Bad Cops

by Nick Oldham

  Henry shrugged and posted the query to his mental clipboard. It was something to ask of the lead investigator, DCI Runcie. He checked the name again. Yep, that was the guy.

  ‘I’m not saying that the phones are relevant, but the movement of both victims prior to their death could be crucial, and a bit of phone triangulation could be useful to tell a story. That said,’ Henry went on philosophically, ‘the chances are that all we’ll get in both cases are screenshots – no real detail, or feel for them … that’s how it is with a review. We may never get anywhere near the truth, just hopefully point out the directions the investigators might not have thought to take.’

  ‘Funny how we seem to be faced with a series of crimes that have gone wrong. Two burglaries – if you include Mr Burnham’s death – and a road-rage incident,’ Daniels observed.

  ‘Or, if they haven’t gone wrong, it means they’ve gone exactly to plan,’ Henry mused, ‘but I’m sure the investigators will have thought of all that. I know for a fact that Rik Dean will have.’ He closed the murder book and eased himself back. The seat might have been battered but it wasn’t half comfortable.

  For a while, he had forgotten his aches and pains. The job did that; the focus of investigating a murder tended to channel the mind and put physical and other problems to the back of the queue but, as he leaned back, they all started to pulse again. His shoulder, which he was fortunate not to have whacked too badly on his tumble down the steps, started to tighten up and the fall injuries began to feel painful again. He knew he’d been lucky on that fall. He frowned, annoyed that he hadn’t been as careful as usual on that top, mossy, greasy step. He should have power-washed it ages ago.

  Yet down he went.

  Idiot.

  He tried to recall the incident. Had he been pushed? It seemed stupid to think so, yet was there a feeling of something in the back of his mind? He wasn’t sure.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be funny,’ Daniels speculated, ‘if the deaths of that detective – what’s he called? – Culver and Mr Burnham were linked in some way?’ She shrugged. ‘Y’know?’

  ‘Highly amusing.’

  ‘And if the two deaths we have to review are linked to each other and to the deaths of the two cops?’ she went on relentlessly.

  ‘Now I’m in stitches. Stop it.’

  ‘Just a thought,’ she said. ‘That would be some web to weave.’

  Henry stared blankly through the windscreen, watching the road whizz by. Not long now and they would be in the county of Central Yorkshire, then, another hour after that, on the coast.

  His mobile phone rang: Rik Dean calling.

  ‘Hi, what’s happening?’ Henry asked.

  Henry listened, asked a couple of questions then ended the call, turning to Daniels, who glanced at him.

  ‘Just a quick update from DCI Dean. The MO of the other break-ins in that area – and there’ve been thirty of them in the last two months – does not quite match the entry method for Burnham’s mum’s house.’

  Daniels digested this.

  ‘Puts a whole new spin on it,’ Henry said. ‘And another spin on it is that two houses on the other side of Bacup were broken into last night, same MO as the prolific burglar.’

  ‘Which makes you think … what, exactly?’

  ‘That Burnham was targeted,’ Henry finished for her. ‘And although one or two objects were tipped over in the house and some things were stolen, there is no sign of Burnham’s attaché case with all his work in it.’

  Eating carrot cake and drinking a large mug of tea may well have had a rejuvenating effect on Henry and Daniels, but it also meant that he needed Daniels to make a stop at the first motorway services they reached on the M62 – Hartshead Moor – pleasantly screened from the sound of the motorway by trees and landscaping. Henry didn’t want to have to explain that his bladder wasn’t what it once was; however, after he’d relieved himself, he decided he needed more coffee. Daniels went for some flavoured tea of the type Henry had tried but failed to make himself like. At heart, he remained a simple man with simple tastes, and fruity tea wasn’t ever going to be one of them.

  Daniels had settled now, recovering nicely from the shock of the brutal murder.

  She knew what Henry had said was true. The thing about being a cop was you had to have the ability to deal with anything, then power on and put aside personal issues until later – maybe never, sometimes – otherwise you’d be no use to anyone, including yourself.

  Ten minutes later – and after another quick visit to the loo by Henry – they were ready to roll again and were probably a good hour and a quarter from their destination.

  They walked out of the services to the car. Daniels went to the driver’s door and Henry to the passenger side. He noticed that the front tyre on that side was completely flat. Daniels saw his shoulders slump.

  ‘What, boss?’

  Henry pointed. She came around to look, by which time Henry had bent over and was running the palm of his hand across the tyre tread and wall, feeling for a nail. What he did find was a knife cut in the rubber wall.

  ‘Slashed,’ he said.

  Daniels swore in anger, stood up and looked for a culprit. Henry looked along the vehicle to the rear wheel. It too was flat. He tapped her and pointed. Daniels swore again as Henry went to it and checked it with his hand. ‘Also slashed,’ he said, diagnosing the problem. ‘But at least they’re only flat on the bottom.’

  Silverthwaite and Hawkswood were past masters at slashing people’s tyres, having targeted many vehicles in Portsea belonging to local low-level crims. They usually did it under cover of darkness and in places unlikely to be overlooked by CCTV cameras, but they took a chance this time, coming on to the motorway services about a minute behind Christie and the woman, just in time to see the pair walking across to the services building. Christie was still hobbling, but going quite speedily.

  They pulled in beside a campervan for cover, then the younger and more agile of the two, Hawkswood, waited a few moments before sliding out of the car. He crouched between parked vehicles, drawing out his flick knife. The Peugeot had been parked fairly tightly against a van, providing even more cover, and he squatted at the front nearside wheel and slid the sharp blade into the tyre wall, then duck-walked to the rear wheel and did the same. He could hear the hiss of both tyres as they deflated.

  He was back with Silverthwaite seconds later, and moments after that they were back on the motorway, giggling like a couple of immature yobs after committing a crime that would cause severe inconvenience as much as anything.

  Silverthwaite reported in to Runcie, who could not believe her ears.

  The only luck that Henry and Daniels had was that, as she phoned the AA, a mobile tyre service truck rolled on to the service area. Henry waved him down, snaffled his services and was delighted to discover that he had two tyres of the correct size in the back of his van and was able to fit them straightaway. The repair man confirmed, by showing Henry and Daniels the inner tyre wall, that a knife had been used, making the tyres irreparable.

  ‘Someone don’t like you,’ the guy said.

  Henry paid for the new tyres with his force credit card and, just under an hour after the incident, they were back on the motorway.

  Daniels was clearly brooding.

  They had tried to access the security cameras on the service area, but the cranky security guard who had obviously clambered out of bed on the wrong side that morning moaned that he needed to get permission from his boss, who was somewhere between London and Birmingham at that moment, so he could not allow the detectives to see any footage.

  ‘Data protection an’ all that,’ he said as an excuse.

  Henry and Daniels withdrew before she came to blows with the man, who, as Daniels became more aggressive with him, was more defiant.

  ‘How the hell? Why the hell?’ she said repeatedly while Henry tried to contact the security guard’s boss via the mobile number he had been given. He had to leave a voicemail.

/>   Henry tried not to speculate.

  But Daniels did. ‘Is it a race thing? Some effin’ yob see me park up?’

  Henry did not respond, but doubted the hypothesis.

  She thumped the steering wheel.

  ‘Next junction,’ he reminded her.

  With her mind having been elsewhere, she was forced to swerve across two lines of traffic to get on the exit ramp and join the M6121 that would take them on their final leg of the journey, through the middle of Central Yorkshire, straight to Portsea on the east coast.

  They made no further stops until they arrived.

  Portsea police station was a very big, old and decrepit four-storey Victorian building in the city centre, built at a time of great prosperity when the port was booming. While the port itself had survived many ups and downs since, and was currently experiencing a surge of business, the police station had lived through all these times with very little money having been spent on it over the years. Recent government cuts to capital budgets and some money mismanagement by the police and the county council had meant that, since 1996, the station had been left virtually untouched and was starting to crumble.

  Some parts of the building had seen some refurbishment, one of which was DCI Jane Runcie’s office which, somehow, had been redecorated and kitted out recently with new office furniture and triple-glazed windows that overlooked the main street.

  Her office, though, was not the location in which Runcie was talking to Silverthwaite and Hawkswood that evening.

  Being such a huge old building – the spider web of a cell complex connected to the adjacent magistrates’ court – there were many nooks and crannies where private conversations could take place without fear of being overheard.

  She had asked to meet the two detectives in one such place, a small, unused anteroom that had access to the magistrates’ private chambers through a door that was always locked. It was just off one of the first-floor corridors on which the CID offices were located in the station. It was very private and virtually soundproof. There was one high window, only accessible by standing on a chair, overlooking an inner courtyard where, legend had it, prisoners used to be hung.

  Runcie and Saul possessed the only two known keys for the room.

  It was always set up as a small meeting room, large table in the centre, that could have once been in a courtroom, four chairs around it.

  Silverthwaite and Hawkswood watched Runcie stalk the room like an angry ostrich.

  ‘You slashed his fucking tyres,’ she said.

  Hawkswood nodded.

  ‘So … let’s work this back … he plummets down a set of steps, gets up and brushes himself off … survives, yeah? Then his tyres are slashed … don’t you think he might start adding a few things up?’

  ‘No connection, no connections whatsoever,’ Silverthwaite said with certainty.

  Runcie stopped in front of him, hands on her hips. ‘You dick,’ she said.

  ‘Well, there isn’t.’

  She very much wanted to slap him round the room, smash his face into the wall. She reined in this urge and sat down calmly, opening a ring binder, forcing open the rings with a click, taking out two files – one for each man – and keeping a third for herself.

  They were all exactly the same and were entitled, Henry Christie.

  ‘This is everything I have been able to pull together about this man,’ she explained. ‘Read it and weep.’

  They eyed each other, then opened their files.

  Runcie watched them before reaching into her handbag, finding a packet of cigarettes and a lighter. The cigarettes were long and slim, the filters a cream colour with a gold band. She lit one, inhaled deeply, then exhaled a plume of smoke, knowing that the sensors would not reveal a smoker in the building because the one that had been fitted in this room had been ripped from its moorings on the ceiling.

  They read their Henry Christie bios.

  Silverthwaite finished first. ‘So he’s an SIO with a history,’ he said indifferently.

  Runcie blinked at his crass stupidity but said nothing.

  Hawkswood closed his file.

  ‘Despite your best efforts, this man is coming into this force and he is going to examine two murders we really do not want examining. The chief constable of Lancashire, Fanshaw-Bayley, has now assumed short-term charge of this force and this fucker Henry Christie is going to delve into our investigations whether we like it or not. We have no idea what Jack Culver managed to say to Burnham – or even really how much he knew in the first place – nor what Burnham told Fanshaw-Bayley and Christie. Hopefully not very fucking much. All we really know is that Culver was not happy with the way things were going and had his suspicions, shall we say, about us … and now we’re going under the microscope.’

  ‘But Christie’s just a fuckin—’ Silverthwaite began.

  ‘A fucking what?’ Runcie cut in furiously. ‘I’ll tell you what he is. He’s a guy who makes connections. A standalone incident is one thing; two standalone incidents are something else. He’ll start thinking, start musing … that’s what people like him do. Two oddballs show up at the pub, he goes down concrete steps, his car gets vandalized and he is coming here, slashed tyres notwithstanding, poking around with his black sidekick.’ She eyed Hawkswood for a reaction but got nothing. ‘And guess what, you two are redundant because you’ve shown your stupid faces to him by having tea with him and pretending to be sales reps.’ She rubbed her face ferociously with her free hand, then pinched the bridge of her nose to try to alleviate the dull, stubborn throb across her frontal lobe.

  ‘Blind him with science,’ Hawkswood suggested.

  ‘Or just fuck him and video it,’ was the older man’s idea, but off the look Runcie fired at him, he raised his hands, palms out, and said, ‘Just spitballing. Surely he’s corruptible?’

  ‘Have you actually read a single word I’ve put in front of you? This guy has dealt with everyone from the Mafia to serial killers to God knows who, so no, no, he’s not corruptible.’

  ‘Always a first time,’ Silverthwaite persisted.

  Runcie rolled her eyes, but was actually thinking along those lines. Then she made an announcement. ‘Tullane’s due in.’ Both men cowered visibly. ‘So we’d better think of something fast. We have a lot of things we need to protect.’

  The hotel Daniels had booked was on the old waterfront in Portsea, named the George. Thirty rooms spread over four floors all nicely refurbished with en suites and Wi-Fi connections. The ground floor consisted mainly of a couple of bars, a lounge and a dining room, all done in dark wood with a nautical feel in keeping with the location. It seemed a good choice to Henry, not far from the city centre yet out of the way and close enough to the police station to make it easy.

  They booked into their rooms, which were adjacent but not connected on the second floor, with views over the waterfront.

  Henry was glad to get in and splay out on the double bed for a few minutes. He roused himself before falling asleep and called Alison on the landline number of The Tawny Owl because of the poor mobile signal back there. She didn’t pick up, so he left a message for her to call.

  Then he called DCI Runcie on a number he’d seen in the murder books. That went to automated voicemail and he left a message saying he had arrived with DC Daniels and they would present themselves at Portsea police station at nine the following morning. His next call was another attempt to speak to the boss of the security guy at the motorway service station. This time he connected.

  The boss – his name was Newsham – was nowhere near as cautious as his employee in guarding the security camera footage. When Henry gave him the short timeframe to work with, he promised Henry he would send him the split-screen images the cameras recorded on site but that it would take him a couple of hours to sort. He would send it to the email address Henry provided for him.

  Then he called Daniels in the room next door. No reply.

  Not having an awful lot of luck, he decided to freshen
up by way of a shower and, when he emerged, damp, he saw two missed calls on his phone from Daniels and a text from DCI Runcie. He called Daniels back first and they arranged to meet in the hotel bar at 7 p.m., then decide where to eat, although Henry assumed they would stay in the hotel. He’d glanced at a sample menu in the room and it looked extensive yet reasonable.

  Then he read the text from Runcie. Sorry missed ur call. In bar of George Hotel now for quick intro.

  EIGHT

  Henry rapped on Daniels’ door but got no reply. He stuck his ear to it and heard the shower and some music playing, so he sent her a text then made his way along the creaking corridor, down to the bar.

  It was quiet.

  A couple of old guys were sitting at a brass-topped table, deep in conversation. The only other person was a tall, long-legged woman sitting alone at the bar, hunched over a cocktail of some description.

  Henry went to the bar and ordered a pint of Stella Artois, necking about a third of it in a couple of long gulps, wiping his lips with the back of his hand as he turned and leaned on the bar, wondering if he had missed Runcie. He peered into the darker alcoves in the bar, all empty, then checked his watch. It was a minute past seven.

  As his head moved he became aware of the lone woman further along the bar, eyeballing him.

  ‘You’re looking for a man, aren’t you?’ she asked him. Instantly Henry booted himself mentally for allowing his deep-rooted assumptions to lead his thoughts. Runcie was a female officer, not a man.

  All that equality training gone to waste, he thought. He turned smoothly to her and said creepily, ‘Not now.’

  ‘No harm done … coppering’s still a man’s world at heart.’ She held out a slender arm with long, tapering fingers. ‘Runcie, Jane Runcie, DCI Jane Runcie.’

  ‘Got it,’ Henry said embarrassedly, shaking her hand and feeling the soft warmth of her skin. ‘Christie,’ he countered. ‘Henry Christie …’

  ‘Detective Superintendent Henry Christie,’ she completed for him, and gave a wonky but attractive smile. ‘I know. You’re here to investigate me.’