Crunch Time

by Nick Oldham

  ‘No, you got it wrong.’

  ‘Wrong answer, pal.’

  FB punched him again. ‘Tell me the fuckin’ truth.’

  Fossard sank to his knees, gasping for air, snot and spit coming out of his facial orifices. ‘That is the truth, I didn’t do it.’

  They kept him for twenty-four hours, but he did not break. FB grew more and more frustrated that his usually excellent interrogation techniques were having no effect on the prisoner – the variation from ‘I’m your biggest pal’ to ‘I’m your biggest nightmare’ seeming to get absolutely nowhere.

  In the end he had to be released without charge.

  There was no evidence to tie him to the girl other than the family link, no witnesses, no incriminating evidence putting him at the scene of the crime and his van was the cleanest in the world.

  ‘I actually don’t think he did it,’ FB said sagely as he and Henry walked down to the charge office to tell the station sergeant to release him. ‘I’m a pretty good judge of character in that respect.’ He rubbed his hands together like Pontius Pilate.

  Henry kept his mouth shut. It was the first time he’d seen a prisoner get such a beating.

  ‘Take him home, will you?’

  Henry nodded. ‘Sure.’

  Fossard was released and Henry did as he was told, driving him home. They did not speak on the journey, but as the car drew in outside Fossard’s council house, he turned to Henry with a smirk of triumph on his face.

  ‘Better luck next time, eh?’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  Fossard chortled. ‘You bastards couldn’t catch a cold.’

  Suddenly, Henry did feel very, very cold. ‘You did it, didn’t you?’

  Fossard simply looked at Henry, a smile on his face, then raised and lowered his eyebrows.

  Henry gripped the wheel tightly, wondering what he should do. Rearresting him would not serve any useful purpose.

  Fossard opened the car door. ‘She fucked like a rabbit, enjoyed every second,’ he sneered, then was gone, striding towards the front door of his house, which opened. His son ran out and hugged him, and shot Henry a fearful glance. Fossard’s wife kissed him and the man turned to look once more at Henry, gave him a nod and an exaggerated wink, then entered the house. A guilty man walking free – something that Henry Christie, even at that point in his service, could never tolerate.

  The investigation continued, got nowhere. Henry worked on the periphery of it, conducting house-to-house enquiries, assisting in searches of land and premises; he even arrested a couple more suspects at the behest of FB, but he knew they would be a waste of time because the real offender was still walking the streets, flicking a V at the police.

  It had been rolling about a month, when late one evening after an arduous day, Henry found himself wandering along the first floor corridor at Rawtenstall nick, on which was the DI’s office. The door was open, lights on, and FB was sitting at his desk, head in hands, fag in mouth. The room was filled with acrid smoke.

  Henry knocked gently.

  FB raised his head, the cigarette dangling precariously from his lips. ‘PC Christie.’

  ‘Boss, you all right?’

  FB dragged deep on the cigarette, stubbed it out in the desktop ashtray and exhaled a fog of smoke. ‘Y’know, Henry,’ he said, using his first name for the first time, ‘I’m pissing in the wind here.’ He looked drained, beaten.

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘I know here’ – he held his right hand on his chest over the spot where his heart should have been – ‘that Fossard’s our man, and I can’t prove it. I couldn’t even verbal the twat up.’ He sighed. ‘The more I think about it, it’s him. He was just good at holding out.’

  ‘Can I tell you something?’ Henry’s voice was hesitant.

  FB squinted through one eye. ‘What?’ he said warily.

  ‘He kind of admitted it to me when I dropped him off.’

  ‘What?’

  Henry told FB what Fossard had said when he was getting out of the car. FB listened, open-mouthed.

  ‘And you didn’t think to fuckin’ tell me?’

  ‘His word against mine. He’d just deny it.’

  FB’s glare, one Henry would never get accustomed to, bore into his soul. For a few rocky moments, Henry expected him to explode. ‘That man is a cold, calculating killer,’ FB said. ‘He blandly denied murdering the girl and then had the balls to say that to you! Cheeky, evil bastard.’

  ‘I should’ve told you. Sorry.’

  ‘Yeah, you should have … but I don’t think anything’s lost by it. It has done one thing, though …’

  ‘What?’

  FB picked up a photograph from the desktop, one of the murder scene. He waved it. ‘Made my resolve to convict this bastard even greater.’

  He and Henry stared into each other’s eyes, then suddenly FB rose to his feet and reached for his jacket. ‘I need to do something,’ he said, then left the office.

  Next morning Henry was told to revisit Fossard’s address, search the house again and rearrest him.

  ‘Why?’ he queried.

  ‘Because I’m right. He did it.’

  ‘Suppose you’re wrong?’

  ‘Henry – PC Christie,’ FB said, almost fondly, like he was talking to a stupid pupil, ‘let me tell you two things, the rules around here. The first one is, the DI is always right.’

  ‘What’s the second?’

  ‘If the DI is wrong, rule one applies. Now go and do what I ask of you. I’ve organized a team to go along and do the search and don’t forget to search Fossard’s van – thoroughly this time. And take this, just in case he gets nowty.’

  FB handed Henry a search warrant signed by a local JP. It was one of the collection of blank, pre-signed ones FB kept in his desk for such occasions, but Henry did not know that.

  Henry and the searchers were greeted by verbal abuse from the Fossard family, but he waved the search warrant in front of the suspect’s mush and half a dozen pairs of size elevens trooped in and started to tear the place apart. Henry stayed with Fossard, who became increasingly angry.

  The wife and kid were still at home, glowering and growling at the police, who showed little respect for their property.

  ‘We can go and have a look at your van,’ Henry told Fossard.

  ‘You’ve already searched that as well.’

  ‘Gonna search it again. It’s listed on the warrant.’ He held up the (almost) legal document.

  ‘Do what you want,’ Fossard said resignedly.

  ‘I will. You want to come and watch me?’

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘Then you can’t accuse me of planting anything.’

  He followed Henry out of the rear of the house to where the van had been parked in the back garden. It was an old Escort van, battered and on its last legs, common at the time. Fossard’s son, Robert Junior, followed them out.

  Henry opened the driver’s door on creaky hinges and began a search, closely observed by the male Fossards.

  ‘You won’t find owt.’

  Ignoring him, Henry continued – under the seats, in the glove box, behind the seats, in the back of the van – not finding anything. He had reached and felt under the two front seats and found nothing, but he decided to get down and use his eyeballs. He got the side of his face right down in the footwell in front of the pedals and stuck his nose in the gap between the seat and the bottom of the van.

  A sprung wire mesh, rather like a net, supported the seat, and squinting, Henry thought he saw a rag tucked into the mesh. He tried to focus on it, but it was dark and hard to see. He squirmed around and slid his hand under the seat. The tips of his fingers gripped the rag and pulled it slowly out, like a magician revealing a string of handkerchiefs from a sleeve.

  Except it wasn’t a rag or a handkerchief.

  It was a pair of girl’s knickers.

  From the moment Henry arrested Fossard, his first ever arrest for murder, a
nd presented him to the station sergeant at Rawtenstall nick, he was completely sidelined from the investigation.

  FB took full control and never gave Henry a second glance or thought, very much setting the scene for the way in which their relationship would be for the next twenty-odd years. Henry wrote up his statement and that was the last bit of involvement he had as the Task Force was disbanded, as expected, to be replaced by a sub-divisionally based crime patrol and Henry, for a short time, found himself behind the public enquiry desk at Haslingden Police Station before a transfer to CID.

  All he knew was that Robert Fossard was eventually convicted of murder and was sent to prison for life, the crucial piece of evidence being the panties Henry had found secreted in the van.

  There was an appeal which was quashed and Henry heard nothing more of Fossard. Ever.

  And now he was about to knock on that same door again. He got out of the car and looked at the council house which had been refurbished, probably several times, in the intervening years. His mind was still running over the past, but his anger was welling up because of the danger Kate had been put in.

  His mobile phone rang.

  He picked it out of his pocket and looked at the caller display. It was Karl Donaldson. He considered rejecting it, but gave in.

  ‘Henry, where are you?’

  ‘About to knock on the door of the bastard who nearly killed Kate.’

  ‘Robert Fossard?’ Donaldson said.

  ‘How the hell …?’

  ‘Ryan Ingram … he knows him …’

  ‘How the hell does he—?’ Henry stopped in mid sentence and a memory of something shot into his brain. Suddenly he recalled why there was something familiar about Ryan Ingram.

  He ended Donaldson’s call without a further word and marched up to the front of the house. He rapped on the door, standing close in and also at an angle so anyone who might be in the front room could not peer out and see his face.

  He knocked again.

  ‘Who is it?’ came a male voice.

  Through the frosted glass in the door, Henry saw a movement, a shape approaching the door.

  ‘Mr Fossard … council benefits assessment,’ Henry replied through the door. ‘We sent a letter saying we’d be calling. It’s in your interests.’

  The door opened on a chain.

  A man peered out through the gap. It could have been Robert Fossard himself.

  ‘Robert Junior?’ Henry said.

  It took no more than an instant for him to recognize Henry.

  ‘Shit!’ he uttered, and tried to slam the door on the detective.

  Unfortunately for Robert Fossard Junior, Henry Christie had had more people trying to slam doors in his face than he cared to shake a stick at.

  Twenty-Two

  Henry paced the interview room, fists clenching and unclenching, desperate to get his hands on Fossard and strangle him slowly, sweetly. He knew he shouldn’t be here, that his presence could have an adverse effect on the investigation, but he wanted to be present, beat the living crap out of him, and listen to his confession.

  ‘I’m not saying anything,’ Fossard maintained, eyeing Henry with the cowering sneer of the hunted and guilty.

  ‘Well, you’d better just start.’ Henry covered the gap between them and wrapped his fingers into the material of Fossard’s tee-shirt and heaved him to his feet. The small man had a thin build and simply went with it, not fighting, not squirming, but maintaining the defiant eye-contact of someone who knew his rights.

  There was a beat, the two men nose-to-nose.

  ‘Go on then, hammer me,’ he dared Henry. ‘See how long it is before I sue the shit out of you.’

  Henry felt it all rising in him. He knew he was going to lose it all very shortly, the arrogant, taunting prick – then someone laid a steadying hand on his forearm and a soothing voice said, ‘Henry,’ softly.

  Still holding the prisoner, Henry broke the savage eye contact and his head slowly swivelled around to the voice.

  It was Rik Dean, the Blackpool DI, Henry’s old friend. Because the offences allegedly committed by Fossard had taken place in Blackpool, that was where he had been immediately transferred following his arrest so he could be processed there.

  The red mist lifted slowly like pixels breaking up in front of his eyes and Henry dropped Fossard back on to the chair.

  ‘Corridor, Henry,’ Dean said.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Fossard smirk, heard him snicker.

  Seething, he followed Dean out of the interview room.

  ‘You can’t be here for this, Henry,’ Dean said in a whisper. Henry’s mouth pursed tightly. ‘You’ve done your bit by locking him up, but you’re too involved. It’s too personal. It could get mucky and we could lose it, especially if you have another go at him.’

  ‘It is personal,’ Henry said.

  ‘I know it is, but by the same token it’s not 1982 now. It has to be straight down the line, otherwise we’ll lose it and he’ll walk. You don’t want that.’

  Reluctantly Henry nodded. He didn’t want that. He knew he could not get away with slapping Fossard, no matter how good it made him feel. What was important was the end result – getting him convicted and sent down, neutralized and punished.

  ‘There’s enough to get him convicted, even if he doesn’t cough a thing.’

  Henry nodded, coming down from the ceiling. ‘Don’t let me down, Rik.’

  ‘Trust me Henry, I’m a DI.’

  For Henry, the wait was interminable. Part of the problem was that he was homeless in terms of office space and did not actually know where to kill time. When he was on FMIT, covering Blackpool division, he’d had a cubbyhole for an office where he could hole up when necessary. Now that office had a new incumbent and Henry didn’t even want to know who it was, so he avoided it at all costs. He could have used Rik Dean’s excuse for an office, but would have felt uncomfortable in it. All this, therefore, left him wandering around like a lost sheep. His hand hovered momentarily over every internal telephone he passed, and he continually checked his mobile phone for that elusive call or text from Dean saying there had been a result. Neither came.

  Finally, he’d had enough. Clearly Rik was not making any progress in the interview and it had all gone wrong, or surely he would have made contact.

  Shortly before 8 p.m. he decided to drive home via his old burned-out shell of a house, just to pay his respects.

  The building looked a sad mess. Since last seeing it, the blackened furniture which had adorned the front garden having been thrown out by the fire service had now been removed and disposed of. The boarded-up house now stood alone, its brickwork charred and black. If it was a car it would have been an insurance write-off. Surely, Henry thought, the insurance company would decide to raze it to the ground and completely rebuild it from the foundations up? There was no way, in Henry’s mind, that it could just be repaired.

  He sighed, but inwardly was surprised to discover he didn’t feel too much, then drove around to old Mr Jackson’s house. The old man came to the door with the dirty-arsed Westie at his heels. It barked ferociously at Henry for a few moments, before he stared it out and it retreated, cowed.

  ‘I wanted to say thanks for those photos, Mr Jackson.’

  ‘Were they of any assistance?’

  ‘Oh, yes, very much so,’ Henry exaggerated. ‘Someone’s been arrested.’

  Mr Jackson’s face brightened considerably and he puffed out his chest. ‘That’s great news. I’m glad I was able to help. Maybe being a nosy old bugger isn’t such a bad thing.’

  ‘It’s a good thing. I wish there were more people like you. Our job’d be much easier if there were. Thing is, we’ll need to come and take a statement from you.’

  ‘Not a problem. I’d love a day in court.’

  I’ll bet you would, Henry thought. They shook hands and Henry made his way to his newly rented house in Kirkham. There he found Kate and Karl Donaldson sitting in the conservatory
, drinking tea and coffee respectively.

  Both looked at him with expectant faces.

  ‘No news,’ he said glumly, tossing his jacket over a chair arm. He slumped down next to Kate and looked at her. ‘However, love, I know Rik’ll sort it and I’m one hundred per certain that this guy Fossard is the one, although all he did was squeal like a stuck pig when I collared the little shit, then wouldn’t say anything to me.’

  Relief flooded her face.

  ‘You did good, pal.’

  ‘And so did you, you big, good-looking hunka meat.’

  ‘I’d pay you the same compliment, but I’d be telling a lie,’ Donaldson retorted.

  Kate said, ‘I know it’s early, but should I get the Glenfiddich out?’

  ‘You two eaten yet?’ Henry asked.

  ‘Just a sandwich.’

  ‘In that case, let’s put the good stuff on hold for later, then go into town to eat … they do a two-for-one in the new local.’

  The food was simple, good and plentiful for the price. Henry ate with relish, realizing he had eaten sparsely that day. The other two did likewise, then they moved out of the dining area into the bar, which was crowded, but friendly and feel-good. They found three seats around a small, brass-topped table where they sat with their drinks, Henry with a Stella, Kate with red wine and Donaldson mineral water. Their conversation lulled for a while as their meals digested. Henry broke the silence by asking Donaldson, ‘How’s it going with Karen?’

  ‘Henry!’ Kate admonished him.

  ‘What?’ he said innocently. ‘Karl doesn’t mind, do you?’

  ‘No.’ But the American’s Adam’s apple rose and fell in his throat. ‘She’s avoiding my calls.’

  ‘Sorry, mate.’

  Donaldson shrugged helplessly. ‘It’s not looking good,’ he admitted. ‘You can’t make someone do something they don’t want to do, unless you beat the hell out of them, then their hearts aren’t in it.’ His big hand was dithering as he put his glass to his mouth. Kate laid a reassuring hand on his arm. Henry got the impression she was about to say something to him, but couldn’t find the correct words. He looked quizzically at her, but she gave Henry an almost imperceptible shake of the head.