by Nick Oldham
Contents
Cover
Also by Nick Oldham from Severn House
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Also by Nick Oldham from Severn House
The Henry Christie thriller series
CRITICAL THREAT
SCREEN OF DECEIT
CRUNCH TIME
THE NOTHING JOB
SEIZURE
HIDDEN WITNESS
FACING JUSTICE
INSTINCT
FIGHTING FOR THE DEAD
BAD TIDINGS
JUDGEMENT CALL
LOW PROFILE
EDGE
UNFORGIVING
BAD BLOOD
BAD COPS
WILDFIRE
BAD TIMING
The Steve Flynn thriller series
ONSLAUGHT
AMBUSH
HEADHUNTER
SCARRED
Nick Oldham
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
First world edition published in Great Britain and the USA in 2021
by Severn House, an imprint of Canongate Books Ltd,
14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE.
Trade paperback edition first published in Great Britain and the USA in 2022
by Severn House, an imprint of Canongate Books Ltd.
This eBook edition first published in 2021 by Severn House,
an imprint of Canongate Books Ltd.
severnhouse.com
Copyright © Nick Oldham, 2021
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. The right of Nick Oldham to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-5014-0 (cased)
ISBN-13: 978-1-78029-800-9 (trade paper)
ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0539-1 (e-book)
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental.
This eBook produced by
Palimpsest Book Production Limited,
Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland
For Belinda
ONE
1985
PC Henry Christie ducked behind a rack of skimpy ladies’ underwear and, through a gap between see-through lacy bras and thongs, tried to keep his eye on the twelfth person he was going to arrest that day: a young lad, maybe twelve years old, no more than fourteen.
Henry – dressed in plain clothes – had been on the central staircase of the department store on his way up to the first floor, where he intended finishing the day with a browse through the record department, when he’d spotted the lad out of the corner of his eye, entering the store from Bank Hey Street. Because he’d already locked up eleven other shoplifters over the course of the day, he almost didn’t bother – except he just couldn’t let it go. His adrenaline had been pumping and he was on a high, and his cop instinct, still being honed after just seven years in the job, told him this lad was a slam-dunk certainty to make his arrest tally a round dozen. It also helped his competitive streak that it would nudge him ahead of his closest rival on the Support Unit team that day, who was also at eleven arrests and who, Henry knew, was currently floundering under a sea of paperwork at Blackpool nick. This was too good an opportunity to miss.
Even so, just for a fleeting moment, Henry almost turned a blind eye but found he couldn’t. It wasn’t in his nature to miss collaring even a kid-villain.
He stopped on the second step, backed slowly down and ducked into the weird jungle of the lingerie display, from where he hoped he could keep low in among the lace and observe the lad, who, Henry could sense, was definitely up for it.
All he hoped was that he would be able to catch him as soon as he stepped out of the front door after the lad had stolen whatever it was he’d come to steal.
Henry wanted to be on him quick because, as much as he wanted another arrest, he didn’t really feel inclined to leg it after the lad around the streets of Blackpool. Two of his earlier arrests that day had ended up in silent-movie-like cop chases and he wasn’t sure if he was bothered enough to make it a hat-trick. Not that he wasn’t fit enough: now in his mid-twenties, he was probably as healthy and ripped as he would ever be in his life. Squash twice a week, five-a-side football once, rugby in season, running and weights every day saw to that. He was lithe, lean and fast … it was just that tonight was ‘date night’ with his newish wife, Kate, and she would probably want the best out of him. There had certainly been a sparkle of promise in her eyes when he’d kissed her goodbye that morning.
So this arrest had to be timed to perfection.
He manoeuvred stealthily through the underwear, head down, using the displays to keep hidden, stalking his unsuspecting prey.
The lad had stopped briefly on entering the store, and it was his body language in these few moments that signalled to Henry he was here to steal: that pause, the furtive glance around to get his bearings and to check for any obvious store detectives; then the pinpointing of his target … and by the time Henry managed to secrete himself in among the knickers and bras, the lad had begun his mission, was moving swiftly across the shop floor in the direction of the perfume counters, flipping open a supermarket carrier bag as he went for his swag. By this time, the lad was so locked in on his goal that he’d didn’t spot Henry, who had clumsily stepped backwards into a mobile display of bras, lost his footing and grabbed one of the garments to steady himself. It was only by some fancy footwork, expert balancing and a silent pirouette that he managed to stay upright and not bring down the whole rack of underwear.
The lad made it to the perfume counter.
He moved quickly, precisely and with purpose. The carrier bag was now fully open, and he went directly to one of the locked glass cabinets, produced a spark plug – one of the favoured methods of breaking car windows in particular – and threw it hard against the glass door of the cabinet, which shattered instantly in a pretty crystalline shower. He was straight in the display, scooping boxes containing fragrances – all by Chanel – into the bag. Within a matter of seconds, three shelves had been completely emptied, maybe thirty boxes in total, easily over two grand’s worth of high-quality perfume.
Then, before any of the nearby staff had even reacted, he
turned and fled like a greyhound.
Henry disentangled himself from the spider’s web of sexy underwear, chucking a large D-cup bra into the air behind him, and gave chase, knowing it would be much better to stop this one before he managed to get through the door.
Henry weaved between several counters, keeping the lad in view as he nimbly sidestepped various displays on his route to the exit. At that moment, Henry had the slight advantage, simply because the lad hadn’t spotted him coming up behind him at a diagonal; Henry gritted his teeth, knowing if he timed it right, he’d flatten him just before he reached the door.
Normally in shoplifting cases, it helped to support the evidence if the offender had actually left the premises with the booty, so that any defence of ‘Oh, I was going to put it back on a shelf’ was negated.
However, when chasing someone who had blatantly entered a shop equipped to steal – in this case with a bag and a spark plug – it wasn’t quite so pressing. To prove this youngster’s intention to steal would be easy.
It was catching him that could be difficult.
Henry skidded around two naked mannequins, sending one toppling to the floor where it split into five distinct body parts, then he was in a race across a bare piece of floor to apprehend the lad who had, by now, seen Henry and upped a gear.
He reached the door ten feet ahead of Henry and flung himself out on to Bank Hey Street, which even at six p.m. was throbbing with shoppers, tourists and workers on their way home. The lad hurled himself into this hubbub of mankind and vanished from Henry’s sight as soon as the young cop emerged from the store.
Henry kept going in the direction he assumed the little thief had gone, pulling a hard left on to the street, with Blackpool Tower rising high on his left-hand side, and for twenty yards Henry ran in hope rather than reality, at the same time using his personal radio to transmit details of the incident and pursuit to any other cops who might be out there.
It was a bad time of day, though.
Half of the local two-to-ten shift were in for refreshments and the Support Unit team he’d come into town with were all at the station, just about ready to roll back to headquarters as they’d been in the resort since eight a.m. on this special operation targeting shoplifters. Henry didn’t get much in the way of an enthusiastic response: he wasn’t under any physical threat of violence, it was just another shoplifter (he and his colleagues had arrested thirty-nine that day, like shelling peas) and not many could be bothered. So after a shout out for patrols to attend, the comms operator apologized and said the nearest unit was ten minutes away, minimum, although a town-centre foot patrol was making her way.
Henry slowed to a walk, frustrated but understanding. Cops couldn’t just be magicked out of thin air, and maybe he’d have to take this one on the chin. The SU team had been deployed into town at the behest of the divisional commander because shoplifting seemed to have got out of hand, and at their briefing they’d been given a simple task – to arrest as many as possible, and then, released to harass an unsuspecting criminal world, they’d easily grabbed a bucketload and almost overwhelmed the custody officer, so losing one wasn’t really a problem.
The annoyance for Henry was the value of the goods this lad had taken within about a minute of entering the shop, probably more than all his arrests that day combined.
He shrugged, kept walking.
The least he could do was check down a few alleyways before returning to the store, getting details of what had been stolen and submitting a crime report. He began to saunter, reaching the end of the street, and he paused here before spinning on his heels and heading back to the shop – but then turned into a narrow street that cut right down to the seafront and which he also knew had an alleyway running off it that ran parallel to Bank Hey Street, behind the shops.
He stopped at the alley and spotted two people about fifty yards along it, huddled together between two large industrial wheelie bins crammed with overflowing cardboard waste.
Two young lads.
Henry allowed himself a grim grin of satisfaction because he recognized the one with his back to him as the perfume thief – same jacket and jeans, he was certain – and both lads were peering into the carrier bag full of boxes containing bottles of expensive perfume.
They were concentrating on the contents as Henry dropped into a stealthy crouch and began to approach silently – like a panther, he liked to think.
He made it to ten yards away.
Still they hadn’t clocked him.
Five yards.
He felt increasingly confident about grabbing the actual thief, even if it meant letting the other lad get away. Both were pretty scrawny kids, although the other one was quite a bit older, maybe twenty, and actually Henry felt that if he timed it right, he might be able to grab them both before they fled.
Four yards.
Henry was hardly breathing now. He flexed his fingers, worked out his moves: take the thief from behind by simply grabbing his collar, then barge him roughly into his mate and pin them against the wall between the bins before shouting for assistance.
His left hand slid around to the waistband of his jeans at the small of his back, curling his fingers around his handcuffs.
One more step taken. Three yards to go.
Almost in reach.
And still they hadn’t seen him.
Two yards.
Then he moved – fast.
Or at least that was his intention.
He never made it.
The lads looked sharply up and saw him, then looked over his shoulder. Henry knew there was someone behind him even in the second before the blow that crashed on to the back of his head and poleaxed him. It felt as though his skull had been cracked open as a combination of a lightning flash and burning pain seared across his brain, cutting off every function and pitching him forwards between the two lads who had been divvying up their stash.
The filthy ground of the alley raced up to his face, and although he knew he should have brought up his hands to break the fall, they would not respond to that simple request from his mind.
His face slammed into the ground, hard.
It wasn’t complete blackness.
That came a few seconds later when the first of the boots kicked him in the head – and then there was definitely nothing, not even pain, and certainly not understanding.
He didn’t know he’d had a very sound kicking as it all took place when he was unconscious on the ground between the wheelie bins. They might as well have been kicking a Guy Fawkes or a tailor’s dummy. He gave no resistance, just lay there flipping on the ground as he was assaulted and stomped on.
It was only when nothing more had been heard from him over the radio and he didn’t respond to calls that the comms room and his Support Unit colleagues began to worry something had befallen him. Although the SU team were all ready to head off back to their office at headquarters, they piled into their personnel carrier, drove into the town centre and spilled out to search the streets.
But it wasn’t one of their number who found him.
A young policewoman on town centre foot patrol was the first to discover him.
Her name was WPC Julie Clarke. Only months into her service, the discovery of Henry’s battered, unmoving body was a huge shock for her. When she called it in, requesting an ambulance, her voice was shaky. Henry’s colleagues raced to the scene to find Julie resting his head on her lap with a terrified expression on her face.
He felt the touch before anything else. That was the first thing. His hand being stroked gently, and through the haze of both numbness and agony, it felt good.
His lips were cracked and dry, splitting despite the balm, and it hurt to move them, even for a tiny bit.
So instead of doing anything else, he merely moved his fingertips to say he was back and then heard the voice he recognized and loved say, very quietly, ‘Henry?’
He moved his fingers again: a response.
‘Henry? Are you awake?’
More fingertip movement, then he said dryly in a croaky whisper, through his battered lips, ‘After a fashion.’
He heard Kate begin to sob.
‘Yep, one hell of a kicking,’ the voice reiterated.
It was two days after Henry had finally come round, now four days after the actual assault, and Henry was sitting up in the hospital bed. He could now more or less open his left eye, the dirty swelling around it having deflated slightly, but his right eye remained clamped shut, encased in a bag of pus that a doctor had tried to drain away, but which had immediately refilled, matching the side of his head which was distended to the shape of a rugby ball with a gnarled ear.
He could talk now, thanks to plenty of liquid, honey and lip balm, but his voice was still hesitant and cracked, his throat still sore because, apparently, his attackers had attempted to throttle him, too.
‘I agree,’ Henry said with a groan. He shifted slightly and winced as pain shot through him. What might have been imaginary was how his mind’s eye visualized his three cracked ribs grating together; what wasn’t imaginary was the pain that caused.
With his one working eye, he looked at the source of the voice.
Detective Chief Inspector Robert Fanshaw-Bayley was sitting on a plastic chair pulled up to the side of the bed, his large, ever-spreading bottom spilling over each side. Fanshaw-Bayley, or FB as he was more commonly known to friends and foe alike, had been one of Henry’s first detective inspectors and was now, following promotion, the DCI at Blackpool. ‘FB’ stood for many things: ‘Friendly Bear’, ‘Father Bob’ or ‘Fat Bastard.’ Mainly, though, the letters stood for ‘Fucking Bastard’, although no one ever dared say it to his face.
FB had been the DI in Rossendale when Henry worked there and had been promoted to Blackpool, seeming to follow Henry’s footsteps – although Henry hadn’t actually been transferred to the resort and had instead joined the HQ Support Unit based at police headquarters at Hutton Hall near Preston, though he did now live in Blackpool itself.
‘A few more well-placed kicks and this could’ve been a murder enquiry,’ FB informed Henry gleefully.