The Blow Out Read online

  Gordon glanced up at the rear-view mirror. ‘That was in 2011, if memory serves. How come he’s out already?’

  ‘Released from Belmarsh last month on parole for good behaviour. Given non-association and place-restriction orders. He’s rebranding himself as a reformed character and pillar of the community.’

  ‘And pigs’ll fly,’ muttered Gordon.

  ‘That’s the general consensus,’ said Nick. ‘You know about Operation Cortez?’

  Gordon nodded. ‘Gang they christened The Albanians, working a dial-a-drug scheme in the city centre clubs. Twenty of them arrested back in February. They’ve just been sentenced?’

  ‘A total of eighty years between them,’ said Carly, who was beginning to feel left out. ‘Most of them are awaiting deportation.’

  ‘The word is,’ said Nick, ‘O’Neill’s mob is looking to fill the vacuum left behind, with him pulling the strings at arm’s length.’

  ‘Sounds like a motive, Boss,’ said Carly. ‘There are bound to be rival gangs wanting a piece of the action?’

  ‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,’ said Gordon as he turned on the sirens and swung onto Plymouth Grove. He glanced over his right shoulder as they sped past Longsight Police Station, where his FMIT career had begun. ‘O’Neill will have made more enemies than you and I have had hot breakfasts.’

  ‘Can I ask you a question, Boss?’ said Carly.

  ‘Take that as read.’

  ‘Why are we using blues and twos? I mean, he is dead after all.’

  Nick snorted his disapproval.

  ‘No,’ said Gordon. ‘It’s a fair question. When someone like Ronnie O’Neill snuffs it at his age, rumours are going to abound: it’s payback from someone he crossed in the past, it’s a rival gang hoping to muscle in on his business, or an internal takeover—’

  ‘The King is dead. Long live the King,’ Nick interposed.

  ‘—or someone believes, rightly or wrongly, that he’s informed on them as a way of getting an early parole.’

  ‘Like The Albanians?’ asked Carly.

  Gordon nodded again. ‘Exactly. But they’re not the only ones. Titan have been really motoring over the past twelve months.’

  ‘Titan?’

  ‘The North West Regional Organised Crime Unit’s overarching operation,’ said Nick. ‘I’d have thought you’d know that.’

  Gordon sensed DC Whittle squirming with embarrassment beside him.

  ‘We have to move fast to try and prevent revenge attacks, Carly,’ he explained. ‘Even when there are no suspicious circumstances. The last thing we need is a vigilante gang war breaking out.’

  They lapsed into silence for the final stretch to the hospital, allowing their imaginations to run riot.

  Chapter 4

  ‘Looks like it’s already kicking off,’ Nick Carter observed. ‘And isn’t that SI Stuart’s car over there?’

  Gordon Holmes pulled into the only remaining designated bay between hastily parked police vans, a patrol car, and Joanne Stuart’s Audi. Leaves skittered across the tarmac as Hurricane Ophelia began to make her presence felt.

  The three of them climbed out of the car.

  Jo alarmed her car and turned to face them.

  ‘Jo,’ said Gordon. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Good to see you too, Detective Chief Inspector,’ she replied. ‘Congratulations on your promotion, Gordon. I thought you’d never do it.’

  Gordon pulled a face. ‘Don’t tell anyone, but Marilyn gave me an ultimatum. Go for promotion and boost the pension or move into the spare room.’ He grinned. ‘It was a close call.’

  ‘I’m pleased for you,’ she said. ‘You deserve it. As to why I’m here, I’ve no idea. I had a call telling me to get here and wait for you.’

  ‘Nobody tells me anything, either,’ he muttered as he led the way to the hospital entrance.

  Chaos reigned inside the reception hall. Four uniformed police officers and three hospital security guards were attempting to control a group of five angry men who were remonstrating loudly. Hospital staff were urging anxious outpatients to move away from the testosterone-charged scrum.

  Gordon held up his warrant card and shouldered his way to the front desk. ‘You have a patient: Ronald O’Neill? We were told that he was in the Critical Care Unit?’

  The receptionist checked her screen. ‘That’s correct. You’ll find it on the second floor. It’s the purple zone. You can take the elevators over there, or the stairs around to your left.’ She frowned. ‘Either way, I’m afraid you’ll have to get past that lot.’

  ‘What are they complaining about?’ he asked.

  ‘They’ve just been told that a relative has passed away and they’re not allowed onto the ward. We expect this kind of thing on a Saturday night, but never in the middle of a weekday.’

  ‘No guesses as to who the relative is,’ said Nick as the elevator doors closed.

  ‘Did either of you recognise any of them?’ Gordon asked his officers.

  ‘Not me,’ Nick replied.

  ‘Nor me,’ said Carly.

  ‘I did,’ said Jo.

  The three of them stared at her.

  ‘The thickset one with a bald head, wearing a white T-shirt and jeans, that’s Steven Yates,’ she said. ‘He’s Ronnie O’Neill’s enforcer. A proper Manc hardman. The youngest of them in the shiny blue suit? That’s Jason O’Neill, Ronnie’s son.’

  ‘How come you know them?’ Gordon asked. ‘I don’t remember our coming across them when you were with the syndicate?’

  ‘I did two spells in South Manchester before I joined CID,’ she told him. ‘I was stationed at Greenheys and then Wythenshawe. I heard a lot about the O’Neills, and our paths crossed a few times. Jason was a bit of a hothead, but I don’t think it ever went beyond him being cautioned. I remember once we arrested him for GBH following a fight in a pub in Royal Oak. But it never came to anything.’

  The elevator stopped and the doors slid open.

  ‘What happened?’ asked Gordon.

  ‘Witnesses came forward claiming it was self-defence. The victim refused to press charges.’

  ‘What about CCTV?’ said Carter.

  ‘According to the landlord it wasn’t working that night. Claimed he’d taken the old tape out and forgot to put a new one in.’

  ‘Was that before or after Yates paid him a visit?’ said Gordon.

  ‘How did you guess?’ she said.

  As they approached the doors that led to the wards a female police officer barred their way.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she began. ‘Staff only past this point. You need a lanyard ID . . .’

  The four of them simultaneously held up their warrant cards.

  She tentatively checked Gordon’s ID, ignoring the rest of them. ‘I’m sorry, Detective Chief Inspector,’ she said. ‘We’ve been told to treat it as a crime scene.’

  ‘You’ll need to log us in then.’

  She looked flustered. ‘I haven’t been given a log yet. Someone’s supposed to be bringing it up.’

  ‘You could be waiting some time,’ said Carter.

  ‘We’ll go through then,’ Gordon told her. It wasn’t a request.

  ‘You can’t come in here!’ A fierce-looking nurse in a navy uniform trimmed with white strode towards them.

  Gordon held up his warrant card again. ‘Greater Manchester Police,’ he said. ‘We’re here in relation to Ronnie O’Neill.’

  Her body relaxed and her tone morphed from withering to weary. ‘Right. We were told to expect you. My name is Mary Marshall, the duty matron. Do you need to see him?’

  ‘Yes please.’

  ‘Very well. Come this way.’

  She paused to sanitise her hands using the pump on the wall beside the next pair of doors and waited for them to do the same.

  ‘The unit includes intensive care and high-dependency patients,’ she told them. ‘There are also isolation beds. There is a significant risk of infection for patients whose immune
system is already compromised.’

  She entered a code on the key pad, pushed open the door, led them to a side room, and paused.

  ‘I have to advise you not to touch the body,’ she said quietly. ‘There’s a suspicion that a poison of some form may have been administered. Until the exact nature of that poison is known we cannot risk transference.’

  ‘Won’t we have to wear gloves or a mask?’ Jo asked.

  ‘No. Whatever it is, it’s not going to be infectious and it’s unlikely to be contagious other than by direct contact of broken skin with the agent itself or with bodily fluids.’ She frowned. ‘At least, let’s hope not, for the sake of those of us who treated him.’

  She opened the door, stepped back to let the four detectives enter, followed them in, and closed the door behind her.

  The body lay on its back on a hospital bed, surrounded by the paraphernalia of critical care. A ventilator machine had been pushed back into one corner, a trolley with an infusion pump into another. The screen of the patient monitor was blank. The head, shoulders, and arms were visible, but the rest of the body was covered with a thin clean paper sheet.

  ‘We arranged him like this to minimise contact,’ she said. ‘We assumed that the police and the pathologist would want to see him in situ before he was moved to the mortuary.’

  Gordon moved to the top end of the bed. O’Neill’s eyes were closed and none of the anguish and trauma that he must have suffered was evident in his expression. His lips were swollen and tinged with blue. The whole of his face and his head – bald as a snooker ball – was a sickly yellow. Bruising on his neck and shoulders was less evident on his arms where tattoos vied for attention. His hands were swollen.

  ‘Mr O’Neill was brought in to Accident and Emergency,’ she began, ‘with a history of bronchial irritation, a dry sore throat, congestion, chest tightness, skin irritation and then, most recently, vomiting and diarrhoea. He was severely dehydrated and had extremely low blood pressure. He had excess fluid in his lungs and difficulty breathing. He was immediately transferred to the Acute Medical Unit for assessment where he began to suffer a series of seizures. It was quickly established that he was going into multiple organ failure, and some form of poisoning was suspected. He was transferred here to the Critical Care Unit where it was possible to treat his multiple needs and isolate him in a side room. Sadly, there was nothing we could do to save him despite the best efforts of a team of four consultants and specialist nurses. His liver, spleen, and kidneys had already stopped working. Finally, his heart gave up and he was pronounced dead at 8.16 a.m.’

  ‘The bruising?’ asked Gordon.

  ‘Caused by the liver and kidney failure. The jaundice, too.’

  ‘What is this, Matron?’ Jo had moved around to the opposite side of the bed and was pointing to the right side of O’Neill’s neck. ‘It looks like an entry wound of some kind.’

  ‘The paramedics who brought him in believed it to be an infected insect bite, largely on the basis of what the family told them. We quickly came around to your conclusion. Close inspection led to the hypothesis that this might have been caused by some sort of pellet,’ she added.

  Gordon and Carter joined Jo to see for themselves. On the side of the neck, two inches below the chin, was an ugly brown and yellow crater, a quarter of an inch in diameter. Surrounding the crusted perimeter, but double the size, was a scarlet circle of inflamed skin punctuated by tiny yellow pustules.

  ‘An air rifle pellet?’ said Jo.

  ‘Possibly. At first the assumption was that an infected insect bite or sting had led to sepsis, which was overwhelming his organs. However, there were too many contradictory symptoms and the doctors came down on the side of poison. Samples are still being analysed.’

  ‘Is it possible that the two are separate?’ asked Gordon. ‘That he was stung or shot and that a poison was administered in some other way?’

  ‘Orally, for example?’

  A man’s voice from the doorway. He was tall, a little on the heavy side, with thinning hair, and intelligent eyes behind frameless spectacles.

  ‘This is Dr Okafor,’ the matron told them. ‘He’s one of the consultants who treated Mr O’Neill.’

  ‘With ingestion, the initial symptoms would have been radically different,’ the consultant explained. ‘Gastrointestinal pain, with rapid onset of nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, and dysphagia – that is, difficulty in swallowing. Intestinal haemorrhages would have resulted in melena and hematemesis.’

  ‘Bloody faeces and vomit,’ the matron translated.

  ‘Either way,’ said the consultant, ‘the end result would have been the same: multiple organ failure.’

  ‘Assuming that this was a poison,’ said Gordon, ‘is it possible to estimate when Mr O’Neill came into contact with it?’

  The doctor shook his head. ‘Not without knowing the nature of the toxin. Having said which, it would be reasonable to hypothesise that it would have been when he received that wound on his neck. Matron?’

  ‘The family told us they thought it had happened on Friday morning,’ she said, ‘while he was playing golf.’

  ‘Three days ago,’ said Gordon. ‘Might you have been able to save him, Doctor, if he had come in straight away?’

  ‘I’m sorry to have to repeat myself,’ Okafor replied, ‘but I can’t answer that without knowing the exact nature and quantity of the toxin that entered his system. I will say this though. Whoever did it almost certainly intended not only to kill the poor man, but to make sure that he suffered a prolonged, humiliating, and painful death.’

  ‘I can think of a few dozen likely guys in Manchester alone,’ Nick muttered. ‘Not to mention Eastern Europe, Turkey, and a load of ex-pats in Spain, Cyprus, and the Algarve.’

  Chapter 5

  They regrouped in the corridor outside the room.

  Gordon turned to his detective sergeant. ‘I want you to wait here until the pathologist has been. Whoever it is, impress on them the urgency of the situation. We need that post-mortem today. Tomorrow morning at the latest.’

  ‘If it’s Professor Flatman, he won’t take kindly to being told.’

  ‘He knows the score. This isn’t a hit-and-run, it’s a time bomb waiting to go off. While you’re waiting I need you to get the hospital to email me the results of the tests their forensic lab is running on the tissues from O’Neill’s neck. Make sure they understand that the tissues themselves are evidence in a criminal investigation and need to be bagged, sealed, and labelled for collection.’

  ‘What are you going to be doing, Boss?’ Carter asked.

  ‘SI Stuart, DC Whittle and I are going to have a word with the son and the enforcer. We need to take the heat out of the situation before they do something they’ll regret.’

  It was the first time that Gordon had intimated that Jo could have a role in this investigation. Things were looking up. Although it would still mean walking on eggshells.

  Order had been restored in the reception area. Outside the main doors a ragtag group of the original protesters stood on the pavement, shepherded by police officers and security staff. A woman, two tough-looking men in their fifties, and a man half their age stood in a corner of reception close to the entrance to the corridors. They were closely supervised by two uniformed police officers, and two detectives both of whom Gordon recognised. One of the detectives noticed Gordon, and walked over to join them. He was tall, dark, and handsome, with an air of confidence that Jo was willing to bet came with senior rank.

  ‘Gordon,’ he said, holding out a hand, ‘I thought it was you.’

  ‘Good to see you, Nigel,’ Gordon replied. ‘It’s been a while.’

  ‘I’ve been to the Met and back,’ he said. ‘What have you been doing while I’ve been away? Burglary, assault, and public order? I bet you’ve been sharing your incomparable expertise with rookie detectives hanging on your every word?’

  Gordon grimaced. ‘FMIT, actually.’

  ‘The Force Major Inci
dent Team,’ said Fox. ‘I’m impressed. Well, since it’s excitement you’re looking for, you couldn’t have timed it better.’ He switched his attention to Carly Whittle. ‘Aren’t you going to introduce us?’

  ‘This is DCI Nigel Fox,’ said Gordon. ‘Nigel, this is Detective Constable Carly Whittle.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Fox, shaking her hand.

  ‘I’m one of those rookie detectives,’ she told him, as she removed her hand from a grasp that Jo thought lingered longer than was appropriate.

  ‘And this,’ said Gordon, ‘is Senior Investigator Joanne Stuart, from the National Crime Agency.’

  ‘Well, hello,’ oozed DCI Fox, offering his hand again.

  ‘Hello to you,’ she said, all but crushing his hand before swiftly releasing it.

  Fox stared at his fingers, watching the blood flood back into them.

  Gordon winked at Jo, trying hard not to smirk.

  ‘How come you’re babysitting O’Neill’s mob, Nigel?’ he asked Fox.

  Fox looked over his shoulder to where the group was standing. ‘And the grieving widow,’ he replied. ‘The lovely Sheila. I’m deputy commander of the Xcalibre team now. DI Robb over there, she’s with Operation Challenger.’

  It made sense. GMP’s long-standing anti-gun and anti-gang unit, and the organised crime unit tasked with the prevention, disruption, and apprehension of organisations like that of the O’Neill’s.

  ‘As soon as we heard Ronnie O’Neill was dead and the circumstances were decidedly dodgy,’ Fox continued, ‘we knew we had to get right in the faces of this lot before all hell broke loose. The question is, what are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m the Senior Investigating Officer,’ Gordon replied, ‘until I hear otherwise.’

  Fox whistled through his teeth. ‘Lucky you,’ he said. ‘What about you, SI Stuart? What’s your interest?’

  ‘Good question,’ she replied. ‘That has yet to be determined.’

  Fox turned back to Gordon. ‘In that case I assume you’ll want to talk to them?’

  ‘The wife, the son, and anyone who believes they can throw some light on how and when Ronnie O’Neill received a wound on the side of his neck.’