Edge

by Nick Oldham

  Even when he was jailed for four years, Annabel had every intention of remaining true to him, but then she began the ill-fated fling with Johnny Asian, fell in love, got pregnant easily.

  The scenario she ran through her mind was that on his release, she and Charlie would have a civilized discussion, a quiet understanding, maybe one last kiss goodbye. Sort of romantic, in a way. Painful, maybe … not a horrible night of torrential rain and Johnny being led away to be executed like a Taliban prisoner. Two years without daily contact with Charlie had dulled Annabel’s knowledge of just how bad a man he really was and when she saw Charlie swing the pickaxe into Johnny’s leg as he was taken across to the stable, she realized that things had got as bad as they could.

  Escaping from Jake had been the easy part – in spite of the horrendous pain in her stomach following Charlie’s punch. Jake was the dim one in the gang and she convinced him that if he needed to go to the toilet, as he complained he had to, she would stay where she was.

  He went and she had done a runner into the cold, wet night.

  Grabbed her coat, ran into the dark fields, heading down towards Whitworth, eventually bursting into the Cock and Magpie, then found herself being driven back up to the farm by the detective, who had proved to be completely useless as Charlie had embroiled her back into the nightmare.

  And now she was back with Charlie whose anger had not lessened. It had continued to grow with violent intensity.

  After Charlie had grabbed her back into his custody on the track, he had driven her up to the farm, dragged her upstairs and thrown her into the main bedroom, then locked the door.

  After this he had gone on the hunt for Johnny to the hospital and sent Luke and Jake into A&E to deal with him while he stayed at the wheel of the Range Rover.

  Once more, that same cop had intervened and had had the effrontery actually to chase them back to Whitworth, but Charlie had returned victorious and, from what Annabel could hear with an ear pressed to the bedroom door, they had somehow ambushed the cop and driven him away with his tail between his legs.

  She heard footsteps on the stairs.

  She drew away from the door, sat on the edge of the bed, listened to the lock turning, watched the handle go down, the door creak open.

  Charlie looked terrifying, standing at the door.

  Annabel’s whole being contracted, everything in her going to protect the unborn child.

  He stepped in, closed the door softly.

  Said one word. ‘Betrayed.’

  ‘Charlie—’ she began pleadingly.

  He raised a hand, palm out, for silence.

  Her mouth clamped tight shut.

  He stood in front of her, looking down at her through dead eyes.

  ‘Charlie, I don’t feel well,’ she whispered. ‘My stomach. It hurts so much.’

  He wriggled his fingers, inviting her to take his hands. Tentatively she reached out and he raised her gently to her feet. She trembled from head to toe, could hardly keep upright because of the terror that blanketed her. She stood in front of him, swallowing, looking into his eyes.

  ‘Betrayal,’ he whispered.

  ‘I know. I’m sorry. It wasn’t planned.’

  ‘Clearly.’

  She could hardly breathe now.

  ‘You know I’m going to kill him, don’t you?’

  She nodded.

  Then without warning he punched her hard and deep in her stomach with his fist, driving it in with all his power.

  She doubled over as the pain shot through her and all the air rushed out of her body.

  Charlie took a step back and smashed the back of his hand across her head, sending her sprawling across the bed. Then he leapt on to her, straddled her chest and slowly, very deliberately, placed his hands around her slim neck and began to squeeze, softly at first, then ferociously.

  TEN

  FB was still sitting despondently in the inspector’s office when Henry returned. His face hung long, his embarrassment still deep. He looked through tired eyes at Henry as though he had surrendered everything.

  Henry frowned for a moment as he looked at the man who had pretty much ruled most of his career as a detective.

  FB had also been a career detective, up to being a detective chief superintendent, but things changed at and above that rank when cops simply became managers and little else.

  ‘I feel very fucking old,’ FB said. ‘Too old for this, anyway.’

  Henry settled himself on a chair and said, ‘Operational policing is a young person’s game.’

  ‘Yeah – and they can keep it,’ FB said. He shook his head miserably. ‘I can’t believe I fell for that,’ he said absently. ‘I just can’t.’

  ‘Happens to the best of us,’ Henry assured him.

  FB grunted, unimpressed. ‘How are your ducks swimming?’

  ‘Just waiting on a call back from Jerry Tope.’

  ‘Ahh, computer geek guy. Is he still on duty?’

  ‘From the moment he stupidly answered my call.’

  FB chuckled, his mood lightening a little. ‘So you’re going to go and knock on a door?’

  ‘Kick it down if I have to. It’s what I do.’

  ‘It’s what I used to do – a bit, anyway. Always liked to send in the expendables ahead first if at all possible.’

  ‘No expendables available tonight,’ Henry said. ‘Just the unemployables – me and you. The patrol inspector said, and I quote, “they’re fighting in lumps out there”. All expendables run ragged.’

  ‘And you think you need to go and pay this farm a visit tonight?’

  ‘I’d say so.’

  FB thought about it and made a decision. ‘I’m coming,’ he declared.

  ‘Could I send you in first?’ Henry asked irreverently. ‘You could be my expendable.’

  They both laughed … but they were words that would come back to haunt Henry.

  Whilst the distance from the point where Johnny had escaped from the police Land Rover, back over the moor road and down into the tiny village called Weir that straddled either side of the main road, was not so great, pushing against the wind and rain, and suffering from his injuries, it seemed to take him a long time to get to a place where cars were parked up.

  Johnny needed to get a ride and the only way he knew how, other than thumbing a lift, was by stealing a car – something he was good at.

  In Weir, rows of terraced houses lined either side of the main road, with cars parked both ways along the road outside the houses.

  Johnny had two rows to go at.

  He walked slowly through the village in the direction of Bacup, keeping to shadows whilst slyly trying door handles, because he knew the easiest way to steal one was first to get into a car that was already open. It saved having either to force the lock somehow or simply smash a window, which was always a danger point.

  Frustratingly he did not find one that was unlocked. His spirits lifted when he came to the Weir Hotel and saw four cars on the unlit car park, all of which looked old; older meant easier and better for a car thief without tools.

  Keeping to the shadows, he sneaked into the car park.

  The pub was all in darkness, the houses across the road too.

  He looked at the cars, weighing them up.

  The one he chose was an old Peugeot 205, a two-door hatchback. He crouched and crossed over to it and to his absolute joy found it was unlocked.

  He was in it quickly, dismantling the box under the steering column, exposing the ignition wiring. He did it all by touch, expertly running his fingers along wires, knowing from instinct and experience which were the relevant ones that needed ripping out and touching together to fire up the car.

  It started first time.

  He drove it quietly off the car park and didn’t switch on the lights until he was a hundred metres away from the pub, heading towards Bacup.

  His mobile rang. ‘Henry Christie.’

  ‘Me, Jerry.’

  ‘You got something for me?�
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  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ Tope said indifferently. ‘What you asked for, I think.’

  ‘OK, fire away.’ Henry raised his eyebrows at FB, still occupying the inspector’s chair. Henry reached for a pen and paper.

  ‘First off, Johnny Asian: like you said, that’s not his real surname. He is actually Jonathan Richard Goode, born 1992 in Rochdale. Johnny Asian is his nickname because—’

  ‘He’s quite dark-skinned?’ Henry guessed.

  ‘I was going to say I assume that. I have a not too recent photo of him and he looks slightly Asian, but I don’t think he is at all.’

  ‘And?’ Henry urged him.

  ‘Got a couple of convictions from his early teen years for car theft in Rochdale, not on us. Last known address is Rochdale, but that doesn’t mean anything.’

  ‘Associates?’

  ‘Not listed on what I’m looking at; I’ll probably have to delve into GMP’s intel database for that.’

  ‘Do it,’ Henry said. ‘What about Annabel Larch?’

  ‘Bit of form. Shoplifting cautions as a juvie, one minor public order conviction when she was eighteen. Also from Rochdale, last known address there, too.’

  ‘Associates? Boyfriends?’

  ‘Nothing more than that so far.’

  ‘Keep digging.’

  ‘But it’s my bedtime.’

  ‘Mine too, yet here I am, turning out – with the chief constable, of all people – possibly to make some arrests to show shiny-arsed bastards like you how it’s done.’

  ‘Thanks for that,’ Tope said.

  ‘If the cap fits.’

  Tope pressed the disconnect button on his own mobile phone, sat back and closed his eyes. Before long his head dropped forwards, chin on to chest, and he drooled disgustingly before jerking awake. Then he glared at the computer screen and was suddenly a little annoyed with himself. The information he had found out for Henry, whilst valid, had not been very much. In fact, a PNC operator could have found it without much effort and Jerry Tope considered himself a rung or two above PNC operators, valuable though they were. He was cross with himself because he hadn’t tried very hard and was uncomfortable with it.

  However, he was having problems concentrating.

  He knew the remedy for that, so he shuffled quietly down to the kitchen and filtered a strong coffee, laced it with sugar and milk, then carried it back up to his study, plonked himself down again and shook his mouse.

  ‘Right.’ He geed himself into action. ‘Let’s see what I can find.’

  The chief constable had long since given up travelling with much police equipment, other than his personal radio and old-style handcuffs, so Henry decided that he needed to be kitted out as if he was actually serious about doing a ride-along with him. That meant finding him some gear.

  Fortunately the patrol inspector was still racing around the police station and Henry collared him to explain his requirements.

  ‘I need a stab vest for the boss, plus a utility belt with CS, handcuffs, a baton and a torch, and if there’s a hi-viz jacket knocking about, it might be useful.’ The last item was the short waterproof jacket worn by most officers when out on patrol. If he and FB were going knocking on doors in the rain and the darkness, Henry thought it would be prudent to be wearing clothing that easily identified them as cops. Henry already had one, but the chief, it transpired, had not.

  Another irony, Henry thought. The chief would gladly bawl anyone else out for not having equipment; it was that well-worn rule of management, ‘Do as I say, not as I do.’

  ‘Follow me.’ The inspector beckoned. He took Henry to a storage room on the first floor in which a lot of things had been discarded. He found a tattered hi-viz jacket that looked roomy enough to encompass the chief’s body mass, plus an old utility belt which, he explained, belonged to an officer who had recently been sacked. The guy, in a fit of pique, had unceremoniously dumped all his gear at the front door of the nick and it had all subsequently been put into storage with a view, eventually, to sending it back to clothing stores. He then led Henry back to the sergeant’s office where he unlocked the CS store. Henry and FB each signed out a canister. He also managed to find each of them a small Maglite torch (but made no promises about the battery life) and an extendable baton.

  Henry got his own gear from the boot of his Audi, cringing, almost crying again at the sight of the damage to the car caused by the baseball bat attack.

  Back in the sergeant’s office, FB put on the stab vest, then the hi-viz jacket, then wrapped the thick leather utility belt around his wide circumference, rather like wrapping a saddle strap around an elephant. He inserted the CS gas canister into its slot, then the baton into its loop and the torch into its pouch.

  Henry was doing the same, experiencing a bit of a thrill of excitement at this prep work.

  When both men were fully kitted out, they appraised each other.

  ‘Lookin’ good, boss,’ Henry said.

  ‘And you, officer.’

  FB checked himself in the full-length mirror. It was the closest he had ever been to actually putting on a uniform for operational reasons in about thirty years. He occasionally wore one for ceremonial or other duties which required him to be in blue, but otherwise he avoided it like the plague. ‘I’m not sure what I look like,’ he said disconsolately.

  ‘A cop what means business,’ Henry said, trying to big him up a bit. Losing the prisoner seemed to have had a very big negative effect on him.

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ he said, turning as if he was trying out a new suit, looking at how it fitted around his rump, ‘I’ll have that. Mean and nasty.’

  Henry found the patrol inspector again and asked him if there was a large-scale map of Whitworth. There was. Henry, FB and the inspector unrolled it and laid it flat on a desk, pinning it down with radios and, inexplicably, a battery-powered salt grinder.

  They tried to pinpoint Britannia Top Farm. Although it was quite a detailed map, they couldn’t see it, even as Henry circled his forefinger on the area where he supposed it might be, following the route he had taken with Annabel, past Abel Kirkman’s place, up to the point where he had stumbled on the assault on the farm track.

  ‘Doesn’t seem to be there,’ he mused, frowning. ‘There’s Abel’s place, then Red Pits Farm – but I assume we drove past that one …’

  ‘Maybe you misheard?’ the inspector suggested politely.

  ‘Always possible, I suppose,’ Henry conceded, his eyes roving the map. ‘There’s Britannia Quarries, which we know of old.’ He glanced at FB, who blinked. ‘We went to a murder there many moons ago.’

  ‘Yeah, I recall … long time ago,’ FB fibbed.

  ‘So,’ Henry mulled, ‘how do we find it?’

  ‘Knock on doors?’ FB suggested. ‘Isn’t that what cops do?’

  The inspector ducked out of the room and came back a moment later having snaffled a Thomson Local directory which he was flipping through under the farm listings. ‘Not in here.’

  ‘Might not be a real farm, y’know, could just be a converted farmhouse or barn or something,’ Henry said.

  ‘In that case, let’s knock on some doors, shall we?’ FB said, now impatient.

  Henry nodded. He liked knocking on doors.

  ‘I mean, if you are worried about this girl Annabel, and these guys did attack you with bats,’ FB said, ‘let’s get going, show these young buckos how you do it.’

  ‘Yeah, I am actually quite worried about her,’ Henry said. ‘I do wonder why they grabbed her … can’t quite work that one out. So, yeah, I’m concerned about her but I also want to catch the little gits who assaulted me and battered my car.’

  ‘Hiya babe.’

  Henry stood under the protection of the front awning of the police station, the rain still falling heavily. Despite the waning charge on his mobile phone battery, he had decided to make one last call home before setting off to Whitworth. Alison had picked up the phone at the Tawny Owl quickly.

  ‘Hello.’
She sounded cool and clinical.

  Henry gulped. This evening was not going well in so many ways. ‘You OK?’

  ‘I am.’ Pause, then, ‘Where are you Henry? M6 northbound?’

  ‘Still stuck in Rossendale.’

  Her impatient intake of breath was very audible.

  ‘Sorry, but things’ve kinda got complicated … need to go and rattle some cages.’

  She tutted and said, ‘Henry,’ with frustration.

  ‘I know. Got to be done, though, love.’

  ‘Well, take care. How are your injuries, by the way?’

  ‘Sore. Car’s not very happy now, either.’

  ‘What?’

  Henry explained and she said, ‘Jesus, you’re a walking disaster.’

  ‘I know. Is Rik there?’

  ‘I’ll put him on.’

  There was rustling on the line, an unidentifiable whisper, then Rik Dean’s voice came on. ‘Henry, what the heck’s happening in the land of the lost?’

  ‘Just got caught up in some shenanigans,’ Henry said, explained a little and concluded, ‘just have to see it through.’

  ‘But you’re OK?’

  ‘I’m with FB, how could I be anything other?’

  ‘Yeah, course.’

  ‘How is the prison officer murder going?’

  ‘Not sure yet, but there will be a full team on it tomorrow, incident room at Preston is sorted, eight a.m. kick-off.’

  ‘Good. Put Ali back on, will you?’

  She came back on the line. ‘Henry?’

  ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can, love,’ he promised.

  ‘Good,’ she said firmly, then, ‘Henry?’

  ‘What, sweetie?’

  ‘Can this be the last time? I … well, you know what I feel … I want you back here, not gallivanting all over the place at stupid o’clock, getting battered.’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’

  She had softened now and they exchanged a few lovey-dovey words and hung up. As he did so he noticed that his screen was warning of a low battery. He stood there for a few moments, watching the rain tipple.

  He could empathize with Alison’s point of view. She had previously been married to a soldier who had been serving in Afghanistan. She too had been a soldier, a medic. One day her husband had gone out on a routine patrol with his unit and never returned. He and his colleagues had been ambushed in a tiny village and stoned to death. As much as she had moved on from the horrors of those days, they still haunted her occasionally and, whilst Henry was unlikely to encounter situations nearly as dangerous as those her husband had faced, she was understandably wary when Henry was late coming home. She was desperate for stability and safety and for Henry to retire so they could live and work together full time – and get married.