Backlash

by Nick Oldham

  ‘I think the allure is more akin to a pair of a Blackburn hooker’s panties.’

  ‘Oh, Henry,’ Roscoe gasped, ‘you say the most wonderful, evocative things.’

  ‘It’s a gift,’ he said modestly.

  ‘But you did spoil my dreams a little.’ She punched him lightly on the arm and at that moment both realised there was something between them. Undefined as yet, but definitely there. A split second of silence passed.

  ‘Well done – again – by the way,’ Roscoe said. ‘The old mouth to mouth. Bit of an expert now. You and your lips.’

  ‘Another of my many talents . . . Superman, eat your heart out, Inspector Christie’s on the prowl.’

  ‘More Inspector Gadget, I’d say,’ Roscoe said cheekily.

  ‘Now you’ve spoiled my moment.’

  ‘Doesn’t do to get too far removed from reality.’

  ‘Not much chance in this place . . . how’s Dave Seymour?’

  ‘Very poorly.’

  ‘Likely to improve?’

  ‘Well,’ Roscoe folded her arms, ‘if we are talking reality Dave is overweight, drinks like a fish, eats like an elephant, y’know, twenty hours a day grazing, smokes like a factory – and not one of those things helps his cause. Even if he was the fittest guy in the world, it’d be touch and go.’ Her voice trailed off miserably. She sighed and admitted, ‘I want to cry . . . but I’ll get home first.’ She walked past him and touched his arm. ‘By the way, thanks for getting us out of that shop.’

  ‘Superman.’ He winked.

  ‘Yeah, you could be right. Bye.’

  He watched her walk away. He had wanted to dislike her but had found out that she was OK. Nothing ever seems to work out as planned, he thought. What he disliked was the way in which the job itself had put them both into a position where they had wanted to dislike each other.

  PC Taylor stayed with Geri Peters from her reception at A&E, all through her treatment at the hands of skilled casualty doctors and nurses, and then remained with her in a tiny curtained cubicle while efforts were made to admit her to a ward. They wanted to keep her in for observations. Taylor was bored rigid with the deployment. He had watched disinterestedly as the staff had poked and prodded her but had actually done very little because there wasn’t much they could do. What was wrong with Geri Peters was more in her head than anywhere else.

  It was hardly a riveting episode of ER. Come to that, Taylor thought, it was hardly an episode of Casualty either. The doctors, nurses, porters and paramedics were exceptionally polite to each other, and no one seemed to be having an affair. It was all very dull.

  In the cubicle, Taylor became restless. The thought of a cup of coffee from the machine down the corridor was a good one. He checked the prisoner: sleeping now, drugged up to the eyeballs with a hell of a concoction. She was going nowhere fast. He placed his helmet on the bedside cabinet and pushed his way out through the curtains.

  Almost as soon as he had gone, the curtains swung open again. A man entered the cubicle. David Gill. He approached the girl on tiptoe, gently removing a pillow from underneath her head without disturbing her. He fluffed it up and smiled.

  It was time to kill again.

  Ten

  Peace at last. Henry strolled slowly through the corridors of the station, unable to inject any speed or purpose into his step as he came down from the high of his recent experience. He made it to the inspectors’ office and plugged in the kettle. Next to it were several mugs, all obviously personally owned by other inspectors, a box of teabags, some powdered coffee, sugar in a stainless-steel bowl (appropriated from the canteen, probably) and a couple of jars of Teamate. No doubt he would be required to join the inspectors’ tea fund. As he helped himself to a teabag, a spoonful of Teamate and dropped both into someone else’s mug, he hazarded a guess that the wonderful Inspector Burt Norman would be the tea-fund administrator. It seemed the type of thing he would relish taking on and running with a rod of iron. He would savour telling Henry about the unwritten rules concerning payment of monies, the use, or otherwise, of other people’s crockery (not permitted, Henry assumed) and the penalties levied for late payment of dues.

  Henry smirked as he thought back to the welcome Norman had extended to him at the start of the tour. It seemed days, not hours ago, so much had happened since. All in all a pretty usual sort of night for the reactive inspector in Blackpool, Henry guessed. Reactive inspectors had to be the jacks and masters of all trades; it was something Henry had not realised before. God, get me back onto CID, he prayed.

  No, the meeting with Burt Norman hadn’t just been hours ago. It had been a lifetime ago.

  The kettle boiled and clicked off. Henry made his tea and because of his distinct lack of energy, heaped a large spoonful of sugar into it. False, short-lived energy, maybe, but energy nevertheless. He sat slowly down, easing his aching back and other joints into the chair. He lifted both feet onto the desk. They were throbbing continually in his boots, a persistent thud, thud, thud. He unclipped his tie, tore open his shirt collar and looked forward to his proposed oasis of calm.

  Only when he had chilled out, drunk his tea and enjoyed its effects, would he get his mind round the things he had to do. First, the hospital. He had to decide what protection, if any, the girl needed and more importantly, perhaps, whether or not the police had the resources to keep a constant watch on her. Then there was her attempted suicide. Some searching questions had to be asked soon.

  The first sip of the hot brown tea was a wonderful experience. He sighed and his mind drifted to the subject of Jane Roscoe. He had wanted to hate her with a vengeance, but had found he quite liked her. Liked her a lot, to be truthful. Firstly because she seemed very capable and no nonsense. She was a good DI, of that there was no question. Secondly because he actually quite fancied her. He liked her manner, her appearance, voice, hair, face – whoa, Henry! Put on the brakes. He stopped this line of thought with a sardonic grin: do not even think about it; do not let what lurks behind your Y-fronts rule your mind. That had happened far too often and, anyway, he was in a ‘relationship’ now with the vet lady.

  His face creased at the thought of a situation he was not a hundred per cent comfortable with. Fiona did not seem to be on the same intellectual plane as him: she was several places higher and the only common ground seemed to be bed and sex. And even Henry knew that was no basis for a lasting relationship. How he hated that word. It meant nothing these days. He took a second sip of the tea. He never got the third sip.

  PC Taylor thundered down the hospital corridor, heaving a nurse to one side. A second nurse took shelter in the doorway of a side ward and almost ducked as he flew past. The constable screamed, ‘Stop him! Stop him!’ He was hampered by the weight of his uniform and the cumbersome equipment belt around his waist. Police appointments were not designed with speed in mind. Nevertheless, Taylor ran hard and fast after the dark figure, his strong physique enabling him to move pretty quickly.

  His right hand fumbled for the radio transmit button on the mike attached to his shoulder. He shouted his collar number and then screamed, ‘Assistance! Assistance needed at the Blackpool Victoria Hospital. Chasing suspect down corridor away from A&E. Murder suspect – killed a prisoner – ASSISTANCE!’

  Henry shot out of his seat. There was a special radio set in the inspectors’ office which gave the inspectors the facility to listen to both sides of radio conversations. He had heard Taylor’s desperate transmission and could hear the breathlessness, the pounding of the feet, the rustle of clothing and the fear in the voice. Something bad had happened.

  ‘Inspector to PC Taylor, what’s the job, John?’

  ‘Ahhh – chasing –’ pound, pound, pound of boots – ‘Chasing suspect – GET OUT OF THE WAY! Girl in custody – dead, I think––’

  The radio went dead.

  Then: ‘Jesus – fucking move, will you!’

  Henry was not absolutely sure what was going on.

  ‘Inspector to all availa
ble patrols, make for BVH. Urgent request for assistance – officer chasing a suspect,’ he instructed over the air. ‘Inspector to Blackpool – put talk-thru on and get a grip of this job, please.’

  ‘Roger. Talk-thru on.’

  ‘Inspector to PS Byrne. Are you in a position to pick me up?’

  ‘No. I’m thirty seconds away from BVH.’

  ‘Roger. Forget it.’

  Henry grabbed his hat and a set of car keys from the hook on the wall and ran out of the office, giving one longing look at his tea. He tore down the steps eight or ten at a time, down into the basement car park.

  All the while, the radio transmissions continued.

  Byrne shouted, ‘PC Taylor. Exact position within BVH?’

  ‘Not sure, not sure – heading from A&E towards X-ray. He’s gone in that direction.’

  ‘Got that,’ responded another patrol. ‘I’ll drive round to that side of the building.’

  ‘Me, too,’ a dog handler cut in.

  ‘PC Taylor – any description?’

  The winded officer was doing his best to respond, but was getting more out of breath all the time. ‘Big guy – dark clothing – dark hair –’

  Meanwhile, Henry Christie was standing in the covered car park with a set of car keys dangling between his fingers, feeling very stupid and frustrated because he did not know which car they fitted. There was no number on the fob – it must have fallen off and never been replaced – and there were four cars parked around the garage. It didn’t help that they were all Astras and the keys in his hands were Vauxhall keys. No process of manufacture elimination to go through there. Just straightforward trial and error.

  He dashed to each car like he was on some sort of game show: how long will it take you to find the car which the keys fit? Do it in less than thirty seconds and the car’s yours! He could almost hear Bruce Forsyth wittering in his ear.

  Sod’s law kicked in. It was the last of the four cars he tried. Valuable time wasted doing a completely idiotic thing. He got in, the seat wobbling precariously and started up the reluctant engine, revving it hard, blowing out a mushroom of blue smoke with a serious sounding backfire. He saw immediately that the petrol gauge did not budge. He swore and prayed there would be enough fumes in the car to get him as far as the hospital. He drove the much-abused car out of the car park and accelerated away, re-tuning his ears to the radio transmissions.

  ‘Lost him, lost him,’ PC Taylor was gasping agonisingly, ‘somewhere down near the X-ray department –’ he took a long, shuddering breath – ‘he can’t be far – must’ve gone to ground in here.’

  ‘Me an’ me dog’s on t’outside of the X-ray department,’ the dog handler said and just to prove he had a dog, it barked. ‘I’ll stay in the vicinity till further notice.’

  ‘Roger,’ the communications operator said.

  ‘I’m in A&E now,’ Dermot Byrne called in. ‘Meet me somewhere, John. You name the location.’

  ‘Er . . . X-ray reception, Sarge,’ said the less than certain Taylor. ‘He must be here somewhere, must be.’ He sounded harassed.

  ‘Inspector to PS Byrne.’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Situation report, re the female prisoner, please.’

  ‘Standby.’

  Henry pushed the underpowered car through its gears, taking it to the limit at each change. He ran red lights, depending rashly on the protection afforded him by the meagre flashing blue light on the car roof. It was a false sense of security, he knew. Other cops had relied on the same in the past with fatal consequences. But at that time in the morning on the almost deserted streets, he felt reasonably confident of not wiping anybody out.

  ‘PS to Inspector.’

  ‘Yo!’ said Henry in the middle of a sharp bend, one hand on the wheel, tyres squealing, the other hand on his transmit button.

  ‘Bad news – she’s dead, sir.’

  Henry had real problems controlling the car coming out of the bend, it was swerving all over the place. He narrowly missed a milk float trundling innocently down the street, the milkman’s terrified face was a sight to behold.

  ‘I’ll get you next time,’ Henry growled.

  Because it was now a fully fledged crime scene, the young girl still lay in the bed and would remain there until all the necessary scenes-of-crime and forensic work had been carried out. It was a very inconvenient arrangement for A&E, but Henry Christie was resolute. They would have to work round it until he was satisfied the police had done their job, so nothing was going to change. He came close to a very nasty head to head with the charge nurse – a woman of formidable stature – but the determination on Henry’s face and in his body language made her back down submissively. When he was on a roll, he could be irresistible.

  He allowed himself just one extended look at the dead girl through the curtains. He was not going to be drawn in by morbid fascination. And, anyway, his presence would only contaminate the scene. However, his experience of murder scenes told him all he needed to know for the time being. Geri Peters was dead. From the way in which the pillow was laid across her upper chest and underneath her chin, there was a better than average chance that she had been suffocated.

  Henry was angry with himself that he had not been switched on enough to see the danger she had been in.

  Ducking under the police crime scene tape which now criss-crossed the A&E ward like a huge spider’s web, he made his way to the staff rest room.

  PC Taylor was there, doubled over, head in hands, rocking slightly. Dermot Byrne sat next to the well-built officer, a hand on his shoulder.

  When Henry entered the room, feeling stern and unforgiving, Taylor looked up through his fingers, then rose unsteadily to his feet, ready for the broadside. His arms dropped open by his side, hands palm outwards in a sort of acceptance of blame. He had been crying. Henry felt great sympathy for him but he did not let it show. He had no plans to let Taylor off the hook. Yet.

  The officers from the night shift who could be spared had spent the best part of the last hour carrying out as methodical a search of the building as their few numbers allowed, which was not easy in a hospital as huge and sprawling as the Blackpool Victoria. Henry had them carry out a room-by-room, corridor-by-corridor search from beyond the point at which PC Taylor said he last saw the killer. The officers went up and through the X-ray department, right to the end of that particular leg of the hospital. To do more would have been impossible. Henry had even won the battle with the staff nurse to bring in an unhygienic and slavering dog to assist the search. The pooch had found nothing either. The guy had disappeared into the ether. Now Henry had several cops roaming the corridors and outside he had a few officers positioned at strategic points in the grounds with orders to ‘turn over’ anyone found wandering. Now Henry wanted some hard information.

  Byrne, seeing the grim expression on Henry’s face, stepped in between the inspector and PC Taylor.

  ‘Don’t be hard on him, boss,’ Byrne said protectively.

  Henry regarded his sergeant stonily. Byrne stood aside and Henry transferred the hard-edged gaze to Taylor, who wilted visibly. The PC sat down and stared glumly at the floor.

  ‘Tell me what happened – again.’

  ‘Well, as I said, I came to the hospital with her like you instructed––’

  ‘Like I instructed,’ Henry cut in patronisingly, unable to stop himself. ‘Yes, like I instructed – and what did I instruct, PC Taylor?’

  ‘To look after her,’ he said lamely.

  ‘Exactly,’ growled Henry through clenched teeth, his face a sneer.

  ‘Y-yes,’ Taylor muttered feebly, sounding frightened.

  ‘Right – what went wrong?’

  ‘Er, she got treated and they put her in the bed – where she is now – down at the far end of the department and I went to sit with her – next to her.’

  ‘Go on,’ Henry urged him on as he seemed to come to a full stop.

  ‘It’d been such a long night, what with t
he trouble up on Shoreside, that I was tired out. I couldn’t keep my eyes open and I thought that if I had a coffee, maybe it would keep me awake.’ Taylor paused. ‘So I went for one.’

  This time Henry did not prompt.

  ‘I was away for what? God, less than two minutes and as I came back through the curtain with my coffee I just saw the back end of someone going out the other side – it was so quick. I looked at her, saw the pillow, saw her face and I just went into autopilot and went after him. I realised I had to get him, whether she was dead or not. I legged it. I went like hell for leather down the corridor.’ Taylor’s head wobbled in disbelief at the vivid recollection in his mind. ‘I couldn’t get near him. He was bloody fast, like a shadow – and as I came round the next dog-leg in the corridor I was running down he was gone!’

  ‘Description?’ Henry said coldly.

  Taylor hesitated, marshalling his thoughts. ‘I didn’t get a good look, really,’ he admitted. ‘Like I said, he was like a shadow. I just saw his back.’

  ‘His back? Are you certain it was a man?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, hundred per cent. Ran like a man. About my height and build – say around six feet. Wearing dark clothing and something pulled over his head – balaclava, I reckon.’ Henry was expecting more but Taylor had apparently finished his description.

  ‘Is that it?’ Henry’s brittle voice held utter disbelief.

  Taylor nodded worriedly.

  ‘Not very much to go on,’ Henry commented dryly.

  ‘I know, I know,’ Taylor bleated forlornly. ‘But that’s all I saw. I’m wracking my brains to dig more out, but it’s just not there. I’m really, really sorry.’

  ‘So you bloody well should be – sorry for that girl.’ Henry’s voice started to rise, but he got a grip and sighed down his nose, flaring his nostrils.

  ‘Oh God, I feel ill.’ Taylor got to his feet abruptly and swallowed. His face was the colour of best-quality typing paper. ‘I wanna spew.’ He swallowed again.

  ‘Well, don’t fucking well do it here,’ Henry shouted, ‘go and find a bog.’