by Nick Oldham
‘When you look beyond the shit and the sticky carpet and try to imagine it how you describe, not bad, not bad at all.’ She nodded appraisingly. Her mouth turned down at the corners as she considered. ‘Loads of potential, but it needs so much money spending on it, John. Even if you were going to run it as a straight disco it would need gutting. Those ceilings look like they’re about to come down. And I don’t have too much money to invest, not at the moment.’
‘I do. Don’t worry about that aspect of it. I’m not asking you for anything other than your expertise and I’ll pay you well for that. But what d’you think about the plan - the north’s first lap-dance joint? Right here in Blackpool, the tackiest place in the world?’
‘Seems a good idea and in the right town.’
‘Good. Your job will be to provide the dancers and manage them.’
‘Not a problem,’ she said. Isa Hart ran a respectable escort agency in Manchester, specialising in escorts for the’ Busy, discerning professional’, whatever the sex. A profitable business in itself, it also provided a sound front for many other less respectable activities including the provision of exotic dancers for the Middle East, strippers for high-class men’s clubs and one-off functions, gay dancers and, of course, where Isa had started all those years ago - running call girls.
She had known Rider for many years. They had jointly run several ventures in the strip-joint and call-girl territory, but these businesses had crumbled when Rider hit the bottle and the coke.
They both gazed down the bar, across the vast dance floor and beyond to the raised seating area which was the restaurant. Rider’s plan was to get rid of the dance floor, and build a huge circular bar on which the girls would dance to pounding rock music and relieve the customers of their money.
He could see it all. Brash. Glitzy. Rude - very rude. Yet well run, tightly policed by his staff, fun and completely in keeping with Blackpool’s image. The clientele would not be able to touch the girls and there would be no hint of prostitution. They would simply dance provocatively, virtually naked, in front of and almost in the laps of customers. Money would be handed to them and they could be ‘bought’ for individual dancing.
To Rider it was a beautiful image, which was one of the reasons he didn’t want to sell the place to Conroy.
He had a goal now, an aim in life, and he wanted to achieve it.
And he had plans for the rest of the building too. There were another two storeys above which used to be offices for the casino and although the floors were generally rotten and dangerous, he planned to bring them up to scratch and open a restaurant and pub on the first floor and convert the second into new offices.
‘The planning application goes in next week. We’ll see what reaction it gets. Should be favourable.’
‘You mean you’ve greased some palms?’
Rider merely smiled at her and raised his eyebrows.
The doorbell rang.
Jacko, who’d been restocking the bar, sauntered away to answer it while Rider pointed out a few more things to Isa.
A few moments later, Jacko was back, flustered.
‘Cops,’ he said.
Rider closed his eyes despairingly as he remembered something. The bell rang again.
He dashed behind the bar, reached under the counter, rummaged for a second and pulled out the gun he’d commandeered from Curly. He shoved it into Jacko’s hands who held it like he’d been given a dog turd.
‘Take that upstairs and hide it - hide it somewhere they won’t find it, just in case they want to search the place. Well, go on, go on!’ He shooed Jacko away. ‘Make yourself scarce, Isa.’
‘What do they want?’ she asked wide-eyed, the sight of the gun having thrown her.
Rider did not reply. He turned and walked to the front door, grating his teeth angrily, swearing at the thought of Conroy. Today was becoming like one of the good old days, and the sad thing was, annoyed though he was by the whole debacle, he was quite enjoying it, in a sick, perverted sort of way.
After Henry had finished at the zoo, he made his way back to the mortuary. Dr Baines, the pathologist, didn’t tell him anything he hadn’t already guessed. The girl had died from multiple stab-wounds. Anyone from a total of forty could have been the fatal blow.
Baines promised a written report as soon as possible. That meant anything up to a week because of workload.
Henry thanked him, waved goodbye to Jan and gloomily returned to the office, where he immediately sought out FR His boss was in the murder room set up for the newsagents job, in deep conversation with Tony Morton. Henry had to wait to step in.
FB looked blandly unconvinced when Henry said he wanted a full team on the beach corpse.
‘Sorry Henry, this takes priority in terms of manpower and resources.’ He flicked his hands at the incident room. ‘The sordid little murder of a junkie who was probably on the game and deserved what she got doesn’t even rank.’
Anger bubbled up inside him at these crass remarks, but he managed not to punch the living daylights out of FB.
‘She actually deserves as much as anyone,’ he replied calmly.
FB gave one of his famous sneers and said, ‘That’s as maybe, but the reality is you’re gonna have to manage this one as best you can with the resources available - i.e. whoever’s left in the office.’
‘They’re all on this sodding job. Can I have Derek Luton back?’
‘Nope - you’ll have to make do.’
‘Jesus,’ Henry uttered under his breath.
FB relented slightly. ‘Tell you what. I’ll give you one HOLMES terminal and an operator to go with it.’
‘Big fuckin’ deal,’ Henry snapped.
‘Don’t push it, Henry,’ FB warned him.
‘Overtime budget?’
FB laughed.
And that was that.
In the CID office, the Support Unit Sergeant who had been leading the team searching the beach for evidence was waiting. He handed a small black leather-clutch bag with a gold clasp and shoulder strap triumphantly to Henry.
The find cheered Henry.
Eagerly he cleared his desk top, spread out a sheet of polythene and opened the water-sodden bag, emptying out the contents. He had been hoping that there would be something in here to give him a quick lead, even though there was nothing to suggest the bag even belonged to the dead girl.
And the contents of the bag were, at first glance, going to be of no use whatsoever in solving the murder.
A crumpled packet of Benson & Hedges cigarettes, three left in, a plastic throwaway lighter and a syringe with a rusty needle. Everything soaked in sea-water, the cigarettes being not much more than tobacco mush.
‘Fuck,’ said Henry, disappointed, but not completely surprised.
It would have been nice to have tipped out a driving licence and passport with her name on and a diary detailing her most recent acrimonious split with her latest lover who had threatened to kill her ... but it was not to be.
He tipped the cigarettes out of the packet then carefully ripped out the gold paper innards. Nothing.
He looked closely at the lighter, flicked the mechanism and found it worked. It gave him nothing else.
Neither did the syringe. Inside it, though, looked to be the crystallised remains of some controlled substance.
He turned the bag inside out, finding the black nylon lining to be ripped, he probed with his fingers into the space between the lining and the bag. Nichts.
‘Don’t suppose you found anything else?’ he asked the Support Unit Sergeant hopefully.
Negative.
Shit.
Despondently Henry picked up the bag again and twirled it around between his hands. He looked through it once more ... and saw something. Tucked into the bottom corner of the mirror pocket, folded several times, was a small piece of paper.
Very easy to miss, he reassured himself.
He pulled it out, holding it tentatively between finger and thumb, laid it out on the des
k. It was sodden, almost to the point of disintegration.
Using the tip of a ball-point pen he unfolded it, trying not to tear it. He ended up with a triangular piece of paper which could have been the corner of a page, possibly a telephone directory. Some words - thankfully in pencil- were written on the paper and quite legible. An address - a house number and a street name, but no town specified.
Henry made the assumption it was Blackpool.
Ten minutes later, together with another detective, he was pushing his way through the main door of a block of flats in South Shore, about to do one of the things he most enjoyed doing: knocking on doors.
It looked a likely place, and although he tried not to stereotype people, he could well imagine the dead girl to have lived in such surroundings.
He rapped his knuckles sharply on the first door he came to and looked around whilst waiting for a reply.
The hallway, which reeked of cat piss, was littered with uncollected post, milk bottles - empty, unwashed - and a baby buggy. Oddly enough, no cats were to be seen. Henry glanced over his shoulder at the tubby Detective Constable who was accompanying him. ‘See, told you. They all smell the same, these places.’
The detective, Dave Seymour, nodded. ‘I know, boss.’ He was an experienced officer with more years on the CID than Henry and only a couple to go before retirement.
Henry raised his hand to knock again just as the door opened reluctantly - but only as far as the flimsy security chain allowed. Henry could easily have put his shoulder to the door and burst through.
Behind the door stood a thin, pale-faced female holding a screaming baby to her flat chest. Her eyes were red raw, sunken. One of them bore the remnants of a nasty-looking green bruise. From inside the flat came the sound of a TV turned up to a high volume.
She clocked the two men as detectives straight away.
‘What do you want?’ she asked cautiously, appraising them.
‘We’re investigating a death,’ Henry told her, having to raise his voice to compete with the baby-TV combination. ‘Could we have a word, please? Inside.’ He showed his warrant card.
‘I don’t know nothin’ an’ I haven’t done nothin’,’ she said nervously, juggling the baby up and down. The child picked up her tension and the volume from its lungs increased by several decibels.
‘We’re just after some information, that’s all,’ Henry informed her. ‘We won’t keep you long - honest.’ He smiled.
She tutted, put the door to, unhooked the chain and let the two detectives come into her living accommodation. It consisted of three tiny rooms: a bed/living room with a mattress covered with grimy sheets in one corner, a couple of big, second-hand armchairs and a good quality TV set on top of a small cupboard; a minuscule bathroom, and a kitchen with a three-ringed cooker, sink and no fridge. In overall area, the flat was no bigger than a small towing caravan but was much less luxurious.
A large amount of baby clothing littered the place; in one corner of the room was a high pile of unused disposable nappies. The room smelled of sick and pooh with just a hint of cannabis.
What a fucking life, Henry thought. She must be all of seventeen. ‘And you are?’ he asked.
‘Jodie Flew.’
‘You alone here?’
‘At the moment, yes,’ she answered tartly. ‘What d’you want?’ She brushed back a strand of greasy hair from her face. The baby’s volume decreased. Seymour crossed to the TV and switched it off.
Henry told her, gave a description of the dead girl and asked Jodie if it were possible she knew her, or if she lived in one of the flats.
‘Well, maybe. Dead, eh?’ Jodie was not too concerned by the news. ‘A new tenant moved into one of the flats upstairs, day before yesterday, don’t know which one, but I only seen her a coupla times in passing. Could’ve been her, from the description. Hard to say. You spoken to the landlord?’
Henry shook his head.
‘He lives downstairs.’ She pointed to the floor. ‘If he isn’t in, he’ll be at his club, that one on Withnell Road.’
Henry thanked her and made to leave.
‘Any idea where that bastard of a boyfriend of mine is?’ she asked as they stepped out.
‘Should we?’
‘Well, he’s always in trouble for something or other. He went to the match yesterday and he hasn’t come back yet. I know he gets pissed up an’ all, but unless he got himself nicked, it’s a long time to be away, even for him.’
‘What’s he called?’
‘Shane Mulcahy.’
Henry blanched at the mention of the name. He knew Shane hadn’t given this as his address, otherwise he wouldn’t have knocked on the door in the first place. ‘Does he live here?’
‘Most of the time. Sometimes crashes out at his mum’s.’
‘Did he give you that?’ Henry nodded at her.
‘What? The kid or the black eye?’
‘Whichever.’
‘Both.’
Henry regained his composure and said, ‘No, don’t know. Why don’t you give the nick a ring and ask the Custody Sergeant?’
‘What with? I don’t have a phone and I don’t have any spare money until the Giro comes. That bastard took it all with him yesterday. I’ll ring his soddin’ neck when he comes back.’
She slammed the door behind them. Henry heard the chain slot back, then the TV get turned up.
Seymour said, ‘Isn’t that the one you kneed in the knackers?’
‘You make it sound like an unprovoked assault, Dave. It was self defence.’
They went outside and trotted down the steps to the basement flat.
Henry rapped on the door.
‘There’s one thing about it,’ Seymour said dryly. ‘There’s a one hundred per cent chance of him giving her a black eye again, but only a fifty per cent chance of him fathering another little Shane Mulcahy.’
The front entrance to the club was a pair of large wooden doors, gloss painted a deep shiny maroon.
Henry looked at Seymour with a surprised expression when the doors had been virtually closed in their faces by Jacko with a curt, ‘You’ll have to wait here while I get the boss.’
‘Interesting reaction,’ said Seymour. He leaned on the doorbell as though pushing it hard would make it ring out in a more official tone.
‘Something to hide?’ mused Henry.
They both waited for the ‘boss’ to arrive.
En route to the club, Henry had asked comms, via his PR, to see what could quickly be unearthed about a John Rider on the PNC and Indepol, Lancashire’s own crime intelligence computer.
There was no response for a few minutes. He and Seymour had by then arrived at the club and were obliged to park outside whilst waiting for the reply. Parked up in front of them was Rider’s Jaguar.
Checking up on people was pretty standard for Henry, no matter who he was dealing with. If they had ever been of interest to the police, he wanted to know.
After a tedious five minutes, the radio operator got back to him. ‘From the PNC - two previous, both over ten years old. Want details?’
‘Affirmative.’
‘Nineteen seventy-nine, armed robbery in Blackburn. Two years. Hijacked a security van. Nineteen eighty-two, again in Blackburn, living off immoral earnings. Two thousand pound fine, eighteen months suspended. Received?’
‘Yep.’
‘Not a lot on Indepol. There’s an old “target” file for him in existence somewhere, probably Manchester. There’s an RCS and NWOCS reference. That’s it . . . and PNC is flashing a warning signal. Apparently, if it’s the same guy, he uses firearms and is violent.’
‘Thanks,’ Henry acknowledged, as usual not using radio terminology such as ‘Roger and out,’ because it made him feel slightly foolish. ‘Pimp and blagger,’ said Seymour.
‘Firearms and violent,’ added Henry. ‘All very well to know.’
The door opened.
‘Mr Rider?’ Henry asked.
A nod.
> ‘Your employee is very rude.’
‘Not half as rude as I can be. What can I do for you?’
‘Can we come in?’
‘Do you have a warrant?’
Henry looked pityingly at Rider. ‘We have a statutory right to enter licensed premises at any time.’ Or so he thought. He wasn’t completely certain, but he sounded it. ‘We need to ask some questions about one of your tenants who was found dead on the beach earlier today.’ He wasn’t completely sure about that, either.
Rider sighed. ‘Come in then.’
Conroy’s whole afternoon had backfired very badly indeed. He slouched angrily down in the back seat of his Mercedes which sped smoothly eastwards along the M55. What an almighty fucking cock-up!
Firstly there was the matter of John ‘holier-than-thou’ Rider, who like some sort of demented religious convert had forsaken all things criminal. Conroy had expected a soft touch - a serious misjudgement.
He’d been a hundred per cent certain he would be able to walk all over Rider and make a very one-sided deal which would give him access to the club. It had been apparent though from the first moments of their encounter that Rider wasn’t the slobbering drugged-up drunk he’d been expecting to meet. He was very much the Rider of old who was not to be messed with.
It didn’t alter the plan, though.
Conroy still wanted into the club - and very soon.
All it meant was that the next approach to Rider would be more formal and if necessary backed up with force. How much force was a matter for Rider, but there would be no room for negotiation. Conroy would get what he wanted.
Then there was the other matter ... Munrow.
Conroy shifted uneasily. He could still feel the muzzle of the gun pressed into the back of his head. His ear throbbed like hell. That was the last thing he needed at the moment - a fucking gaolbird starting a war just because he felt he’d had his nose put out of joint. It’d be more than his nose when Conroy finished with him. It’d be his brain.
