Read Online Nightmare City by Nick Oldham - Free Book Online

handed to them and they
could be ‘bought’ for individual dancing.
    To Rider it was a beautiful image, which was one of the
reasons he didn’t want to sell the place to Conroy.
    He had a goal now, an aim in life, and he wanted to achieve
it.
    And he had plans for the rest of the building too. There were
another two storeys above which used to be offices for the casino
and although the floors were generally rotten and dangerous, he
planned to bring them up to scratch and open a restaurant and pub
on the first floor and convert the second into new
offices.
    ‘ The planning application goes in next week. We’ll see what
reaction it gets. Should be favourable.’
    ‘ You mean you’ve greased some palms?’
    Rider merely smiled at her and raised his eyebrows.
    The doorbell rang.
    Jacko, who’d been restocking the bar, sauntered away to answer
it while Rider pointed out a few more things to Isa.
    A few moments later, Jacko was back, flustered.
    ‘ Cops,’ he said.
    Rider closed his eyes despairingly as he remembered something.
The bell rang again.
    He dashed behind the bar, reached under the counter, rummaged
for a second and pulled out the gun he’d commandeered from Curly.
He shoved it into Jacko’s hands who held it like he’d been given a
dog turd.
    ‘ Take that upstairs and hide it - hide it somewhere they won’t
find it, just in case they want to search the place. Well, go on,
go on!’ He shooed Jacko away. ‘Make yourself scarce,
Isa.’
    ‘ What do they want?’ she asked wide-eyed, the sight of the gun
having thrown her.
    Rider did not reply. He turned and walked to the front door,
grating his teeth angrily, swearing at the thought of Conroy. Today
was becoming like one of the good old days, and the sad thing was,
annoyed though he was by the whole debacle, he was quite enjoying
it, in a sick, perverted sort of way.
     
     
    After Henry had finished at the zoo, he made his way back to
the mortuary. Dr Baines, the pathologist, didn’t tell him anything
he hadn’t already guessed. The girl had died from multiple
stab-wounds. Anyone from a total of forty could have been the fatal
blow.
    Baines promised a written report as soon as possible. That
meant anything up to a week because of workload.
    Henry thanked him, waved goodbye to Jan and gloomily returned
to the office, where he immediately sought out FR His boss was in
the murder room set up for the newsagents job, in deep conversation
with Tony Morton. Henry had to wait to step in.
    FB looked blandly unconvinced when Henry said he wanted a full
team on the beach corpse.
    ‘ Sorry Henry, this takes priority in terms of manpower and
resources.’ He flicked his hands at the incident room. ‘The sordid
little murder of a junkie who was probably on the game and deserved
what she got doesn’t even rank.’
    Anger bubbled up inside him at these crass remarks, but he
managed not to punch the living daylights out of FB.
    ‘ She actually deserves as much as anyone,’ he replied
calmly.
    FB gave one of his famous sneers and said, ‘That’s as maybe,
but the reality is you’re gonna have to manage this one as best you
can with the resources available - i.e. whoever’s left in the
office.’
    ‘ They’re all on this sodding job. Can I have Derek Luton
back?’
    ‘ Nope - you’ll have to make do.’
    ‘ Jesus,’ Henry uttered under his breath.
    FB relented slightly. ‘Tell you what. I’ll give you one HOLMES
terminal and an operator to go with it.’
    ‘ Big fuckin’ deal,’ Henry snapped.
    ‘ Don’t push it, Henry,’ FB warned him.
    ‘ Overtime budget?’
    FB laughed.
    And that was that.
    In the CID office, the Support Unit Sergeant who had been
leading the team searching the beach for evidence was waiting. He
handed a small black leather-clutch bag with a gold clasp and
shoulder strap triumphantly to Henry.
    The find cheered Henry.
    Eagerly he cleared his desk top, spread out a sheet of
polythene and opened the water-sodden bag, emptying out