Crunch Time

by Nick Oldham

  ‘Well, I wonder how it’s progressing.’ Henry exhaled and changed the subject. It was nearly ten o’clock. Then, on cue, his mobile phone rang, but it wasn’t such a coincidence as he had been saying that out loud all night and sooner or later the phone had to ring. In his hurry to answer it he almost dropped it in his beer. ‘Rik, pal, how’s it going? Yeah, we’re in there … ten minutes? I’ll have a drink waiting.’ Henry snapped his phone shut. ‘Rik’s on his way.’ He looked at Donaldson. ‘Your round, I think.’

  The four of them moved out of the increasingly cramped bar into the dining room, now sparse with eaters.

  Three pairs of eyes, six orbs, focused attentively on Rik Dean.

  ‘I’ll take you through it stage by stage,’ Rik began, after quenching his thirst with a long swig of his beer. ‘I decided the best way to do it would be to get the offences boxed off with Fossard before moving into the whys and wherefores. Thing is, the evidence against him is pretty damning, so he couldn’t really wriggle out of it and I had a bit of fun pinning him down and watching him squirm, the lying little git. We found the photographs of you, Henry, in his house with gun sights pasted on them like something from The Day of the Jackal. We found a pair of trainers which exactly matched the trainer imprint left in your flowerbed by the prowler the other night. He had a pay-as-you-go mobile phone which still had a copy of the text he sent you. There was also a balaclava which was similar to the one the prowler was wearing.’ Rik screwed up his face. ‘All in all, not a master criminal, here, but a cunning one nonetheless. There was also some paperwork from the car dealer he bought your old Mondeo from, with his name and address on it. All these things made my life easier. He also had possession of a can of petrol, matches and a map of Blackpool with your avenue ringed in it. To put it bluntly, after a long session of denial, he admitted everything. His brief just sat there and said nothing, looked glum.

  ‘He admitted the road-rage, the prowling, and the arson, attempted murder.’ Rik looked squarely at Kate. ‘He was trying to kill you – but, he’s not going anywhere and he won’t be bailed.’

  ‘Thank God!’ she breathed.

  Rik looked at Henry. ‘He’s been following you for about two years, building up his rage and courage to have a go at you. He did assault you outside Blackpool nick that night, but denies the assault outside the Tram and Tower, when you were with Karl, that night.’

  Henry pouted. He’d put both of them down to Fossard.

  ‘The reason for the breaks in the way he did things was due to him having a few short spells in the clink, minor stuff mostly, drink related.’

  ‘But what was his motivation?’ Henry wanted to know. He had told Rik about the circumstances of arresting Fossard senior in 1982.

  ‘He blames you for what happened to his father.’

  ‘Because he killed a girl and got life imprisonment?’

  ‘Because his father claimed he was innocent and Robert Junior believed him. He still remembers you finding the dead girl’s knickers in the van, which he says you planted, and they proved to be a vital piece of evidence in convicting him, even though the police had already searched the van and found nothing. Apparently that issue was fudged when it came to trial, one search negative, a second fruitful.’

  Henry’s face contorted uncomfortably. ‘I didn’t plant them,’ he said. But he had a bloody good idea who might have done. ‘But that aside, what I don’t get is why he started following me two years ago.’

  ‘Because Robert Fossard Senior died in prison. Whilst he was alive, there was always a chance, he said – though he didn’t elaborate what “chance” he was talking about. He blames you for killing him.’

  ‘I didn’t know he’d died.’

  ‘You wouldn’t necessarily. He died of natural causes … but there’s something else.’

  ‘What?’ Henry asked guardedly.

  ‘Ryan Ingram.’

  ‘I remembered where I’d met him and why he was familiar to me and why he thought he knew me, because he did. In passing, that is,’ Henry said. ‘Just as I was walking up to Fossard’s house, it all clicked into place. Ingram used to live on the same estate as Fossard years ago. I spoke to him when I did house-to-house enquiries. Now I remember it plain as day. If we get the file out on Jenny Colville’s murder, his name will be on the house-to-house sheets.’

  Rik Dean nodded. ‘And although he was ten years younger than Fossard senior, round about twenty in 1982, they mated about together – a lot.’

  Henry went chilled. ‘They both killed Jenny Colville, didn’t they?’

  ‘Fossard junior says he overheard them talking about it. His memory of the conversation is that his dad “shagged” her, but Ingram strangled her. It could well have been the other way around, or they both had sex with her,’ Dean said, ‘but he believed his father didn’t kill her.’

  ‘Why didn’t he come forward?’ Donaldson said. He had remained silent up to this point.

  ‘He was ten, for a start. He also lived in fear of Ingram, who was always a violent bastard – and he didn’t trust the system.’

  ‘Shit,’ Henry said. ‘Connections. All connections.’

  ‘Do you still have the forensic for the case?’ Donaldson said.

  Henry said, ‘We should have.’

  ‘Then it needs reopening and the DNA cross-checking with Ingram’s to see if there’s a match.’

  ‘And if we use Fossard junior’s DNA, we can find out if his father’s DNA is on file, too,’ Dean said.

  Henry chuckled sardonically.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ Kate said, who had listened intently to the discussion.

  ‘It’ll get FB’s arse twitching. Thing is, once I’d found the knickers, I didn’t have anything else to do with the case, really, other than general enquiries – which is when I came across Ingram.’

  ‘Anyway, anyway,’ Rik Dean cut in, ‘because you were so easy to follow, Henry’ – he raised his eyebrows – ‘this guy was on your tail for a long time because you were his hobby. He managed to follow you to Manchester and actually saw you meeting Ingram, who he hadn’t seen for years, by the way. He’s not a master criminal by any means, but he put two and two together and decided to tell Ingram you were a cop. Ingram said he’d take care of you and Fossard decided to concentrate on Kate – and he almost succeeded.’

  ‘And Troy Costain didn’t let on you were a cop even when he was being beaten to death,’ Donaldson said.

  The statement dropped a bleak shroud across the four of them.

  They drank their drinks silently.

  The ringtone of Karl Donaldson’s mobile phone shattered the reverie. He fished it out of his pocket and the display showed it was Karen, his wife, calling.

  ‘Hello,’ he said nervously. ‘Right … you’re where?’ he asked. ‘Outside? Here? In, er, Kirkham? I’ll be out in a second.’ He closed his phone, a shocked but delighted expression on his face. ‘That was Karen,’ he blurted. ‘She’s outside.’ He started to rise. ‘She wants to talk.’ He paused part-way to his feet and then looked at Kate suspiciously. ‘You knew, didn’t you?’

  She gave him a knowing smile. ‘I was sworn to secrecy.’

  Donaldson swooped across the table and planted a big kiss on her cheek. ‘Thanks,’ he said rising to his full height. ‘Wish me luck.’

  Henry turned to Kate. ‘You little matchmaker,’ he said.

  Even though it was a damage-limitation meeting, Dave Anger couldn’t resist putting in a little taunt at Henry.

  ‘So, once again,’ he said, with his dangerous smile backing up his words, ‘you made a judgement call which was entirely suspect?’

  ‘Actually, it wasn’t a judgement call as such,’ Henry responded formally. ‘It was a risk-assessed decision, overseen by Superintendent Makin and, I believe, countersigned by you … sir.’

  Henry tried to hide his look of triumph because although it was, and always would be, a pleasure to stuff one finger up Anger, he was feeling very guilty about the co
urse of events. In hindsight, that very precise science, Troy Costain should not have been conscripted into the operation against Ryan Ingram. But, to cover his backside, Henry did have the necessary documentation signed and dated by Costain in front of him and a risk assessment bearing the signatures of Makin and, crucially, Dave Anger.

  ‘It was a quickly made decision, admittedly,’ Henry conceded, ‘but Costain knew the risks. Yet, having said that, no one could have truly believed that Ingram would hunt him down and kill him. It was considered, but given a low-risk rating.’

  Anger’s mouth twisted. He shifted uncomfortably.

  Another week had passed and the force was now considering how it should respond to Costain’s murder and what responsibility the organization had in respect of it. The Costain family were baying for blood and money like a pack of hungry wolves, but their main emphasis was on the compensation side of it. How much money could they squeeze out of the cops was their only concern. It was obvious that the litigation would be long, tortuous and very expensive.

  ‘If we just tell the truth …’ Henry began, but the words faded weakly. He knew there was little or no chance of the truth coming out – which, he had to admit, suited him to some degree. He may well have got Troy’s signature on a disclaimer form, but he knew he would have to fudge the way in which it was obtained. To say there was a bit of coercion was an understatement.

  The three of them, Henry, Anger and Makin, were in a meeting room at police headquarters at Hutton, near Preston. The discussion had been going in a circular motion for over an hour, and all three were flagging.

  ‘I need to take something concrete to the force solicitor,’ Anger whined. ‘Something that’ll give us a good defensive position.’

  Andrea Makin cut in. ‘The best defensive position we have is the truth,’ she said. ‘Let’s go with that.’

  Later that same day Ryan Ingram was discharged from hospital accompanied by his solicitor, who had made the journey up from London. He went straight into the back of a waiting police van and, escorted by an armed response vehicle, he was conveyed to the cells at Lancaster. This was the divisional headquarters of the area which covered Poulton-le-Fylde, from where young Gina Weyers had been abducted and the area where Troy Costain had been murdered. These were the initial offences for which he had been arrested and everything else would be added bit by bit as the police literally built up a case against him. Eventually it would include the abduction and murder of a girl called Jenny Colville in 1982, when his DNA was matched up with the DNA found on, around and inside the dead girl.

  The clerk of the court read out the final charge against Ryan Ingram at Preston Crown Court nine months later.

  Ingram’s running mate, Mitch Percy, had already been dealt with in court, having pleaded guilty to a double murder and several drugs trafficking offences. He had been sent to prison for life.

  It had been a long list of indictments against Ingram and for each one he pleaded not guilty, even though he had admitted everything that had been put to him whilst under arrest. He had obviously changed his mind in the intervening months.

  There then followed a series of legal arguments and challenges which were scheduled to last three days. The trial itself was listed for six weeks and it had been a work of great dedication and persistence to pull all the threads of it together, which had been Andrea Makin’s job. She had done this brilliantly, having had to coordinate multiple lines of enquiry from the Met, Lancashire, Greater Manchester and Avon-and-Somerset police.

  Fortunately, her second-in-command of choice was Henry Christie. He excelled in preparing good quality court files.

  Both these officers, Henry and Andrea, were at court to see the trial begin, but they had no desire to spend much time listening to the barristers arguing for their money. They had done their job and now it was up to the legal profession to sort it out in court.

  They sneaked out and made their way to the front steps of the court. It was a good, clear day and they walked across the busy dual carriageway towards Preston city centre.

  ‘Well, fancy that,’ Henry said. He was feeling good, having spent the last months helping Andrea, whilst at the same time repairing his family and home, structurally and emotionally.

  In terms of the former, the insurance company had stuck to their guns and decided to repair the house rather than knock it down and start from scratch – at a cost of £204,000. But the end result was exceptional and Kate had relaxed back into it, especially when Robert Fossard junior was jailed for ten years, despite his pleas of mitigation which fell on deaf ears at court.

  ‘Let’s have a look then,’ Andrea said. She reached for Henry’s left hand and twisted it up so she could clearly inspect the shiny band of gold on his wedding finger. He blushed as she examined it. ‘You finally did it.’

  He nodded disbelievingly at the thought of finally making Kate an honest woman. The time had seemed right. Once the house had been repaired and they had moved back in, it was like a new start. One evening, whilst they stood together in the back garden looking up at their home, the question just came out, unrehearsed. Kate answered as quickly as it had been asked.

  The remarriage was hastily arranged, taking place in a local registry office with close family and a few friends attending, including the newly reunited Karl and Karen Donaldson and their tribe. It had been a great day all round, followed by a couple of days in Lisbon for the happy couple. The honeymoon proper would take place after Ingram’s trial, because Henry wanted to be present for every day of that. He had secretly booked a trip to the British Virgin Islands, even though he couldn’t really afford it.

  ‘God, I would have fucked your brains out, you know?’ Andrea admitted. She let Henry’s hand go.

  ‘And if I’d got a hard on, I would have let you,’ he admitted.

  ‘But you didn’t, because Kate was on your mind, wasn’t she?’

  ‘She was. Did you know that thirty per cent of erectile dysfunction problems are psychological? Not plumbing issues?’

  ‘I’ll remember that when my next lover can’t get a stiffy,’ she laughed. ‘Anyway, whatever.’ She turned and hugged him tight and rubbed herself naughtily up against him. They had reached and were standing in the covered walkway running past the entrance to Preston fish market. A vagrant with a dog and a blanket watched them through bleary eyes. And despite the location and the moment, Henry could not help but respond to her, so he pushed her gently away.

  ‘Jeez,’ he said. ‘Blood rush.’

  ‘Just testing,’ she said cheekily.

  Then, one of those incidents happened which had no rhyme or reason. As they stood facing each other, the door of the fish market opened and a lager-carrying youth of about nineteen came out, swaggering toughly. Henry saw him out of the corner of his eye. The lad, drunk even at that time of day, spotted the vagrant up against the wall. He yelled something and ran towards the man and simply kicked him in the head, sending him sprawling.

  For the briefest of seconds the two cops were immobile, then Henry yelled, ‘Let’s get him.’

  And before he knew what had happened, the youth with the lager had been arrested.

  It took a couple of hours to process the youth, and by the time they returned to the court, there had been a lunch break and the prosecution barrister hurried towards them in his wig and robes.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’ he demanded.

  ‘Why? You don’t need us yet, do you?’

  ‘Not as such … but there has been a major development,’ the man said excitedly. ‘Ingram has changed his plea – he’s now going guilty on everything.’

  Andrea and Henry swapped amazed glances.

  ‘Why?’ she asked.

  ‘No idea, changed his mind over lunch. Court resumes in twenty minutes.’ He left them and hurried away.

  Stunned, the two stood in the court foyer, speechless. Then Henry had a strange creeping sensation.

  ‘I wonder …’ he said. He reached for his mobil
e phone and tabbed through to Karl Donaldson’s number, which he called. ‘Karl, it’s Henry … hi, pal … I know this might sound a strange question, but have you heard about Ryan Ingram?

  Henry listened for a moment, smiled and ended the call.

  Andrea said, ‘And?’

  ‘Hasn’t heard a thing,’ Henry said. He folded his phone and slid it back in his pocket, an enigmatic smile quivering on his lips.