Backlash

by Nick Oldham

  ‘What did you tell them?’

  ‘I said you wanted me to identify some property.’

  ‘Not far off the mark,’ Henry muttered. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  Every shadow hid a potential petrol-bomber, every wall a rock-thrower. The two officers expected to be attacked at every turn but although the estate was buzzing, they drove off safely.

  Byrne was at the wheel, Henry in the sagging passenger seat. He turned and looked at Troy, a less than debonair man of the Shoreside underworld where violence and intimidation were currency and drugs meant power. Henry knew the Costain family were driven by violence and held much of the estate in fear of them, hence few people ever willingly came forward as witnesses against them for fear of reprisal. The only challenge to their dominance had been the Khan family and now that challenge had erupted into violence and death.

  ‘Where we going?’ Costain demanded.

  ‘Head out towards the hospital, but find somewhere to pull in on the way – somewhere intimate,’ Henry instructed Byrne. He squinted nastily at Costain. ‘Somewhere we can have a chat. Woodside Drive sounds nice.’

  Byrne nodded.

  Henry smiled at the back-seat passenger. Troy was very much like the rest of his family in many ways. He came across as a tough cookie, was respected by kids who’s dads were never home. Troy liked beating people up who could not or would not fight back, but sometimes, unless backed up by other members of his family, he could not always pull it off. He often hid behind the reputation of the Costain clan because in truth, like so many other bullies, he was a coward at heart, something which Henry had turned ruthlessly to his own advantage.

  Although the use of police informants was tightly controlled due to past abuses, many detectives unofficially still ran informants, or ‘sources’ as they were correctly known. Strictly against force policy, but what the hell. Some jacks had sources going back twenty years who did not want their relationship ‘formalised’ and monitored. As was the case with Henry and Troy Costain.

  Troy had been the ripe old age of fifteen when Henry had first arrested him on an allegation of assault. Once in custody, Troy had crumbled and offered the arresting officer information in return for leniency. Their relationship had blossomed into a financial footing and had lasted well over twelve years. Troy had served Henry well, giving him some good information leading to good arrests. He’d also given him some duff gen too.

  Costain had become Henry’s direct link to Shoreside – and Henry had kept it to himself.

  Henry had decided that his contact with Troy would have to be stretched or even broken now because of the present circumstances. The greater good, corny as it might sound, was more important than information leading to an arrest.

  ‘OK, what’s this about?’ Costain said.

  ‘Let’s just go somewhere where we can park and talk, eh? Be patient.’

  Costain put on a sulky pout and watched the street lights spin by.

  ‘Sorry you had to witness that,’ Vince Bellamy said. He was speaking to Franklands who now had two large whiskies circulating in his stomach, though the alcohol content of them was not getting into his blood stream as quickly as he would have liked.

  ‘What was it all about?’ he spluttered.

  ‘You don’t need to know, other than the fact you have just helped rid our sweet organisation of a traitor who could possibly have destroyed us,’ Bellamy explained. ‘He had to be lured to a place and dealt with and the best way of doing it was to let him think he was going to help us sort you out. But as we know, you’re not a traitor, are you, Martin?’

  ‘No.’ He helped himself to another shot of whisky. He was sitting on a chair in Bellamy’s office at the Berlin.

  Bellamy sat down in front of him. ‘It was vital,’ he said reassuringly, ‘and you’ve proved your worth. We know we can trust you ultimately because,’ and here he dropped the bombshell, ‘that man was a cop.’

  Franklands swallowed the vomit in his throat. He pictured images of the assault: the first blow, the kicking, the jumping on Baxter’s head, crushing his skull like they were stamping on a beetle. Franklands could hear the noise. It was horrible and he shuddered. Oh God, a cop, he thought bleakly.

  ‘You are truly one of us, Martin.’ Bellamy’s voice became lilting and hypnotic. ‘Sometimes these small things have to be done for the good of the movement – you know how true that is, don’t you?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he croaked, his breath coming in judders.

  ‘Will you do something else for us?’

  Franklands looked up quickly into Bellamy’s eyes. ‘I . . . I don’t know . . . I’m in shock, Vince.’

  ‘I know, but again, it is only a small thing, another piece of the jigsaw which will eventually lead us to power.’ Bellamy paused, smiled and reached across to put his fingertips on Franklands’ jaw line, tilting his head up so their eyes were on a level. ‘You are one of my boys, Martin, part of the top team now. Yes, I mean it – irreplaceable.’

  ‘What do I have to do?’ Franklands could not stop himself asking.

  ‘Deliver a package.’

  Woodside Drive was off the busy East Park Drive which leads up to Blackpool Zoo, now closed for the day. It was an unlit road, often used by courting couples at night. A perfect place for a conversation.

  Byrne pulled the car into the kerb, switched off the engine, killed the lights. Henry laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘Stay put. We won’t be long.’ He jerked his head at Costain, meaning ‘out’.

  Costain reluctantly complied and Henry ushered him away from the car.

  ‘You could’ve fucking compromised me, you silly twat,’ Costain hissed worriedly. ‘If they find out I’m a grass, I’m dead. My family’ll fucking do me, never mind any cunt else. What’s happened to your fucking carefulness?’

  ‘Just at this moment in time, Troy, I don’t give a monkey’s,’ Henry said. A sentence which, even under the circumstances, made him smirk because on the word monkey’s, a tribe of them started howling loudly in the nearby zoo, obviously offended by Henry’s turn of phrase.

  ‘Then it better be better ’n good,’ Costain spat.

  ‘Shut it and let me speak.’ Henry’s tone of voice, coupled with the forefinger poked threateningly an inch from Costain’s face, made the young man clam up. ‘Has DI Roscoe been round to see you and your family?’

  ‘Yeah, bitch rousted us all early this morning, searching for Joey.’

  ‘Has she been back since, this evening?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Course I’m fucking sure. Look, what’s going on?’

  ‘She’s gone missing. Her and another detective.’

  ‘Well at least that’s two less of you fuckers.’

  It was the wrong thing to say and Troy knew it immediately when a chill came over Henry’s face. He snapped and his open-palmed right hand came out of nowhere and whacked Costain across the face. The blow lifted him off his feet and sent him sprawling onto the ground. Henry stepped over the prostrate form with menace. Anger, like an internal demon, rushed through him.

  ‘Not a good choice of words under the circumstances,’ he said. ‘I am not here to play silly fuckers with you, Troy, so I suggest you get up to your feet, keep a civil tongue in your head and answer my questions nicely and listen to what I have to say, because it’s very important. Now get up.’

  Henry hoisted him up, but Costain drew his arm away, frightened and cautious of a side of the policeman he’d never really seen before. He cradled his sore jaw which was starting to swell. Henry had hit him very hard.

  ‘Right – has she been back to your house since the raid?’

  Costain shook his head.

  ‘When she raided your house, did you know where Joey was?’

  ‘Might have,’ he said sullenly.

  ‘Did you, or not? Just fucking tell me.’

  ‘Yeah. At his new flat.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell DI Roscoe where
he was?’

  ‘Oh, get real, Henry. Like we would – no effin’ way. We just wouldn’t, would we? We tell the cops fuck all – well, y’know what I mean.’

  ‘When did you last see Joey?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘Think!’

  ‘Er . . . yesterday mornin’ I think . . . I really don’t know. He comes and goes – Look, Henry, what is this? Tell me what’s going on.’

  Henry knew that what he was about to say was probably untrue, but because he was feeling bad, he wanted Troy to feel even worse.

  ‘If you had told her exactly where he was, Troy, you might – just might – have saved his life.’

  She could have been dead and not known it. There had been blackness – nothing, just nothing. No dreams, nothing. It was only now she knew she was alive. The first thing she felt again was her heart beating. It was unpredictable, all over the place. Fast, slow, irregular. That was what had woken her, the beating of her heart.

  Next some kind of consciousness seeped back into her brain, like water dribbling through stones. Drip. Trickle. Senses returned. She shivered and knew she was alive, knew she was naked, could feel goose bumps on her skin. Then pain returned.

  And with pain, fear.

  Sixteen

  A grief-stricken Troy Costain paced up and down the road, displaying a mixture of extreme emotions which surged and surfaced while he ranted, raved and cried like a demon. He flapped his arms like a wounded gull, or wrung his hands like a motor mechanic using gunk. Anger, despair and pain all came and went, sometimes singly, sometimes in combination.

  Henry let him have his head for a while, just to get this initial response out of his system.

  ‘I want to see him, Henry. I want to see him now, my baby brother.’

  ‘Good, that’s good – we need someone to identify him formally.’

  Costain stopped, head to head with Henry. There was a cold intensity in his voice as he said, ‘I want to see what those bastards have done to him.’

  ‘Which bastards are those?’

  Suddenly Costain slumped to the side of the road and down onto his knees and was violently sick. He stood up, wiping his lips with his sleeve. He came back to Henry. His breathing was out of control and now smelled of vomit. His eyes were wide and staring like a mad man.

  ‘You know which bastards – those fuckin’ Khans. They’ve done this, haven’t they? Don’t tell me they haven’t. They’re all gonna die for this, they’re gonna get torn to pieces and I don’t give a toss what you say, Henry. I’m past caring now. My little brother is dead – and I loved him.’ The last few words brought on a rainstorm of tears. He sank to the ground again, sat on the kerbside and buried his head in his hands.

  ‘You think the Khans killed him?’

  ‘Yeah,’ snuffled Costain, snot dripping from his nose. ‘Obvious, innit? Revenge for their father. They think Joey killed him, don’t they?’

  ‘You’re saying he didn’t?’ Henry asked with surprise.

  ‘No way, no fuckin’ way. Joey gave him a bit of a kickin’, that’s all. He were well alive when Joey left him. That’s what Joey said, anyway, and I’ve no need to disbelieve him, have I?’

  ‘Joey would say that, wouldn’t he? I thought Mo Khan was against Joey seeing his daughter. That’s why Joey killed him, isn’t it? Because he wouldn’t let Joey see her.’

  ‘No, no, no, you got it all wrong.’ Costain, dribbling, spat something substantial into the gutter which landed with a heavy splat. ‘It weren’t serious. He were just shaggin’ the black bint for fun, just to wind the whole family up, to get ’em riled. He didn’t take it seriously. She’s a slag, gaggin’ for white man’s dick and she got Joey’s. He just wanted to stir the twats up.’

  Interesting, Henry thought, taking this twist of information on board. Did that fit in with the Hellfire Dawn strategy – to incite racial problems during the week the government came to town? Did Joey Costain really leave Mo Khan in a recoverable state? Henry knew that Mo’s injuries had been brutal and horrific, coming from more than just a slapping, which Troy seemed to think was all that Joey had given Mo.

  ‘What was Joey’s involvement with Hellfire Dawn?’ Henry slid in.

  ‘Eh? Oh, that bunch of tossers? Just a bit of fun for him. He liked gettin’ into fights with ’em.’ Using the bottom edge of his shirt, Troy wiped his wet, slimy face thoroughly. ‘Take me to see him, Henry. Yeah, I’ll identify him – and I want to see exactly what they’ve done to him.’

  ‘Not a good idea, Troy.’

  ‘I want to see,’ he insisted.

  ‘Mind if I ask a question, boss?’ Dermot Byrne asked Henry as they drove towards the hospital. ‘How come you didn’t let on about Troy being an informant?’

  Henry shifted uncomfortably. The reason was because of sheer bloody-mindedness at the way FB had treated him and also because at the time it did not seem so important. ‘Next question,’ Henry said.

  ‘OK, you’re not really going to let him see Joey, are you?’ Dermot Byrne said.

  Henry’s lips remained tight. ‘If he insists.’

  ‘Out of order and you know it,’ Byrne said, not afraid to challenge a senior officer. ‘It’ll do his shed in.’ Byrne jerked his head backwards, indicating Troy in the back seat, head lodged between his knees, mentally out of it, immersed in a myriad thoughts.

  ‘It might knock some sense into the little shit,’ Henry said, maintaining the hard line, but deep down knowing Byrne was right. For anyone to see the body of a relative in such a mess would blow their minds. He refused to relent. ‘It might make him realise that the Khans didn’t kill him and that might just stop any further rioting tonight.’

  ‘Might, might, might,’ Byrne mimicked him angrily. ‘So this is your master plan, is it?’ he added contemptuously. He screeched the car into the roadside and halted. He opened his door, got out, leaned back in and said to Henry, ‘I need to speak, boss, urgently – out here.’

  Henry looked blandly at him, his mouth slightly skewed. He considered advising the sergeant to fuck off, get back in the car and drive, follow orders and stop being such an insubordinate twat. Instead, groaning inwardly, he got out, slammed his door and stood on the pavement. On the rise above them, across the road, loomed Blackpool Victoria Hospital. Henry folded his arms defensively and waited for Byrne.

  The sergeant got straight to the point. ‘There is no way on God’s earth that I will allow you to show him the body of his brother other than as much as is necessary to identify him – his face, in other words. I know he’s a shit, but you can’t do this, otherwise you’re as bad as he is.’

  Henry’s lower jaw rolled left to right and back again. He stood firm, silent.

  ‘I fuckin’ mean it, Henry. I fuckin’ mean it.’ Byrne was resolute. And what was more, the angels were on his side. ‘It’s ethically and morally wrong, don’t you see? And it won’t solve a damned thing.’

  Henry spun and glowered into the darkness behind which was Stanley Park. He swallowed and lifted his head skywards towards dark clouds spitting a light rain. He knew Byrne was exactly right and wondered what the hell he himself had been thinking of. He knew what was overriding his professionalism – the unknown whereabouts of two officers. He was desperate to solve one problem by whatever means possible so he could concentrate on the one he really wanted to get to grips with – Jane’s disappearance, even though he knew other officers were already out searching for her. Logic told him that if the Costains were satisfied that the Khans had not killed Joey, then the problem on Shoreside could be reduced somewhat. It seemed that the best way to convince them was to show Troy Joey’s mutilated body, because otherwise they would just think Henry was spinning them a line in order to quell a riot. And maybe, Henry admitted to himself, that was the logic of a man who was back at work too soon and not fully recovered from stress.

  He would have to convince Troy by being the good cop he knew he was and not resorting to means which were well below the belt.
/>   He sniffed. ‘You’re right, you’re right,’ he admitted.

  Dermot Byrne watched and listened to Henry Christie in action and was impressed. Not only by his interpersonal skills, but because Henry, unlike most other officers of higher rank, was prepared to take on feedback and change his opinion.

  The inspector sat next to Troy Costain in the mortuary waiting room. Both men were hunched forward, heads low, elbows on knees. Henry talked softly but firmly, empathetic-ally and sympathetically. He was good.

  Costain’s emotions were still on a roller-coaster ride of extremes, but Henry hung in there like a cowpoke, staying with the young man all the way, coaxing, cajoling, resting a hand on Troy’s shoulder or back when necessary.

  Yes, Byrne thought: Henry Christie was very very good when he wanted to be. The organisation had shot itself in the foot by taking him off CID. The good side of it was that the uniform branch had gained. But, if Byrne was as good a judge of character as he believed himself to be, it would not be long before Henry was back where he truly belonged.

  It took thirty concentrated, wearying minutes, before Henry felt he was in a position to signal to Byrne that things were ready to proceed to the formal ID. On the nod, Byrne slid quietly through to the mortuary viewing room where Joey’s body had been wheeled in on a steel trolley and laid out next to the viewing window. He had been draped with a white sheet which was held off the body by a raised cage.

  Byrne pressed a button on the wall. The whirring electric motor drew back the purple velvet curtains, revealing Henry and Troy Costain on the other side of the window, standing in half-light. Costain looked beleaguered.

  Henry nodded. His arm was around Costain’s shoulder.

  Byrne took the edge of the sheet and folded it back to reveal Joey’s head. It was not too bad, not disfigured by the attack at the front, but because it had not been cleaned up, was blood splattered.

  ‘Is that your brother, Joey Costain?’ Henry asked softly.

  Troy stepped out of Henry’s grasp, pressed his nose up to the glass, smearing it. His eyes were red raw from crying.