Demolition, page 14
May skipped forward again. Nothing happened until twelve thirteen when a car drove into the yard and circled to a stop in front of the cabin, alongside Durham’s motorbike. It was a big off-roader of some sort – black, sporty, with greyed-out windows in the rear. The registration number was slightly blurred as the car had stopped in such a position that the cameras could not pick up on it. Henry didn’t see that as a problem. He had faith that the tech team would be able to zoom in and get a reading.
It was hard to see how many people were in the vehicle.
Certainly a driver and front-seat passenger, both big males, but it was impossible to determine how many were in the rear.
The front passenger got out. A man, dark-skinned, but it was hard to say if he was tanned or of Asian origin; dark hair slicked back, wearing a black leather jacket and tight jeans that showed big thigh muscles and tapering legs. He was about five feet eight inches tall but looked a handy guy.
Henry glanced at Blackstone. She shook her head: didn’t know him.
The man – Henry had already named him ‘Slick’ because of the hair – opened the rear door.
The angle of one of the cameras was such that it captured the person emerging one foot and one leg at a time.
A woman.
Who was wearing black, knee-high boots with high heels, Lycra leggings and a tight blouse, and carrying a handbag.
Her head was the last thing to come into view, followed by her face as she turned full-on for the camera to capture her image.
May pressed pause and the woman stopped moving.
This time, unlike the car registration numbers, her features were clear to see.
Henry gulped. His head twisted quickly to Blackstone who gave the faintest of nods.
May saw the exchange. ‘You guys know her?’
‘No,’ Henry said, probably too quickly. ‘Keep going.’
May pressed play, and the woman and Slick entered the cabin, closing the door behind them, leaving the driver in the car.
Nothing happened for the next twenty-eight minutes.
Glancing around the cabin, Henry asked May, ‘No cameras in here, then?’
She shook her head.
The attention of all three returned to the computer screen. In that hiatus of twenty-eight minutes, all that happened was the driver of the four-by-four got out and leaned against the vehicle, having a smoke. He was older than Slick, probably late thirties, heavy-set, leather jacket, chinos, and a nasty-looking bruiser. Henry named him ‘Nasty Man’.
May skipped on until she suddenly said, ‘Here,’ and took her finger off the keyboard. As the footage returned to normal speed, the cabin door flew open, and the two men who had been inside, Slick and Durham, tumbled out, grappling with each other, closely followed by the woman who was – silently because there was no sound on the video – screaming at the two men and laying her own punches and kicks on Durham as and when he came within reach.
Nasty Man scuttled around the car and launched himself into the fray to help his mate.
But Durham swung Slick around to become a shield between him and Nasty Man. Slick squirmed. The woman kicked out.
Durham fended her off, knocking her aside with his forearm. Then, with a superbly placed uppercut into Slick’s jaw, he sent the smaller man staggering back into Nasty Man, who hooked his hands under Slick’s armpits as he fell backwards into him. Slick looked stunned. Durham’s punch must have addled his brain and everything south of it.
Durham shoved the woman away, then ran into the cabin, re-emerging almost immediately with a taped-up baseball bat in his hand, swivelling it menacingly though not quite hitting anyone.
There was some kind of verbal argument between him and the woman, while Nasty Man comically dragged Slick around the four-by-four and started to heave the semi-conscious guy into the back seat; having done that, he strode purposefully around the vehicle, seemingly with the intention of going for Durham, who brandished his bat forebodingly and looked likely to use it.
The woman raised her hands, trying to bring some peace to the proceedings, but Durham kept dancing towards them, step by step, forcing them backwards until they got the message. The woman got in the passenger seat, and Nasty Man ran back and scrambled behind the wheel.
Durham slammed the baseball bat down on the front wing and roof of the car, causing expensive-looking dents, as it skidded away with a lurch and sped out of the yard with the woman gesturing at him, flashing V-signs and a middle-finger through the open window, plus, Henry assumed, accompanying and appropriate words.
Then it was gone. Durham stood in the middle of his yard, panting heavily and leaning on his bat like a knight on his sword.
‘Bit of a contretemps,’ Blackstone said. ‘So you don’t know who the guys or the woman are?’ she asked May.
‘Never seen them before.’
‘And this money?’ Henry indicated the cash laid out on the desk. ‘This appeared when?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ May said, sounding honest. ‘It was just there when I unlocked the safe, I assure you.’
‘Do you have any idea what it could be for? Any building jobs, cash in hand?’ Henry asked.
‘I don’t know. Marcus did a lot of cash stuff, but I generally knew about it.’
Henry rubbed his hands together and looked at Blackstone. ‘We need to get someone up here to seize this money, count it and give May a receipt. We’ll take the SD card now as well as the documents in the folder. Is that OK with you, May?’
‘Suppose it’ll have to be.’
Blackstone contacted the MIR and arranged for a DC (one not laid up with Covid) to come out and seize the cash, even though Henry, if he was being honest, really did not have sufficient justification to take the money; as much as anything, it was for safekeeping and he would hand it over, if he had to, to Durham’s estate when things reached that point. The thought of such a large amount of money lying around, unprotected, made him uncomfortable.
While waiting for the detective to arrive, May brewed a pot of tea, and they all chatted about Durham, but the conversation did not shed any light on anything for Henry.
When the DC finally landed from the MIR, he was given his instructions, and Henry and Blackstone got into Henry’s car. For a few moments, they were silent, but there was a ripple of excitement between them. Henry started the engine, looked at Blackstone and said, ‘Don’t say a word until I’ve counted to three.’
Blackstone nodded eagerly.
Henry began. ‘One … two … THREE!’
On the next beat, both simultaneously blurted the name, ‘Sue Daggert!’
The next, unexpected, part of their road trip was relatively silent.
Blackstone sifted through the paperwork seized from Durham’s safe.
Henry concentrated on the road, but his mind wandered back to the murder scene in James Twain’s workshop, close to the Spitfire, and the gun figure clad in a forensic suit.
As was normal with such attire, it wasn’t figure-hugging, so it was not obvious if the person was a man or a woman. It could have been either. Initially, he’d thought man, but perhaps he was wrong, and the more he reran the scenario through his mind on a continuous loop, the more he thought it could have been a woman. Or was he now trying to shoehorn what he had learned today into these circumstances? He knew for certain that Sue Daggert was more than capable of killing someone by shooting or bludgeoning.
He sighed and glanced at Blackstone reading the documents. ‘Anything?’
She slid the paperwork back into the folder and yawned. ‘Dunno. Need to sit at a desk and do some surfing. What’s going on in your mind?’
‘That it could have been a woman at Twain’s murder. It was all pretty fast, but I immediately nailed the intruder as a bloke in my brain. I could be wrong.’
‘Is this because of what we’ve just seen on the CCTV?’
‘Yep, I admit that.’ He drove on.
After leaving Clitheroe, he had gone on to the A59 and driven towards Preston, then dropped on to the M6 north before peeling off on to the M55 towards Blackpool.
Henry had slotted the mobile phone into the hands-free holder on his dashboard, where it automatically connected with Bluetooth. It rang; he answered.
From the display, he knew he was taking a call from the Blood Guy, Professor Rostamian. ‘Hi, Prof.’
‘Henry, hi … uh, you seem to be travelling?’
‘Yep. You got something for me?’
‘I do. Can we speak or should we reconnect later?’
‘Is it something that could wait an hour, say?’
‘I’ll call you back,’ the Blood Guy said.
They hung up.
Henry’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel, a move noted by Blackstone.
‘You OK, old guy? Do you need the toilet?’
That made him chuckle at least. ‘Tell me what you know about Sue Daggert.’
‘I know more about Jack Daggert, her hubby, to be honest.’
‘Dangerous, dangerous man,’ Henry said.
‘One of the biggest drug dealers in the north-west, Blackpool-based; didn’t he get sent down a while ago, four million worth of cocaine, three hundred grand cash in his possession?’
‘You might be right, but I think he’s out now.’
‘And Sue is the wife, lives a life encrusted with diamonds and pearls, and drives a Bentley convertible, last I heard,’ Blackstone said.
‘Seen her mugshot, and Jack’s, in the society pages of Lancashire Life and other such magazines, lord and lady-ing it, giving dosh to charity,’ Henry said.
‘Sounds about right.’
‘But to be honest, I don’t know what their current situation is … or do I?’ Blackstone said mysteriously. She picked up her phone and logged on to the internet. ‘I think I just remembered something.’
Henry drove on down the motorway, keeping one eye on Blackstone as she scrolled.
‘NCA website,’ she explained, referring to the National Crime Agency. She flicked through it and went, ‘Yep.’ She read for a moment, then said, ‘Four men arrested in a twenty-million drugs bust in Birmingham … dah, dah, dah … Yep … Jack William Daggert, aged forty-five, from Lancashire, plus three other men whose names mean nothing to me, from various parts of the country … remanded to Birmingham Crown Court for trial. So he is locked up!’ She looked sideways at Henry. ‘Meaning that Mrs Sue Daggert is looking to be a drug dealer’s widow if he gets the going rate for sentences, which are huge these days.’
‘And she’s possibly now stepped up to the mark and is now keeping the business going?’ ventured Henry.
‘I know it’s all assumptions … but the ninety grand in Durham’s safe could be linked to the drugs biz?’ Blackstone shrugged.
‘If Jack’s in the clink, she may be resorting to desperate measures, and Durham’s not averse to going over to the dark side, is he?’ Henry agreed. ‘Best thing we can do is go chat to her.’
Henry came off the motorway at Marton Circle and took that route into Blackpool, passing fairly close to the housing estate where he used to live with Kate. He felt a pang of something at the proximity, remembering a house in which he’d raised his daughters, Jenny and Leanne, and for a moment became almost breathless as the memories gut-punched him. He pursed his lips and exhaled.
‘You OK?’ Blackstone asked, noticing this. She seemed to have an eye for detail where he was concerned.
‘Yep, yep.’ He blinked, swallowed. ‘Just memories.’
‘Oh?’
‘And guilt, as ever … damn!’
Blackstone knew what he was talking about. They’d shared their rocky back stories before, and she touched his forearm gently in a gesture that took Henry by surprise. He gave her a wan smile.
‘We’re a couple of soft twats,’ she remarked.
‘One way of putting it.’ He sat up, pulled himself together and said, ‘South Shore, baby.’
Even in the few short years he had been retired, the South Shore area of Blackpool had changed considerably. New road layouts, houses flattened, new estates and shopping areas popping up, although even this ‘tarting up’, as Henry called it, could not disguise the widespread deprivation and poverty of the area he knew so well and had regularly visited as a cop to knock down doors.
But no matter what changed at sea level, the place was still dominated by the Big One, the huge roller coaster on the Pleasure Beach, Blackpool’s main amusement park.
Henry drove along Lytham Road, did a few left and right turns, before entering a small, grotty industrial estate consisting of a few dozen units of varying sizes.
‘Their place was in here if I recall,’ he said, slowing the car right down and almost leaning his chin on the wheel as he navigated his way along streets strewn with a variety of battered vehicles, stacked pallets, discarded furniture and rusting white goods. ‘The beating heart of wholesale Britain,’ he observed.
‘I had another description in mind,’ Blackstone muttered, her eyes taking in everyone and everything they passed.
This was another of those places Henry had previously had cause to visit, often accompanied by a strike team, over the course of his tenure in Blackpool: basically, a backstreet estate on which most businesses were above board, but several others were fronts for more nefarious activities.
As he meandered along, the emotional feeling he’d had a short time earlier was now replaced by one of low-level excitement, coupled with a heightening of the senses. You never could tell just what you might stumble across; last time he was in a place similar to this, he’d been confronted and attacked by a gunman who had almost killed Diane Daniels.
He was in ‘cruise-look’ mode.
And he noticed a couple of vehicles which, at first glance, seemed to be part of the background of the estate, but which, on a double-check, were clearly not.
One was a Transit van.
What he noticed about it was an air vent on the back panel, which wasn’t standard and, like a tiny Venetian blind, was angled open to allow a flow of fresh air into the van. There was also a short, stumpy aerial on the roof that didn’t look standard.
The next vehicle ever so slightly out of place was a too-new Renault Clio, greyed-out windows with a similar roof aerial to the Transit but with two figures slouched low in the front seats.
Henry said, ‘Cops. Surveillance.’
Blackstone, who had also noticed, said, ‘Roger that.’
‘Two may mean more we haven’t seen,’ Henry said. ‘Does that make a difference to us?’
‘Not in my book,’ Blackstone said. ‘We don’t know what they’re doing here.’
Henry crawled around the next corner into a short cul-de-sac with small units either side, including a carpet wholesaler and a garage workshop; but it was the one at the far end that was their target. Behind a high fence was a hairdressing wholesaler, and Henry knew this was the premises that constituted the legitimate business of the Daggert family, providing a cover for Jack Daggert’s extensive drug-dealing activities.
Henry drove into the car park and pulled into a customer parking spot, noticing the four-by-four that had paid a visit to Marcus Durham’s place (the indentations in the roof and bonnet courtesy of Durham’s baseball bat attack) and a Bentley convertible in staff-only parking. A sign over the door read, Daggert’s Hair & Beauty Supplies, and underneath, Props: J. & J. Daggert.
Henry sat at the wheel, engine idling.
‘Is your Spidey sense tingling?’ Blackstone asked. ‘Because mine is going fucking berserk!’
Henry nodded. Just something in the air.
‘Well, we’re here now, so we might as well go knock on doors,’ Blackstone said. ‘That’s what you like doing, isn’t it?’
‘That’s what I lurve doing,’ Henry corrected her, switching off the engine. Both started to get out at the moment the front door of the unit opened and Sue Daggert, no less, stepped out. She was dressed in tight jeans, high boots, a faux-fur coat, leopard-skin style. Her hair was silver-blonde, scraped tightly back, and her face was plastered in what Henry would have called ‘big’ make-up.
That said, she looked pretty good to him as she slung a handbag over her shoulder, saw and recognized him, put on a beaming smile and sashayed over, hips a-swaying.
‘Jesus! Tart alert!’ Blackstone said.
‘Henry Fucking Christie! Well, I’ll be damned!’ Daggert chuckled in a hoarse, gravelly voice. ‘You come to lock me up, put me in handcuffs?’
‘Only if you’ve done something really bad,’ he responded weakly, recalling and now experiencing how overpowering she could be, using her colossal personality and looks as weapons to overpower men and women.
Henry tried to imagine her in a forensic suit. Could she really have been the shooter at James Twain’s workshop?
She came up to him. Close. Her head tilted cockily and yet she managed to look down her sharp nose at him. He could smell her. He might have said it was cheap perfume but he knew better. There was just a lot of it, and cheap it certainly wouldn’t be.
She gave her hair a shake.
‘Jeez,’ he heard Blackstone mutter on the opposite side of the car.
Daggert gave her a contemptuous smirk and said to Henry, ‘She with you, darl’?’
‘Yep,’ he said throatily.
‘Too bad. Is this your motor, Henry?’ Daggert pointed at his car with long, sharp, red-painted nails.
‘Yep.’
‘Wanna take me for a ride?’
Henry, refiling his hormones, said, ‘So soon in our relationship?’
Daggert gave him the exact same grin she’d just given Blackstone, but then something unexpected happened that Henry wasn’t prepared for.
Suddenly, there was a small, snub-nosed, two-inch-barrelled revolver in her right hand pointed down at his guts. Then she swung sideways, raised the gun and fired at Blackstone.
Twice.
Blackstone fell instantly.
Then, keeping the gun pointed at Henry, Daggert scuttled around the front of the car, screaming, ‘Get in! Get in and drive me, you fucker! Do it or I’ll shoot you too. DO IT!’
