A Time For Justice by Nick Oldham Page A

you were not, repeat not, to use armed
officers for your little fiasco.’
    She looked quickly at FB who smirked, enjoying her
discomfort.
    ‘ I didn’t use a team,’ she said, trying to regain her
composure. ‘You used armed officers!’
    ‘ Yes,’ she said, exasperated. ‘I used the ARV. They are on
twenty-four-hour cover in every division and can be used for
day-to-day jobs just like any other patrol in the county. They were
there as insurance. They didn’t draw their weapons, neither did
they get involved in the raid. It was a sensible move, if you ask
me.’
    ‘ No one’s fucking asking you! You disobeyed my orders, pure
and simple.’ His face was red with rage; he was screaming in
classic Scouse.
    ‘ I protected my men,’ she insisted. There was no way she was
going to back down and admit she was wrong - particularly with FB
looking on.
    ‘ And it wasn’t even the man you were after, just some poor
innocent bloke...’
    ‘ Whose driving licence was used by the biggest mass murderer
since Lockerbie.’
    Crosby wasn’t to be diverted now. He was in full flow. ‘You
used excessive force in entering his house and now I believe we’re
faced with a huge bill for trashing the place.’
    ‘ Trashing is not the term I would use. Damage was caused, yes,
but it was minimal. The cost of repair will be relatively
small.’
    ‘ I am tempted to have you disciplined for this,’ Crosby
growled.
    ‘ What? So you can have your investigation back? Because your
beloved CID aren’t running the show? Grow up, Mr Crosby . . . I
know you don’t like me, or the fact that I’ve got this job, but I’m
doing it to the best of my ability and I’m that far off getting a result.’ She
held up her thumb and forefinger with just a sliver of daylight
between them. ‘And I won’t be browbeaten or bullied by the likes of
dinosaurs like you two...’
    ‘ Dinosaurs!’ he blasted.
    ‘ If you want to sulk, then do so. But if you hinder the
investigation, so help me God, I’ll bring you down - and you, FB.’
She pointed a finger at Fanshaw-Bayley.
    ‘ So what’s it going to be?’ she demanded. Her mouth was a
tight angry line. Her eyes had large bags under them the colour of
prunes and she’d been wearing the same outfit for a long twenty
hours. Her hair felt like straw and she needed a bath followed by
twelve hours’ sleep. What she didn’t need was this
shit!
    ‘ The answer’s no,’ Crosby said.
    She wheeled round and marched out of the office.
    Two minutes later the tension that had been welling up inside
Crosby’s chest reached a climax. It burned up through his arteries
like razor blades on fire, from his heart to his left arm and up
the side of his face.
    He clutched himself.
    Then keeled over off his chair onto the floor with a crash,
taking the contents of his desk with him.
    FB looked on bemused for a moment before he realised what was
happening.
    His boss was having a major heart attack.
     
     
    Whisper had been moved to a side ward, but other than that no
one had touched him. He still lay on the hospital bed in his dying
position: head lolling to one side, arms hanging loosely off the
bed. The nurse who’d discovered him had tried to save him. She’d
ripped the bedclothes off him and torn open his pyjamas, but it had
been too late for Whisper. Despite all his gurgling and blowing of
bubbles of blood through his nose and mouth, he was already
dead.
    Kovaks’ weary but sharp eyes gazed at the wounds. There were
at least twelve punctures in the chest around the heart and
innumerable ones in his face and neck. One of his eyes had been
gouged out, an ear sliced off and his cheek carved open. Kovaks
could see Whisper’s teeth through that particular wound.
    Blood was everywhere. The bed was soaked, his body was
drenched in it. Crimson was splashed ten feet up the wall behind
the bed and’ across the floor. It had started to congeal in
tar-like clods on the tiles. There were many footprints in it. It
had