise from it.
Sipping sweet strong tea provided by the mobile canteen, they were glad of the warmth the liquid provided. Their stylish suits and thin shirts offered scant protection against a wind that whipped in fast and bitter from the Irish Sea.
In one hand McClure held a list of vehicles which creased in the wind as he tried to read it.
No Daimler listed on it.
No Daimler to be seen on the road.
The official line at the moment stated that this was a sick terrorist attack aimed at killing the maximum number of innocent people, disrupting the economic infrastructure. In the absence of the Daimler, McClure tended to agree with the assumption — even though the main suspects, the IRA, hotly denied all responsibility. It was true, he agreed, that this sort of thing would do the IRA cause no good whatsoever…
So where was the Daimler?
It hadn’t turned up in Manchester at any of the usual haunts that were currently under surveillance.
Puzzling.
‘ Maybe they split up because they knew we were watching them and they’ve met up somewhere else,’ McClure ruminated.
‘ Naw, I ain’t having that,’ drawled Donaldson. ‘This is too mud a coincidence — all this and the word that Corelli had put a contract out on Carver. Then there was that guy back at the hotel. I know that face, I’m sure I do.’
They each took a sip of tea. It was burning hot. Blue and red light flashed with greater intensity as the night crept in. Mobile floodlights lit up the scene eerily.
‘ Perhaps there’s nothing left of it,’ McClure suggested. ‘It might be here in front of us, in a billion fragments.’
‘ Naw.’
Another pause. A cold gust of wind made them shiver. Then a thought hit each man at the same time.
‘ It’s in the river!’ they said in unison.
They threw down their paper cups and made for the mobile control room which had been set up about a mile away from the scene of the explosion.
A glorified caravan with radio and telephone equipment, an inbuilt console and a toilet, the control room was a bustle of activity. People went in and out. Radios blared. Messages were passed. Action was taken. It was a warm place, a haven of comfort in an increasingly cold night.
The ACC (Personnel) sat by one of the radio operators looking glum and tired. It had been a long day and it would be an even longer night. Times like this he wished he’d retired years ago.
He glanced up as Donaldson and McClure knocked and entered.
By the time the three men reached the riverbank, the crane was lifting the sad remains of the Minibus out of the water. It gushed like a sponge. The body of a child hung limply out of one of the broken windows. The crane jolted. The body was dislodged and dropped back into the water.
A police diver, treading water nearby, grabbed it before it was washed away.
Slowly the arm of the crane moved round and deposited the bus on safe ground. A swarm of rescue workers moved towards it like ants.
The ACC, clearly upset, wiped his eyes and blew his nose. After pulling himself together he went to speak to the diving team.
Two hours later they located the Daimler. The crane hauled its remnants out of the Ribble and dumped them on the bank. There was very little left of it to identify. There was nothing left of the occupants at all.
Henry Christie tottered unsteadily through the crowded Accident and Emergency Department of Preston Royal Infirmary. Although the casualties had been split between three other hospitals — Blackpool, Lancaster and Blackburn — even now, six hours later, the staff were still having difficulty coping.
Henry had not even reached a treatment room yet; they were all occupied. He had seen some distressing sights… people with both legs blown to tatters, horrendous head wounds. He felt guilty to be sitting there with just a cut head.
Eventually he had been stitched up by a harassed nurse who looked no older than his teenage daughter. Henry pitied her. She told him to come back for an X-ray in a couple of days and pointed him at the exit.
He looked pretty bad with his head partly shaved and eight stitches in a wound which seeped blood. His eyes were dark and circled, his skin pale and sickly, his clothes dry now, but crumpled and dirty. What he needed more than anything else was a drink — something very alcoholic.