Psycho Alley

by Nick Oldham

  ‘I was actually going to give you a ring now … and anyway, it seems you already know about it, otherwise why would you be here?’

  ‘Pure chance, pure coincidence, Henry. I only know because I came in early to have a mooch, as is my wont.’

  The temptation to say, ‘Yeah, right, pull the other one – that cow Roscoe told you, didn’t she?’ was strong, but Henry refrained as he was also a little gobsmacked by the phrase ‘as is my wont’. Did people still say that? Henry, who enjoyed words and sayings from yesteryear, thought it sounded quaint, but coming from Anger it was more like a threat.

  The pause lengthened uncomfortably, until Anger said, ‘So? What else have you got? Time’s ticking, Henry.’

  Henry could easily have reeled off the course of action he was going to take by quoting the chapter headings of the Murder Investigation Manual. Instead, he said, ‘I know what I’m doing.’

  ‘OK,’ Anger conceded with a long sigh, but remained tight-lipped and lizard-eyed behind his round glasses. ‘But you keep me in the loop, Henry. That’s an order.’

  ‘I know my job.’

  Anger nodded curtly, weaved past the desks and brushed past Henry on his way out of the MIR. Henry turned as Anger’s hand dropped on to the handle of the door. ‘What is it? What the fuck have I ever done to you?’

  Anger stood still, his hand squeezing the handle tightly, knuckles white, blood vessels in the back of his hand risen. He looked across the room at Henry, their eyes clashing. Anger licked his lips. ‘I need team players on this squad, not loners, and definitely not people who are close to being nutters. One way or another, I’ll get rid of you, Henry … and, despite what the Chief said, if it’s in my power to prevent you being promoted at the same time, I will, believe me.’

  ‘Oh, I believe you,’ Henry whispered. But there was something else lurking behind Anger’s glinting eyes, something that told Henry that not the whole truth had been spoken. Dave Anger’s resentment towards Henry was far more fundamental than disliking Henry just because he might have been a loner or a nutter, neither of which accusations Henry would have accepted anyway. He certainly wasn’t a loner.

  Anger left. A few moments later, Debbie came back, hesitance in her step.

  ‘Everything OK?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah, just a bit of mutual appreciation,’ he smiled, making her chuckle. ‘Right, time for business.’

  To be an effective SIO managing a murder investigation requires the juggling skills of a circus performer. There are so many things to think about and it is easy to forget important details in the morass of tasks and information which come in. He knew that his initial priority was to get as much from the crime scene as possible, as well as tracking down George Uren.

  Despite his personal conflict with Jane Roscoe, he knew the crime scene was in safe hands. She would deal with it effectively. That left him to think about Uren and how best to track down and nail the bastard, because if this was done, it could very well be a quickly-solved murder investigation with a lot of kudos coming his way, something he was not unaware of.

  Problem was, he didn’t know where the hell Uren was.

  Henry picked up a copy of Lancashire Constabulary’s intelligence bulletin, known as ‘The Informer’. He looked at the black and white photograph and into the hard eyes of George Uren and then the bold headline underneath: ‘Dangerous High Risk Sex Offender at Large’. The text went on to say that some eighteen months previously, Uren was released on licence from Wymott Prison, near Leyland, to a probation hostel in Accrington. Uren had been sentenced to four years imprisonment for the rape of a six-year-old girl when he had been lodging with the girl’s family. ‘Uren,’ it went on, ‘has many convictions across the board and has warning markers for weapons and violence and drugs. He is extremely violent, especially towards police officers, and has previously stabbed an arresting officer in the chest.’ In large, black letters were the words, ‘HE SHOULD BE APPROACHED WITH EXTREME CAUTION.’

  After a month at the hostel, he was reported missing and was therefore in breach of his curfew and consequently the conditions of his licence, and was subject to a prison recall.

  It went on to describe his clothing and the man himself: six foot two, thirty-eight years old, usually clean-shaven but with a ponytail, with a dagger tattooed on his right forearm and the word ‘CUNT’ across the knuckles of his left hand.

  He had not been seen since he absconded from the hostel.

  Further warnings detailed that Uren, as well as being a threat to police officers, had also harassed police officers and their families following a previous investigation. He was on the sex offenders register for life.

  Henry put the bulletin down and looked at Debbie Black. It had just turned eight a.m. and he felt, once again, as though he had been up for days. He picked up the sausage sandwich Debbie had brought him from the canteen and took a bite of what, at that moment, was the best meal he’d ever tasted in his life. He washed it down with strong, wonderful tea and energy surged through him, better than a shot of methadone.

  ‘We were just scraping the barrel with this one,’ he admitted, tapping Uren’s face with his index finger. ‘Nothing’s been heard of him for months and it was assumed he’d gone south, or abroad or something. Maybe he had … but then a sex offender was arrested a few days ago on an unrelated matter and during an Intel gathering interview, he mentioned he thought he’d seen Uren in Fleetwood recently, in a pub. That’s why we were in town last night … you look puzzled.’

  Debbie’s brow was deeply furrowed. She sighed. ‘You said you’d never had any dealings with him before?’ Henry nodded, bit into his sarnie. ‘How did he know to run you down?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that one … maybe I’ve had dealings with the guy in the passenger seat.’ Henry wrapped his hand around his chin, his palm covering his mouth, munching food thoughtfully.

  ‘At least it’s a bloody good start to the job. You know who the prime suspect is, which is always a starter for ten.’

  ‘Yeah, I just need to corner the bastard now.’ He finished the sandwich, folding it without manners into his mouth, smiling at Debbie as he did so. She, on the other hand, bit delicately into the one slice of wheat-germ toast she’d bought for herself.

  They grinned at each other.

  Henry very quickly established an intelligence cell, a grand phrase for a lone detective constable heaved from the local Intel department, to start rooting into Uren’s background, to go through everything they could find on him from all agencies, and to start to piece together a crazy pathway that might lead to his door. At nine thirty a.m. he had managed to recall all the detectives who had been working with him the night before, scouring Fleetwood’s pubs, and had already briefed them to follow up some lines of enquiry as regards Uren’s burnt-out car.

  Things had started to tick over, but Henry did not want to lose any momentum. He had a briefing booked for eleven a.m. for the murder team and uniformed officers and had arranged the post mortem for two p.m. Via the press office, he had already issued a holding statement to the media.

  The scientific people were at the scene and some local uniforms had been commandeered to begin some house-to-house legwork near the docks just to get the ball rolling. They were knocking on warehouse and factory doors, as well as boarding some yachts in the marina. Possibly clutching at straws, but Henry knew there was rarely a crime committed that went unwitnessed.

  By midday, a small team of investigators had been given the scent and unleashed. A Home Office Large and Major Enquiry (HOLMES) team and appropriate admin supported them.

  A murder enquiry was well and truly under way. Henry’s rudely-christened operation had got a new dimension. He wondered how much time he’d be given to solve it. Several weeks ago he’d been warned he only had a month to get a result and he’d failed. Now a murder had come in which may or may not be connected … one thing he knew for sure was that Dave Anger was hovering for the kill.

  Three<
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  Henry Christie regarded his reflection in the mirror of the gents’ toilet of the public mortuary in the grounds of Lancaster Royal Infirmary. His injuries – the combination of the whack on his eye and the painful glancing blow he’d taken on the thigh from Uren’s car, together with the long day he’d just had, made him look grey and not a little frail. He splashed some water on his face, though it didn’t do much to revive him, and wiped himself dry with a paper towel.

  His thumped eye had gone a vivid shade of purple, though the swelling had subsided and he could more or less see through it now. His ‘gammy’ leg, as he now called it, was sore and aching; he was actually wondering whether he should start using a walking stick, which could maybe become a pretentious trademark. After all, all great detectives had something quirky which defined them.

  ‘Great detective my arse,’ he mumbled at his reflection and necked a couple of the strong painkillers the hospital had doled out to him.

  Behind him, the door to the gents’ opened and the Home Office pathologist entered, still in a bloodied-up apron from having just completed a gruelling three-hour post mortem examination on the body found in the back of the burned-out car. He was called Baines, a stick of a man with ears like a trophy. Henry had known him for longer than he cared to remember. He was a down-to-earth soul, and he and Henry had often retired to sleazy public houses after many a post mortem to ogle womenfolk and, occasionally, to discuss the findings of the examinations. Usually Baines was jovial, often ribbing Henry about his frequently disastrous love life; today, though, he was sombre. The nature of the PM he’d just performed had efficiently damped down all sense of fun.

  ‘Grim one, that,’ Baines said, fumbling underneath his apron and lining up on a urinal.

  ‘Yeah,’ agreed Henry, also affected. On the whole, PMs did not tend to bother him greatly. Today’s, however, had been deeply unpleasant. ‘So you’re sure?’ Henry ventured.

  ‘Oh yeah.’ Baines was now peeing.

  ‘She was dead before the car was set on fire?’

  ‘Stabbed repeatedly, then burned when the car was set alight.’ He finished, crossed to the sink, started to rinse his hands. ‘Murdered in situ, I would say. The angles of the wounds and the position she was found in corroborate that. I think we can get a good idea of the type of knife used, though. Probably a five- or six-inch bladed one, with a straight edge and a serrated edge. Kitchen knife.’

  ‘Bastards,’ Henry spat, vividly recalling the recently-completed PM. Henry believed that as SIO, he had a responsibility to attend post mortems of victims whenever possible. He had been present when the undertakers had carefully lifted the body out of the burned-out car in Fleetwood, placed it in a body bag, then driven all the way to the morgue at Lancaster. This was for reasons of jurisdiction, as the north Lancashire coroner covered Fleetwood, and therefore the PM had to take place in his area. It was a long journey and Henry had followed the undertaker’s van in his car, having picked it up from home. Professor Baines had spent some time at the scene in order to acquaint himself with the crime, and to offer advice, but he was ready and waiting at Lancaster when the van arrived and reversed up to the double access doors. The body was slid on to a gurney and wheeled into the well-lit examination room where, with little formality, the PM began.

  Some details were quickly established: the body was that of a young girl, aged somewhere between eight and eleven years; she was naked and had been trussed up, hands bound behind her, feet tied at the ankles, another piece of what looked like clothes line tied between the feet and ankles. Henry could only begin to imagine the sheer terror she must have gone through. It wasn’t a great leap of the imagination to guess she had been abducted earlier the same day, Friday. But from where? No young girl had been reported missing in Lancashire, nor in any of the neighbouring forces in the northwest. A simple telephone call to each control room had quickly established that one. So it was a matter of waiting. Henry had already arranged for messages to be sent with urgency to all forces in the country, giving brief details of the facts, asking for immediate responses if any of their mispers possibly fitted the bill. He had arranged for that to happen whilst the PM was taking place, but so far, to the best of his knowledge, no one had yet got back.

  In the meantime, his other priority had not changed: find George Uren. Something that was proving difficult.

  ‘God, I wish I wasn’t so knackered, beaten up and run down,’ Henry said to Baines as they left the toilets. ‘Literally run down.’

  ‘What is it? Too much playing away?’ the pathologist teased, his mood lightening a little. ‘Is the rather delicious DS Black your new piece of totty? Though I must say, she looks like she’s been round the block a time or two.’

  ‘You really need to get out more,’ Henry said with a shake of the head.

  ‘You provide me with all the entertainment I need,’ Baines laughed.

  They walked through the room commonly called the kitchen, mainly because of the huge chiller cabinet set against one wall with dozens of doors in it, set at the perfect temperature to keep a dead body fresh and fragrant. Cards with names scribbled on, slotted into the holders on the doors, declared whether there was a body on the roller behind the door. The place looked pretty full to Henry.

  They crossed the tiled floor to the double doors and stepped out of the rear of the mortuary into the cool Saturday evening. Debbie Black, who had driven up to Lancaster in a firm’s car, stood on the grass verge, smoking. Henry winced slightly at the sight.

  Baines elbowed him and hissed in his ear, ‘Know what they say about a woman who smokes?’

  Henry stopped. ‘No, go on, surprise me.’

  ‘Fellatio, your todger’s happiest pastime.’ Baines winked lewdly.

  ‘Just fuck off,’ Henry said tiredly, but not nastily. ‘I actually don’t shag every woman I work with, y’know, even though I’m regularly accused of it.’

  ‘Not what I’ve heard.’

  They continued to walk towards Debbie, who blew smoke in languid rings into the atmosphere.

  ‘Jesus, smoke rings, too!’ Baines gasped. ‘You lucky bastard.’

  Henry shook his head. ‘You’re incorrigible.’

  ‘Great word,’ said Baines. ‘Underused.’

  ‘Hi, guys,’ Debbie said, stamping out her cigarette whilst exhaling her last lungful and wafting away the smoke with distaste. ‘I only smoke after PMs … I can’t stand the smell of them. Keep a packet of fags on standby, just in case.’

  Henry nodded understandingly, although he had never known the desire to resort to cancer sticks. His stress default had usually been booze in the form of Stella Artois and Jack Daniel’s.

  Debbie looked distraught, as though it was more than the whiff of death that was troubling her.

  ‘You OK?’ Henry asked.

  ‘No, no, not really.’ She was shaking her head, eyes filling with moisture. ‘It’s just that …’ She looked up to the heavens, seeming annoyed with herself for showing emotion. ‘I know I shouldn’t let it bother me … it’s just what you said, Henry, when you described what happened when you clocked Uren.’ He looked puzzled. ‘You know,’ she prompted. ‘That poor girl was probably tied up in the back of his car, wasn’t she? And those two bastards had stopped for fish and chips. They had her tied up alive and they stopped for fuckin’ chips,’ she said angrily. ‘Sorry, sorry,’ she said, drawing her hands over her face. She composed herself, took a few deep breaths, then regarded Henry levelly. ‘I want to be on the murder team, Henry. I want to have a chance at collaring Uren and I won’t accept anything less.’

  ‘What’ve you got?’ Henry asked the question of the single person who formed the intelligence cell in the MIR. He didn’t particularly like the way the DC looked back at him, because he sensed the answer in his expression: nothing.

  ‘Er, not much,’ mumbled the detective constable. His name was Jerry Tope and his nickname was ‘Bung’, short for ‘bungalow’ because, as legend had it, he had nothing
‘up top’. He was the DC Henry had snaffled from the local Intel unit.

  ‘How much more than when I left?’

  The DC blinked nervously.

  ‘That much, eh?’ Henry said, his mouth set.

  ‘Er, just really the stuff that’s already on the system.’ Tope held up a fairly heavy file. ‘Downloaded.’

  ‘Right,’ clicked Henry. ‘So basically, since Uren was released and then did a runner from the hostel, we’ve nothing on him, except a snippet from an interview?’

  The DC looked forlorn.

  ‘In that case, I want everything that we do know to be turned into an action. I want all known associates visited, all previous addresses visited, all known haunts visited, however out of date any of them might seem to be. I also want all known sex offenders in the area visited and spoken to …’ Henry squinted thoughtfully, marshalling his dendrites. ‘Anything back on the burned-out car yet?’

  ‘No … sorry, yes … no current keeper.’

  ‘We have the name of the previous keepers?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Get that actioned, too,’ he snapped. ‘And … find out who he was in prison with, who he was at the hostel in Accrington with – inmates and staff – OK?’

  The Intel cell nodded.

  Henry said, even though it sounded rather corny, ‘No stone unturned, because I’ve got a very bad feeling about this, the more I think about it.’

  What he did not share with Tope were his thoughts on what exactly gave him such a bad feeling, something he was keeping to himself at the moment … not that it was rocket science, but something that had occurred to him after Debbie Black’s heartfelt remark about fish and chips; if Henry had interrupted Uren and his friend before they had a chance to do whatever they were going to do to the unfortunate girl, then it was always possible they might still be angry, believing they hadn’t achieved their goal. They might just be in the frame of mind to continue where they’d left off – and abduct another.