by Nick Oldham
‘Follow your conscience,’ he said abruptly. ‘Whatever, I won’t be in on Monday.’ He strutted angrily to his car, his brittle mood not made any the better when he saw how busy the seagulls had been on his windscreen.
He watched Jane reverse, or lurch, her car out of the parking bay, slam it into first with an angry crunch and screech dramatically out of the police yard with a squeal of rubber. He had a friend, a frequently divorced friend, who had once told him without a trace of irony that women were not worth the hassle. ‘Henry, me old mate,’ he’d said drunkenly once, ‘losin’ it all for the sake of a wizard’s sleeve is bloody crass stupidity.’ He’d gone on to explain what he meant by ‘wizard’s sleeve’, but with a bit of imagination Henry had already worked out what he meant. Henry believed that if he and Jane had tipped over the ‘verge’, as she had called it, he would now be living to regret it. He would have lost his family, which included two great daughters, and would have been nowhere near buying a plasma screen TV … all for the sake of a wizard’s sleeve. He allowed himself a chuckle at his friend’s crude metaphor, started his car, cleared the screen of bird shit and allowed it to warm up before setting off into the night.
He drove to the Esplanade, Fleetwood’s seafront promenade, then did a right past the North Euston Hotel on to Queen’s Terrace, the Isle of Man ferry terminal to his left. Way across the mouth of the River Wyre were the lights of the sleepy village of Knott End on Sea, and in the far distance to the north the hulking structures of the nuclear power station at Heysham, illuminated by an eerie orange phosphorescent-like glow.
His intention was to trundle down on to the romantically-named Dock Street, cut right across town then head south towards Blackpool and home, hoping he could make it safely with just the one good eye.
Henry’s bleat to Jane about having worked long, hard hours for the past three months had only been partially true. With the exception of a two-week family holiday jaunt to Ibiza, he had actually been hard at it for nine months. For the first six he had been running a complex and particularly dangerous investigation into large-scale corruption and murder within the ranks of some Greater Manchester Police officers. This had entailed much overtime – all unpaid, of course – and several trips to Spain. During the course of the investigation, headed nominally by Lancashire’s chief constable, but run directly by Henry, his life had been threatened twice and his firm’s car had been regularly damaged whilst parked unattended in Manchester. These worrying occurrences had not deterred him from completing a job which had sent shockwaves through GMP. There were some loose ends, as there always are in such a far-reaching enquiry, but Henry was as satisfied as he could be at the outcome … and then he returned to the force, immediately being handed the reins of his present investigation and a new posting to boot.
He was currently a temporary detective chief inspector, a member of the Senior Investigating Officer (SIO) team which was based at force headquarters near to Preston. Or at least he had been. Whilst busy in Manchester, there had been some changes to the SIO team and its remit. It had been renamed the Force Major Investigation Team (FMIT) and in order to ensure there was an even better response to serious crime, the staff had been divvied up and given responsibility to provide cover to specific police divisions in the county. In the shuffle, during which Henry had no say, nor was consulted, he had ended up with responsibility for ‘A’ and ‘B’ Divisions, covering the west and north of Lancashire. He had been turfed out of his comfy headquarters office and relocated to Blackpool nick, where he had ended up in a shoe-box of an office with no heating and initially no phone or computer.
Having spent much of his career in Blackpool, and living there, the move wasn’t entirely unwelcome. At least he did not have to do the forty-odd mile round trip each day through increasingly horrendous traffic. But in his paranoia, he did suspect the move could be the first step in ousting him from FMIT by putting him at arms’ length and giving him an investigation to run which he had overheard described as having gone ‘tits up’.
‘Tits up.’ A phrase to conjure with. It had been up to him to reverse the grim way in which the investigation had gone so far, and so far it had not gone well.
He gripped the steering wheel tightly as his thoughts spiralled around to his boss, Dave Anger, a man who made the phrase ‘intrusive supervision’ look like something a nanny did. Anger was forever on Henry’s shoulder, overseeing everything he was doing, questioning him, making him feel unsettled, making it known that if Henry did not pull the investigation out of the bag, he would be going on a sideways jaunt. He had made it clear that he did not want Henry on FMIT, for reasons that still remained unclear to Henry; what Henry did know was that although he detested Anger with a vengeance, it would take a crowbar to prise him out of the job he loved and was passionate about.
As Henry cruised along Dock Street, he tried to relax and put these things out of his mind. On reaching the roundabout at which he intended to swing right through town, he stopped at the give-way lines whilst waiting to see what the car coming on to the roundabout from the opposite direction was going to do. At first Henry thought the driver would loop right round, but at the last second, the car carried straight on in the direction Henry had just driven.
‘Thanks for the signal, mate,’ Henry muttered, aiming his best glare of contempt at the man behind the wheel who turned face-on to Henry for the fleeting moment that the two cars were side by side, door by door. The yellow street lighting illuminated the man’s face, very brightly for a flash – just long enough for Henry’s one good eye to go for a ninety-five per cent certainty.
The man driving the car was none other than the slippery Mr George Uren.
As the cars passed in the night, separated by maybe four feet, and the man’s head turned away, Henry caught a flick of the ponytail at the back of his head; Uren was known to sport such a haircut. Henry also caught sight of the dark profile of another person in the car, a man sitting low alongside Uren in the front passenger seat. He could not make out any of that man’s features.
‘Shit,’ Henry blurted, a flush of cop-adrenalin gushing into his system. ‘Even with one good eye,’ he congratulated himself.
He stabbed the accelerator and raced around the roundabout, losing sight of the car for a few seconds. As he drove back up Dock Street, Henry thought he might have lost him. He decided not to race, just cruise easily around – and there he was, stationary at the side of the road, brake lights on, smoke puffing out of the exhaust. Henry sailed past, sneaking a quick sideways look at Uren, who was in deep conversation with the passenger, who remained in shadow. Henry pressed the transmit button on his PR, still on the same exclusive channel as previously.
‘DCI Christie – anyone receiving?’ He would not have been surprised if no one answered. The team would all probably have switched off as soon as he’d stood them down. No one answered. ‘Rory? Jane? Deppo?’ Still no response. Henry cursed silently, annoyed that his radio was inaccessible at the moment inside his jacket and he could have done with changing channels. He swore and drew into the side of the road a hundred metres ahead of Uren’s car. He switched his lights off, kept his foot off the brake pedal and adjusted the rear view mirror so he could observe Uren and partner. They were still chatting. About what, Henry wondered. ‘Anyone receiving?’ he asked hopefully into his PR.
‘Henry? That you?’ It was Jane Roscoe’s dulcet tones. Henry’s face screwed up in frustration. Why did it have to be her? Still, any port in a storm … a saying which had often caused him to get into trouble in the past.
‘Yeah, it’s me. Just sighted Uren. Where’ve you got to?’
‘Almost at Poulton-le-Fylde.’
Henry raised his eyebrows. To get so far in such a short time she must really have been motoring. He had obviously rattled her cage. ‘Can you start heading back? He’s currently sat in a car on Queen’s Terrace, more or less opposite the ferry terminal. In a dark-coloured Astra, blue, I think. Don’t have the registered number ye
t. One other person on board, male, no other details. Uren is in the driver’s seat. I’m parked further up the road, facing towards the North Euston Hotel.’
‘Sure it’s him?’
‘As eggs,’ Henry said.
‘Be with you as quick as I can.’
Henry sat back, hoping she’d be as speedy returning as she’d zoomed away.
The two occupants in the car continued their discussion, head to head. Henry watched all the while, speculating what subject matter required such deep discussion. Whatever it was, he hoped it would go on and on, giving him and Jane time to get into a position from which they could nab the perv; however, Henry was acutely aware that situations like these were more often than not dictated by the actions of the suspect, not the cops.
The passenger door of the Astra opened. Henry tensed up. The second guy climbed out on to the footpath, then leaned back into the car again, said a few words, then turned away, pulled the hood of his jacket well over his head and set off into Pharos Street, which ran towards the town centre. There was something strangely discomfiting about the hood thing, which Henry could not immediately interpret.
He got himself ready to move, thinking that Uren would now be ready to roll. He was wrong. Uren stayed where he was.
‘Where’ve you got to?’ Henry asked Jane over the radio.
‘Just passing Morrisons.’
‘Roger.’ Only a couple of minutes away, Henry thought. We might just get lucky here.
Just then the dark hooded figure of Uren’s passenger reappeared from Pharos Street bearing the unmistakeable carrier bag which screamed ‘takeaway!’
Henry snorted and allowed himself a wry smile, causing his facial swelling to twinge. Clearly he would not be belly-laughing for a while.
The passenger got back into the Astra. Again, Henry got ready, but Uren and friend were going nowhere fast; they began to feast on their fast food, making Henry’s stomach grumble jealously at the thought. He hadn’t eaten a proper meal for days. Not that a doner kebab could ever have been classified as real food, but just at that point in time, it would have hit the mark for the ravenous detective.
‘They’re eating a takeaway,’ he informed Jane. ‘We could be in luck here.’
‘What do you mean? Confiscate the meals?’
‘Yeah, that and arrest Uren. A double-whammy. Position?’
‘Just passing Freeport,’ she said, referring to the massive riverside retail outlet on the outskirts of town.
‘When you hit the roundabout, carry straight on, then as Dock Street bends into Queen’s Terrace, pull in. They’re parked just before Pharos Street. You know it?’
‘Yeah, gotcha.’
It seemed to take forever before the set of headlights belonging to Jane’s car appeared in Henry’s mirror, then stopped at the side of the road about seventy-five metres behind Uren, and were then doused. She had arrived.
‘OK – what’s the plan now?’
Always a good question, Henry thought. ‘Simple: pincer movement, sort of,’ he said. ‘You come up from behind, I’ll saunter down from here. Uren doesn’t know me, so we ought to be OK. By the time we meet up we should be at his car. You do the passenger door and I’ll slide across for the driver’s door and ignition keys.’
‘Sounds a wonderful, well thought out approach.’
‘Stop being a cynic and let’s get on with it.’
He climbed out of the Mondeo and began strolling towards the Astra, Jane doing the same from her car. They actually closed quite rapidly on their target, Henry already fingering his warrant card, ready to slap it into Uren’s face so there would be no doubt that he was the good guy.
Twenty metres away it went wrong.
Henry heard the engine of the Astra rev, the crunch of gears, saw the headlights come on full beam … somehow Uren had been spooked and was going to do a runner … the car moved and Henry came to a halt, wondering whether he should leg it back to his car, then realized the Astra was accelerating towards him. It had mounted the pavement with the nearside wheels and yes, it was definitely aiming at him. Not that an Astra could gather too much speed and momentum from such a short distance, but that wasn’t the point. Being struck by half a ton of moving metal was not something to be taken casually. For a moment, Henry did not react, his brain did not compute the facts, but then his disbelief diminished and he knew that Uren was intent on mowing him down. There could be no other explanation.
The car grew as it approached, engine screaming in first gear.
For a split second, through the double glare of the headlights, he saw Uren’s face clearly behind the wheel, but not the face of the passenger; and then the car was only feet away and Henry was stumped as to what to do. His feet had become clods of clay, heavy and cumbersome, and he could not command them to do anything to get out of the way. In a second he was going to discover just what the chassis of a Vauxhall Astra looked like from a mechanic’s point of view.
It was at this prospect that his legs suddenly found their raison d’être. He could not move to his right or he would be flattened against a building, so he twisted himself towards the road. But not quickly enough or far enough. Uren yanked the steering wheel down and followed Henry, catching him a glancing blow on his thigh with the front offside wing of the Astra. Not for the first time that night Henry went into a spin. He found himself on all fours in the road, stunned by what had happened, then further horrified to find that Uren had not finished with him.
The white reversing lights came on and the car sped backwards, slithering dementedly as it raced to flatten him.
‘Henry! Look …!’ he heard Jane scream.
His head spun up to see the back end of the Astra bearing down on him, virtually on top of him. He felt his eyes widen in fear and amazement, almost popping out of his skull. He started to scramble as though he was on starting blocks for the hundred metres. The toes of his trainers slipped on the tarmac road, but he found enough grip to propel himself out of the way, scrambling into an untidy forward roll as his shoulder thumped the ground. The Astra missed him – so close he could smell the car – braked, then surged forwards, tearing away down the road towards the seafront, its lights extinguished as it went.
Henry was left sitting on his backside on the cold, but dry, road, slightly confused by what had just happened. And why it had happened.
If he read it right, George Uren had just tried to murder him.
But there was no time to reflect on that.
‘Henry!’ Jane screamed, running up to him. She swooped down on to her haunches. No other words came out, so shocked was she.
‘I’m OK,’ he gasped, grateful for the hand she held out to assist his battered body to its feet. He stood unsteadily, swaying slightly. ‘Let’s get the bastards.’
‘He tried to kill you,’ she uttered.
‘I gathered that – with a bloody Vauxhall Astra. Now get your PR on to Fleetwood’s channel and let’s get some bodies looking for it.’
He pulled his own TETRA out from inside his jacket and tuned into the local frequency, Jane doing likewise with hers.
‘Did you get the number?’ she asked.
‘Oh aye,’ he breathed unsteadily. The registration mark was as clear as day in his mind’s eye as the little projector in his brain re-ran the scenario of the car coming backwards to crush him to death. ‘It’s imprinted on my head – almost – shall we say?’
Initially the adrenalin rush eased the pain, but as that wonderful self-administered drug evaporated from his system, Henry’s leg began to throb dreadfully, making him suspect that some damage might have been done.
It was twenty minutes since the car had driven off. An immediate search by all the local available cops had failed to find it. Henry and Jane had criss-crossed the streets, also without success. As they sometimes do, the car had just disappeared. Now he and Jane were back in the yard behind Fleetwood police station, sitting in Henry’s motor, discussing what had happened. Henry found himself start
ing to shake as the pain grew in intensity.
Jane noticed. ‘You all right, Henry?’
‘No,’ he gasped. ‘Jeez – I think I might’ve hurt myself.’ He touched his leg and jumped. ‘Not having a great night, so far.’
‘Come on inside the nick and let’s have a look-see,’ Jane suggested. ‘You might have to drop your pants in front of me.’
‘Nothing new there, then.’
She assisted him to get out of the car, then provided a shoulder to help him hobble in through the back door of the station, where he propped himself up against a wall in the corridor. His face was screwed up agonizingly.
‘Let’s have a peek.’ Jane reached for his belt buckle, but Henry checked her hand.
‘I can manage.’
He unfastened his black leather belt and began to flick open the buttons on his Levis, his eyes holding hers as his fingers moved down the fly. As he reached the bottom rung, Jane’s eyes looked down and her eyebrows arched.
‘Let’s see what’s behind the façade, shall we?’
Painfully he eased the jeans down to his knees, exposing his Marks & Spencer Y-fronts, new ones, unstained, he was glad to report, and his thighs.
Jane’s playfulness left her suddenly as she laid eyes on the side of his right thigh where the car had glanced him. He looked down and saw a thick lump of flesh turning purple and black and swelling up. ‘That needs looking at and quick,’ she said.
Henry felt quite faint.
Over the years Henry had spent so much time on business in the casualty department at Blackpool Victoria Hospital that he had got to know the long-in-the-tooth staff there pretty well. This was fortunate, because the unit was heaving and under real pressure when he landed there just before midnight.
It was the usual fare. Drunks who’d been assaulted, drunks, drunks who’d drunk too much, more drunks, sober people who’d been assaulted by drunks, drunks, drunken drivers who’d crashed their vehicles and mangled themselves, victims of drunken drivers and an array of uniformed paramedics and cops coming in on the back of the assaults and road crashes. It was not a location for the faint-hearted, this unit that resembled the chaotic scenes from MASH but without the army helicopters and the constant sound of artillery. This was the place where the offenders and the victims of the town that was the country’s biggest holiday resort were dumped, and could be one of the most violent places anywhere on a Friday night if the combination of people and drink was just right.
