by Nick Oldham
‘ 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 amp; 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 desk. 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 out
side 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.
‘ You callin’ Dunny, boss?’ Conroy’s driver asked over his shoulder, interrupting the thought process.
‘ Shit — yes.’ Conroy sprang forwards. ‘Gimme the phone.’
The driver handed the mobile over to him. Conroy punched a number in.
‘ It’s off,’ he said. ‘Yeah, you heard right. Bring the stuff back.’
The next ten minutes were very uncomfortable for all parties. Not because of the nature of the enquiry, simply because Rider hated to be in the presence of police officers, particularly detectives, and resented answering questions, incriminating or otherwise, merely on a point of principle. And he particularly resented Henry Christie, whom he disliked on sight.
To Rider, Christie had an aura about him that the rather plodding Seymour didn’t possess. It was nothing to do with the way he dressed because for a detective, Christie dressed quite conservatively. Nor was it the way he spoke, as Christie’s voice was quite monotone.
It was that he oozed inner savvy. It was the look in his eyes, the way they constantly took measure, occasionally narrowing to a slit as they ran over Rider. The way he listened to answers, but at the same time his mind seemed to be considering something of greater importance. It was the way he assessed Rider, chewed over what information there was to be had, what information was hidden, and weighed him up. Probably coming to the right conclusion.
Basically, he unnerved Rider.
From the other side, Henry did not like Rider either. There was an immediate animosity between them. Not that Henry cared. There was friction between himself and a lot of crims. It was a good thing, he thought. Kept them on their toes.
But this man Rider…
As he answered the questions, Henry tried to analyse him. Something about the guy made Henry do a double-take. What the hell was it? Henry could feel there was something more to this man, who on the face of it came across as a middle-aged, overweight, seedy club and doss-house owner.
Henry took a few minutes to discover what it was.
Then he knew.
He’d only ever met a few other such people in his life and he shifted slightly on the bar stool, his arse literally twitching.
Rider was no common criminal. This man was, or had been, big time. Top notch. There weren’t too many about. Some liked to think they were, but mostly they were nothing. This man tried to cover it in bluster and bad temper, but just below the surface Henry could see exactly what he was.
And it was in the eyes, too. They always gave the game away. There was that violence lurking there which said, ‘I could kill you, cop, and not give a toss.’
But it was rusty. Henry could see that, too. This man had been out of the game for a while, but it was still in his blood. He could be very dangerous again.
Yes, thought Henry, Rider was something special. His mouth went dry at the thought.
Now he wanted to know everything about this man, the sooner the better. He cursed his lack of professionalism for not knowing already.
Rider responded begrudgingly to the detectives’ questions.
Yes, the dead girl’s description sounded like one of his new tenants.
Couldn’t remember her name at the moment; it would be on the rent book. From Blackburn, he thought. No, didn’t know very much about her. No, that wasn’t unusual. He was a landlord, not a fucking snoop. So long as the rent came, he didn’t give a toss. Yes, top flat, number twelve. Came in two days ago. Yes, they could go in and have a look round the flat. Probably wouldn’t be locked. She didn’t bring much stuff with her. She was alone.
Was that all? Bye bye.
Henry thanked him. As he did he recalled the statement taken from the girl at the zoo. It mentioned a big red car taking off after the shooting. There was a big red Jaguar parked outside the club.
Henry could picture Rider involved in something like that.
‘ Oh, by the way,’ he said, sliding off his bar stool onto his feet. ‘Have you visited the zoo today?’
‘ No.’ Too quick, very tense all of a sudden.
‘ Let’s hope you haven’t,’ said Henry, ‘because if you have and I find out I’ll be back here faster than shit off a shovel.’ He spoke very matter-of factly and in a way that Rider found intimidating.
‘ Don’t know what the hell you’re on about.’
‘ See you now,’ Henry said affably.
He and Seymour walked out.
Rider remained at the bar. Jacko and Isa materialised out of the woodwork. Jacko stayed behind the bar. Isa asked him what it was all about.
He gave a sneer. ‘Nothing — just one of my tenants. Nothing to worry about.’ But he was worried, and frightened. ‘Fuck that bastard Conroy!’ he said between gritted teeth and slammed the bar top with his fist. ‘Fuck him for getting me involved again.’
Out on the street Henry took the number of the Jag and radioed it through for a PNC check.
The two detectives got into their car, an unmarked Rover Two series. ‘He didn’t even ask “Why?” when I mentioned the zoo,’ Henry said. ‘I find that intriguing. I mean, if a cop asked you if you’d been somewhere, surely you’d-’
Henry’s audible musing was interrupted by a very garbled message on the personal radio. A patrol was shouting, but most of the words were impossible to make out — with the exception of, ‘Assistance! Assistance! Officer down!’
Chapter Six
‘ We’ve to take the stuff back to the warehouse — the deal’s off for some friggin’ reason,’ Dundaven said to his passenger, whose name was McCrory.
He ended the call on the mobile and tossed it onto the dashboard of the Range Rover. They had been mooching around Blackpool, killing time in amongst all the tourists, pretending to be trippers themselves, whilst waiting for the call from Conroy. The theory was that they would look less suspicious on the move rather than parked up in some back alley somewhere. Two guys sitting in a motor always attracts attention.
