Nightmare City Read online

  This was the only chance. He took it.

  At the exact moment the hammer locked into place he lunged at Curly.

  With his right hand he palmed the gun away from the back of Conroy’s head as though he was slamming a door shut.

  What he couldn’t prevent was Curly’s forefinger from pulling the trigger, but this happened as the muzzle of the gun cleared the danger area of Conroy’s skull. The bullet discharged just inches away from Conroy’s ear.

  Rider continued with his self-propelled momentum, pushing the gun further away, his fingers closing over the top strap and cylinder of the gun, gripping tightly, and twisting it easily out of Curly’s hand. At the same time he stepped into a position which put Curly between him and the other gunman.

  Suddenly disarmed and disorientated, Curly staggered back a couple of steps. This should have been a simple hit, no complications. Now things had changed.

  For a start, there was no gun in his hand any more.

  Behind Rider, Conroy sank to his knees, holding both his hands over his left ear. From such close range the shot had almost burst his eardrum.

  Rider eased the gun into the palm of his hand and looked down his nose at Curly, in the way the lioness had earlier surveyed him.

  Before he could say anything, Curly made a bad decision.

  He threw himself to the ground and yelled, ‘Shoot ‘em, Jonno. Shoot the cunts!’

  Jonno, his almost-adolescent companion, was as bewildered as Curly. He dodged and weaved on the spot, trying to get a shot in without hitting Curly - but was slightly off-balance and wide open.

  To be on the safe side, Rider shot Jonno once.

  He didn’t want to kill the poor kid - even though he knew that if the gun was loaded with magnum shells it wouldn’t matter where the hell he hit him, he’d probably die from shock if nothing else - so he aimed in the general area of the youngster’s legs.

  It wasn’t a magnum. He could tell from the recoil.

  The .357 slug slammed into the outer part of Jonno’s right thigh with an audible ‘slap’ as the flesh burst, ripping through the muscle and lodging by his thigh bone.

  Jonno screamed and dropped his gun. His hands went to the leg and clamped round the wound as he lowered himself to the ground. Blood spurted out between his fingers. He was shivering already as the shock waves pounded up through his abdomen.

  Curly looked up at Rider, who pointed the gun at him.

  ‘No, don’t, please,’ he gasped desperately.

  Rider was about to enjoy some sport with Curly, but this was quickly curtailed when someone shouted, ‘Oi!’ from a distance. Two people who looked like zoo officials approached cautiously.

  Deciding enough was enough, Rider ignominiously heaved the half-deaf Conroy to his feet and dragged him out of the zoo whilst waving the revolver about so people would keep their distance.

  There were one or two questions Rider wanted to put to him.

  Henry leaned back in his chair, laid down his pen and picked up the statement he had written about his little altercation with Shane. He reread it thoroughly once more. If it came to the crunch, he hoped it would answer all the questions.

  He was satisfied with the content, but winced when he came to the feeble excuse for not putting an entry onto the custody record. It wouldn’t hold water if the Police Complaints Authority ever got involved.

  ‘Morning, Sarge - sorry, Inspector.’

  Henry glanced up. Derek Luton was standing there, smiling and very smartly dressed.

  ‘You coming to the briefing, Henry?’

  ‘Yep, certainly am.’ Henry laid the statement carefully in his desk drawer and stood up. ‘All psyched up for this, Degsy?’

  ‘Can’t effing wait,’ he said, rubbing his hands together enthusiastically.

  Henry slid his jacket on. They walked towards the door. ‘I hear it was a detective from NWOCS that got blasted,’ Henry said.

  ‘Yeah, believe so.’

  ‘Name been released yet?’

  ‘At the briefing, I think,’ said Luton.

  ‘I heard Tony Morton telling FB he would deploy his whole team for this. You could end up working with one of the elite.’

  ‘I’ll try not to wet my keks,’ laughed Luton.

  Just before they reached the door the phone rang on Henry’s desk. ‘Shit. I’ll see you up there.’ He about faced and walked slowly back, hoping it would stop ringing before he got to it. It didn’t.

  Rider was in the bar of his newly acquired club. It was dark and cool but smelled of old tobacco and spilled beer, beer which had permeated into the carpet, making each tread a sticky one. The whole place was suffering from neglect and bad management, needing gutting and refurbishing.

  Rider sighed and let his eyes skim over the place. It was huge - a former casino, though the last time a roulette wheel had spun was in the early 1960s. Beyond the bar, dance floor and eating areas was a warren of corridors and rooms going up three floors. Rider wondered if he’d bitten off more than he could chew. It was going to cost a lot to get it up and running properly, but the joint had real potential.

  All it needed was cash and dedication.

  Jacko the head barman was polishing glasses. He had come with the place - as had a few other staff - was a good worker and very proud of his territory behind the bar. It was the only area in the whole club that was spotless.

  Rider had only known Jacko about six weeks but had been impressed by him from the start. He appeared honest, loyal and committed to the place. He and Jacko had taken to each other and Rider had no hesitation in keeping him on. A good bar manager could be the lynchpin to the whole operation, and Rider knew a good one when he saw one.

  The rest of the staff he sacked. They were lazy, idle, incompetent and dishonest.

  He drank the last of his third gin and put the glass on the bar. Jacko came, picked it up and wiped underneath it.

  ‘Another, boss?’ he enquired.

  Rider shook his head. He was relaxed now. He’d gone through that lightheaded, nervy phase that always seemed to affect him after a confrontation. Jacko took the glass away.

  Conroy returned from the pay-phone in the entrance foyer, made his way to the bar and told Jacko to get him a Bell’s. He scowled into his drink as he tipped it back down his throat then proffered his glass for another, this time a treble. His head was throbbing.

  ‘Left me fuckin’ mobile in the car,’ he said. ‘Just phoned the driver to tell him to pick me up.’

  ‘How’s the ear?’

  It was clanging like Big Ben.

  ‘I’ll survive.’

  He took a mouthful of the whisky, ran it round his mouth, swallowed and gasped. He stared at the smooth liquid for a moment and at length said, ‘Haven’t seen that move for a while, John.’

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘Disarming - yanking a gun outta someone’s hand. Used to be your party trick, that, dinnit?’

  ‘Not especially,’ said Rider. He had done it twice before, though the gun hadn’t gone off on those occasions. He was getting slow. ‘One day I’ll miss and some fucker’ll get blown away.’

  Conroy appraised Rider critically.

  ‘You never lost your bottle, did you? All you did was become a drunk.’ ‘I got out of it, that’s all. I’d had enough.’

  ‘Everyone said you’d lost your bottle.’

  Rider squirmed uncomfortably. Conroy was getting under his skin and he didn’t like it. ‘A few things happened. I got a conscience, I got pissed off looking over my shoulder for cops all the time, wondering when you were going to grass me up. I saw how bad the whole scene was and I realised I needed to get out of it before it killed me, or I ended up as a lifer. I was thirty-five, a junkie and a piss-head. I suddenly thought, "Let’s get outta here and try to get to forty-five, preferably not in a prison or a coffin". Now I’m just a piss-head, got a life of sorts, some brass and no ties to bastards like you. I don’t deal drugs. I don’t loan people money at extortionate rates. I don’t
beat people up any more just because they’ve looked at me funny, and I don’t get other people to maim or murder for me.’

  ‘Very bloody deep,’ said Conroy sarcastically. ‘You sound like a complete angel.’

  Rider bristled. His lips puckered angrily.

  Conroy emptied his glass. He shook his head sadly as he spoke. ‘Sorry, mate, but you’ve been involved in it for too long. You owe too many people and too many still owe you, good and bad. And you wanna run from it? No chance, because it’s all just caught up with you today.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Talk about ironic. Here’s you, eh? Quits the big time, wants to be left alone, get respectable - if you can call being a DSS landlord respectable. To me it stinks. Selling dope to ten-year-olds is more fucking respectable than what you do. But then today I come along - someone you haven’t seen for years - and bang!’ He pointed his right forefinger at Rider’s temple and clicked his thumb like a hammer. ‘Some bastards with a gun turn up, try to slot me and you save my life and half kill one of ‘em. Talk about ironic.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You want to know what this is all about? It’s about me and Munrow-’

  Rider raised his eyebrows. ‘I thought he was still inside.’

  ‘You thought wrong. The bastard’s out and he’s after my territory. They were his boys today, no doubt about that, so word’ll get back to him and you’ll be linked to me. And you know what he’s like - bull in a friggin’ china shop.’

  ‘You mean you’re in dispute with him?’

  ‘Dispute? That’s a pretty little word. Nah, we’re at war, John.’ He spoke through gritted teeth. ‘It’s just starting, but it’ll be big, bad and ugly - just the kinda rumpus you used to enjoy.’

  Chapter Four

  There is one thing about Blackpool, Henry Christie thought whilst driving south down the sea-front. It is never a dull place.

  Completely unique. The world’s busiest, brashest, trashiest resort, attracting floods of tourists every year. It is a finely tuned machine, expertly geared to separating them from their hard-earned dough.

  Even in the low season when all the residents - police included - can take midweek breathers, the weekends draw in thousands of day-trippers, eager to enjoy themselves and throw their money away.

  The public face of Blackpool is that of a happy-go-lucky place where everything is perfect: funfairs, candyfloss, the Tower, the Illuminations and children’s laughter.

  Henry Christie rarely saw this side of Blackpool.

  He dealt with the flipside which most people never experience but which, as a cop, he could not avoid. There was the massive and continually expanding drug culture and the criminal manifestations behind it - burglary, theft, violent robberies and overdoses; each weekend the influx of visitors who attended the nightclubs left a legacy of serious assaults by itinerant, untraceable offenders; there was the growing problem of child sex and pornography; and the explosion of a huge gay culture had brought its own problems to Blackpool, related more to the prejudice of others, resulting in many gays being the subject of beatings or even rape by heterosexual males.

  Then, of course, there was murder.

  Murder was a frequent visitor to Blackpool.

  Mostly the deaths were down to drunkenness and street brawls between youths, unlike yesterday’s carnage in the newsagents. And unlike the one Henry was en route to now, that Sunday morning just before noon.

  He slowed and drove off the road, across the tram-tracks and onto the wide stretch of Inner Promenade opposite the Pleasure Beach - a huge funfair - in South Shore. Parking in the shadow of one of the world’s hairiest roller-coaster rides - the Pepsi Max Big One - he looked up at it and shivered. He’d once been bullied into riding it by his wife and daughters, and was convinced he was going to die when the trucks plunged vertically and corkscrewed impossibly on the tracks at speeds of up to 80 m.p.h.

  The souvenir photograph of them all holding on for dear life revealed the terror in his face.

  Never again.

  Several police cars and an ambulance were parked on the Promenade, all unattended. A long black hearse was in amongst them, with two pasty-looking body-removers on board, eating burgers. A small crowd had gathered and were peering with interest over the sea wall, near to the pier.

  He pushed his way rudely through them, ducked under a cordon tape, nodded to the policewoman standing by it and made his way down the slipway onto the beach.

  The sand was firm and dry, fortunately. Henry did not want to spoil his suit nor take the chance of getting his shoes messed up. Just like a detective.

  The tide had gone out about two hours before and the edge of the sea seemed a mile away. The beach gave the appearance of being clean and golden, very much like the town it fronted. The reality was that it was one of the dirtiest beaches in Europe.

  However, it was a peaceful and pretty winter’s day with a low sun rising in the sky. One of those days when it felt good to be inhaling breath.

  Not a day to die.

  A small group of police officers and a couple of paramedics were gathered around what, at first sight, looked like a bundle of rags at the foot of one of the pier struts. There was an obvious pathway in the sand leading to and from the scene.

  Henry tried to psych himself into the right frame of mind to be the senior detective at a scene. The one who would have to make the decisions. The one everybody else would look to for a lead.

  Oh joy, he thought.

  She couldn’t have been more than twenty years old. It was difficult to tell for sure. She was five foot five inches tall, very thin with spidery arms and legs, all bones, no muscles.

  Henry watched as the deathly-faced undertakers lifted her body easily from the trolley and onto the mortuary slab, dumping her there unceremoniously.

  Her drenched outer coat had been removed and searched, revealing nothing. Now she was lying there in what she had been wearing underneath: a T-shirt top, a short one which was nothing more than a piece of cloth covering her breasts, and a micro-skirt in what had once been stretchy black Lycra and would have only just covered her lower belly and the top of her thighs. There was no underwear.

  Henry closed his eyes briefly. Stay detached, he ordered himself. She’s a piece of meat, nothing else. Then he opened his eyes and allowed himself to look again.

  But no matter how he tried he could not view her as a carcase. That was probably the reason why she was here, dead, because some bastard had thought she was nothing more than meat - something to be used, abused and discarded.

  A scenes of crime officer videoed the body from all angles, focusing in on several areas. Then he took a few stills, the flash giving her pale damp body a sickly glow.

  ‘Shall I cut her clothes off’?’ a female voice said into Henry’s ear. It was Jan, a mortuary technician. She smiled brightly and held up a large pair of scissors, opening and closing them like a seamstress, indicating her eagerness.

  She was nothing like the stereotypical mortuary attendant. In her mid-twenties she had ashen, pretty features, jet-black hair rolled into a bun, and large, black-rimmed spectacles. She wore a green smock which hung from her neck almost to the floor, and though deeply unsexy as a piece of clothing, it could not disguise her large, round bosom. She was a constant source of puzzlement to the majority of male police officers, most of whom fancied the pants off her but never dared ask her out.

  Henry had heard them make many jokes about necrophilia and sex on mortuary slabs, but he knew no one had ever made any progress with her. He also knew she was happily engaged to a local jeweller and was working towards a career as an undertaker. She was odd - definitely - off the wall and a little bit whacky, but she was also pleasant and good-natured.

  ‘No,’ said Henry. ‘Let’s take ‘em off and bag ‘em.’

  ‘OK,’ she shrugged brightly.

  In the past Henry had experienced some real struggles removing clothing from dead bodies: those stiff with rigor mortis being the c
lassic ones. This girl was easy, pliant, almost cooperative.

  He and Jan hoisted her into a sitting position. Jan held her there whilst Henry shuffled the T-shirt over her head and eased her arms out one at a time.

  It was like undressing a drunk, though this one would never sober up. Next he eased her skirt down over the hips, down her legs and off. Jan placed a wooden block under her neck, like a pillow.

  Henry’s eyes surveyed the naked body ... and the injuries.

  The sea had washed the blood away, but even so, it was apparent she had been subjected to a violent, sustained attack. Henry tried to imagine her last moments and felt vaguely sick.

  Before he could inspect the body more closely, the Home Office pathologist, Dr Baines, came into the mortuary dressed in a smock, pulling on a pair of plastic gloves.

  He looked dreadfully worn out. Henry knew he’d been up most of the night carrying out post mortems from the shooting. There was still two more to do, and dealing with the body of this female was something he could well do without. Had it been any other detective than Henry, Baines would have said, ‘No, get somebody else in.’ But he and Henry were old friends, sometime drinking partners; and they owed each other favours.

  ‘Bad business last night,’ Baines commented.

  Henry nodded.

  ‘So, big H, what’ve you got for me here?’

  Baines walked to the slab and cast a critical, professional eye over the body.

  ‘Found on the beach this morning by a jogger, near to South Pier. No identification yet, but we’re working on it. She had an overcoat on, a skirt and T-shirt. No knickers.’

  ‘Nothing else?’

  ‘Nope. Got a search team scouring the beach now before the tide comes back in. If they don’t find anything we could be struggling.’

  Baines sighed. ‘Nasty. Very nasty.’

  ‘How long would you say she’s been in the sea?’

  Baines eyes looked up and down the body. He touched her skin, parted her legs and inserted a thermometer inside her rectum. He checked the reading. ‘Hardly been in, if you ask me. Doesn’t show any of the usual signs of long-term immersion. Possibly been tossed about by the tide, but nothing more.’