Judgement Call

by Nick Oldham

  He didn’t last long there, mainly because the landlady caught him in bed one afternoon, trying to have sex as silently as possible with a policewoman he had sneaked in. He was given a month’s notice.

  This suited Henry because he ended up living in a rented terraced house with another bobby and his life became much more bearable and liberated, but very unstructured, with the exception of work.

  Also, the shock of being posted somewhere he had never heard of soon wore off.

  He was ultimately determined to leave the valley for busier police pastures but he did realize the potential of the place as a learning environment, because unlike Blackburn, where backup was never far away, in the valley an officer usually operated alone. It was here he learned how to be a cop, learned to apply law and procedure, learned how to deal with and talk to the public and started to develop his skills as a detective, his ultimate goal.

  This was how he had managed to wangle a secondment as a CID aide to Blackburn, but had fallen foul of a DI who kicked him back to Rossendale, an incident that frustrated the hell out of him as he thought it might be a nail in the coffin of his career as a detective.

  One thing he knew for certain was that he was starting from scratch and that he would have to remember to keep his mouth shut a bit more, not just declare UDI and do whatever he wanted.

  FB was the ruler of the roost in Rossendale and Henry was bright enough to realize that getting him on his side was a good move, even if he already disliked and mistrusted him.

  Henry knew that his own biggest problem was seeing things in black and white, right and wrong, and he was only really just becoming familiar with those murky shades between those ends of the continuum.

  Not that that made it any easier for him to accept that Vladimir Kaminski was walking the streets when he should really be banged up facing a rape charge.

  But Henry had to keep FB sweet – at least until he could fathom how to drag Kaminski back in and nail the bastard to the wall … judicially speaking.

  In the meantime, he would just have to go with the flow and hope that nothing worse happened to Sally Lee. He also wanted to be involved in the hunt for the armed robbers who had scared him shitless – and that also meant keeping on FB’s good side.

  But he also knew he was constricted by doing his ‘day job’. He had a specific area to police and whilst he had a lot of freedom in how he did it, he couldn’t just go wandering off into Greater Manchester to make his own enquiries just because he felt like it.

  Had he been a detective, things would have been different. They had much more freedom to follow things through, something else that appealed to him.

  But he wasn’t – yet.

  One day, maybe. … So in the meantime he had to play the game by brown-nosing, being buoyant and positive about the dregs that FB might toss to him like a dog waiting for table scraps.

  Such as this latest offering … which was why he was rushing from the police station to his rented house to grab a change of clothes and reflect on WPC Wade’s suggestive remark about spending the night together.

  The words had taken Henry aback. He had looked stupidly at her.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  She grinned teasingly, then raised her finely plucked eyebrows and said, ‘On business.’

  She waved the sheet of paper at him. Henry saw it was actually a message sheet ripped from the teleprinter. He made a grab for it, but she snatched it playfully away. ‘Say please.’

  ‘Please.’ He held out his hand. He didn’t feel like playing games. His day, so far, had not gone well and he was feeling extremely grumpy.

  She obviously considered toying with him but responded to the look in his eyes and gave him the message.

  He took it and read. It was from the Kent police in Dover who had apprehended a young man about to board the Calais ferry, a lad who had been circulated as wanted for burglary in Rawtenstall.

  ‘Jack Bowman,’ Henry muttered. He knew of Bowman, one of the valley’s most prolific burglars, who had been on the run for about a month.

  ‘Mr Fanshaw-Bayley wants me and you to go down and pick him up. He’s in custody, Dover nick,’ Jo said energetically. ‘Isn’t it exciting?’

  ‘Does he now?’ Henry muttered, realizing that this prisoner escort trip must be the ‘jolly’ FB had referred to. Henry tried to stop his mouth from curling crookedly into a pissed-off snarl. He pretended to read the message again, but in reality he was trying to work out the logistics. The best part of a three hundred mile run down, three hundred back, probably six hours each way at best; it was mid-afternoon now so the journey would necessitate an overnight stay, probably in some shoddy bed-and-breakfast hellhole. On top of that he had a date tonight with his young lady friend, Kate. It was a newish relationship verging on serious and he didn’t want to miss that. The prospect of a tedious journey from one end of the country to the other did not appeal in the slightest, even with Jo, who was evidently up for it.

  ‘We could get down there, go out on the town,’ she enthused. ‘Pint or two, curry.’

  ‘Have you ever been to Dover?’ Henry asked grimly. ‘It’s not exactly Singapore.’

  ‘No … anyway,’ she burbled on, ‘we need a change of clothes, and there’s a car for us at group garage in Accrington. I’ve sorted it. And I’ve got some money from petty cash.’

  ‘You’ve thought this through.’

  Her eyes focused on his. ‘Oh yeah,’ she said huskily. Henry was convinced her pupils dilated with a rush of blood and despite himself, and the thought of the planned evening with his girlfriend, he too felt an inner rush that left his mouth dry. ‘It’s all arranged. I’ve even sorted the accommodation … separate rooms, obviously.’

  ‘I need to speak to the DI.’

  He stood up quickly and shot down the corridor to FB’s office, the door which, as always, was closed. FB was not one of those bosses with an open-door policy. Henry rapped on it, then waited for the requisite countdown before FB called him in.

  ‘You again?’

  Henry flapped the teleprinter message. Not in FB’s face, as he would have liked, but just in the air. ‘Is this the job, boss?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A prisoner escort?’

  ‘It’s a jolly, isn’t it? And in some pretty company, too.’

  ‘Not exactly my idea of a job, though,’ Henry whined.

  ‘It’s a job that needs doing.’

  ‘Can’t disagree with that, but not by me. I finish my shift in half an hour and I’ve got plans for the evening.’

  ‘Shelve ’em. You’re a cop. Stuff like this comes with the territory.’ FB waited for Henry’s challenge. ‘And it’s a uniform job escorting prisoners.’

  ‘Right … OK.’

  ‘But there’s a carrot in it for you: Jack Bowman. I’ve got evidence on him for three burglaries. I think he’s committed about forty more.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘He’s all yours,’ FB said magnanimously. ‘Get him back, get him to confess, test your interrogation skills … If nothing comes of it, just charge him with the three I can prove.’

  Henry started to perk up. ‘He’s mine?’

  ‘You get him, you have him. If you don’t want to go, I’ll find someone else willing. You could clear up a lot of crime here. Bowman’s a one-man burglary machine. But if your social life …’

  ‘I’m on it,’ Henry snapped.

  Now all he had to do was let Kate know that the job had come between them.

  Henry’s rented house was off a main road on a side street that led to a dead end. A very basic two-up, two-down terrace that had only recently had an inside toilet and bathroom and central heating installed. But it was adequate for two single, horny cops who did not crave great comfort, just a bed each, a TV in the lounge and a Chinese takeaway and good pub within walking distance.

  Henry crashed through the front door and shot upstairs to the narrow landing where he was greeted by the wonderful sight of the
very sleepy, rumpled landlady of the aforementioned pub emerging naked from his colleague’s bedroom. She blinked at Henry through a very unkempt fringe of hair and smiled as his eyes opened so wide at the vision of her body, he thought they were likely to pop out on stalks.

  ‘Hi, Henry,’ she said thickly and turned into the bathroom, giving him a flash of her ample, dimpled bum.

  Then she was gone.

  ‘Lucky sod,’ Henry mumbled and went into his bedroom at the back of the house. This consisted of a three-quarter-size bed with one bedside cabinet and a small wardrobe that he’d bought from a local DIY store and somehow assembled himself. The process of putting it together had taught him he wasn’t cut out for do it yourself. He changed quickly into jeans and a shirt, then threw a change of underwear and socks into a soft zip-up bag, together with his toilet bag.

  When he came back onto the landing, he heard the toilet flush, then the bathroom door opened and the landlady stepped out. She stood before him, naked and unashamed – and quite hairless – and after a saucy jiggle of her boobs disappeared back into the bedroom, giving Henry a second glance of her bottom, which he had one day hoped to grab. His colleague and housemate had got there first.

  ‘I’m going to get one of those for myself one day,’ he said under his breath, then went back downstairs and got into the marked police car he had helped himself to. Even though it was only a Mini Metro, there was no room to spin it round in the cobbled street and he had to reverse it all the way back onto the main road, then head back to the police station, worrying how he was going to explain it to Kate.

  One thing for certain, his tale would not include the name Jo Wade.

  Kate worked in a local insurance brokers, close enough to walk to from Rawtenstall nick, but Henry’s courage evaporated on the drive back. He found a phone in an empty office, one from which he knew he could get an outside line by dialling 9, and called the brokerage.

  ‘Valley Insurances,’ a bright female voice answered: Kate Marsden, the girl Henry had met at the scene of a brutal murder. She had discovered the body of a missing girl whilst out walking her dog on the moors above Haslingden. Henry, and FB, had attended and it had been Henry’s job to take the young lady’s statement. She was fresh, gorgeous, and instantly took his breath and heart away.

  That had been a few months ago and their relationship had deepened and was becoming long-term serious. Before meeting her Henry had played a big part in the vibrant single-cop scene in Rossendale, during which time he’d had many encounters and had often rolled into work in a morning after a night of boozing and debauchery, and could hardly keep his eyes open. Some of his dalliances had been with policewomen, but most had been with women he met on the pub/club scene in the valley, which for its size, was thriving.

  Meeting Kate had curtailed these activities, mostly, but Henry knew he couldn’t yet be trusted. Although he had done nothing to encourage the interest of WPC Jo Wade, he was pretty certain that a night away with her could easily lead to something silly.

  Whilst the old part of him wanted that, at the same time, another newer, more mature part was beating him about the head and yelling, ‘No, no, no.’

  Henry’s devil on one shoulder versus the angel on the other, a contest that would rule his entire life, although he did not know it at that moment.

  All he did know was that he was falling in love with Kate, but yet his twenty-three-year-old testosterone still demanded to be unleashed on as many consenting females as possible.

  ‘Hi, love, it’s me,’ Henry said down the phone.

  ‘Hi, sweetie … and even from those four words I can tell it’s bad news,’ Kate said perceptively. Henry winced. Even now she can read me like a book. ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m going to have to cancel tonight. Sorry,’ he said feebly.

  ‘Oh …’

  ‘Er, something’s come up and I have to go to Dover to pick up a prisoner. It’s an overnighter. The DI says I have to. I don’t want to,’ he babbled unconvincingly, ‘but I have to.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ she said softly. ‘I can’t say I wasn’t looking forward to tonight. It must be at least three days since we … y’know? Needless to say, you were on a promise.’

  ‘I know, I know … I’m really sorry.’

  ‘Who’s going with you? I presume it’ll take two of you?’

  ‘Just … just one of the other PCs.’

  ‘Anyone I know?’ Kate had slowly started to meet a few of his work friends and colleagues.

  ‘Er, no … new lad,’ Henry fibbed through gritted teeth. Why don’t I just tell her? he berated himself.

  ‘When are you setting off?’

  ‘About now.’

  ‘OK … Henry?’ Kate started cautiously. ‘Will this sort of thing happen a lot? You know, if we stay together? Like I hope we will.’

  ‘I hope not, but it sort of goes with the job.’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’ There was a heavy silence on the line. ‘Are we going to stay together?’ she asked.

  ‘Don’t see why not.’

  ‘What sort of answer is that?’

  ‘Not a good one … I meant, yes, we will stay together. For definite.’

  He heard her sigh and he knew he should have told her there and then that he loved her. He knew it was what she wanted to hear, and what he wanted to declare … but that old devil on his shoulder was prodding him with a very fiery red trident.

  ‘I’ll ring you when I get to Dover.’

  ‘OK.’ She sounded wistful.

  ‘I was wondering where you’d got to …’

  Henry spun at the voice. WPC Wade had found him and entered the room where he was making the call. He clamped his left hand down on the receiver and looked at her leaning against the door jamb, like a vamp. She had also been home to change and was now wearing tight-fitting jeans and a low-cut blouse.

  ‘Shh,’ he mouthed silently to her, horror on his face, his head shaking frantically.

  ‘Oops, sorry,’ she pouted.

  Henry gave her a death stare and flicked his fingers at her in a ‘go away’ gesture.

  ‘Who was that?’ Kate asked.

  ‘No one … just someone … telling me to get my skates on. I need to pick up a car from Accrington and drop one off.’

  ‘Mm, OK … anything else?’

  Henry thought he could have told her about being shot at and having lost a rapist but decided that stuff could wait. ‘No … I should be back mid-afternoon tomorrow, but then I’ve got to interview the prisoner … so can we pick up tomorrow night?’

  ‘Yeah, suppose.’ Kate’s voice had lost all enthusiasm.

  Feeling empty and dishonest, Henry hung up and stared at the phone for a moment before turning his head slowly back to the door where Jo was still to be seen.

  ‘Are we good to go?’

  Henry nodded, wondering if he would be coming back as a single man again. ‘Bugger,’ he said and rose slowly.

  SIX

  After a scenes of crime officer had found some shotgun pellets embedded in the bodywork of the Cavalier and dug a few out as evidence, then taken a series of photographs of the wounded car, Henry Sellotaped a plastic carrier bag over the smashed driver’s door window then he and Jo jumped in and drove over to the garage at Accrington police station. Here they left the Cavalier and its shot-damaged tyre to be repaired – Henry guessing it would be mainly a case of body filler and touch-up paint but that a new tyre would have to be bought. Then, having tossed their overnight gear into the boot of their replacement car, an older ex-Task Force Vauxhall Victor, now part of the divisional pool of vehicles, they discovered it needed to be refuelled, the screenwash needed completely refilling and engine oil was just a memory for the dipstick. In other words, the usual scenario for a police car.

  Those problems sorted, including making up a mileage book that hadn’t seen an entry for over a week, the last reading in it almost a thousand miles less than was on the odometer, they began their journey south, wi
th Henry at the wheel.

  Progress was slow, the main motorways, the M6 and M1, being extremely busy.

  They made one stop at Birmingham, then hit the London rush hour at the worst time imaginable: 6.00pm. It took an hour and a half to circumnavigate the capital before dropping down into Kent and driving into Dover just before 9pm. Henry had done all the driving, but he didn’t mind because he could claim that concentrating on the road was the reason for not saying too much. Jo also did not say too much, but sat contentedly in the front passenger seat, watching the world whizz by. Henry was aware that she kept taking sneaky glances at him, but he also had a few peeks at her, too.

  The first port of call was to Dover police station, just to introduce themselves, announce their arrival and make arrangements for the prisoner pick-up next morning. Once that was done they got directions to their bed and breakfast accommodation, which they found quite easily, and booked in.

  As promised, the rooms were separate – but adjacent. There was no en-suite bathroom or toilet, these facilities being across the hallway. It was a fairly dank and dingy establishment and Henry was glad he would only be spending one night in it. Once they had settled in, they went out for some food and beer.

  The evening was still reasonably pleasant and warm. The strong sea-smell of the English Channel invaded Henry’s nostrils, but he thought it was a good aroma. They strolled down the main street, identified a Chinese restaurant that would do very nicely, but decided on a drink first and easily found a decent pub in which they bought a pint of lager each. Henry paid.

  It was quiet and they found a couple of chairs by the bow window and sat opposite each other across a beaten copper-topped table.

  Henry raised his glass and they chinked.

  ‘Cheers.’

  He took a long draught, his throat dry after the long drive. Jo took a long drink, too.

  The beer had an instant effect.

  Henry smiled. Jo smiled back. He said, ‘Made it.’

  ‘That’s the first time I’ve seen you smile all day.’

  Henry blew out his cheeks. ‘Lost a good prisoner, got shot at, and I’m not altogether certain that I’ll be going back to a warm reception from my girlfriend.’