Harte

by Robert Innes

  “Can we just go?” Harrison shouted. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, I don’t care! I just care about Blake’s safety.”

  “Get in,” Mattison snapped as he opened the back of the car. “Quickly.”

  “Oh, Mattison,” Gardiner said, shaking his head in disbelief. “You are going to regret this. You do realise this is our careers?”

  “Exactly. And Angel can decide if we tell him or not,” Mattison replied. “The least we can do is give him a lift back to Harmschapel. Come on, it’s Jacqueline Pattison and Harrison Baxter. They’re hardly Bonnie and Clyde. Look, Harrison.” He closed the door to the car again, possibly to prevent Jacqueline from hearing. “There’s something bigger going on here. I can’t tell you what it is, much as I want to. Maybe Inspector Angel will have a different view on it, but just get in.”

  Harrison stared at Mattison in confusion for a second before climbing into the car next to Jacqueline, who looked so bereft that she seemed unaware of her new passenger.

  As Gardiner and Mattison climbed in the front, Gardiner muttered furiously as he turned the key in the ignition. “Don’t worry about me, I mean I’m only in charge of the investigation. Not my career on the line at all!”

  “Just drive!” Mattison and Harrison cried in unison.

  And soon, with the sirens blaring, they were speeding along the roads in the direction of Harmschapel.

  Seven

  The past several minutes seemed to have passed by in a strange, incoherent blur for Blake. At some point, from when he had seen the news report to where he was now, sitting in his parents living room cradling a cup of tea, many things seemed to have happened.

  Blake’s mother, Stephanie, had knocked on Samuel’s door to deliver some shopping they had purchased for him, screamed when she saw Blake, screamed even louder when she saw the news report of Frost going missing, and had then quickly grabbed him and Sally and pulled them out of the house, thanking Samuel for looking after them.

  Then, Sally had received a phone call from the police station, where she was now talking to them outside and Stephanie was constantly filling Blake’s tea cup up whenever it threatened to reach the halfway level.

  “Mum, leave it, I’m okay,” Blake said, pulling the cup away as she tried to refill it for a fifth time.

  “You’ve had a nasty shock,” Stephanie told him, sternly looking at him over her glasses. “That awful man had a terrible effect on you when you were first investigating him. A mother knows.”

  “I can’t believe he’s escaped,” Blake murmered as Stephanie sneaked past him to refill his teacup. “How could he have just vanished from a locked, moving prison van?”

  He thought back to the original report he had witnessed that morning back in Harmschapel. Frost had been loaded, handcuffed, into the van. Then, the doors had been closed and he had been driven away surrounded by numerous police cars and motorcycles. Then, he had been driven from Manchester to London, during which at some point he had managed to evaporate from inside the van without anybody seeing him.

  “A man as evil as that can do anything,” Stephanie replied, sitting down in her armchair and picking up the half scarf she was apparently in the middle of crocheting. “When your mind is as twisted as that, the world is your oyster.”

  “He could be anywhere right now,” Blake continued. “Anywhere between Manchester and London, he could be out prowling the streets looking for a new victim.”

  Stephanie glared at him from over her glasses. “Blake Joshua Matthew Harte, don’t you dare.”

  Blake raised his eyebrows at the use of his middle names, something his mother only resorted to when she was feeling especially serious about something. “What?”

  “Never mind ‘what’. I know you. I absolutely forbid you to even look under the stairs for that man. He is none of your concern.”

  “Mum, he’s dangerous.”

  “Exactly!”

  “And I’m a police officer. I got him locked up once, I know how much of a risk he is to the public.”

  “He is a killer, a psychopath, a monster!” Stephanie exclaimed, furiously stabbing the scarf with her crochet hook. “It was bad enough when you were out looking for him the first time, when he was out murdering women left, right, and centre. I am not having you put yourself at risk again. He’s desperate now he’s on the loose, heaven knows what he’s capable of!”

  “Stephanie, wind your neck in,” Blake’s father, Colin said, walking into the room with a paper tucked firmly underneath his arm. “The lad’s a fine copper. That nutcase hasn’t got a chance if Blake decides he wants to find him. Have a bit of faith in him, will you?” He threw himself on the sofa and opened the paper before pausing and then lowering it so that he could glance at Blake over the top. “You aren’t going looking for him though, are you, lad?”

  Blake sighed, unsure of how to reply. Wherever Frost was, it was probably way beyond Blake’s jurisdiction to lead any investigation into finding him, but he also felt like it was beyond him to just sit there and do nothing.

  “I am looking out for my son, Colin,” Stephanie scolded, before rounding on Blake again. “And while we’re on the topic, would you mind explaining to me what you were doing in that old house?”

  Blake stared at her for a moment in confusion before glancing at his best friend outside through the living room window. “Sally. She told you.”

  “Yes, she did and don’t you even think about being annoyed with her. Blake, what happened in that house traumatised you as a child, what on Earth were you thinking?”

  Blake shrugged. “I had to face it, Mum. I’ve been having the dreams again. Most nights for the past few months.”

  Almost immediately, Stephanie had thrown her crocheting aside and was by his side, gripping his hand tightly. “Oh, my darling. Why didn’t you tell us?”

  “What could you have done?” Blake replied, a little startled by how emotional she looked. “They’re dreams. But I’ve been scared of that place for too long. I had to confront it.”

  “And? Did it help?”

  “I have no idea,” Blake replied flatly. “I was rather distracted by Frost. That Samuel bloke though, did you know he was in charge of the investigation into that old woman’s death?”

  “Of course we did,” Stephanie replied, releasing Blake’s hand and going back to her crocheting. “Samuel interviewed you on the night you found her, don’t you remember?”

  “Not really.”

  “We could hardly get anything out of you at the time,” Stephanie recalled. “All that night you were a quivering wreck. After four hot chocolates, you finally calmed down enough to speak to him. He was very good with you.”

  “Do you remember how long the investigation went on for?”

  “About six months,” Colin replied from behind his paper. “It all went quiet after that.”

  Blake frowned as he stared at the muted television with the headlines of Frost’s disappearance rolling silently across the bottom of the screen while Theresa Bowen continued her report. She had reached the stage where she was repeating facts that had long since been established, such as how far Frost had travelled, the fact that cameras had been trained on him throughout the entire journey and the solemn statement that the public should not approach him under any circumstances.

  He was just about to turn the volume up again to see if any new information was now being revealed when Sally re-entered the living room looking irritated.

  “So, guess who doesn’t get a birthday this year?”

  Blake groaned. “I had a feeling. Was that Gresham?”

  “Yep. Your friend and mine. He wants everybody on holiday back at work, effective immediately.”

  “Oh, but Sally!” Stephanie exclaimed. “It’s your birthday!”

  “Yes, but according to my delightful boss, and I quote ‘there’s no point in you being a detective sergeant if you’re going to go out and get drunk when there’s a serial killer roaming the streets.’”

>   Blake closed his eyes in annoyance. Sally’s impression of his old inspector was scarily accurate.

  “He has a point though,” Sally continued reluctantly. “So, my next stop is the station.”

  “I’m coming with you,” Blake said, rising to his feet.

  Stephanie gave her son her trademark glare over her glasses. “You most certainly are not.”

  “I really am,” Blake replied. “Don’t try and stop me, Mum. This isn’t up for discussion. I’ve got to find out what’s going on.”

  “Like Gresham will tell you anything anyway,” Sally said, zipping up her coat.

  “I don’t care,” Blake told her. “If that nutcase is on the streets, then people I care about could be in danger. Before I left, my own inspector was keeping something from me, then Frost escapes the way he did? There is something going on and I’m not just sitting here drinking tea, I am going to find out what it is.”

  “Blake,” Stephanie said sternly. “Will you listen to reason? There’s nothing you can do.” She turned in her seat, shouting after her son. “What are you going to do?”

  Blake stopped in the doorway. “I’m going to find out if there’s any connection between Frost disappearing and the attempted murder of my landlord’s son.”

  For several minutes, Blake and Sally drove in absolute silence towards the police station where Blake had once worked. Since leaving for Harmschapel, Blake had been nowhere near the place, and from what Sally had told him during their various phone calls since he moved away, much had changed. Officers that Blake had once worked with had long since moved on, leaving only Sally, Gresham and the odd poorly performing constable that he actually knew. The meeting room had apparently had a large refurbishment compared to the slightly archaic white board and old large table it used to have, and the outside of the station had even had a complete repaint. Compared to Harmschapel station, Blake’s old place of work had been truly brought into the twenty-first century, though for all he cared at this precise moment, Sale police station could be a large barnyard.

  “You know Gresham won’t tell you anything,” Sally said as the familiar streets and buildings leading to the police station began to appear around them. “In fact, he’ll probably be beside himself with rage that I’ve even brought you.”

  “I don’t care,” Blake murmered, reaching down and grabbing a cigarette from Sally’s packet near the gear stick. “I need to find out what’s going on. I don’t care if it’s my current boss or my old one, someone is telling me what I’m apparently not allowed to know.”

  He lit the cigarette and wound down the window. After he had taken a long pull and slowly blew the smoke out of his nose, a thought occurred to him and he turned his head sharply to Sally. “You don’t know, do you?”

  Sally glanced at him with a wry raise of her eyebrow. “Don’t be stupid. Of course I don’t.”

  “You’ve had no indication whatsoever that there’s something going on?”

  Sally shook her head as she turned the car sharply into the police station carpark. “No, and would you really expect Gresham to tell me anything? He’d have rather Frost become DS than me. And do you honestly think I’d hide it from you if I knew even the smallest thing? Really?”

  She stopped the car and unbuckled her seatbelt, staring at him seriously.

  “Look, you’re probably just jumping to conclusions. From what you’ve told me of Angel, he’s the type of bloke who goes home and spends the evening curled up with the rule book before taking it upstairs and showing it a good time. You said he told you that you were no use to him in Tom’s case because you were going away the day after. Maybe that’s all it is.”

  Blake shrugged. “I won’t know till I ask.”

  He climbed out of the car, depositing the cigarette on top of a bin as he passed with Sally closely behind and made his way into the station.

  One thing that had not changed was the smell. It was a mixture of high strength cleaning products that the cleaners used to mop the floors and the unmistakable aroma of a mixture of aftershave and perfume from the many officers going about their day around them. None of them seemed to recognise Blake as he walked through the corridors, glancing up at the wall as he walked along the corridor leading to the large meeting room he had spent so much time at one time. The notice board was decorated with a family tree like collage of the various ranks of officer present in the station, with Gresham’s familiar face glaring back at him, his moustache as thin and handlebar like as ever, despite the fact that it looked like a relatively new photograph. All the other officers Blake did not know, though he did notice there was a space on one of the branches where Sally’s face would soon be placed.

  Sally took hold of his shoulder as he went to walk into the meeting room.

  “Hang on,” she told him. “Let me go first. At least let me expose you to him gently before you barge in. It’ll be easier, trust me.”

  Blake rolled his eyes and nodded as Sally pushed past him and led him into the room.

  He had forgotten how much larger it was to the room where Harmschapel police officers had their meetings. Even with the enormous projection screen and large glass window on the wall filled with various case notes, it made Harmschapel’s meeting room look like a small study.

  Sally and Blake walked through the room to the office where Inspector Nigel Gresham resided. With a last nervous glance at Blake, Sally knocked sharply on the door.

  “Enter!” came the sharp reply.

  Sally opened the door and they stepped inside to find Gresham sitting behind his large desk, staring intently at his computer, his beady eyes scanning it for every detail.

  Without looking up, he barked, “Who is it?”

  Sally rolled her eyes. “It’s me.”

  “Ah, Sergeant Matthews,” Gresham said, his voice dripping with its usual sarcastic overtones. “So glad you could join us. I do hope I didn’t disturb you from doing anything too frivolous.”

  “Not at all,” Sally replied. “It’s not my birthday till tomorrow. And I think you’ll find it’s Detective Sergeant now, Sir.”

  Gresham performed a dramatic flourish on the keyboard of his computer. “I’m afraid your birthday is cancelled, Matthews, indeed, as far as birthdays are concerned, this station will effectively be run by Jehovah’s Witnesses while that psychopath is still roaming the streets.”

  Blake felt an all too familiar yearning to roll his eyes. He had almost forgotten how ridiculously pretentious and pompous Gresham could be. Nearly everything he did and said was delivered dramatically and with an intensity that was usually completely over the top.

  “I have an extremely important announcement to make,” Gresham continued, clicking furiously on the mouse, his face inches away from the screen. “As soon as the subject of said announcement has arrived which I am reliably informed will be very shortly, I will be making it, so if you would be so kind as to gather everybody and make it snappy because time is of the essence and…”

  He finally pulled his eyes away from the screen to look at Sally, and immediately caught sight of Blake. For a moment, he appeared unable to speak, his eyes merely widening in incredulous fury.

  “Hello,” Blake said lightly.

  “What in the name of all that is holy are you doing here?” Gresham barked.

  “Just thought I’d pop in,” Blake replied calmly. “Considering that someone managed to lose Frost. Thought you might need my help.”

  “Help? Help?” Gresham snapped, rising quickly to his feet. “Matthews, what the hell is going on here?”

  “Don’t have a go at me,” Sally replied, closing the office door. “Blake was here for my birthday which you appear to have removed from the calendar this year, then we saw the news about Frost’s disappearance. Considering Blake was pretty integral at getting Frost arrested and then locked up, you can hardly be surprised that he’s here. Of course he’s going to have an interest.”

  “Have an interest?” Gresham exclaimed, a vein popping up
at the side of his head. He thrust his hands to his hips and glared at them both in outrage. “Oh, well this is just fantastic. Absolutely bloody marvellous. You do realise, Matthews, that by bringing him here you may be about to derail the delicate balance of a very sensitive case?”

  Blake narrowed his eyes. “Meaning what?”

  “None of your business, Harte. Get out.”

  Blake stormed over to the desk and leaned over it. “It clearly is my business though, isn’t it? Is this to do with Frost? Did you know that he was going to escape or something?”

  “Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Harte,” Gresham replied. “Do you really think that if we’d known that Frost was about to turn into Henry Houdini –”

  “Harry Houdini.”

  “Don’t be clever, do you think if we knew he was about to escape from a secure prison van that we would have just let it happen?”

  “Then why does me being here put anything at risk?”

  “I have just told you that it is none of your business,” Gresham growled, a fleck of spit flying from his mouth. “Now, will you please –”

  A sharp knock at the door interrupted Gresham mid flow.

  “Enter!” he roared, still glowering at Blake.

  A young officer entered the room, immediately surprised by the sight of Blake and Gresham engaged in what must have looked like a staring competition over the desk.

  “What is it?” Sally asked him.

  “You’ve got a visitor, Sir. Says she’s here regarding the Thomas Frost case.”

  “Get rid of her! Hide her!” Gresham exclaimed, nearly knocking over his coffee cup from the exuberance in which he pointed at the officer. “Get her out of sight for the moment!”

  “Who is it?” Blake asked. “Do I know her? Is that what you’re saying?” He rounded on the poor young officer who clearly wished somebody else had offered to deliver the message of the arrival. “Where is she? I’m Detective Sergeant Blake Harte, I’m guessing I outrank you, can you tell me who or where she is please?”