Crunch Time

by Nick Oldham

  ‘From a business point of view, I might be,’ he suggested. His eyelids hooded over.

  Henry sipped his coffee, which tasted rather good, and sniffed. His cheekbone was starting to throb, affecting his nasal passages, causing his nose to run.

  ‘What went wrong?’

  ‘The guy I’d set up to take the stuff got nicked and banged up,’ Henry said with melancholy. ‘The guy I bought them from wouldn’t take ’em back sale or return. Guy who stumped up the cash for me wants repaying … and I don’t know what to do with the fucking things.’

  ‘Good market research, then?’ Ingram smirked.

  Behind them, Mitch belched, drawing looks of disgust from other customers nearby.

  Then Henry’s pulse began to pound when he looked across the café and saw two motorway cops enter and tag on to the queue at the self-service area. He knew both of them. They had not spotted him. He squirmed in his chair, turning edge-away from them.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Ingram glanced over his shoulder and saw the officers. He turned back slowly. ‘They spook you?’

  ‘So-so,’ he said blandly, swallowing something the size of a brick. ‘Anyway,’ he ploughed on, as though nothing was amiss, ‘the bottom line is the guy who bankrolled me wants his cash for something else and now he’s snapping at my heels, know what I mean?’ Henry pulled a pained face. ‘So I’m up bollock street. No liquid assets.’

  ‘Why don’t you go to Ocean Finance?’ Mitch guffawed over the remnants of his hash browns, making it clear to Henry that whilst he was not at the table, he had picked up every word.

  Henry grimaced at Ingram, part of his gaze clocking the two cops moving along the self-service bar with their trays. They were in deep conversation, probably discussing their latest multi-fatal pile-up.

  ‘I might be able to help out,’ Ingram declared.

  Henry Christie experienced a wave of guilt and shame as he picked up the phone. He was back in his flat on Salford Quays, overlooking the Imperial War Museum. He was about to call home and give Kate the bad news: he would not be coming home tonight.

  He felt so tight, especially after his earlier promise, but he knew it had to be done. The opportunity to get close in on Ingram was unfolding and if he didn’t take it, the whole operation could fail.

  He swore, braced himself, then tabbed in his home number.

  There was a ring at the front doorbell.

  Keeping the cordless phone cupped to his ear, he crossed to the door and peered through the security spyhole.

  ‘Shit,’ he breathed: Andrea Makin.

  ‘What?’ Kate said as she answered and heard Henry’s expletive.

  ‘Sorry, nothing, love.’ He opened the door and, placing a finger to his lips, stood aside to allow Andrea to enter, which she did with a very serious expression on her face.

  ‘I thought you were coming home tonight,’ Kate said. ‘It’s gone eight thirty.’ Her voice was full of resignation.

  ‘I know, love …’ He followed Andrea into the apartment. She went to the wall-sized plate glass window looking down on to the basin of the Manchester Ship Canal and the museum beyond. ‘Look, something came up. I need to deal with it. You know how it is.’

  A very annoyed silence greeted his words.

  ‘I’m sorry, love … I will be back, but it’ll be later … early hours?’ he added hopefully.

  The line went dead when Kate cut him off.

  Andrea Makin turned to him. ‘Something came up? In your dreams, Henry.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I was worried about you.’

  ‘Well, you’ve got to go because I’m off to see Ingram again.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you have reported in? I am your controller, you know.’

  ‘Andrea, let me do my job.’

  ‘Can you actually do it when you’re being harassed by a needy ex-wife?’

  ‘None of your business.’

  ‘Yes it is. I can’t have officers operating under cover who are having pain on the home front … it tends to skew the perspective, makes them vulnerable.’

  ‘Everything’s fine.’

  She breathed down her nose, flared her nostrils. ‘OK,’ she relented, ‘but I want a quick update.’

  ‘OK. He is very careful, as you’ll have picked up from this afternoon’s meeting. He even downloaded the info from my SIM card. It’s a damned good job I went in there sparse. If I’d been wired, he would’ve found It. If the car had been kitted out, he would have sussed that too. And I think he would’ve sussed a tail. So, he’s very wary, but interested. I could see it in his eyes and I think I can build a rapport, but I don’t need hassle.’

  ‘Just basic health and safety.’

  ‘Fair enough … did you manage to get anything from the roof of the biscuit factory?’

  ‘Yeah, but nothing of value.’

  ‘For the time being I won’t be going in wired or anything, but I will try to keep in touch, promise. Now I need to shoot, got some DVDs I need to watch with my new pal. It’s a man thing. He’s having a look at the merchandise.’

  ‘A pervert thing, you mean.’

  ‘And don’t come here again. He knows this address now and I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets someone to keep an eye on it occasionally – at least until I get thrown out of here.’

  The children had gone to bed and settled quickly as always. Good kids, polite, brainy and good-looking like their mother, occasionally showing the reckless streak of their father.

  Donaldson pulled a suitcase down from the loft and carried it quietly into the bedroom. He began filling it with his clothes, then took it downstairs and placed it in the hallway by the front door.

  Next he went to the kitchen where he grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, threw some ice cubes into a glass and slumped back into an armchair in the lounge before almost filling the glass with the bourbon.

  He gazed around the room, feeling empty yet full of pain, constantly replaying Karen’s words over and over in his brain.

  She had been right, of course. No one had forced him to go head-to-head with a terrorist. It had been his choice alone, his desire, obsession – call it what you will – and he had nearly died because of it and nearly left his family fatherless.

  ‘Reckless, idiotic fool,’ he said, and took a big mouthful of the whisky. And now Karen couldn’t take any more. She had been by his side throughout the dark, touch-and-go days, stayed with him throughout his recovery, done her duty and now he was fit enough, she was splitting them up.

  The problem was, he thoroughly deserved it.

  He drank another mouthful.

  Henry relaxed. He was sure he had not been followed, had made certain by careful driving, looping back on himself, stopping without warning, constantly checking on traffic and people – not that there was too much of either on the roads after midnight. He worked his way out of Manchester and by the time he hit the motorway in the Nissan, he knew he was alone and his whole metabolism shifted down a gear. He settled back and put his foot down just to see how much he could get from the lively little engine.

  Thirty minutes after leaving the city, via a short detour up the M65, he pulled up to the gates of an industrial unit on the eastern side of Blackburn, near to the Blackburn Rovers’ football ground at Ewood Park. He let himself through the gate using the keypad and into the unit itself using a combined keypad and fingerprint recognition system. The shutter door clattered open, revealing the interior of the unit. There was an array of motor vehicles inside, including the XJS he had been arrested in, and his own car, the Rover 75.

  The unit had been inherited by the Serious and Organized Crime Agency from the NCIS, who had in turn inherited it from the Regional Crime Squad. It was one of the bases of operations for undercover officers in the North-West region, its location known only to a few people.

  He dumped the Nissan, dropped the keys in the office, collected his own car keys and reversed the Rover out of the unit. He ensured everything was
locked up and then drove back on to the M65 to resume his journey home.

  He would be there within the hour.

  Seven

  The house was lit up, a police patrol car parked outside.

  A nauseous feeling of dread coursed through Henry as he pulled on to the driveway and jumped out of the car, entering the house to face two uniformed constables in the hallway, Kate behind them, looking very small indeed. Her dressing gown was pulled tightly around her middle.

  On seeing Henry, relief flooded her pale face.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he demanded of the officers, neither one of whom he recognized.

  ‘Hello, sir, are you Mr Christie?’ one asked.

  ‘I am.’ Henry’s eyes rolled between the three characters in front of him like balls in a bagatelle. ‘What’s happening?’ he asked nervously.

  ‘You’ve had a prowler,’ the officer said. ‘We’ve searched the area and he or she is now gone.’

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked Kate, standing between them.

  She nodded, looked scared and shaken. ‘Yeah.’ Her eyes were dark, tired.

  Henry’s attention turned to the officers. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Someone in the back garden playing silly buggers, banging on the kitchen window … did a runner when the house lights came on,’ one said. The other continued: ‘We were here within five minutes, searched the garden … no trace.’ He turned to Kate. ‘You sure you’re OK now, Ma’am?’

  ‘Yes, I am now. Thanks for your quick response.’ Some colour flowed back to her face. ‘I’ll be fine now my husband is back,’ she added, Henry noticing the verbal slip.

  ‘We’ll be off, then.’

  Together they watched them leave, closing the door to the world as the police car drove away. Kate immediately fell into Henry’s arms, clutching him tight and burying her forehead into his chest. She was shaking. He held her tightly, his nose in her ear.

  ‘It’s all right, love.’

  She raised her tear-stained face. ‘I was so scared.’

  ‘You would be.’ Henry did not like prowlers. The word itself always sounded scary to him. It was so descriptive, had an ugly, nasty feel to it. He felt Kate relax, so he steered her gently into the living room, sitting her down on the settee. ‘I’ll get you a drink.’

  She nodded. ‘Firewater would be nice – on ice. The good stuff, not the cheap.’

  ‘Sounds good. I’ll join you.’

  He went into the kitchen, but instead of getting the drinks, he opened the back door and looked down across the garden to the big open field at the rear, which was just blackness, the only light on it filtering from a lane a few hundred metres to the left. He walked across the lawn to the wire fence and peered towards where he knew there was a large pond on the opposite side of the field. It was a magnet for bird life and he could hear some muted night-time clucking, but saw nothing.

  Back inside he fixed two Glenfiddichs with lots of ice and was about to return with them when Kate came into the kitchen. He handed her a drink, which she sipped with a shiver.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I went to bed early. The kids are both out for the night again, so I had a long soak first, then a long read, but I just felt a bit thirsty, so I came down for a glass of orange from the fridge. As I was at the sink, I heard a tapping noise at the window. I don’t know, I thought it was a bird or something, so without thinking I just pulled up the blind and a masked man had his face squashed to the glass. It was horrible.’

  ‘What sort of mask?’

  ‘Like a balaclava with holes for the eyes and mouth.’ Henry nodded. Kate continued: ‘I screamed, but he just stayed there banging the glass, terrifying me.’ She took a long drink of the whisky.

  ‘What then?’

  ‘I was petrified. I ran into the hall, grabbed the phone and dialled nine-nine-nine. Even when I was doing it, I could still hear him banging at the window.’

  Henry was feeling cold, impotent and furious. Another example of why he should be around more.

  ‘Kate,’ he said softly, ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t at home.’

  ‘Not your fault, love.’

  He raised his eyebrows in a way that indicated otherwise. ‘Was he wearing gloves?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Let’s have a peek.’ He put his drink down on a work surface and went into the back garden again. For the first time he noticed the security light was not working. He squinted at it, high on the wall just below one of the girls’ bedrooms, and saw it had been smashed. ‘Looks as though a brick’s been lobbed at it,’ he said. Using the light cast from the open door and the kitchen window he poked around the patio and found two fist-sized stones near the back wall that he picked up. He knew they were not from the garden. ‘Culprits, I’d guess,’ he said, bobbing one of them up and down in his hand. ‘Must’ve made a noise when they broke the light. Surprised you didn’t hear a smash.’

  ‘I might’ve done, actually,’ Kate said, thinking back. ‘I did hear a crack, or something, a few minutes before I came down. Didn’t think anything of it. Just a bang.’

  Henry shrugged and dropped the stones. ‘No worries.’

  He inspected the kitchen window for smudges or prints but in the available light he could not see that the prowler had left anything.

  Kate stood on the threshold of the door. ‘How long are you going to be away for, Henry? Is this thing going to take any longer than you promised?’

  ‘I hope not … undercover ops are always suck ’n’ see things … I mean, if I get through to this guy sooner rather than later, I could have enough to quit within days.’ Kate stepped back as Henry came back into the kitchen. ‘Who knows?’ he said, closing and locking the door behind him, picking up his drink.

  Kate sidled up to him. ‘I’m glad you came home.’

  ‘Me, too.’ He stooped slightly, glass still in hand, and kissed her on the lips. As ever, her mouth tasted wonderful, her breath smelled great too, a combination of toothpaste and whisky, a great mix. She was holding her drink and slid one arm around his neck, pulling him tight to her lips. A tiny groan escaped from her throat. He bit her bottom lip, then drew slightly away.

  ‘You called me your husband to them cops.’

  ‘You are, aren’t you?’

  ‘Not officially.’

  ‘Maybe that’s something we need to—’ Kate was going to say ‘change’, but the word never came out. Instead a rock the size of a brick smashed against the kitchen window with a huge crack, not breaking the double glazing, but making Henry and Kate jerk apart and spill their drinks.

  ‘Jesus!’ Henry uttered. He put down his glass and wrenched open the kitchen door to witness the black-clothed figure of a man vault the low fence into the field. ‘Call the cops!’ he yelled over his shoulder and immediately sprinted after the figure, bawling, ‘C’mere, you bastard!’

  ‘Henry, be careful!’ Kate screamed after him.

  He raced across the garden and flung himself over the fence in pursuit of the prowler, who was already thirty metres ahead, running swiftly through the shin-high grass. Henry stumbled, feeling his left knee give way momentarily, then come back, and powered after him, arms pumping, sheer rage driving him. Who was this bastard invading his privacy, terrifying his family? He had no right to violate his home.

  The figure ran fast and Henry knew he was getting away. He then leapt into another garden and disappeared from view. Henry vaulted across the same fence, but by the time he landed the prowler had run off down the side of the house. Henry ran on, bouncing off the wall, and reappearing at the front of a house about a hundred metres from his own.

  No sign of the man.

  Gasping, Henry scoured the dark places with his keen eyes, but saw no one lurking or moving. ‘Shit,’ he said, shaking his head as he stood in the middle of the road.

  An engine started behind him.

  He spun and jogged towards the noise.

  Was this just a coincidence at this time o
f night?

  No way.

  Henry headed up the avenue, through a tight ginnel and appeared in the next one as a car lurched out from the side of the road and accelerated at him. The main beam was on and for a moment he was blinded, shading his eyes with a forearm.

  The car was coming right at him.

  He sidestepped in front of another parked car as he watched his old Ford Mondeo scream past him in first. Henry aimed a useless kick at it.

  So he hadn’t dreamed it. Someone driving his old car was stalking him and his family.

  He sniffed, got his breath and, very troubled, made his way home.

  For the second time in a matter of days, and to his utter shame and embarrassment, he could not get an erection when he cuddled into Kate. His saving grace was that she was exhausted, didn’t want sex, just the cuddle and reassurance. For once he was happy to oblige and when he heard her breathing become deep and regular, almost a minor snore, he extracted his arm and lay awake with his hands clasped behind his head, thinking about the day.

  The cops had rushed back, searched the area, found no one, nor a car, then left Henry and Kate alone.

  Henry thought about the car and the previous attempt to run him off the road.

  Someone was definitely gunning for him. It couldn’t be Ingram because the road rage incident had happened before Henry had gone undercover. And he was one hundred per cent sure he had not been followed back from Manchester.

  So who was it?

  Get in line, he thought. A lot of people bore grudges against him. Even his ex-boss, Dave Anger – just for sleeping with his wife, for goodness’ sake. But Henry was pretty sure it wasn’t Anger. In fact, one or two things had happened to him that he couldn’t pin on Anger as much as he would have liked to: he’d been assaulted one night outside Blackpool Police Station a few months ago, also outside his local pub, the Tram and Tower. On that occasion Karl Donaldson had intervened to good effect. No one had been caught on either occasion and the attacks remained a puzzle. He wondered if they were connected to the recent incidents.