by Nick Oldham
After photographing and fingerprinting Tommy, Henry went with him to the custody officer who released him ‘pending further enquiries’.
Throughout the time in custody, Henry had kept in contact with WPC Clarke who volunteered to drive mum and son home and also carry out the search of the house for any stolen property and seize any of the clothing Tommy had been wearing at the time of the assault.
As they walked Tommy and Trish out to the car park, Trish said to Henry, ‘I do actually love him, y’know.’
‘I’m sure you do, Trish.’
‘Some smelly would have been nice, though,’ she said wistfully. ‘But that’s not it … It’s just me and him, y’know? Fuck knows where his dad is, so, yeah, me and him trying to eke out some kind of life, which means we both have our part to play and his is not getting involved in crime – unless it’s bank robbery, and he isn’t cut out for that.’
Henry nodded and asked, ‘What is he involved in?’
She sighed. ‘I don’t know … but I get a bad feeling about it.’
‘Is it more than just nicking to order?’
She shrugged. ‘Like I say, dunno.’
Clarke had drawn a police car up and was waiting with the doors open.
‘We’ll chat next week, eh?’ Henry suggested.
She nodded, then hustled Tommy into the back seat of the car. Henry watched them drive away with Trish’s face half in the shadow as she looked back at him. Henry thought she looked sad.
He gave a shrug, wandered out to the far reaches of the underground garage where he knew he would find Inspector Jameson’s car which had been recovered and brought – for some reason that escaped Henry – into the station car park instead of being towed straight to a scrapyard.
It really was a burnt-out shell, blackened, scorched, all four tyres having seared away to nothing on naked wheel hubs.
‘Oh dear,’ Henry said out loud.
Not only that, but he now also had the additional problem of somehow hitching a ride back to the Support Unit office at headquarters to pick up his own car, then drive all the way back to his home in Blackpool.
He didn’t notice FB coming up behind him – he moved silently for a big guy. He slapped Henry between the shoulder blades.
‘Did you get a cough from the lad?’
‘Not quite.’
‘Ahh, a euphemism for “no”.’
‘Hmm, OK … but he’s coming back in next week for further questioning.’
‘With a detective alongside you this time, I hope?’
‘If that’s what you want, sir, of course,’ Henry conceded gratefully, feeling he’d ruffled too many feathers that day, even though this felt like lack of faith in his ability to do the job.
‘Good.’ FB stood alongside Henry and surveyed the wreck of the car. ‘And now you’re wondering how you’re going to get back to base camp?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Oh, just out of curiosity, how well do you now recall the faces of the other people who assaulted you?’ FB asked, changing tack.
‘I’d know the other lad, the one Benemy was with in the alley, but I didn’t see who came up behind and walloped me. I’ve looked through the photo albums, but I haven’t seen the face of the lad, though.’
‘That’s not an exact science, as we know.’
‘No.’
‘Anyway, how do we get you home?’
‘I was going to go up to comms and see if anyone was heading out that way and cadge a lift now that Shoreside’s quietened down.’
‘I’ll give you a ride. I live out that way these days,’ FB said, to Henry’s surprise.
‘That would be great, boss, thanks.’
The following week was extremely busy for Henry and the rest of his Support Unit team who were deployed right across the county, including a very long weekend in Blackpool when their feet didn’t touch the ground. It was exhilarating work supporting the local cops and dealing with everything Blackpool could throw at them.
On the final, busy Sunday night in the resort, Henry and the team managed several arrests for public order offences and, finally, around four a.m. as a new dawn arrived, they were done.
Henry had been dropped off at the custody office to process his prisoner – an unpleasant eighteen-year-old youth who had lobbed a few bricks at the personnel carrier. Led by Henry, the cops had swarmed out of the carrier. Henry had caught him easily and, holding him by the collar, he’d tiptoed him back to the van without breaking sweat.
There was no need to interview him – just to photograph and fingerprint him, and type up the charge forms, followed by the actual verbal charging in the presence of the custody officer who bailed him to appear at court in three weeks’ time.
An easy prisoner and one to add to Henry’s ever-increasing tally.
Henry escorted him out of the custody office, all the way to the rear doors of the garage, letting him step out through the side door. He watched the lad walk miserably away.
Henry exhaled a long, weary sigh and looked up at the dawn sky. He had radioed his team to come and pick him up and there would be a ten-minute wait before they arrived, so he sat on a low wall on Richardson Street to enjoy a bit of peace and quiet which, he was coming to realize, was something unusual in Blackpool.
‘We meet again.’
Henry turned to see WPC Clarke walking towards him across the public car park from the direction of the town centre – her beat. He rose from the wall as she crossed the tarmac. She was dressed in her uniform – just a skirt and blouse as the night had been warm enough to dispense with tunics. Henry liked what he saw.
‘Hi,’ he said.
‘Are you stalking me?’ she chuckled.
‘I could ask the same question.’
She stepped over the low wall and was alongside him, stumbling slightly and, seemingly accidentally, falling against him. He caught her gently.
‘Oops,’ she giggled, looking up at him.
‘You OK?’ He backed off slightly, moving his open hands quickly away from her.
‘Yeah, yeah, Little Miss Clumsy.’
Henry smirked. ‘Glad I bumped into you, actually.’
‘Me too.’ Her eyes played over his face and he watched them dance with a certain tightness in his chest.
He fought to bring himself back on track and dismiss all inappropriate thoughts. ‘I haven’t had the chance to catch up with you and I’m off for a couple of days now, then back over here to deal with Tommy Benemy.’
‘I know.’
‘I take it you didn’t find anything of interest at his house when you took him back?’
She took her hat off. Her hair was pinned up neatly under it. She eased out the grips, ruffled her hair with her fingertips and shook it free so it fell naturally into a bob that framed her face, making Henry’s mouth go dry.
‘No, nothing,’ she said. ‘No bloodstained clothing, no perfumes.’
‘What did you think about Tommy?’
‘What do you mean?’
Henry shrugged. ‘You think he’s into anything more than shoplifting? Is he stealing to order for a gang or something?’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘The fact that he stole a ton of perfume – and didn’t give his mum any.’
‘Is that all? I wouldn’t necessarily believe her.’
‘Maybe not … I got the impression he was hiding something behind the “no comment”.’
‘Such as?’ Her face had a puzzled look to it.
Henry’s mouth turned down at the corners. ‘Don’t know; can’t quite put my finger on it … just that maybe he didn’t want to say anything because if he opened up, he’d start blabbing on about something and not be able to stop. Something dark.’
‘Henry … you’re being dramatic,’ she teased him, but tenderly, a soft smile on her face. ‘I didn’t get that impression. All I saw was a daft lad, maybe doing a dare.’
‘And then beating the crap out of me with others?’
‘Well, yeah, a bit OTT on that one,’ she agreed.
‘Anyway, thanks for helping me out – taking him home and that.’
‘Not a problem.’
She looked at him again. He coughed uneasily.
‘I’ll really get into his ribs when he comes back in … I’m pretty sure I can get him talking.’
‘I’m pretty sure you can,’ she said, a flirty half-smile playing on her lips. ‘What are you up to now?’
‘Just waiting to be picked up by the guys and then get back to HQ to finish for a couple of days. My first job back will be dealing with Tommy.’
‘When I said, “What are you doing now?” I didn’t quite mean that.’ She arched her finely lined eyebrows enquiringly. ‘I meant when you get off duty.’ She made a show of checking her watch. ‘I’m off in an hour … that should tie in with how long it’ll take you to get back to HQ, then get back here … I’m in a flat on Devonshire Road,’ she concluded.
Henry tried, but he could not stop his bottom lip from bubbling open like a loose tyre. He managed to shut it.
‘Up to you,’ she said.
At which moment, the personnel carrier full of Henry’s team turned into Richardson Street, and as soon as the cops on board spotted him talking to a pretty female officer, a raucous roar and accompanying whistles rose from the van, which even Henry and Clarke could hear from fifty yards away.
‘Like I said, I’ll leave it with you,’ she said, then turned to the oncoming van, gave its passengers a ‘Hello boys’ wave with a twinkle of her fingers and headed towards the side door to the police car park.
Good-naturedly fending off a barrage of inappropriate comments, Henry climbed into the van and told them all to fuck off.
By the time Tommy Benemy was an hour late turning up to answer his bail at Blackpool police station, Henry had almost paced a groove into the linoleum at the back of the public enquiry desk.
Finally, and in frustration, he stomped into the CID office where the detective delegated by FB to assist Henry in interviewing Tommy was at his desk, elbow-deep in paperwork, surrounded by a cloud of cigarette smoke.
He was a heavily jowled old lag called Phil Brand, a decent, hard-working detective.
‘Take it the lad hasn’t shown his fizzog,’ Brand said as he watched Henry walk in.
‘No sign.’
‘Tried ringing?’
‘They don’t have a phone.’
Brand sat back. He was one of the old-school jacks, all of whom (to Henry) seemed to have thick moustaches and monobrows. Even then, Henry recognized them as a dying breed, especially with the introduction of PACE. Many struggled with the new law, but Henry realized it was here to stay, and although he too was used to dealing with the way things had been, he understood that the only way forward was to make it work for you.
Brand stroked his moustache with his thumb and fingertip. ‘You got transport?’
Henry shook his head. ‘No.’ He’d been dropped off at Blackpool by Inspector Jameson – who’d now been allocated a decrepit pool vehicle until a new one was sourced – while the remainder of his team were on a crime operation in Morecambe.
Brand picked up a set of car keys from his desk and lobbed them across to Henry. ‘It’s a bleedin’ Maestro – not exactly sure where it’s parked. Go and see if the lad’s at home, or whatever.’
Henry caught the keys. ‘Last time I went on to Shoreside, I caused a riot.’
‘Well, don’t this time, eh?’ Brand resumed his reading of a stack of crime reports.
Fifteen minutes later, Henry was on Shoreside and managed to drive without incident to the cul-de-sac on which the Benemys lived, spun around in the turning circle and stopped at the house.
The grubby net curtain twitched at the living-room window: Trish Benemy looking out.
Henry wondered what wonderful excuse there would be as he walked up the path.
The door opened before he could rap on it.
‘We had an appointment,’ he said to Trish. ‘You, me, Tommy, down at the cop shop.’
‘I know.’
Henry thought she looked beyond tired. Pale eyes, sunk deep into their sockets. Vulnerable, even.
‘What’s the problem?’
‘Tommy,’ she said haltingly. ‘I haven’t seen him for three days and nights. He’s gone missing and I’m really worried about him.’
FOUR
1986 – Twelve Months Later
‘Wow, you look smart, Henry.’
Henry tugged down the hem of the jacket of his brand new, dark-blue suit and grinned proudly. ‘Thanks, boss.’
The praise had been heaped on him as he walked through the door of the CID office at Blackpool nick by FB who had a slightly contemptuous smirk on his face and tone in his voice that Henry didn’t really notice because today was his first day as an official, fully fledged detective constable. DC Henry Christie. It had a certain ring to it, he thought – an authority, a gravitas. It also gave him, he assumed, the right to call FB ‘boss’ instead of ‘sir’.
Because Henry was now in the inner circle. Or at least on the outer rim of it, but definitely part of the – mostly – boys’ club that was the Criminal Investigation Department. That very powerful inner movement within the cops that answered to no one. Even the chief constable kept them at arms’ length. It wasn’t that Henry had been promoted. He was still just as much a constable as anyone in uniform, but in reality he was much, much more.
At least in his own mind.
A fucking detective.
For real.
At fucking last.
He had been a CID Aide for a short time at Blackburn a few years earlier, but that had ended inauspiciously when, in a fit of immature temper, he’d raised his fist to a DI and almost punched the guy’s lights out – and he’d been back in uniform so quick that, yes, his feet didn’t touch the ground.
But he’d grafted hard since. Mostly kept his head down, made numerous arrests, many low level, but some decent ones, and his record was exemplary – with the occasional glitch – and eventually his move on to CID was irresistible.
FB surveyed him critically.
FB in his turn was less than spic and span. His weight had continued to rise in the few years Henry had known him, but he seemed convinced his clothes still fitted comfortably, even though each seam seemed to be straining, each button ready to ping off.
‘Office,’ FB snapped.
Henry glanced around the room. It was Monday morning and most of the desks were occupied by detectives, all watching Henry and FB with bemusement. Smoke rose from several cigarettes, and the aroma of bacon baps and fresh coffee permeated the office. Henry had hoped he would have been shown to his desk by the DS, given a bit of an induction and then maybe a partner and some jobs to deal with.
It looked as if FB wanted to bend his ear before anyone else did.
FB pushed past him and Henry followed like the good lad he was. The CID office was situated in a low-level annexe to the main building of the police station and the DSs and DIs had their offices in there, but the DCI’s office was on the fourth floor of the main building, on the level where the higher ranks in the division hung out, such as the superintendents and the chief super, or, as Henry liked to call them, ‘the big nobs’. This was the level to which FB took Henry, which meant having to share an awkwardly silent ride up in the creaky lift.
‘Sit down,’ FB said, circumnavigating his desk and plonking himself down on his office chair, which hissed in protest and sank an inch or two on its hydraulic strut.
Henry sat, glancing out through the narrow floor-to-ceiling toughened-glass window overlooking the public car park at the side of the nick and the bottom third of Blackpool Tower. As an office, it was nothing special: poky, grim, very much like the rest of the building, which was a crumbling mass of steel and concrete, even though it had only been up for a decade. However, Henry already fancied himself sitting on the opposite side of the desk now occupied by FB. Not th
at he was especially ambitious, and even then he recognized it as a passing whim.
Henry adjusted his suit so as not to wrinkle it and even straightened his trouser creases and smiled at FB … who said, ‘The tache – get rid, eh? Doesn’t do you any favours.’
Henry felt a chill run through him. His thumb and forefinger came up to the growth under his nose, specially cultivated so that he might look like one of the more experienced jacks. It hadn’t grown terribly well – more bumfluff than anything and certainly nothing like the Walrus that dominated FB’s top lip.
‘Yes, boss.’
‘So – welcome to the department, DC … er … Christie.’
‘Thanks, boss, good to be here.’
‘Maybe hang fire on the “boss” thing for now. Let’s stick to “sir” for the time being, see how things pan out.’
‘Sure, sir,’ Henry said, feeling slightly deflated.
‘So, you did it?’
Henry nodded sagely. ‘I did, sir.’ His mind flashed back to the gruelling application form which Kate assisted in completing, followed by the tense weeks wondering if he’d made the cut or been binned; then the local interview at headquarters because the Support Unit came under that remit; then the tough interview facing a panel consisting of FB, the ACC (Crime) and a detective superintendent, who collectively asked some of the most ridiculous questions imaginable, including ‘Which daily newspaper do you read?’
But Henry had been prepared for that one. He’d done his research and confidently replied, ‘The Daily Telegraph,’ even though that was a fib. He didn’t read newspapers, didn’t have the time or inclination, especially with a newly born daughter on the scene, but he had spent the last fortnight reading the said broadsheet.
There was a supplementary question to that on the Telegraph’s recent leader on world poverty which Henry winged his way through because he didn’t really know what a ‘leader’ was.