The Nothing Job

by Nick Oldham

  Henry’s main problem was that he was now out of the detective grapevine and could not keep abreast of what was going on in investigations any more. That sort of thing happened when the head of FMIT cut you out – not many other people wanted to spend a lot of time with you, either, lest they received the same fate.

  He needed to find out – because he was certain of one thing: the man in the fridge was the same man he had come to blows with in a back alley in Preston and had escaped his clutches.

  ‘Finished.’ Tope rose creakily from the vomit-clearing task and shoved the mop into the bucket with a squelch.

  ‘It is clean?’ Bill asked patronizingly. He’d been watching Tope without helping.

  Tope shook his head and brushed past. Henry followed the two of them out of the mortuary, giving a nod and a wave of thanks to the mortuary attendant, who had retreated to his office. He was now playing a song by Doctor and the Medics. It seemed he had a self-burned CD with tracks on it that were in some way related to the world of medicine and death.

  In the car Henry suddenly felt drowned by weakness. He gave Tope, now fully recovered from his bout of illness, the instruction to get back to headquarters and not to spare the horses. Henry wanted to get home, sink a couple of JDs and then collapse into bed with Kate.

  As the three officers sauntered out through the hospital, neither noticed the diminutive figure of the mortuary attendant tiptoeing after them. He opened double doors quietly, peeked down corridors, seeing the three cops turning right at the far end of another corridor in the direction of the exit. He followed silently, his shoes making no sound on the polished surfaces. He managed to follow them out of the hospital and watched them struggle to find the change to pay at the pay station, then walk across to where their car was parked.

  Happy they’d gone, he came back inside and sauntered up to the reception desk, where he used the phone.

  ‘It’s me … You said you wanted to know if anyone came to see Motta … Well, someone did … Three of ’em … Cops, yeah … Don’t know, I was casual about it, didn’t want to freak ’em out … Only one … The guy was a DCI … Yeah, I’m sure … Positive … His name was Christie, Henry Christie.’

  THIRTEEN

  Henry had a restless night, more through the intake of too much Jack Daniel’s than anything else. He never really slept well after too much alcohol, but often kidded himself he did. And though he was feeling pretty wrecked, he rolled out of bed at seven, fixed the shower, because for some unfathomable reason Kate had unscrewed the shower head from the pipe, and was on the road by seven thirty, still damp.

  He’d arranged to meet the ‘A’ Team at headquarters at nine, when they would decide on the plan of the day before shooting down to Merseyside.

  There was something he wanted to do before actually going into headquarters, hence the early start.

  He took the A563 from Blackpool to Preston and pulled up at the new police operating centre in the city just before eight. This was where the investigation was being run into the deaths of the two women who’d been stabbed to death by – he now believed – Jonny Motta.

  The Major Incident Room was strangely quiet. In fact, as Henry peered through the glass panel in the door, it was deserted. He checked his watch to make sure the clocks hadn’t gone backwards or something. To say the least, he was surprised verging on shocked to find the room wasn’t buzzing with activity. For a double murder, unsolved as far as he knew, he would have expected to have had to push his way through a throng of cynical but eager detectives.

  He tried the door and found it locked. With a ‘Harumph’ of annoyance he spun on his heels to find a key, returning a few minutes later with a cleaner who was grumbling about having orders to let no one in other than DCI Carradine, the SIO, who would then decide who came in after him.

  ‘I’m really not supposed—’ the cleaner began in protest.

  ‘Open the door,’ Henry said flatly. Then added, ‘Please.’

  With a sigh she did as bid and allowed Henry access. He ran the side of his hand down the bank of switches and the fluorescent lights clicked and hummed on reluctantly.

  Henry walked slowly around the room.

  The walls were plastered with charts, which he fully expected to see, but nothing else. No photos of the deceased and none of the suspect caught on camera which, again, he found odd. Unless of course the offender had been caught and he didn’t know anything about it, or the enquiry was being scaled down and he didn’t know about that, either.

  His hands were thrust into his pockets, his face screwed up in a puzzled way.

  Behind him the door of the MIR opened.

  He turned.

  Jack Carradine entered and was immediately on the offensive.

  ‘What’re you doing in here?’

  Henry pouted, unfazed. ‘Just bobbed in to see how things were progressing. Y’know – showing some interest.’

  Carradine said, ‘Attention unwelcome … you’re not on this investigation and only I have access to this room, so you shouldn’t even be in here.’

  ‘Actually it’s a bit more than passing interest,’ Henry said.

  Carradine posed with disbelief. ‘What?’

  ‘A line of enquiry for you.’

  ‘Wouldn’t be anything to do with Jonny Motta, would it?’ he sneered.

  ‘Actually, yes,’ Henry said dubiously.

  Carradine gave a snort of derision. ‘He’s not the man.’

  ‘But he …’

  ‘Looks like the guy in the CCTV, admittedly,’ Carradine finished the sentence for him, ‘but it’s not him, trust me.’

  ‘OK, no probs,’ Henry said. ‘Still, do you have any photos of him I could have?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just humour me. OK?’

  ‘Henry, the world has been humouring you for too long. I don’t have any stills and if I had you wouldn’t be having one. I expect you to accept my word that the Merseyside connection has been checked out thoroughly and there is no connection.’

  ‘So how’s the enquiry going?’

  ‘It’s a tough one. The victims haven’t even been properly identified yet. Maybe when that’s done, we’ll take a major leap forwards. Y’know, find out how they lived, find out how they died?’

  ‘Any leads at all?’

  ‘Possibly Albanian prostitutes plying their trade up here. OK?’ he concluded shortly.

  ‘Right, OK, fine,’ Henry said. ‘Just trying to help out.’

  Carradine’s face softened, but not genuinely. ‘Appreciate it. Honestly. Sorry I was a bit – terse – pressure and all that.’

  ‘Whatever,’ Henry said.

  ‘You back down to Merseyside today?’ Carradine said conversationally.

  ‘Yeah – ruffle some feathers,’ Henry said maliciously and watched the shadow cross Carradine’s face which he wasn’t sure how to interpret. ‘You were in Merseyside once, weren’t you?’

  ‘Briefly, years ago.’ It was a dubious answer.

  ‘Probably meet some of your old mates, then. D’you keep in touch?’

  Carradine’s mouth twisted into a cruel grin. ‘Henry, they’ll chew you up and spit you out.’

  ‘Guess I’ll just stick to the bottom of their feet, then.’ He gave Carradine a short nod and made to leave the MIR. At the door, he stopped and turned. ‘One thing, though.’

  ‘And what would that be, Henry?’

  ‘Jonny Motta is the guy I chased on the night of that double murder.’

  ‘And how can you be sure of that?’

  Henry’s eyes narrowed. ‘He just is, and I know it.’

  He went out of the room, and on the corridor outside he picked up pace and by the time he left the operating centre he was almost doing the four-minute mile as he legged the two hundred or so metres to the multi-storey building which was once the main police station in Preston.

  His swipe card still allowed him access to the basement garage. He ran past the closed, locked and inaccessible cell co
mplex, jumped in the lift and took it up to the floor on which the CCTV room was situated, the one he’d visited the night he’d turned out for the girl’s murder.

  And, with shift rotas being what they are, and it being such a small world, he found the same wheelchair-bound CCTV operator on duty, the one with whom he’d had a major fallout for her lack of vigilance. As he pushed through the door, breathless, she looked up from the screens, saw him and her face dropped even further than the one on Jonny Motta’s corpse.

  Because Henry wanted her on his side, he gave her one of his world-famous lopsided grins that he egotistically believed was one of his greatest keys to a woman’s heart. However, this particular wheelchair-bound lady did not seem too impressed. He perched the corner of his bum on the desk in front of her and said, ‘Hi.’

  She gave him a curt nod. Today, it seemed, he wasn’t faring too well in the popularity stakes.

  ‘Can I help you?’ she asked.

  ‘Remember our meeting a few weeks ago?’

  ‘How could I forget?’ She sounded hurt.

  ‘Good … could I get a copy of said CCTV tape on a disc, please? The bit with the man.’ He didn’t add, ‘The man you neglected to see,’ because it might not have been helpful in furthering his cause. But he did add, ‘Please,’ because even if he wasn’t Mr Popular, he was always polite.

  ‘The DCI running the murder has a copy.’ She didn’t look at Henry as she spoke, but kept her eyes glued to her monitors giving her pigeon’s-eye views of the city.

  ‘I’d like a copy, too, please.’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t do that. I’ve been told I can’t release any more copies to anyone without that DCI’s authority.’

  Henry digested this. ‘I’d really like you to get me a copy,’ he insisted.

  ‘Sorry, can’t.’ This time her eyes rose to his, defiantly, triumphantly, mockingly. I must really have upset her, he thought.

  ‘It’s not an option,’ he told her. ‘I want a copy.’ He smiled dangerously. ‘Because it’s more than your job’s worth to refuse to do it.’

  ‘I’ll sue you for disability discrimination,’ she warned him. ‘You’ll be at an employment tribunal before you know it.’

  Henry leaned forward so his face was on a level with hers. He recalled reading somewhere that it was always good practice to get down on to their level. ‘And I’ll get you fuckin’ sacked. I don’t have time to arse about, young lady.’

  The woman’s face set hard and it was clear that the cogs were churning in her mind. Was he bluffing? Was he full of bull? Did he mean it? Did he have the power?

  ‘You’ve already made one faux pas and got away with it,’ he said, adding on the pressure he didn’t really want to. ‘So just do it.’ His eyebrows raised and lowered quickly.

  ‘My relief comes in at eight thirty. I’ll do it then,’ she caved in, not realizing that Henry was actually bluffing and was full of BS. ‘I wouldn’t want to leave the place untended, would I?’

  But what really was bothering Henry was why Carradine had stopped anyone else getting hold of a copy of the tape. It wasn’t as though any evidence could be contaminated because the original should be stored safe and sound in the system somewhere and if it came to court proceedings, then that original would be produced, not copies.

  ‘I’ll get a coffee and come back in twenty minutes,’ Henry told her. ‘Then we can be friends.’

  ‘I don’t understand it,’ she said worriedly, almost verging on hysteria. Henry’s face was now granite.

  ‘Explain,’ he snapped.

  ‘I checked the hard drive storage to run a copy off for you and it wasn’t there.’

  Henry could easily have barked, ‘It wasn’t there! What do you mean, it wasn’t there?’ It’s what he wanted to do and would have made him feel good – i.e. blowing his stack. Instead, with a furrowed brow he said, ‘Does that mean it’s been wiped clean or something?’

  She looked helpless, ‘I guess so.’

  ‘And is that the whole of that particular tape, or just the section I want to see?’

  ‘It’s the file with the bit you want in it. Each file is four hours long, running from midnight onwards. The four hours after midnight on that night aren’t there.’

  ‘Who sets up the files?’

  ‘The computer.’

  ‘Does it also back up automatically?’

  She nodded.

  ‘So there’s a chance there is a backup file. Can you access that and give me a copy from that?’

  She neither nodded nor replied.

  He said, ‘You can’t, can you? Because the backup tape’s not there, is it?’

  ‘No,’ she squeaked.

  ‘Who has access to these files, these computers?’

  ‘Us, the operators, our supervisors and if the police want to see them, they can and we do the copies for evidence if necessary.’

  ‘And you’re sure DCI Carradine has a copy of the incident?’

  ‘Yes. I did it for him.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Henry stood up, then turned back. ‘You must not tell anyone that I’ve been here this morning and found this out, OK?’ He smiled. ‘Our little secret – for the time being.’

  After briefing his team at headquarters and arranging a pool car for each of them, they went their separate ways on their allotted tasks. Henry, deciding to claim mileage for his own car, went to Liverpool in it.

  Before setting off, though, he popped along to the accounts department and checked how much money was remaining in the Operation Wanted fund. He managed to speak to Madeline about this and after some flirting, she told him the news: three hundred and twenty pounds. Not enough to get even halfway to Australia, even by bike, should he have decided it was necessary to recapture the third felon on his wanted list.

  He mentioned about being disappointed that he’d probably never get to Australia and she blurted, ‘I’m going to Florida with John in a month. Disney and Key West. Taking the kids – his two from a previous marriage. Three weeks, sun, sea and scary rides and swimming with dolphins.’

  ‘Phew – that’ll cost a packet.’

  ‘Yeah,’ she smiled, ‘but it’s worth it.’

  Henry told her he hoped she had a good time, then bade farewell, walking out of the HQ building via the garage at the rear in which the chief officers were allowed to park their vehicles. He could not help but notice the top-of-the-range Jaguar parked in the chief constable’s slot. He knew it was definitely the chief’s because it was displaying FB’s personalized number, which he’d had for a few years. Shaking his head with envy – everybody seemed to be spending money like water, except him – he walked out to his second-hand Rover 75. Squinting at it, and with a bit of imagination, it could look like a Jag, but the truth was it was a rubbish car and he regretted trading in his Mondeo for it, God rest its soul. He wished he’d bought another Ford instead.

  A minute later he was on the A59, heading towards Merseyside.

  He’d fixed up a swipe card and fingerprint ID to get into their headquarters and breezed in as though he’d been working there for years: Henry Christie, Merseyside DCI. No one gave him a second glance as he stepped into the lift and then stepped out on to the floor where his tiny office was situated.

  When he reached the door he almost burst into laughter.

  The door was open. It had been smashed open and the lock that Bill Robbins had fitted had been jemmied off with a crowbar, from the looks of the marks on the door jamb. The door itself was virtually hanging off its hinges.

  Henry fought the hysteria and stood on the threshold looking at the devastation within.

  The office had been on fire and the place was a blackened, burned shell and quite obviously the files that had been left locked and secure in the office had been destroyed.

  He took a step inside. The smell of smoke hung and clung.

  There was a noise behind him. It was Detective Superintendent Shafer, who said, ‘You’re in for a bollocking, Henry.’

&n
bsp; ‘Why would that be?’

  ‘Almost burning down Merseyside Police Headquarters – or at least almost ensuring that it almost burned down by affixing an unauthorized lock to the door, thereby delaying entry into the office by several minutes, several vital minutes when the fire alarm went off. If access had been immediate there would have been less damage to the room and, quite possibly, your precious files could have been saved. As it is …’ he shrugged, ‘they haven’t.’

  ‘How did it start?’

  ‘A faulty socket where the kettle was plugged in, we think.’

  Henry turned back to the room, his jaw doing its crunchy rotation.

  ‘Staff were able to force an entry – eventually – and using a hose, stopped the fire spreading.’

  ‘Did the Fire Service attend?’

  ‘Not necessary.’

  Henry’s eyes tried to pinpoint the source of the fire. He’d been to enough arsons to have some idea what he was looking for.

  ‘This is bollocks,’ he said, treading carefully into the office and, taking care not to disturb anything, he peered closely at the offending plug socket and kettle. To him, both seemed pretty unscathed. He sighed, said nothing and looked at the box file on the desks containing the investigation into the shooting of Jonny Motta. He blinked. The fire had destroyed it easily. It was just a charred mess of brittle, black paper.

  ‘Bit of a setback, eh?’

  Henry screwed up his nose. ‘These were just copies,’ he said. ‘We have the originals up at Hutton. Seemed like a common-sense thing to do, copy the whole lot.’ He looked daringly at Shafer, who tried his best not to respond visually or verbally in any way, but Henry could almost imagine steam coming out of the man’s ears, especially when he said, ‘But it wouldn’t matter one way or the other, because we’d decided to start the investigation from scratch anyway.’

  There was nothing to salvage from the room and a few minutes later Henry left the building, having been warned to expect more than a telling-off for adding the lock to the door. He dashed across the dual carriageway to the Albert Dock complex where he seated himself in a café overlooking the inner dock and ordered a latte with an extra shot of espresso. He needed the kick without the bitterness.