Backlash

by Nick Oldham

  ‘All human life is here,’ he whispered.

  But, all in all, nothing untoward was happening. Henry was as certain as he could be that their entry to the building had not been clocked.

  The nearest door was number 5. Down the corridor to 4, then 3, the one they were interested in. Both officers made silent progress even though the carpet was worn through to the boards in places.

  Outside number 3 Henry realised this was where the music was coming from, which was good – being such a dyed-in-the-wool fan of the Stones himself would give him some common ground with Joey Costain, something to talk about, to break the ice, unless Henry had to break Joey’s head first. ‘Midnight Rambler’ climaxed and ended with Jagger threatening to ram a knife down someone’s throat. If the track was on the Let It Bleed album, Henry expected to hear ‘You Got the Silver’ next, instead, ‘Midnight Rambler’ began again, the haunting Keith Richards’ riff filtering out through the door.

  Without knocking, Henry tried the door handle. It opened. He turned to Taylor, winked, and pushed the door open slightly. No lights on inside the flat. Henry paused on the threshold. His senses were now razor sharp. Expect the worst: an attack; an escape – or for this not to be Joey Costain’s flat.

  The music was louder with the door open. It was an insistent, urgent riff. Henry knocked gently on the door, almost making no sound with his knuckles, his mind concocting a fabricated story in case Joey wasn’t here and someone else was.

  ‘Hello,’ he whispered into the flat, not loud enough for anyone to hear. He twitched his head to Taylor who had a look of abject horror on his face.

  ‘Can you do this, sir?’ he gasped. ‘What about the Police and Criminal Evidence Act?’

  ‘Didn’t you know – we’re in the police. We can do anything.’ The smile he gave Taylor was mischievous in the extreme. ‘We’re entering premises under section one of the Ways and Means Act. Stick with me. We’ll be OK.’

  Taylor remained unconvinced.

  The front door opened into a short hallway with two doors off it. One on the right, the other directly in front. No signs of lights under either door. Henry opened the one on the right and put his head and torch round. It was a poky, smelly, toilet and bathroom. He flicked the torch beam round to confirm it was empty, populated only by the putrid smell of urine and shit. Not nice.

  He closed the door and walked down the hall. His right hand withdrew his side-handled baton.

  Behind him, Taylor followed suit.

  Henry extended his baton with a crack as did Taylor, although it took him two tries to extend his because he was shaking so much.

  Henry was positive this door would lead into the living room, kitchen and bedroom all rolled into one. Something the upper class would call a pied-à-terre and would cost a quarter of a million in London, but because it was in Blackpool, it was what Henry would call a shit-hole.

  The music played on relentlessly. Mick Jagger sang with a sinister malevolence never achieved since. Henry’s guts churned at the words of the song which had been inspired by the antics of the Boston Strangler.

  Henry went for the direct approach, knocked loudly on the door, pushed it open and announced, ‘This is the police. We’re looking for Joey Costain.’ The door swung open to reveal another room in blackness. Curtains closed. No light from outside filtering through at all.

  A strange smell grappled with Henry’s nasal passage, making him wince. He recognised it immediately. Death. Sweet and sickly.

  Without stepping into the room, Henry leaned forward and located the light switch by the door. He touched it with his baton tip and knocked it down.

  The light produced by the single, swinging, unshaded bulb, hanging limply from a wire in the centre of the ceiling was not dramatic, but curiously restrained. It did not have to be bright; in fact, a powerful light would probably have reduced the impact of what it revealed. The low wattage produced a dull, grainy light which cast grey-to-black shadows across the tableau – and the effect was terrifying.

  Henry whistled, then covered his nose and mouth with his hand. ‘At least we now know why Joey didn’t answer his bail.’

  Behind him, PC Taylor stood on tiptoes, eager to get a glimpse of the room, then wished he had not bothered. As soon as he realised what his eyes were seeing, his legs turned jelly-weak and folded underneath him. He keeled over as the blood left his brain and he hit the floor. Hard.

  Henry did not move, even with Taylor wrapped around his ankles, groaning as he came round.

  ‘Feel sick,’ Taylor said, retching.

  ‘Again? Well don’t do it on my shoes, do it in the hall.’

  Taylor got onto all fours and crawled down the hall where he vomited what was left of his stomach contents – a surprising amount since he had already thrown up not long before at the hospital.

  Henry gulped. Joey Costain lay dead in the flat. Butchered. Mutilated. Torn to shreds. Ripped open from his pubes to his neck, his insides turned outside, intestines wrapped around his neck like a garland. His hands were bound together by parcel tape, as were his ankles and lower legs. He was lying on the floor, on a rug, in the centre of the room. Dark gobs of blood were everywhere, like puddles of tar on the carpet. The walls were splashed and smeared with the stuff.

  Henry tore his eyes away from the body, scanning the room, letting them take in everything they could. He would not be setting foot any further into the room for fear of destroying evidence. He dreaded to think how much he might already have spoiled by actually coming into the flat. His gaze moved across the walls. Something registered. He realised there were words there, written on the wall in blood. He squinted and shone his torch on them. They read: ‘Gypsy scum.’

  He switched the torch off. Mick Jagger on the Boston Strangler: ‘He don’t give a hoot or a warning.’

  Eleven

  Tuesday morning was when the party conference really kicked into gear, good style. It was the day Blackpool was deluged by thousands of politicians, would-be politicians, spin-doctors, hangers-on and everyone and anyone else who thought they had any remote connection with the political bandwagon. The prime minister was expected to arrive in the resort today with his controversial wife; they would show their faces at conference, then disappear until Wednesday afternoon and then stay until the conference ended on Friday after what the prime minister hoped would be a rousing, motivational speech, the quality of which would be measured by the length of the ovation.

  Tuesday was also the day when anti-government, anti-anything protesters, campaigners and demonstrators landed en masse in Blackpool. Some were harmless slightly potty cranks, who reappeared year after year peddling their skewed points of view to anyone who would listen, regardless of who was in power. Others were seriously dangerous people, dedicated to their, often, warped causes and their right to inflict their message on the world by whatever means necessary.

  The media also came into town on Tuesday. TV broadcasters had been in the resort setting up their outside broadcast equipment all weekend, both at the conference venue and at the conference hotel. Tuesday was the day they plugged in and started transmitting in earnest from breakfast to bedtime. They were joined on this day by their brethren from all other branches of the media.

  Tuesday was therefore the day on which the massive police operation moved into top gear. Hundreds of officers were flooding into town from the surrounding countryside, rather like descending hordes of vandals intent on rape and pillage. They would work fourteen-hour shifts, day and night, and very few of them would enjoy the experience of the four very long, usually monotonous, tours of duty. The only good thing was the overtime – which came in useful in their December pay packets – and the free food and drink provided.

  At 8 a.m. on that morning, now into his fifteenth hour of the first proper night shift he had worked in almost fifteen years, Henry Christie found himself in an emergency planning meeting in FB’s commandeered officers’ mess. FB was describing the get-together as a ‘strategy and re
sources’ meeting. Henry thought of it more as a ‘shit’s hit the fan, don’t panic’ sort of meeting.

  Henry was with such luminaries as the local divisional commander and the head of the conference operation for that day, both chief superintendents. A detective superintendent senior investigating officer was there, together with Jane Roscoe, another DI called Corner and the Met superintendent Andrea Makin. Karl Donaldson, the FBI representative, stood at the back of the room, chewing, coolly taking it all in.

  To Henry’s surprise, Basil Kramer was also there, or perhaps he wasn’t so surprised following FB’s word in the shell-like a few hours before. FB was obviously out to impress by being an all-dancing, all-singing, all-round entertainer and Assistant Chief Constable.

  Henry struggled to concentrate on the meeting but his mind felt like mush because he was so exhausted. However, when he did manage to focus he rather enjoyed the way in which FB fawned in one direction to Basil Kramer and preened in the other to Andrea Makin as he spoke. It was plain to see that FB was seriously stressed out: he’d had little sleep and now his police force had let him down by allowing two murders to happen right under its nose.

  ‘We find ourselves in a very grave situation,’ he was saying, ‘and I don’t need to tell you what effect these murders will have on the streets as well as on our image – particularly as this week we are right under the spotlight.’

  ‘So what are you going to do about it?’ Basil Kramer asked, applying pressure which Henry thought was out of order. ‘The PM will be extremely eager to hear, particularly as tomorrow he will be making his keynote speech on law and order and the home secretary will be making one on how he proposes to relax immigration laws. The PM will be pledging millions of pounds of extra cash to the police service and Lancashire will get a sizeable chunk of this cash. It would be ironic to see the forces of law and order collapsing around his ears as he spoke – wouldn’t it?’ Kramer’s voice held a hint of threat: perform, or you don’t get the dough.

  FB blanched. Beads of sweat tumbled down his forehead, his jaw muscles tensed visibly. His eyes criss-crossed the room, landing on Henry Christie whom he blamed totally for the current predicament. ‘Henry,’ he said, ‘maybe you’d like to brief us all about last night’s events.’

  Henry had expected this to be dumped on him. FB was a past master at buck passing.

  ‘Yes, sir, no problem.’ He cleared his throat and began to recount the happenings of the busy night to his attentive audience. He had spoken in such forums before and was unfazed by it. He knew all the Lancashire detectives in the room well, having worked extensively with them all, bar Jane Roscoe. He concluded by recapping his thoughts on the two murders, because as an ex-detective, he believed he had the right to do so and as FB had given him the floor, he was going to take advantage. He kept it pithy and to the point, though. He didn’t want to bore or alienate his audience with too many details.

  ‘Geri Peters had already intimated she knew something about the right-wing extremist group, Hellfire Dawn, but that she was afraid to tell us. I think she would have said something to us eventually and whoever killed her believed this too. I know that an impulse killing will have to be a consideration, but I believe the answer to her death lies with the knowledge she possessed. So what was that knowledge?’ Henry stopped, allowing the question to hang in there. He went on, ‘Joey Costain was linked to Hellfire Dawn, too. He was an activist, although his own ethnic background doesn’t quite sit with their ideals of white purity – he’s from a gypsy background,’ he explained to the one or two puzzled expressions in the room. ‘So how come he was doing their dirty work for them? Having said that he was the main suspect for Mo Khan’s death, so things point to the Khan family taking retribution, right down to the slogan written in blood on the wall. So, yeah, the Khan brothers have to be pulled in for questioning, but the way he was butchered doesn’t sit easy with that line of thought, not to my mind anyway. The Khans are very handy with knives and guns and I think they would quite happily have slit Joey’s throat and let him bleed to death. They wouldn’t have carried out the post-mortem.’ Henry’s face screwed up. ‘The Khans don’t feel right for it – that’s it,’ Henry ended.

  ‘Right, thanks for that . . . er . . . insight,’ FB said insincerely. ‘You can go home now,’ he continued, dismissing him. ‘Now, gents – and lady – we need to make some decisions about how we are going to divide up our meagre resources for these murders.’ His eyes roved the room and landed back on Henry, who had not moved. ‘You still here, Henry? I thought I’d told you, you can go home to bed now.’

  A titter of laughter rippled round the room: Henry Christie was being publicly shown his place in the new order of things. Reactive inspectors were very low on the food chain, somewhere just above plankton.

  ‘And by the way,’ FB rubbed it in, ‘be back here for five o’clock. I want to know your plans for keeping the peace tonight – because they weren’t very good last night, were they?’

  Patronising twat, Henry thought as he rose, red-faced, not making eye contact with anyone. He slunk out of the room thinking, Stuff you!

  FB continued, ‘We might well be overrun with bobbies, but each and every one of them is tied up with the conference, so you can forget them. The next few days are going to be very tight manpower-wise so you can forget full murder teams until the weekend. As I see it, we need to get two investigations up and running side by side, but linked by the same senior investigating officer – anybody disagree?’

  No one did.

  ‘Detective Superintendent Thomas – Dave, you’re in overall charge, OK?’ FB indicated the man, who nodded. ‘DI Corner, you can have Geri Peters, and DI Roscoe, you can have Joey Costain because his death seems like a follow-on from the job you were already running.’

  By the time he was putting his arms into his leather jacket Henry had calmed down somewhat and was glad to be going home. Maybe some of the dubious words of wisdom from the great Burt Norman from last night were not far off the mark: do your tour, go home, forget about the job. There had spoken a man who felt he had been shafted by the organisation and now Henry was on the verge of agreeing with him because had Henry not also been shafted? The problem with Henry was that he loved the job. He had loved being a detective. And, if the truth were known, if FB had offered him an office cleaning job on a murder team he would have grasped it with both hands and kissed his feet in gratitude.

  You sad bastard, he told himself.

  Burt Norman, who had arrived for work at 5.40 a.m. that Tuesday morning, was out of the office, making his presence known over the radio, constantly giving orders to the troops. Sometimes Henry wished he was a bit more like that, with an assertive, almost aggressive management style. The truth was he felt uncomfortable dishing out instructions like a bloody general, leading from the front all the time. When it was necessary, yes. But overall he preferred a more laid-back approach, leaving the shouting and bawling to people who revelled in it. Like FB.

  He put the man out of his mind.

  The walk back to the flat on his tired, aching legs did not have great appeal. He squinted out of a window at the sky. The day was bright and clear, which lifted his spirits a little.

  In his head he planned the next half-hour in fine detail: Stroll home via the newsagent’s, pick up a copy of the Daily Telegraph. Back to the flat, avoiding Fiona if at all possible. He craved silence. Into the shower to soap and shampoo off the night and get that fresh over-all feeling. Into the kitchen wrapped in his dressing gown. Tea and toast. Skim the headlines. Two Nurofen, then approach the bed. Slide in between the cool sheets by nine and then go for seven uninterrupted hours sleep and pray that Fiona would be too busy neutering dogs and spaying cats to have time to pay any attention to her overactive libido.

  Henry knew he could not have responded, even if the flesh had been willing. For the first time in his life he did not want sex, he wanted sleep. The realisation startled him.

  His plans were unfolding
as he walked through the station and out through the back doors of the huge covered garage and he suddenly remembered that he had not yet got a conference pass. Must do that tonight, he thought.

  The place was buzzing with cops and their vehicles, all for the conference.

  Henry’s butterfly-like musings – the product of a tired mind – turned briefly to his ex-wife Kate and his two daughters, Jenny and Leanne. He longed to be going back to the marital home, with a doting wife who would once have done anything for him, gone anywhere with him, and the chaos of the two girls who adored him and would not give him a minute’s peace, demanded cash with menaces, drove him up the wall and gave him the most wonderful cuddles . . .

  Stop! Cease those unproductive thoughts. Live with the fact you have fucked up your life good and proper. There was no going back now. No restarts, either, he thought. Kate was all cried out of second chances and the business with Danielle Furness had effectively ensured that.

  Which spun his thoughts to Danny – but all he could see was the last moments of her life, the twist of her head as her neck had broken and she had died with his unborn child inside her.

  Stop! he told himself again. Move on! He put his hands over his ears and screamed silently. Stop this fucking nonsense.

  ‘Boss – can I give you a lift?’

  At first the words did not register with Henry. He was still in that Tenerife bedroom watching Danny’s attacker, one arm around her neck, the other smothering her face. The man had broken her neck expertly in one flowing motion. He had probably done it a hundred times before, practising on prisoners held in Soviet prisons. One loud crack. Instant death. Danny was the last person that man ever killed. Henry had seen to that as he fired a bullet into the man’s throat. But it had not been a sweet revenge, just revenge. No consolation for the loss of the woman he had grown to love.