‘Good t’see ya, pal.’ Donaldson beamed.
‘And you. Let me take that.’ Henry reached for the shoulder bag the American was carrying. ‘The car isn’t far away.’ Then his mobile rang. ‘Hang on,’ he said, putting the bag down. Henry had input Jane’s mobile number into his phone’s memory so that when she rang him from that phone, his display read, ‘Roscoe: mob’. Which it did.
‘Henry Christie,’ he answered formally.
‘I think you’re purposely avoiding me,’ Jane teased. Henry did not respond. ‘Yeah, I’m right, aren’t I?’ Still nothing from Henry.
Then he said, ‘It’s not that — it’s just. .’
‘Don’t bother. I know when I’m not wanted,’ she said crossly. ‘Anyway, this is a business call. There’s been an incident at BVH. Two of our armed officers who were guarding one of our shooters from McDonald’s got jumped by a couple of guys pretending to be doctors and got tied up with their own handcuffs, and the prisoner they were guarding got shot to death.’
‘Murdered?’ said Henry. ‘Holy shite. Are the officers okay?’
‘Yeah, more’s the pity.’
‘And the second prisoner?’
‘Untouched. Separate room, separate ward — just as per your instructions.’
‘So what happened?’
Roscoe relayed the facts succinctly to him. When she had finished, Henry asked, ‘They didn’t hear the name?’
‘Nope — deaf as well as stupid,’ she said.
‘Don’t be too harsh on them. Whoever did this are very dangerous people and I’d rather our people went home at night than not.’
‘Think it could be the two they had a shoot-out with in McDonald’s, out to play the Grim Reaper with them?’
‘Most likely.’
‘What do you want me to do?’ she asked.
‘Call out an SIO. I’m going to be busy all afternoon.’
‘You’re not coming?’ She sounded disappointed.
‘No, just crack on with it, Jane. I’ll speak soon. Bye.’ He ended the call.
‘Trouble?’ Donaldson asked.
‘I think the shit has just hit the paddles. C’mon, mate, let’s get moving. You can tell me your story, then I just need to hijack you for something, if you don’t mind?’
There was complete silence as the news was digested at the other end of the phone. Crazy did not dare say anything, merely waited and looked at Miller, who mouthed, ‘What’s going on?’ Crazy shrugged. He put a finger on the ‘secret’ button and said, ‘I think he’s gone off on one.’
‘You are saying to me that Marty set the job up? To rob me?’ Ray Cragg eventually said.
‘I’m not saying anything, boss,’ Crazy corrected him. ‘I’m just telling you what the guy said before he got popped.’
‘What about the other one?’
‘Er, I’m sorry? Are you asking us to kill him too? I don’t think so,’ said Crazy. ‘We don’t get to do something like that twice. Miller asked him who set the job up and he said a name — Marty Cragg. And reluctantly I’ve passed it on to you, Ray. We’ll never get to the other one. The cops won’t let it happen. We were lucky this once, but we won’t be again — and the fact is we got a name for you, however unpalatable it happens to be. Sorry.’
‘Yeah, yeah, fuckin’ yeah. You sure he heard right?’
‘Positive.’
‘So the git got himself into debt with some Spanish bastard, doing what I don’t know, and he set up this heist to get the dosh to pay him back?’
‘Could be one scenario.’
‘And I chucked JJ out of a window because Marty told me he was skimming and all the time it was him. No wonder he was so jumpy when we were with JJ, no wonder he wanted him dealt with. JJ was telling me the truth, wasn’t he?’ Ray’s voice was rising in anger.
‘Could be,’ said Crazy without committing himself.
‘JJ skimmed a couple of hundred, tops. Marty skimmed thousands and it still wasn’t enough. What the fuck was he up to? You and Miller better find that out for me when you track down that Mendoza bloke. I want the full story.’
‘We’ll do our best.’
‘Anyway,’ Ray took a soothing breath, ‘you both did really well. Now, get my money back for me, will you? I want Dix topped and then I want that spik hunted down. Are you two up for it?’
‘Dix, sure. The Spaniard — he’s a different kettle of fish. He’ll take some doing, I reckon.’
‘Fuck,’ Ray said, not really listening to Crazy. ‘It’s all going wrong for me at the moment. Can anything else possibly go shit-shaped? I’ll tell you what it is, Crazy.’
‘What?’
‘Greed. So don’t you get greedy, pal. I’ll pay you well, so don’t get greedy, you or Miller, understand?’
‘Yeah, boss, got that.’
‘Jeez, I do not deserve this shit, no way,’ said Ray.
Henry and Donaldson headed west away from Manchester down the M56, towards the M6. Henry was stunned by what Donaldson had just told him.
The American was still speaking. ‘Zeke was one of the best operatives we ever had. Undercover work was his life, particularly after his wife and kid died a few years ago.’
‘What happened there?’
‘Cancer. Both died within weeks of each other. Tragedy. He threw himself into work and he was good, very good, not reckless as you might have thought under the circumstances.’
‘Even the best make mistakes.’ Henry had worked undercover during his time on the Regional Crime Squad as it was then named, and occasionally since. He knew how difficult it was to maintain the deception. It ate away at your soul.
‘I agree,’ said Donaldson, ‘but not in this case. I just don’t see it.’
‘Or do you refuse to see it?’
‘No, I just don’t see it. Zeke was far too smart to get caught out like that. He lived the life. He was totally immersed in it.’
‘Perhaps he was dobbed on, as the Aussies say.’
‘Very few people knew of his existence.’
‘Maybe you need to start looking at who those people are,’ suggested Henry.
Donaldson fell silent. ‘The thing of it is, Henry, he took over where someone else left off, and that “someone else” died doing the same job against the same people in much the same way. Two undercover agents murdered. I don’t believe it was a coincidence.’
‘What was the job?’
‘To infiltrate a gang run by a guy called Mendoza, a Spaniard operating off the Costa Blanca, mainly through the port of Torrevieja, south of Alicante. He’s one of Spain’s biggest operators, running all the illicit things you can think of: drugs, cigarettes, anything to avoid tax, and of course the biggie of the moment. .’ He paused.
Henry filled in the gap. ‘People.’
‘The biggest earner of them all.’
They reached the M6 and Henry went north into four streams of very heavy traffic. He flitted from lane to lane before bearing off on to the M62 and heading back towards Manchester.
‘There must be an American link,’ Henry said.
‘There is,’ confirmed Donaldson. ‘Organized crime — the Mafia. Joint venture. Zeke was amassing piles of good intelligence against a mob family from Miami who’d been financing a lot of Mendoza’s operations concerning illegal immigrants. We were not very far from moving in and closing them down. I guess Zeke’s death will put us back twelve to eighteen months. There’s no chance of getting someone new in there now without causing suspicion. We’ll have to go for them by other means.’
‘What a waste.’
At junction 11, Henry came off the motorway and drove south-west into Risley. He pulled into the security gate of the Remand Centre and flashed his ID together with a lovely smile.
In Blackpool, Crazy had finished his conversation with Ray Cragg. Ray had started jabbering on again about his disbelief at Marty’s disloyalty and it had developed into a tirade lasting well over ten minutes which only ended when Crazy claimed, falsely, that the battery on his mobile was running low.
Now I have a migraine,’ Crazy complained to Miller, who chuckled.
‘Fifty grand plus should ease it,’ Miller suggested.
Crazy wiped his eyes. ‘Yep. What’s next?’
‘Besides some sleep? Cherchez la femme.’