Dead Heat

by Nick Oldham

  At the very least, Wickson would make £5 million personally. If it all went to plan.

  Wickson stood in the site office, a portacabin which overlooked Bloomfield Road. A few hundred metres up the road was the football club which, one day, he promised himself, he would own. Just for the fun. He looked across the site, now more or less flattened after demolition. His massive crushers and screeners had moved in, turning the bricks and rubble into saleable hardcore, from which he would make a small fortune.

  There was money to be made from everything.

  Then his face fell as he locked on to the woman detective inspector who had just been to see him. She was parked in her car on Bloomfield Road, mobile phone to her ear. He watched her, a sneer on his face.

  Behind him in the portacabin, Jake Coulton, his head of security, was just getting to the end of a phone call at the desk. He hung up and came to stand behind Wickson, seeing his point of view.

  ‘Bad news,’ Coulton said, mirroring his boss’s thoughts.

  ‘Indeed,’ Wickson said. ‘We need to keep the police at arms’ length. They mustn’t be allowed to start sniffing around . . . Any thoughts?’

  ‘Money buys things, people,’ Coulton said.

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘If we get the stables cleared, like now, don’t hang about, I could be doing some ducking ’n’ diving with the Fire Brigade. If we destroy all evidence of arson and the chief fire officer says it wasn’t arson, who could argue with those findings? That would be one less reason for the cops to be nosing around.’

  Wickson turned and appraised his employee. ‘The reek of petrol was a bit of a giveaway.’

  ‘I’m sure that could be explained away,’ Coulton smiled. ‘But what’s a smell? You can’t bottle it and take it to court. If the price was right . . . I mean, electrical faults cause so many fires, sadly.’

  ‘Don’t they just.’ Wickson bit his lip. ‘Fix it.’

  ‘Will do.’

  ‘But what about the guy with the gun? There’ll be a lot of pressure from that angle. That could be very uncomfortable. The “why” he was here, shooting at you. Now he’s killed two cops they aren’t going to let it go so easy.’

  ‘You know why he was here.’

  ‘I do, but the cops don’t. Thing is, he’ll be back if we don’t sort something,’ he warned.

  Wickson nodded, nostrils flaring. ‘Could we sort it?’

  ‘Let me think about it.’

  Their eyes moved to Jane Roscoe, still sat in her car.

  ‘Bitch,’ Coulton said.

  Wickson sighed. ‘Let’s move a crusher and an excavator up to the stables, start getting the place tidied up.’

  The call was from an unknown number. ‘You were called at 2.05 p.m. today. The caller withheld their number.’

  Henry went on to 1571, the answerphone.

  He had never gone so cold in his life. He recognized the voice immediately.

  ‘Henry, hi, how are you?’ the recorded message began. ‘You’re the only person who has ever got the better of me. I respect that. It also annoys me intensely. So remember one thing, Henry Christie, I’ve got your number and I’ll be calling again – in person.’

  Eight

  Jane Roscoe turned up at Henry’s house next morning at eight. She had brought a pool car for him to use, a Vauxhall Astra with three wheel trims missing and several dents in the bodywork. A very weary-looking vehicle, past its heyday. She knocked on the front door, which was answered by a very frosty Kate Christie.

  ‘Hello, Kate.’

  Kate nodded. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘Brought a car for Henry to use.’ She dangled the ignition key in front of Kate’s nose. ‘But I need him to give me a lift back to the nick.’

  Henry, unaware it was Jane at the door, trotted downstairs and stepped into the hallway. He was taken aback to see her. ‘Jane, hello.’

  ‘Said I’d sort something for you,’ she said through Kate, as though she wasn’t there. She held up the key.

  ‘Oh, thanks.’

  Kate glared at Henry. ‘But she needs a lift back in it.’

  ‘Ahh, right.’

  The three of them stood there for an incredibly awkward moment. Kate made the first move, shoving her way past Henry, muttering, ‘You’d better take her.’ She retreated into the kitchen and closed the door – loudly.

  Henry shot Jane a look that said it all and followed it up by getting close in to her, almost nose to nose, then finding himself unable to say anything.

  ‘She doesn’t know about us, does she?’ Jane asked, a glimmer of a devilish smile on her face. ‘You haven’t spilled the beans?’

  ‘No, I haven’t,’ he whispered hoarsely, then shook his head. ‘Stay there.’

  He went into the kitchen, where he found Kate holding tightly to the edge of the kitchen sink, staring out of the window, her bottom lip pulled up over her top one, trying not to crack.

  ‘What’s up, love?’ He touched her shoulder.

  He was now absolutely certain she knew about him and Jane. He had not told her, nor had anyone else to his knowledge, but somehow she knew. Kate shrugged his hand off her.

  ‘You fool, Henry . . . Why are you doing this . . . getting involved? Can’t you see they’re using you?’

  The relief in Henry’s body was almost visible. She didn’t know!

  He could have danced a jig.

  ‘Honey, it’ll be all right . . . FB’s sanctioned it. It’s all above board,’

  ‘Then why don’t they reinstate you properly?’

  ‘Because what they want me to do wouldn’t work if they did.’

  ‘They could reinstate you and not tell anyone.’

  And that was a good point.

  ‘Gizza hug.’ He held out his arms and she turned into them just as the kitchen door opened and the Tasmanian devil-like Leanne burst in, all energy. Jane had a clear view of Henry with Kate held close to his chest. ‘I still have to go through a discipline hearing, whatever,’ he said weakly. ‘And I’m still a cop, getting paid a cop’s wages.’

  ‘I know . . . but be careful, Henry. That Fanshaw-Bayley has taken advantage of you in the past and her . . .’ Kate looked daggers at Jane. Her voice dropped a semitone. ‘There’s something about her . . . I don’t know . . . I wouldn’t touch her with a bargepole.’

  ‘OK, you two,’ said Leanne, who had been observing this little scene with a mixture of misunderstanding, puzzlement and cynicism. She’d waited long enough. ‘What’s for breakfast?’

  Henry pecked Kate’s cheek. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jane wheel away in disgust. ‘I’ll speak soon, let you know what’s happening.’ He gave Leanne a hug and kiss, grabbed his fleece and followed Jane up the driveway. At the rather bedraggled car, she tossed the key to Henry, who caught it double-handed.

  ‘You drive.’ She got in and Henry slid into the driver’s seat, starting an engine which blew out a cloud of black smoke of atom bomb proportions from the exhaust. The engine sounded rough and out of sync, such was the fate of Constabulary vehicles close to the scrap heap.

  ‘You must have called in some big favours to get me this one,’ he said sarcastically.

  ‘Someone found it rotting in the police garage at Accrington, so don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. At least it’s not local and won’t be recognized.’

  Henry looked round the inside of it. There was a gaping hole in the dash where the force radio set had once fitted. There was a pull-ring dangling from the roof by the door which had once connected to the now-missing police stop sign on the back parcel shelf. The sign might have been missing, but the hinges which held it in place were still there. If he had inspected the outside of the car he would have seen where the word ‘POLICE’ had once been stuck on the doors. It would not require anyone of any great intellect to put two and two together.

  ‘There’s no spare tyre, by the way.’

  ‘Nice,’ he said, driving away.

  Jane sniffed and m
urmured something he did not make out.

  ‘You seem to have the bit between your teeth,’ he commented.

  ‘Henry – I am a scorned woman. I’m over you, but I’m still going to get some enjoyment out of it.’

  He raised his eyebrows.

  ‘So you’re not over me?’

  ‘Oh, yes, I am,’ she said forcefully. ‘But I didn’t expect to be bumping into you so soon and it’s thrown me a bit, OK?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  Jane expelled all the air from her lungs and started again. ‘I know you want to give it your best with Kate, so don’t worry. I won’t do or say anything to jeopardize that – unless you really piss me off.’

  ‘Thanks. I won’t.’

  ‘Want to know how the investigation’s going?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Didn’t think you would.’

  ‘I have good reason not to,’ he explained. ‘If I know too much, I might give something away, then my position’s up the creek.’

  The rest of the journey continued in a strained silence. Henry considered whether or not to tell Jane about the phone call from Verner, but decided not to. It probably wouldn’t achieve much and would make Jane worry.

  Jane was the first to break silence, when Henry stopped on Hornby Road, about a quarter of a mile from the station.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Where you get out.’

  ‘Here? Why?’

  ‘I don’t really want to be seen with any active cops if I can help it. Wouldn’t do my image any good, would it?’

  ‘It’ll take me bloody ages to walk in.’

  Henry closed and opened his eyes very slowly in a way that said he would not be swayed.

  ‘I’m going to go home, have some breakfast. Then I might just have a trip into Manchester.’

  ‘Why? What’re you going to do?’

  ‘Shopping,’ he lied, just to wind her up, although he knew it wasn’t a good idea. ‘Day out with Kate. Pre-planned. Trafford Centre.’

  Jane shot out of the car and slammed the door closed. She stomped off towards the cop shop without a backwards glance, something Henry was getting used to. He manoeuvred into traffic and sailed past her. Neither gave the other a second glance.

  Henry had worked as an undercover police officer in the past. He was one of the sixty or so fully trained u/c detectives in the country. As such he had some fairly close links with surveillance branches in forces across the north-west, and knew where each one of them was based.

  He used this knowledge to make his way to Greater Manchester’s surveillance branch located discreetly on a business estate in Prestwich on the west side of the city.

  It had changed little since he was last there. He drove past the entrance of the high-walled compound and pulled in around the corner, wondering how best to handle the situation.

  He dialled Al Major’s mobile.

  ‘Hullo.’ These people were very tight with greetings because they could never be one hundred per cent sure who was calling them. Criminals spend lots of money trying to track down locations of surveillance units as well as the phone numbers and addresses of surveillance cops.

  Henry introduced himself and kept his reason for calling brief. He said that he’d had authorization from DCI Brindle, his friend he had called the day before. He did not let on that he was suspended or that this was a purely personal enquiry, because it might not have gone down well. He also knew that people like Al Major were very canny people – it came with the territory – so Henry encouraged him to call Brindle just to double-check. He asked him to do it now.

  Reluctantly, Major agreed.

  Literally, whilst he waited for the return call, if there was going to be one, Henry sat and twiddled his thumbs, made a cat’s cradle, did a bit of nose picking and let him mind do some stream-of-consciousness rambling.

  He began to think about coincidences. He truly believed that coincidence was the catalyst to fate. Life was all about coincidences and they, in turn, led to consequences. Such as the reason for him being here today because he had bumped into a missing girl’s mother, a girl he had influenced into joining the cops, setting her off on a journey that may well have resulted in her death. If it had been another officer on the stand at that careers convention, she might still be alive.

  How spooky that was, he thought. Then: not so spooky, actually. He had met people in the strangest circumstances in the past, sometimes without any great consequence. At a Rolling Stones concert in 1982 he had met an old friend he had not seen since junior school in a crowd of 80,000 people. Once on holiday in Portugal, many years before, he had been with Kate in their pre-child days when they were accosted by a bar tout, trying to drum up business for some back-street dive or other in Albufeira. Now that had been a coincidence with consequences, because Henry recognized the lad as being wanted for murder in Blackburn. Henry did not know him personally, but had seen his photo circulated. Much to Kate’s annoyance Henry had let the guy lead them into a bar for cut-price drinks; he then engaged him in conversation and the lad was northern buffoon enough to tell them he came from Blackburn and people called him Norky, two facts that confirmed Henry’s belief. The Portuguese cops visited him two days later. Coincidence to consequence to fate, fate being life imprisonment in this case.

  Yeah, life was just a series of coincidences, some of which had greater ramifications than others.

  His phone rang.

  ‘Hi, Al.’

  ‘You can come round and see me. Want to make an appointment?’

  ‘How about in two minutes?’

  ‘Er, well . . . er,’ Major stalled, stunned.

  ‘I’m in the vicinity. Strike while the iron’s hot?’

  ‘You know where I work?’

  ‘I do. Be there in two shakes of a lamb’s tail,’ he said brightly and ended the call.

  He parked outside the perimeter wall, walked to the gate and pressed the intercom buzzer.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘I have an appointment to see Al Major. DI Henry Christie from Lancashire.’

  ‘Someone’ll be with you in a mo.’

  Henry saw a young guy saunter out of the building.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  Tricky. No badge, no warrant card, no ID. ‘I’m here to see Al Major. DI Christie from Lancs. It’s a while since I was last here,’ he went on quickly, going for the friendly bullshit approach. ‘Last time was when I was working on the Jacky Lee job.’ Henry dropped a name he knew everyone would react to. Lee had been a gangster, a big one, but had met his end gruesomely in Henry’s presence a few years before. ‘I was u/c on that,’ he said, knowing he was pushing it because undercover cops never tell anyone about their work, especially people they’ve never met before. This officer looked young and impressionable. Maybe he could get away with it.

  His eyes lit up.

  ‘Come in then.’ He opened the side gate and let Henry step through. It was pretty much procedure these days that all non-uniformed staff wore their ID cards visible all the time whilst on police premises. He knew he would have to keep this officer’s attention away from the fact that he wasn’t wearing his.

  ‘I was there when he got killed,’ Henry boasted uncomfortably. Even when he was showing off for a purpose, it did not sit easily with him.

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘Nasty. Russian Mafia.’

  ‘Big stuff.’

  They reached the door of the main building as another man appeared. Henry’s eyes focused quickly on his displayed warrant card. It was Al Major. Sergeant Al Major. Sergeant Major. Henry’s hand shot out. ‘Al – Henry Christie.’

  Major’s damp flaccid hand shook Henry’s firm dry one with no enthusiasm.

  ‘Thanks for taking the time to see me. I know it was short notice.’

  ‘That’s OK.’ The other officer excused himself and went into the building. ‘Come in, my office is down here.’ Major took him down a short corridor and turned into the supervisor’s office, which, apart f
rom furniture, computers and mounds of paperwork, was empty. ‘Coffee?’ Henry said yes. Major directed him to a seat, then came back from the filter machine with a mug of steaming black coffee. Major sat at a desk. ‘What can I do for you?’

  Henry explained his meeting with Jo Coniston’s mother, his own very tenuous link to Jo and that he felt a certain obligation to review the job and that he had permission from the GMP hierarchy to do so.

  ‘I don’t think you’ll find much to help you. It was a real strange do, but we put a lot of resources into it and she just vanished, as did Dale O’Brien, her partner. Couldn’t say if they were murdered or not, but it seems a good possibility.’

  ‘Two cops go missing and there’s no trace? Wow? What about their vehicle?’

  ‘No trace either – never found.’

  ‘Any leads at all?’

  Major shook his head. Henry angled his head back slightly and looked quizzically at Major, trying to weigh him up. For some reason Henry was not getting good vibes. The hairs on the back of his neck crinkled up as a very old feeling crept through him. That of deep suspicion. But why?

  ‘Was there any suggestion of a liaison, shall we say, between them?’

  Major shrugged. He glanced at the wall clock in a very obvious way, saying non-verbally to Henry that time was short.

  ‘What was the job that night?’

  ‘Er . . . one of those hit and miss ones. Surveillance on a guy called Andy Turner. Every heard of him?’

  Oh yes, Henry knew Turner. He nodded.

  ‘It was one of those “Let’s see if we can find him cold, then follow him” jobs.’

  ‘Did you find him?’

  ‘Jo spotted him in Rusholme, then we lost contact, basically. They followed him towards Bury, and then lost him on the motorway.’

  ‘And you never see the officers again?’

  ‘That’s about the long and short of it.’