The Nothing Job

by Nick Oldham

  He walked through the hastily arranged tables, which were already starting to conform to the model in the MIR operating manual.

  Henry loved it. He felt like he was in his element. There was nothing better than being part of a murder squad, no buzz to beat it.

  And it was something that had been cruelly taken away from him by the advent of Dave Anger at the helm of FMIT.

  Henry knew he would probably have no part in this investigation and it hurt to think so. He’d already been informed that Jack Carradine had been put in charge and was calling the shots. That had been revealed to him whilst in the casualty waiting room.

  Henry spoke to a detective sergeant he knew, one of those reliable specialists brought in for his knowledge of evidence-logging.

  ‘Hello, Henry.’

  ‘Where’s the SIO?’

  The DS pointed in the direction of the corridor. ‘CID office … There’s a briefing going on.’

  Inside, Henry growled. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Henry – you don’t know where Jerry Tope is, do you? I know he was doing a bit of work for you, wasn’t he?’

  ‘On his mobile, I assume. Why?’

  ‘We’ve been trying to contact him for this job, to run an intelligence cell.’

  ‘I’m not sure exactly where he is.’

  ‘OK, ta.’

  Henry went to the CID office. He paused outside, his hand on the doorknob, suddenly feeling a little woozy. He wondered if he was suffering from delayed shock from the crash. Maybe he shouldn’t even be at work, but back home being tended by Kate.

  He knew that if it had been a normal day, not one on which a double murder had occurred, or one which he’d been shot at by a gang of assassins, then he might well have gone home, put his feet up and watched Diagnosis Murder, rooting for Dick van Dyke.

  However, today wasn’t like that.

  He’d stumbled across a murder being committed, almost took a bullet himself, chased the offenders and almost come to another sticky end under the wheels of a heavy goods vehicle. So there was no way on God’s earth was he going to go home and suck his thumb.

  He recovered his composure and opened the door to the CID office.

  The office was not particularly large and it didn’t take much to fill it, and the twenty-five to thirty detectives, some sitting, most standing, did just that. Henry had to ease his way behind them, then stand on tiptoe to see over their heads to the front of the office where the SIO was addressing them.

  DCI Carradine was the centre of attention and it was clear from what he was saying that Henry had missed the briefing almost in its entirety.

  ‘So that is where we stand,’ Carradine said, drawing the briefing to a conclusion. ‘That will be the focus of the enquiry, because we believe that the second man in the cell was just unfortunate – wrong place, wrong time – and he was killed simply because he was a witness.’ Henry guessed that Carradine was talking about Downie. ‘These men,’ Carradine went on, ‘are obviously very dangerous individuals and we are dealing with a highly organized group of people who will stop at nothing to further their aims and stay free.’

  Henry caught sight of Dave Anger sitting down at the front of the office next to the standing Carradine. Henry’s nostrils flared.

  Carradine continued, ‘Fortunately no police officer was injured this morning, but we do salute the obvious bravery of PC Howard … Rob, where are you?’ Carradine looked around and beckoned Howard out of a knot of uniformed personnel. ‘It’s guys like this who make Lancashire Constabulary the police service it is, the best in the country.’ Carradine beamed at the old rugged cop, who shifted with embarrassment in front of everyone. A little ripple of applause went round the room, with one or two appreciative ‘well dones’ added. Carradine slapped Howard on the shoulders and the PC moved gratefully away from the limelight. ‘You’ll get a bravery award for this, I’ll personally see to that … However, guys and gals,’ he said turning his attention to the rest of the audience, ‘from now on we do not put ourselves in the firing line for this job. Everything is done by the book and in reference to the health and safety of everyone.’ Carradine took a breath. Henry wondered if he should put up his hand and say, ‘I nearly got shot, too. Will you pat me on the back? Put me forward for a bravery award? Bet you won’t, you fucker.’ He didn’t. In spite of the very real temptation. Carradine continued, ‘So, folks, you know your pairings, so go and see the allocator in the dining room, which is now the MIR. He will already have some jobs for you to be doing. Get on with them. The sooner we move, the better chance we have of catching these villains. Any questions before you go?’

  Somebody asked, ‘Any news on the Range Rover?’

  ‘Nothing yet. Checkpoints are in place, the helicopter’s up, GMP and Merseyside have been alerted, and we’re about to brief the news media, so it’ll be regional soon. I’m sure it’ll turn up sooner rather than later. Anything else? No? OK, folks, let’s get to it. Back here for debrief at 8 p.m. unless told otherwise.’

  The briefing dispersed, detectives filtering out past Henry at the door, one or two nodding at him, others just averting their eyes as though he was a pariah.

  Eventually everyone had gone with the exception of Carradine and Anger at the front of the room.

  Henry sauntered towards them.

  Anger stood up, collecting a sheaf of papers. ‘Good brief, Jack,’ he was congratulating the DCI, probably for Henry’s sake, then he turned to Henry. Carradine stood slightly behind him, smirking.

  ‘Ah, Henry, I wondered when you’d show your face again,’ Anger said scathingly. ‘Not too badly injured, I hope?’

  ‘I’m OK. Luckily no one was injured.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear that, I really am,’ Anger said insincerely.

  ‘Yeah, we’re all glad you’re OK,’ Carradine added, but shook his head.

  ‘Unfortunately I missed the briefing,’ Henry said. ‘I was otherwise engaged in casualty, as you know. I wonder if you have the time just to run things past me again, bring me up to speed.’

  Both men regarded him as if he were stupid.

  ‘Why would we want to do that, Henry?’ Anger asked.

  Henry’s heart began whamming inside his chest. ‘Because …’ he began.

  ‘Nope,’ Anger said sharply. ‘You won’t be part of this investigation in any capacity whatsoever … Having said that, don’t go anywhere.’ He pointed at Henry. ‘You stay here in this building because we want to talk to you. Get comfy, get a brew. We have a press briefing, then we’ll be busy with other aspects of the job and then we need to have a little sit down and a chat with you.’

  ‘I tell you what,’ Carradine chirped up. ‘You can make yourself useful if you want to – get into the MIR and help get it set up.’ He said that as though he was doing Henry a great big favour. ‘That should keep you busy enough until we have the time to see you.’

  It could have been much worse. The administration of Major Incident Rooms was something Henry had been involved in as a DC and he had enjoyed the responsibility of getting a few up and running in his time. It was therefore no hardship to assist the office manager to get it all running smoothly, to bring in the HOLMES computer terminals, that is the Home Office Large and Major Enquiry System, and start to get information loaded on to them.

  He knew what he was doing, and despite the fact he wanted to be in charge, he swallowed his pride and made himself useful because an enquiry such as this needed to have a well-run back room on which the detectives doing the jobs could rely.

  Yes, it could have been much worse, but it could also have been much better.

  And the problem was, Henry wasn’t sure how to take things forward in relation to what he knew about Dave Anger and everything else he had uncovered in the past few days which was unsettling.

  Did Anger’s meeting with Corrigan have anything to do with this morning’s murders, Corrigan having that connection to Scartarelli?

  That was the biggest question burning a very
deep scar in his brain.

  At one point he made his way down to the enquiry desk to see Donaldson and Georgia, but found they were not there. He tried to contact them by phone, but got nowhere with that. Nor could he find Bill Robbins, who seemed to have done a disappearing trick, too. He guessed Bill was helping Donaldson to sort out the damaged Jeep and that Georgia had gone along with them. He expected to hear from them soon and left messages for each of them on their mobiles, a particularly caustic one on Donaldson’s.

  The day went quickly by because he made himself busy and soon it was 8 p.m. and time for the debrief. Again, Henry would normally have found this to be an exciting time, another of those important stages in a murder enquiry when all the detectives came together at the end of the day, buzzing with news or the lack of it, reporting back, doing a bit of bonding and hopefully going for a few jars to bring the day to a close afterwards.

  Henry felt detached from it as he listened to the jacks going through what they had uncovered.

  Everything was positive, but there were no firm leads – and the Range Rover hadn’t turned up.

  Carradine listened and then told them what he had been doing that day – arranging the post-mortems, supervising the terrible crime scene, press liaison, intelligence and other such stuff. Anger sat by him, proudly watching his protégé.

  At the end of the debrief, Anger rose to his feet, looking solemn.

  ‘Thanks for all your effort today, it is much appreciated. As you’ve been told, there will be many more detectives and uniformed personnel drafted in from tomorrow and this investigation will really get going.’ He bunched his fist to emphasize his words. ‘We will look for a 7 a.m. briefing – so everyone get a good night’s sleep because tomorrow will be a long day and I imagine that every day after that will be a long slog, so you need to prepare yourselves for that likelihood. This will be a long investigation, make no bones about it, but I know that with people like you, it will be a successful one. So, thanks again and good night. I’ll see you all in the morning.’

  They dispersed, Henry overhearing a few plans for drinks, although no one asked him along.

  Not that he wanted to go. He wanted to speak to Dave Anger and then get home, regroup his team and decide on the way forward.

  As the last of the detectives left the office, Henry, Anger and Carradine were the only three staying behind.

  Henry swallowed as they looked at him through hooded lids, like vultures looking down from the branches at an animal that wasn’t quite yet dead.

  Anger smiled. ‘Henry, at last. We need to talk.’

  They retired to the divisional chief superintendent’s office on the floor below, Anger apparently believing he had a right to use it as he had a key for the door.

  ‘Sit.’

  Henry sat on a chair on the public side of the office whilst Anger slid around to the other side of the desk and parked himself on the chief super’s chair, which hissed as the air escaped from its thick leather.

  Carradine came into the office and positioned himself behind the door, remaining standing, arms folded, a blank look on his face.

  Henry, therefore, was between the two of them, the rock and the hard place. ‘Nice,’ he said looking at the office. Henry knew the divisional chief superintendent quite well and the walls were egotistically adorned with lots of pictures of the guy and his many certificates.

  Anger and Carradine did not respond, maintaining their silence.

  Anger then leaned on the desk with his right elbow and right hand bunched into a fist.

  ‘Let’s just have a look at this, shall we?’ he said. ‘Firstly,’ his thumb flicked up, indicating the first item on the agenda, ‘you need to tell me why you and your gaggle of ragtag mates were going to speak to Scartarelli. Secondly,’ his first finger flicked up, item two, ‘you need to explain why a man of your experience jumps in a car and goes on a chase, instead of staying at the scene and getting a strategic grip of a very serious incident. Then,’ his middle finger came up out of the fist, agenda item number three. Henry wondered if he would have enough fingers to cover all the items that he wished to cover. ‘Number three, why did you even consider using the vehicle of a private individual to conduct such a chase? It was reckless and you have put the Constabulary, once again, in a very unfortunate position. People could have been killed. As ever, you are stupid, foolish and short-sighted.’ Anger folded away his fingers back into his fist. ‘I’m waiting, Henry.’

  ‘Anything else?’ Henry asked.

  ‘Lots of things, actually.’

  Henry shifted uncomfortably, now feeling very worried about his situation. He tried to sit back and look as though he was relaxed.

  ‘You really are an arsehole, Henry,’ Carradine could not resist saying. ‘You poke your fucking nose into everything that doesn’t concern you, don’t you?’

  ‘I do my job.’ He gave his eyebrows a quick flick up and down. ‘Know what I mean? Unpleasant as it might be.’ He cast his eyes from one man to the other, trying desperately to work out what was happening, to read their minds, then he turned to Anger. ‘Dave, maybe I’m the one who should be asking the questions here.’

  ‘Run that one by me,’ he said harshly.

  ‘OK.’ Henry steeled himself and blurted, ‘Do you know a man called Walter Corrigan?’ then wished he hadn’t revealed this card, but knew now he’d have to go with it.

  Anger’s immediate response was, ‘No, why should I?’ and Henry had to admit it was a pretty smooth riposte to a nooky question.

  ‘He’s a fixer for various people connected to organized crime, a very bad man.’ Henry didn’t want to say the Mafia, because it sounded all too corny.

  ‘Means nothing,’ Anger said with a twitch of his mouth. ‘I get the impression you’re just trying to deflect blame away from yourself here, because I don’t know what the hell you’re leading up to, but I know it’s probably bollocks.’

  ‘You do know Paul Shafer, though, don’t you? Detective superintendent in Merseyside?’

  ‘I know him, of course I do.’

  ‘Old mates?’

  ‘Look, Henry, I’ve no idea what you’re trying on here, and I think it’s time now for you to face facts.’

  ‘Did you see Shafer last night?’ Henry ploughed on, undeterred.

  ‘No. Why? What are you getting at?’

  ‘Right,’ Henry nodded. ‘Fine. I’ll be off, then.’ He rose to leave.

  ‘You’ll stay right there. I haven’t finished with you yet, pal.’

  ‘I’ve finished with you – and you,’ he added, looking at Carradine. ‘Another old mate, if I’m not mistaken.’ Carradine flinched.

  ‘OK, as of this moment,’ Anger declared, ‘you are suspended from duty pending the investigation into your total lack of judgement today in putting the lives of civilians at risk.’

  Henry gave a short laugh, side-stepped past Carradine and walked out of the door.

  He hurried down the steps and let himself out of the police station, standing at the front of the building as he waited for his heart rate to subside.

  The day had gone cold and the night was drawing in. Street lights were on and a spat of rain hit his face.

  Everything about him had tightened to breaking point. His muscles were rigid, his fingers tensed into fists, his teeth clenched and he had to force himself to calm down before a blood vessel burst in his head and he had a stroke.

  He fished his phone out of his pocket and checked it. It had been on silent for most of the day, and he thought he might have missed some return calls, but none showed, except one from Jerry Tope, who he hadn’t even tried to contact.

  He returned the call.

  ‘Jerry, it’s Henry – where’ve you been all day?’

  ‘Digging around.’

  ‘I assume you heard what happened here?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘They were after you for the Intelligence Cell.’

  ‘I gathered, but I have been a bit busy with a few
things, not least of which were the prints you got off Motta.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘You were right, there were some partial prints taken from that Fiat Panda you gave the dead hooker a lift in – but they’d been well buried, but y’know me, I found ’em.’

  ‘I’ll congratulate you when you give me some good news.’

  ‘I got a fingerprint expert to do a comparison between them and the ones you took from Motta’s body. They matched.’

  The implications of this sank in, but only confirmed what Henry really knew. Jonny Motta was the guy he’d fought and chased in Preston and therefore number-one suspect for the murders, especially if his prints had been found in the Panda. And yet, in Jerry’s words, ‘they had been well buried’. Henry would have to find out exactly what Tope meant by that, but if it was true, next question was, ‘Why?’

  ‘Thanks, Jerry. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  Henry ended the call, then dialled home to speak to Kate as he walked across to the car park behind the sports centre oppos-ite the nick, where he’d parked his Rover.

  ‘Hi, babe.’

  ‘Henry, I’ve been so worried. How are you?’

  ‘Bearing up. I’m OK, just want to get home and get to bed.’

  ‘I’ll have some food waiting. How long will you be?’

  He walked around the side of the sports centre and across the unlit car park, trying to jerk his keys out of his pocket as he went.

  ‘Half-hour, maybe. See you, honey.’

  He folded his phone and slid it inside his pocket and walked to the side of the car.

  The blow to the head felled him instantly and he was unconscious before he hit the ground.

  NINETEEN

  Henry rolled and his head crashed against the side of something hard, then he rolled back again, his head smacking something else and it was the combination of these two blows that brought him back to painful consciousness.