by John Dean
Blizzard looked down at his empty glass.
‘Maybe you’re right,’ he said and a thought struck him. ‘What time did you get home?’
‘About an hour ago.’
‘You’ll be popular.’
‘Could say that,’ said the sergeant, glancing across at the baby. ‘Anyway, got to go, there’s a strange whiff in the air and I’m pretty sure it’s not me.’
Blizzard shuddered and walked over to order another drink from the barman.
Chapter seven
Unable to sleep, John Blizzard stood at the window of his hotel room and stared down into the street. Acutely aware that he had consumed far too much ale than was good for a man of his age, he had resolved to go straight to bed. However, because the Railway Hotel stood in the heart of the city centre, the inspector had struggled to sleep amid the shouts and banging doors as the clubs spewed their drunken clientele into the night. After lying and listening to the Saturday night hubbub for half an hour, the inspector had given a frustrated grunt and padded over to the sink where he had poured a glass of water in a desperate attempt to head off the hangover he knew would surely follow his excesses. Then he walked over to the window to watch the revellers making their way home along streets slicked with rain.
Blizzard allowed himself a slight smile as he saw two young men in white T-shirts falling to blows, embarking on the pantomime that only drunken men can enact when fighting, staggering and swaying as they aimed punches that would never find their target and shouting obscenities garbled by beer. Watching the scuffle, Blizzard recalled his conversation with Steve McGarrity in the bar an hour previously and was struck by the stark contrast with the boxing match that had ruined Archie Gaines’ life. As long as these drunks fought, they would not injure each other, probably would not even remember it, Blizzard knew that, but what had happened in Victoria Hall had been different. Savage. Animal. The inspector had never understood sport – had never tried – but he realised that the fight had crossed the boundaries governing those taking part. What was it McGarrity had called it? The code? Clearly, Guthrie had not respected the code but could his death twelve years later really be a simple case of revenge from a brother who had bided his time? Was Ronald right, Blizzard wondered as he peered out of the window? Was murder sometimes as simple as it comes? And it was easy enough to concoct the scenario: Guthrie comes back to the city, Lawrie Gaines sees him entirely by chance in the street, lures him to the signal box then… No, Blizzard shook his head. No, it just did not sound right.
And what of Megan Rees, the inspector asked himself as he took a sip of water then watched in amusement as one of the drunks staggered backwards to stumble over the kerb and sprawl in the road. Where did she fit into things? They could not have both killed Guthrie, surely? Or could they? Vengeful children taking revenge on the killer of their loved ones? Nice angle yet none of the detectives had turned up anything to link Megan Rees with any of the Gaines family. And what of Eddie Gayle, what was his role in the story? Sure, he was capable of murder, Blizzard knew that. Or rather he was capable of ordering murder: the city’s underworld had always been rife with the rumours and half-truths about the terrible exploits of Eddie Gayle and his gangland associates. But over a bet in a boxing match? Much as Blizzard wanted to believe it, he doubted it was the answer.
Seeing a taxi swerve to avoid the young man in the road, the inspector peered to his right and saw three uniformed officers walking briskly across from where they had been watching the fight. The possibility that the man might get himself killed under the wheels of a car had sparked them into action and, watching them drag him to his feet and begin to calm down his opponent, while talking to the other young men who had now started to gather round the confrontation, Blizzard was reminded of his days as young uniformed officer. Blizzard had hated every minute of uniform life, and had done everything in his power to escape it, but there was nevertheless something about witnessing the uniforms at work that brought about a sense of nostalgia. Standing in the hotel room, his face illuminated by the flashing blue lights of the van that had appeared down below, he found himself recalling those days with something approaching affection.
‘Too much bloody drink,’ muttered the inspector.
And went back to bed.
* * *
It was just after two when McGarrity’s phone rang. Fumbling in the darkness for the bedside light switch, he glanced at the clock and groaned.
‘Who is this?’ he asked, picking up the phone.
‘You know who it is,’ replied a voice. ‘Tell me that you succeeded?’
‘I did my best, George. Told him to go after Lawrie Gaines.’
‘Let’s hope he does then,’ said the voice. ‘The last thing we want is the bastard sniffing around us.’
The line went dead. McGarrity’s wife rolled over and peered blearily at her husband.
‘Who was that?’ she asked.
‘Wrong number. Thought we were a taxi company. Go back to sleep, Margaret.’
But it was only when the first rays of dawn were streaking the sky that Steve McGarrity finally slipped into a fitful slumber, and even then it was one haunted by the ghosts of the past.
* * *
As the rain squalled in off the River Haft and drifted across the sleeping city, two men in dark clothing walked slowly and carefully across the wasteland, making sure that their feet made little sound on the shards of broken bottles as they headed towards the railway siding. Clambering up the embankment, they dropped down onto the trackbed and walked along the siding in the direction of the railway museum, their progress illuminated by the dim glow from the street lights on nearby terraced streets.
Finding themselves at the perimeter fence of the museum, the men crouched down and there was a snipping sound as one of them cut a hole in the wire. Crawling through, they advanced quickly on the building and disappeared into the shadows around the back, still moving carefully lest they trigger any security lights. None came on. One of the men glanced down at his luminous watch: 12.45am. They clambered onto a shed attached to the main building then hoisted themselves up to the roof, clinging precariously onto the drainpipe running up the side of the building. Once or twice it creaked and they froze, suspended in mid-air, hardly daring to breathe in case it gave way and hurled them to the ground. Satisfied that it would hold their weight, they continued to climb and within a few short moments were at the top.
Edging their way carefully across the sloping tiled roof, they eventually reached the highest point and took a moment or two to survey the scene around them: in one direction they looked out over rows of terraced streets stretching into the distance, the houses interspersed with the dull shapes of factories and office blocks. Looking the other way, the men could see how close they were to the city centre, could see the street lights and hear the hum of traffic, the slamming of car doors and the occasional shout as the clubs turned out and the taxis starting to ferry the drunken revellers home after a Saturday night on the lash. Looking down, the men saw, briefly glimpsed through the trees, a man walking unsteadily along the street on the far side of the wasteland. For a few moments, he turned and looked directly towards the museum but the wooded belt shielded the intruders from view.
The men edged over to one of the skylights, taking great care because the roof was increasingly slippery with the falling rain. They peered down into the shadows of the railway museum for a few moments, just able to make out in the glow afforded by a series of low lights around the walls the dull forms which they knew to be railway engines and display cases.
‘That’s the Silver Flyer,’ said one of the men, pointing to the engine, which had been reversed into its resting place at the end of the museum closest to the large double doors. ‘Can we get in without triggering the alarm?’
‘Piece of cake,’ nodded his accomplice, peering through the skylight. ‘Them doors at the end don’t look very secure. All we have to do is get them open and back the truck in. Mind, it don’t look
that special. Is our man right?’
‘He reckons some of that pipework is worth a packet. Besides, think how pissed off it will make Blizzard.’
‘Well it looks easy enough,’ said the accomplice. ‘When are we going to come back and…?’
Before he could complete the sentence, he lost his footing and, with a horrified look on his face, slid silently, wordlessly, down to the edge of the roof, feet scrabbling on the tiles, hands grasping desperately for a hold before he disappeared into the void. His friend heard a dull thud as he struck the ground. Then all was silence.
* * *
Six-thirty in the morning found John Blizzard sitting in a taxi bound for work. The inspector had spent a disturbed night at the hotel. When he did finally get to sleep, it was to dream of Billy Guthrie’s battered features, steam locomotives that never seemed to reach their destination and Megan Rees with that knowing smile on her face. Waking shortly after six, and nursing a severe headache that seemed to get worse with every movement, Blizzard had scrabbled around for the Anadin in his jacket pocket and showered. Trying to ignore the pain, he had walked gingerly out of the hotel, settled his bill – ignoring the knowing smile of the young girl on reception – and headed for the taxi rank outside the station where he asked the only cab driver there to take him to Abbey Road.
Situated amid a pleasant middle-class residential area, Abbey Road lay at the heart of the division, to its south the River Haft, to its east the city centre, to its north the expanse of Victorian terraced houses that were virtually all now bedsits, and fanning out to the west, mile upon mile of run-down Sixties council estates with shuttered corner shops, burnt-out cars and abandoned pushchairs. Sitting in the back seat of the taxi, Blizzard gazed silently out of the window at the passing houses and tried to think about something else than his throbbing skull.
‘You have a few last night?’ asked the driver.
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Because you look like shit.’
‘Not been on a customer relations course then?’ said Blizzard.
The cab arrived at the station well before seven and, feeling like death, the inspector sat in his office trying to study the reports from the night before while waiting for the Anadin to take effect. Occasionally, he winced as a particularly vicious stabbing sensation bored its way into his brain. Sipping at a glass of water, he constantly reminded himself, as he always did whenever this happened, that he was too old for all-night drinking. With the pain refusing to ease, and unable to read the reports in the half-light offered by his desk lamp (the inspector felt that the main light would be too painful an experience for a man in his condition), Blizzard cursed and threw the document down onto the desk. Glancing over to another pile of reports, he noticed that the top one dealt with the incident on The Spur two nights previously.
He found his mind drifting back, as it did so often, to that dark night on the estate. The inspector had been working late and was about to leave for home when the call came in. The news that a constable had been murdered had electrified the police station and, as Blizzard strode out on his way to the car park, Abbey Road’s corridors were full of shocked officers and civilians, desperate to do something but able to do nothing. Sitting now in his dimly-lit office, the inspector could smell again the acrid stench of the urine as he walked into the stairwell on The Spur, past a knot of grim-faced officers, and made his way up through the darkness to the first floor. Kenny Jarvis was sprawled several steps below the landing, face white, eyes staring, blood welling from the stab wound to his chest.
Blizzard had stood and stared down at him for a few moments, almost unable to take the scene in. Despite two decades in the job, he had never seen the body of a murdered police officer before. Bodies, yes, of course, but they had not meant much to him, just another lost identity, another case, a name on a file. But this had been different, he had known Kenny Jarvis, had exchanged pleasantries with him whenever they passed each other in the corridor at Abbey Road, had answered his hopeful questions about a possible move to CID. Staring down at the body, Blizzard had felt not just an overwhelming grief – young, oh so young – but also a huge sense of responsibility. He recalled glancing along the landing at the uniforms holding back a gaggle of rubber-neckers, then walking over the balustrade and looking down the upturned faces of the officers gathered in the quadrangle. Blizzard remembered how he was assailed by the overpowering realisation that each and every one of them was looking for him to solve the crime and solve it fast.
Without realising it as he sat in his office now, the inspector clenched his fist at the memory. Hearing the sounds of the station coming to life, he sighed, stood up, wincing again at the pain from his head, and walked slowly down to the CID room where officers were starting to come in. Dragging up a chair at the front, he let his gaze roam round the room. Standing at the filing cabinet in the corner, flicking through papers, was Ramsey. Close by sat Colley, tipping back on a chair, eyes closed as he tried to catch up with some sleep: Laura had not fallen into slumber on his lap until three-thirty and the sergeant had woken to an old episode of the A-Team.
In front of the sergeant sat Fee Ellis and she caught the inspector’s eye, laughing out loud when he tried to wink then winced as another shaft of pain jagged its way round his head. ‘Piss-pot’, she mouthed. The inspector nodded ruefully and glanced round the rest of the room at several other young detective constables and, sitting by the window, Dave Tulley, a tubby black-haired sergeant in his twenties, dressed as ever in a poorly fitting dark suit with crumb flecks down the jacket as he munched on a pastie.
‘You OK, guv?’ asked Ramsey.
‘Just tell me where we are,’ grunted the inspector.
He allowed himself a slight smile as the younger officers tried to look busy, flicking through their pocket books or rustling papers: Blizzard loved having a reputation.
‘Where we are,’ said Colley, still not opening his eyes, ‘is that they were queuing up to stick one on Billy Guthrie.’
‘And who’s at the head of the queue? Lawrie Gaines?’
‘He’s certainly worth looking at, not least because he has gone AWOL,’ said Ramsey, turning away from the filing cabinet. ‘No one has been at the house all night. And Lawrie Gaines has not been seen for a couple of days, apparently. Maybe you can help with that, guv. I understand you gathered some intelligence on him last night during what we might describe as covert inquiries?’
Blizzard looked at him for a moment, wondering if the detective inspector was joking: Ramsey attempting humour always threw him off-guard. However, the DI retained a deadpan expression and Blizzard gave up trying to work it out.
‘Something like that,’ he said.
The other officers checked to see he was taking the comment in the right spirit then allowed themselves to laugh; you always had to be careful with John Blizzard, they all knew that. And he did have a hangover, which was guaranteed to blacken his mood. Only Colley laughed without checking.
‘Lawrie certainly has motive,’ said Ramsey, reaching onto a desk for a brown file. ‘After his brother got injured in the fight, East CID were called in to investigate but, for some reason, it was decided to leave the matter in the hands of the boxing authorities. Not sure that was a particularly wise decision. OK, so Guthrie got a life ban but I would argue that what he did was assault and should have been dealt with by the court.’
‘I would agree,’ said Blizzard. ‘Mind you, knowing Guthrie as we do, there’s a good chance that a thousand people would have claimed to be looking the other way when it happened.’
Ramsey nodded gloomily.
‘Have we found out if it’s true that the kid died three weeks ago?’ asked Blizzard.
‘I’ve been ringing around,’ said Tulley, consuming the last of his pastie and shying the paper bag at the nearby bin. ‘But without knowing which home he went to, it’s taking longer than I expected. None of Lawrie’s neighbours know.’
‘The real problem,’ said Colle
y, finally opening his eyes, ‘is that Lawrie Gaines is not the only one with good reason to see Billy Guthrie dead.’
‘Yeah,’ said Ramsey, reaching for another pile of papers on the desk. ‘I had Burniston send down their stuff – at least three people sustained serious injuries at his hands during pub brawls, all without anything ever coming to court. We talked to two of them last night and are waiting on a call about the third one. Oh, and you can add the family of Denny Rees to that as well, of course. There’s plenty of people still hacked off that Guthrie never faced court over that one.’
‘Perhaps that’s as much our fault as theirs,’ said the inspector.
The officers looked at him uneasily. Blizzard was renowned for his honesty, even if his views did upset the top brass, and among the comments which had concerned senior officers most were his outspoken pronouncements on the subject of witnesses who declined to go to court. It was, the inspector had always argued, their civic duty to come forward and give statements, fear of intimidation or not. He had made his views known at a public forum a couple of years previously, attracting negative headlines in the local paper, prompting a lively debate in the letters column and earning himself a rebuke from the chief constable. Not that the warning deferred him from pronouncing on the subject from time to time, which unsettled officers when he started to voice his views. All except Chris Ramsey, whose job included liaising with the local branch of Victim Support.
‘Surely,’ said Ramsey, ‘you cannot really be suggesting that Guthrie was allowed to do these things because folks let him? The man was a psycho.’
‘Psycho or not, he got away with it for too long.’ Blizzard tried to strike a more conciliatory tone, eager to avoid an argument for the sake of both the murder inquiry and his aching head. Mainly his aching head: he was already regretting saying anything. ‘And we don’t come out of this smelling of roses, do we? The man was a thug and we should have made sure he was locked up.’