Free One Dead Witness by Nick Oldham Page A

shadow was Jack Sands, waiting to pounce.
    Her trembling hand snaked into her bag. Her fingers sought,
fought and withdrew the remote locking control and keys for her
car.
    She quickened her step ... and of course she had parked at the
far end of the car park.
    In a matter of seconds she had reached the rear of her car -
safely. Then she was inside the car, slamming the door, desperate
to slide the key into the ignition. She was okay. She had made it.
She giggled a little at her stupidity.
    The key went in . . . and her door was yanked open. Sands
reached in, grabbed her and dragged her out in a split second
before she could react. He dumped her onto the concrete and the
base of her spine crashed on the hard surface, sending a shock wave
up to her cranium.
    She opened her mouth to scream - but Sands was quickly on top
of her, hand clasped over her mouth, forcing her back, smashing her
head against the ground. He pinned her down and straddled her
chest.
    ‘ Bitch. Don’t ever think I’ll let you get away with kneeing me
in the balls.’
    He struck her open-handed across the cheek as hard as he
could, whipping her face sideways.
    Then, miraculously, his weight was lifted from her chest and
he seemed to be flying through the air in a flurry of
limbs.
    Quickly Danny got to her knees, spun round, saw it was Henry
Christie who had pulled Sands off, but that now Sands had
recovered, gained the upper hand and was laying into Henry,
pummelling him with a series of blows. Henry defended himself like
a boxer, hands protecting his head, forearms his chest: He rolled
with the onslaught, saw a minute gap and launched a rock-hard fist
onto the point of Sands’s chin. His head jerked right back on
impact.
    The blow knocked him stone cold. His legs crumpled underneath
him like a drunken man. He went down with a groan and a
thud.
    ‘ Damn!’ yelled Henry, rubbing the knuckles of his fist, doing a
little jig. It felt as though the cap of the knuckle had been
dislodged. ‘Yow! That effin’ hurts.’
    Danny got to her feet. Her lower spine throbbed painfully. Her
face was smarting and she could feel a lump growing like a tumour
on the back of her head. She stared speechless at her stunned
ex-lover who was squirming around on the floor, then looked at
Henry.
    ‘ You okay?’ he asked.
    She nodded dumbly, muttered a thanks of sorts.
    ‘ No probs. Look, you go home. I’ll deal with Jack. If you need
to talk, we’ll talk - later.’
    ‘ Yeah ... yep,’ she said unsurely, still dazed. She rolled back
into her car and started the engine.
    Henry took hold of Sands’s lapels and heaved him out of the
path of her rear wheels.
    Seconds later she was gone, leaving Henry with a
fast-recovering Detective Inspector Sands who had a good bit of
explaining to do.

Chapter Four

    Steve Kruger fidgeted, trying to make the radio harness a
little more comfortable beneath his armpit. Though allegedly ‘body
moulded’ and well hidden by his jacket, it was tight and unwieldy,
as though he were carrying a set of books. It was a psychological
problem Kruger had always had on surveillance, right back to his
undercover cop days; he always thought that the equipment would be
completely obvious to the public and constantly expected to be
approached and exposed.
    He had begun to sweat already.
    Myrna came into the office wearing a smart, stylish suit in
beige with a very short skirt displaying her excellent legs. She
had been in the ladies’ restroom fitting her radio harness
underneath her blouse, next to her skin. Kruger peered at her chest
- for professional reasons, obviously and was relieved to find he
could not detect any bulges there other than legitimate
ones.
    She executed a pirouette for him.
    ‘ Can’t see a thing,’ he admitted.
    He slid the miniature encrypted radio into the pouch, then
threaded the fine wire of the press-to-talk button down his sleeve
and into the palm of his left hand. He secured it with
flesh-coloured Band Aid, adjusting it