The Nothing Job

by Nick Oldham

  ‘You took those girl’s panties from the murder scene and planted them in the suspect’s car,’ Henry whined. ‘And I was dumb enough to be a part of it.’

  ‘Look, Henry.’ The chief pointed a fat, sausage-like finger at his subordinate. ‘You can’t even begin to prove that.’

  ‘I saw the scene and I distinctly recall her knickers were down around her left ankle.’

  ‘But yet the crime-scene photo does not show that,’ FB said firmly.

  ‘Because you snaffled them before the SOCO got there. I remember seeing them.’

  ‘Memory is such a fuzzy thing,’ FB said blandly.

  ‘Then you secreted them in the suspect’s car, which had already been searched and nothing was found. And then you got me to re-search it and voila! Girl’s knickers under the driver’s seat and naive, dickhead me just went, “Uuh, fancy that, we must’ve missed them first time”.’ Henry put on a dumb voice for that last bit.

  ‘Exactly what happened. The first search wasn’t thorough enough and then the second one was. You did a great job, Henry, and a man got convicted of a murder he did commit.’

  ‘That was the only evidence against him,’ Henry protested, his ring-piece twitching madly.

  ‘And what you thought you saw at the scene you didn’t really see and there’s no way you can prove what you thought you saw. The SOCO photos don’t lie – not in those days, anyway. The pre-digital era.’

  Henry baulked inwardly as he realized that FB knew he had found the crime-scene photos, something which had taken a lot of doing. Word must have got back to the chief somehow.

  ‘Look, the guy’s son has just been to court for harassing you and Kate and almost killing her into the bargain just because he thought – thought – that evidence had been planted which incriminated his dear old dad, who has now croaked in prison anyway. His claims were fully investigated during his trial and found to be groundless, as you fucking well know!’ Another sausage finger jabbed in Henry’s direction. ‘If you thought I planted the evidence, why didn’t you speak up in court?’

  Henry looked away, shamefaced. ‘Because I didn’t, but I should’ve done,’ his voice rose defiantly.

  ‘And because there’s no evidence of it, that’s why.’

  ‘There’s my evidence, my recollection.’

  FB snuffled a grunt of contempt and checked the wall clock.

  There was a beat of spiky silence between the two officers, then Henry’s brow furrowed as he thought of something.

  ‘What?’ FB said suspiciously, sensing Henry’s sudden stiffening.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said quickly, looking at the boss of Lancashire Constabulary. He and Henry had a long history that had begun at the scene of Jenny Colville’s murder in 1982. Since then they had maintained a screwed-up relationship based very firmly in FB’s favour, who would use Henry’s undoubted skills, often ruthlessly, to achieve results, then toss Henry aside when it suited. Henry knew he had some things to thank FB for, but on the whole the senior officer was more in Henry’s debt than vice versa.

  ‘The devil,’ FB said, removing his glasses and cleaning them on a tissue, ‘makes work for idle hands, or something like that,’ he declared. ‘Trouble with you, Henry, is that you’ve too much bloody time on your hands, too much time sat around on your arse, thinking and getting twisted up about things.’ He shook his head sadly, replaced his glasses and adjusted his wristwatch, which Henry noted was a chunky Rolex. ‘How long before you retire?’

  ‘Nine months.’

  ‘Do you intend to go?’

  He shrugged. ‘Dunno.’

  ‘Mm … you know that guy was guilty of murdering that girl.’

  Henry did know. Because of the circumstances of why the offender’s son was harassing Henry, and other incidents, it had been necessary to re-examine the murder case, and a DNA test had been carried out which conclusively linked the man to the murder. Henry knew the man was guilty for sure, yet it didn’t excuse the planting of evidence. Somehow it attacked his sense of justice.

  ‘If those panties hadn’t been found in his car, he would not have been convicted of her murder based on the rest of the evidence at that time, because DNA wasn’t around then. If that had happened, he would have killed again – and again …’

  ‘You can’t be sure of that,’ Henry said weakly, though he knew it to be true.

  Once again the men regarded each other stonily. ‘Yes I can, because I think he killed before and we could not prove it.’

  Henry’s mouth clamped shut.

  ‘Henry,’ FB said patiently, ‘if you want to pursue this, go ahead, I can’t stop you. But you’ll never prove it, not in a month of Sundays. You’ll stir shit, people’s names will get blackened and there’ll be no end benefit from it. No one will emerge smelling of 4711 … and your already shaky reputation will crumble even further. Think about it.’

  FB sat back and twiddled his thumbs ruminatively on his belly. ‘How about getting off your constantly spreading lardy arse and getting involved in some real police work for a change?’

  Henry barely suppressed a laugh. In the last two years he’d been involved in the disruption of a major terrorist atrocity in the north-west when two excellent officers had been brutally murdered by a man intent on assassinating the American State Secretary and also been involved in a major undercover operation … but he kind of knew what FB was getting at. He’d become involved in these jobs more through luck than anything and he was pretty desperate to break out of the office and get back to the sharp end of policing on a regular basis, rather than just in guest appearances.

  However, he was suspicious of FB – as ever. ‘What would that be?’

  When FB winced slightly, Henry’s low expectations sank even further.

  Nothing jobs, he thought sourly.

  FB reached across his desk for a buff file, which he opened. It was thin, with a few sheets of paper in it. ‘Time, resources,’ he said painfully, ‘have meant we haven’t been in a position to chase these up.’ His voice was almost apologetic, confirming Henry’s guess. He tried to keep a look of exasperation off his face but his flickering eyelids were a dead giveaway.

  ‘Hey – you don’t have to do this. I just thought you might like to get out and about again. I can’t get your job back on FMIT, nor can I wangle a place for you on SOCA or any divisional CID, so you can take this, or leave it. I’ll fix up someone to stand in for you at Special Projects, so you don’t need to worry about that, just concentrate on this.’ He tapped the file. ‘I’ve siphoned off some travel and expenses money from another budget because I thought we needed to show the public we’re doing something about this problem and these are pretty high-profile cases. But I can always find someone else.’

  FB closed the file.

  Henry held out a hand and FB passed it across.

  ‘See accounts about the money. It’s under Operation Wanted. Have fun.’

  Henry nodded shortly and rose to his feet without opening the file.

  ‘Not want to see what’s in there?’

  ‘I’ll keep it as a surprise.’

  ‘Good hunting,’ FB said. ‘And Henry?’

  Henry paused at the door. ‘Let it go?’

  FB gave him a nod and a wink.

  Henry did a mental coin toss. The penny fell heads-up, deciding him to avoid his office upstairs in one corner of the Special Projects larger office. Instead he trotted down to the dining room on the ground floor, which was alive with breakfast traffic. He took his place at the back of the queue and served himself with a toasted sausage sandwich and a large black coffee from the machine. He carried them to a table in the corner.

  He arranged his sandwich, drink and file carefully in front of him, noticing for the first time that the word ‘WANTED’ was emblazoned across the front of the file in red letters. Henry still did not open it.

  His sandwich tasted guiltily wonderful, the machine-brewed coffee less so, being bitter and sludgy.

  It was only as
the soporific effects of the food and drink wafted over him did he open the file and browse through the meagre contents.

  He tutted and said under his breath, ‘So I’ve become a bounty-hunter now, have I?’

  FOUR

  With the thin file under his arm, Henry made his way to the Intelligence Unit situated in the front corner of the ground floor of the headquarters building. He placed his thumb on the fingerprint ID entry system, tapped in a security code and entered a busy, pleasant office. He paused just inside the door, his eyes roving: the DI in the far glass-fronted office was chatting earnestly to the DS behind the closed door; everyone else was busy at their workstations, faces transfixed on computer screens or reading paper files. Spotting DC Jerry Tope sitting at a desk with his back to him, Henry grinned. He would do. Tope was a quiet, diligent officer who had been of great assistance to Henry on a complex murder enquiry a while back. It had been Tope’s crucial analysis of intelligence and facts that had helped steamroller that investigation to a successful conclusion. And Henry quite liked the guy, which was a plus point.

  Henry approached and stood behind him, allowing his presence to seep into Tope’s psyche, making him turn round and raise his eyebrows.

  ‘Saw your reflection in the computer screen,’ Tope said, squinting up. ‘Can I help you, Henry?’

  ‘May I?’ Henry indicated the chair positioned at the gable end of Tope’s desk.

  ‘Help yourself.’

  Henry spun and slotted his backside on to the plastic chair, clutching the file to his chest. Tope eyed it and him with scepticism. ‘You OK, Jerry?’

  ‘Tip-top. You?’

  ‘Ditto.’

  Tope’s eyes fell to the file again.

  ‘You busy?’ Henry asked.

  ‘Under an avalanche.’ He smiled tiredly. ‘Just been doing some Intel work on that double murder, but they don’t want me anymore, so I’m catching up on everything else.’

  ‘Good.’ Henry placed the file on the desk, opened it and turned it so Tope could see its contents. The DC picked up the three sheets and scanned them briefly, picking out the names.

  ‘Ring any bells?’ Henry asked.

  ‘All three,’ he confirmed. He went through the sheets, one at a time. ‘Anthony Downie, Jane Kinsella and last but not least, Paulo Scartarelli.’ He looked at Henry.

  ‘And their connection is?’

  ‘No actual connections as far as I know, other than all three are fugitives from justice,’ he said grandly, with a short smile. He placed the sheets back into the file one at a time. ‘Murder, murder and more murder … not nice people … So, is there a connection I don’t know about, Henry?’

  ‘Yep – all three fugitives are now my business. Acting on a direct edict from the chief constable no less, I’ve been selected from many, many volunteers and pressed men to bring these so-called fugitives to face justice in order that the courts can immediately release them again,’ Henry said proudly.

  Jerry Tope’s nickname was ‘Bung’ – short for ‘Bungalow’ – because it was claimed that he had ‘nowt up top’. How he had accrued the moniker was a mystery because it was the direct opposite of the truth. Tope was a deeply intelligent man who had found his niche, appropriately, in the world of police intelligence where he was an analyst and no one’s fool. Which was why, when he looked at Henry, squinting again, Henry wasn’t in the least surprised to see that his little white lie had been seen through instantly.

  ‘Shit end of the stick comes to mind,’ Tope said.

  Henry gave the impression that he was going to counter this assertion for a moment before relenting and saying, ‘Not far off the mark there, Jerry.’

  ‘As I recall, the chief got his arse soundly thrashed at the last Police Authority meeting. Apparently, one of the members got a bee in his bonnet about villains at large, these three in particular – and asked the chief what the hell he’s been doing about catching such people. I believe there’s actually six hundred wanted people on our books. These three miscreants are the cream of the crop.’

  Henry suddenly liked Jerry Tope even more. He kept his ear to the ground and anyone who used the word miscreant went straight into Henry’s top ten. He’d be saying shenanigans next.

  ‘You’re telling me things I don’t know, Jerry. I’m not a political animal and the Police Authority doesn’t interest me in the least.’

  ‘I just read the newspapers. It’s what I do.’

  ‘Mm, I don’t,’ Henry admitted.

  ‘I hope you’ve got some sort of budget,’ Tope said.

  It was a cautious ‘Why?’ from Henry.

  ‘Well, let’s see …’ Tope picked up the first sheet. ‘Not too much of a problem with Downie, he’s supposed to be local-ish; Jane Kinsella could be in Australia and Paulo Scartarelli is supposed to be in Cyprus, linked up with some Maltese gangs operating out there, so they say. Living like an old-style Mafioso in the mountains, or something … so there could be a bit of travelling involved.’

  ‘FB said he’d siphoned some money from some budget or other specifically for this.’

  ‘Want me to find out?’

  Henry’s eyebrows came together. ‘And how would you do that?’

  Tope twinkled his fingers like a master pianist over his computer keyboard and despite Henry’s stomach doing a somersault, he said, ‘Fetch, boy,’ then leaned back in the creaky chair to watch a computer maestro at work. His fingertips danced across the keys as Henry recalled what a bit of a whiz Tope was in the Ethernet. He had the ability to hack into databases all over the world.

  However, Henry’s attention was distracted from this virtuoso performance by the entry into the office of a newly promoted DCI by the name of Jack Carradine. It was this man who had replaced Henry on what had been the SIO team, but was now FMIT, the Force Major Incident Team. Carradine was one of Dave Anger’s buddies, or arse-lickers, as Henry preferred to call them. Anger was the detective chief superintendent in charge of FMIT, having been brought in a few years earlier on a free transfer from Merseyside Police. Henry was under no illusion: Anger was slowly surrounding himself with his cronies. Carradine was a Scouser and went way back with Anger, so it must be true. Stereotypically, Henry wondered if the two men wore shell suits when off duty.

  Carradine blanked Henry out as he strutted across to the DI’s office, but Henry rose to his feet and collared him.

  ‘Jack – how’s it going?’

  ‘Henry. Didn’t see you lurking there.’

  ‘Whatever,’ Henry said indifferently. ‘Just wondering how the job at Preston is going.’ Carradine was the SIO who took up the reins of the double murder Henry had initially covered.

  ‘You mean the one where you took a dead passenger out for an early morning drive and nearly completely fucked up any possibility of getting any useful evidence from that crime scene? That one, you mean?’

  Henry’s bottom lip twisted.

  ‘You know, Henry, you are a fucking laughing stock, pal.’ He gave him a patronizing tap on the shoulder and eased past, end of conversation.

  Henry stood immobile for a moment, getting a grip on himself, his fingers folding and unfolding into tightly clenched fists, his breath shortening as ire rose. All eyes in the office were on him, some sniggerers – he thought – some waiting for an outburst which would entertain them all in their drab little day.

  Slowly he sat, controlling his breathing, blinking away the red mist.

  Jerry Tope eyed him worriedly. ‘You OK, boss?’

  ‘Not really,’ Henry said tightly.

  ‘The man’s a knob, if that’s any consolation.’

  ‘A knob with my job.’ He inhaled deeply and blinked to shake himself out of his jagged state, then looked at Tope, self-control having returned. ‘Nearly lost it there,’ he admitted.

  ‘He’ll get his comeuppance.’

  Henry smiled. ‘Comeuppance – another good word, Jerry. I like a man with a bit of vocabulary … So, found anything?’ Tope had been tapping aw
ay at his computer keys.

  ‘Thing is, once you know your way around the force intranet, if you’ve got half a computer-literate brain in your noggin, you can just about spy on anyone in the organization – email, files, departments, whatever.’

  ‘But can’t you be traced?’ Henry asked, not completely sure he wanted to be a party to Tope’s hacking.

  The DC gave him a withering glance.

  ‘I’ll take that as a no.’

  ‘Here we go.’ Tope pushed the monitor around so Henry could see without craning his neck. It showed a lot of figures and balances. ‘This is one of the chief’s special accounts … I mean, there’s money sloshing around the constabulary all over the place … this is Operation Wanted and there’s twenty-five grand in it from somewhere … This’ll be the money siphoned from somewhere else.’

  ‘Twenty-five grand?’ Henry hissed. ‘Where’s it come from?’

  Tope tapped a few more keys. ‘Backtracking here,’ he explained. ‘Four grand from some Home Office funding for street crime …’ More keys tapped. ‘Eight from the central training budget – everybody nicks cash from training …’ Tap, tap, tap. ‘Three from corporate development.’

  ‘OK, heard enough. Unbelievable.’ Henry raised his hands in surrender.

  ‘All kosher, though.’

  ‘Not saying it isn’t, Jerry … just shows that money can be found from anywhere when necessary. Twenty-five grand, though. Seems a lot. Maybe a trip to Cyprus isn’t completely out of the question,’ he mused. ‘Never been. They say it’s pretty nice.’

  ‘I’ve been. I could show you around,’ Tope volunteered hopefully, batting his eyes at Henry.

  ‘I’m afraid it’s a job for a man of rank,’ Henry said sonorously. ‘Anyway, these miscreants.’ He patted the file. ‘Can you dig out everything we have about them all?’

  There was a roar of muted laughter from the DI’s office, then his door opened and DCI Carradine stepped out, the DI in tow. Henry wound around in the chair, a dark shadow crossing his face as he watched Carradine shake the DI’s hand effusively and then walk back across the office. As he passed Henry he gave him another pat on the shoulder, but didn’t look at him, and carried on walking towards the door. It was all Henry could do not to jump up after him and fell him with a kung-fu-style kick in the back.