She stood up and paced the office she’d taken over — a small one on the third floor belonging to some pen-pushing nonentity admin inspector who’d moaned pathetically when she’d turfed him out. Silly little sod.
She straightened her suit then made her way towards the lift and pressed the button. The gym was several floors up. She tapped her feet as she waited for the lift to arrive.
It came. The doors creaked open. Two men she did not know stepped out. They peered at her office pass which was clipped onto the lapel of her new jacket.
‘ Chief Inspector Wilde,’ one of them said.
‘ Acting Superintendent,’ she corrected him, bustling past into the lift. ‘Acting Detective-Superintendent, actually,’ she said, pressing the button.
But the lift did not move. The man had stepped across the threshold, preventing the doors from closing.
‘ I believe you’re running the investigation into the M6 bombing?’
‘ Correct.’
‘ Big job for a little lady like you,’ said the other man. Karen noticed his American accent.
She said stonily, ‘I don’t know who you are, but I don’t care for your attitude or approach. Now, I have a briefing to give, so if you wouldn’t mind…?’ She waved away the man who was impeding the lift.
‘ We have some valuable information for you regarding the bombing,’ he said.
‘ Can’t it wait?’
‘ No.’
‘ Then you’d better be quick about it, hadn’t you?’
Earlier that day, McClure had driven north up the M6. He’d had to detour round Preston because the motorway was still closed, but within an hour they were in Lancaster. He drove into the Posthouse Hotel car park.
Donaldson was mystified. McClure had refused point blank to answer any of the American’s queries.
‘ This better be fucking good, ’ said the FBI man, clambering out of the car.
McClure just smiled.
The two men stood side by side. McClure, still silent, pointed up at the hotel.
Donaldson’s mouth dropped open.
Video cameras. Two of them. Each one positioned on a front corner of the building, recording views of the car park from different angles.
He spun round to McClure, grinning. ‘You brilliant bastard! How in hell did y’know about these?’
McClure shrugged modestly. ‘Just recalled seeing them yesterday, but didn’t think much of it at the time.’
‘ Let’s hope they work.’
The management were as helpful as on the previous day, allowing the detectives to view the tapes in a private room. It took only ten minutes to find what they wanted. Then McClure claimed the relevant tape for evidence and gave the manager a receipt.
‘ May I ask what all this is about?’ the manager asked.
‘ Did the man we’ve just seen on the tape book a room?’ McClure enquired, ignoring the question.
‘ Yes — he paid two days in advance.’
McClure looked quickly at Donaldson. ‘Is he still in it?’
‘ I don’t know. We’ll have to ask Reception.’
‘ Let’s do it,’ snapped Donaldson.
‘ But what’s it about?’ the manager demanded.
McClure said, ‘The M6 bombing.’
‘ Oh my God,’ the man breathed. Then he pulled himself together. ‘Right, come this way.’
Reception confirmed that the man had booked and paid for Room 111 but hadn’t returned to it since yesterday, unless he’d sneaked back without their knowledge. The key had not been returned yet.
McClure and Donaldson conferred hurriedly.
‘ He could be in there, then,’ McClure said. ‘In which case we could do with an armed back-up.’
‘ He won’t be there,’ Donaldson said with certainty. ‘And anyway, you gotta gun. Don’t be a cissy.’
McClure paused, then made a decision. He nodded and turned to the manager. ‘Give us a pass key to the room, please.’
The corridor was quiet and empty. A laundry basket on wheels was part-way along it, the room itself three quarters of the way down. The two detectives edged slowly along. McClure held his gun in his hand. Sweat beads began to form on his head.
Donaldson grinned. ‘You ever used that thing in anger?’
‘ Never even drawn it outside a range,’ McClure whispered.
‘ Thought as much.’
The men stood on either side of the door. They eyed each other for a moment.
Donaldson knocked loudly and shouted, ‘Good morning. Maid service.’
There was no response.
Donaldson inserted the pass key, pulled the handle down and pushed. The door swung gently open. There was nothing to see. ‘Armed police! Come on out with your hands up,’ McClure barked.
Nothing. He repeated the order. Still nothing.
In one swift movement, gun held in the classic two-handed shooting grip, he twisted into the short hallway, low, fast, his breathing controlled, but heart beating like a demented drum machine. Keeping low, he almost danced to where the short hallway widened out into the bedroom proper — where he exposed himself fully for the first time.
He expected a bullet in the head. It never came. The room was empty. He beckoned Donaldson in.
The American sauntered up behind him. ‘Very good. You move well.’
‘ Thank you. Let’s check out the bathroom before we get too cocky,’ said McClure shakily.
It was empty.
‘ He booked in and fucked off when he saw us, I guess,’ Donaldson mused.
McClure reholstered his weapon. ‘I’ll tell the manager to seal off this room until we can get Scenes of Crime to do it.’
Thirty minutes later they accosted Karen Wilde in the lift at Preston police station.
As they followed her down the corridor to her office, Donaldson said, ‘What a bitch,’ under his breath.
McClure merely raised his eyebrows.
‘ I’d like to fuck her though,’ he added without moving his lips, eyes glued to her rear.
‘ Join the queue,’ McClure retorted.
‘ Right, what’ve you got for me?’ Karen said when they reached her office. She sat at the desk.
‘ I’m Detective Chief Inspector McClure from Greater Manchester’s Serious Crime Squad and-’
‘ I’m Special Agent Donaldson, Karl Donaldson, FBI, based in Miami, Florida, in the United States of America.’
‘ I’m fully aware of the location of Florida. It’s where Mickey Mouse lives, I believe.’
Both men shook her hand, Donaldson with a grave, piss-taking formality. ‘And may I add what a pleasure it is to meet ya’ll, ma’am?’
‘ You can add what you damn well like. Just get on with it — I’m busy.’
McClure opened his mouth but Donaldson cut in. ‘Allow me… I’ll try and sum it up in a nutshell.’
‘ Do try,’ said Karen thinly, resting her chin on her thumb and forefinger.
‘ I work in the Organised Crime Department of the FBI and for the last five years me and my partner have been trying to nail a mobster called Corelli. Very rich guy, into anything illegal you care to mention — drugs, prostitution, fraud… Anyway, we’ve been pretty unsuccessful.
‘ This guy Corelli has loads of business partners. One of them is a young punk called Danny Carver. Carver has been linked to Corelli for about three years. Suspected of being involved in some major stuff. I mean mega-shit — gun-running, drugs, massive commodity frauds, the whole caboodle. Eventually, Carver gets pissed because he does a lot of legwork but only gets a small percentage of the profit. So what does he do?’
‘ Do tell,’ said Karen.
‘ Cuts loose and starts doin’ deals himself without the boss but using his contacts. Cheeky, huh? Corelli ain’t happy but he lives with it until Carver schmoozes into a deal that Corelli himself is actually tryin’ to put together with a drug baron in Manchester, guy called Brown. Corelli is that far’ — here Donaldson laid his palms together — ‘from doin’ business when Carver steps in and pulls the rug out from under him then sets up the same deal with Brown but with bigger percentages all round.’
‘ What does this deal involve?’