by Nick Oldham
Tope’s face was lined with worry. ‘I’ve, uh, been digging again
… found some more stuff, unpleasant stuff.’
Henry managed to corral his helpers back into his office, with the exception of Steve Flynn, who had felt obliged to get back to Glasson Dock and open up the shop. He wasn’t a cop any more and Henry was probably pushing it to have him aboard anyway.
Strangely, Henry was disappointed not to see him, a feeling that made him slightly uneasy. Was he getting to like the guy? Perhaps the life-threatening incidents they’d been involved with in the last couple of days had given Henry a fresh perspective on him.
Henry looked at his assembled crew, although it was not quite true to say that FB was really a crew member. He was just an interested party.
Then he revealed his flip-chart jottings and began to piece together what he knew for certain and what he surmised, and hoped he hadn’t missed anything.
‘What’s going on, Henry?’
‘Ralph, thanks for calling. Just been a bit delayed at headquarters, all crap stuff mainly,’ Henry said. He was talking to DI Barlow, the Lancaster jack, on his mobile phone.
‘No probs… just need to know what’s happening is all. You can’t have had much sleep.’
‘None, actually.’
‘Er, there’s couple of guys landed here,’ Barlow said. ‘I’m not one hundred per cent sure as to why, but they say you told them to get their arses up here.’
‘Yeah… I’m trying to pull one or two people in to kick-start an investigation.’
‘So you’re not doing as I suggested?’ Barlow said frostily.
‘No… thanks for the advice, though.’
‘Well, so be it,’ Barlow sighed, which really sounded to Henry like, ‘Be it on your own head, mate.’ Barlow was in his office at Lancaster nick and a DI from Blackpool CID was sitting opposite him, lounging indolently in a chair, trying to look bored and pissed off. Barlow made a circle with his thumb and forefinger and jerked his hand up and
down and pointed to the phone at his ear for the benefit of the DI.
The gesture meant Henry Christie: wanker.
The other DI nodded agreement.
‘Who else has arrived?’ Henry asked innocently.
‘Some bloody PC from training school. Christ knows what his skills are!’
‘That’ll be the firearms guy. I wanted him to have a look at the weapon that was used, you know, the machine-pistol. Get his take on it.’
‘Oh, right, whatever,’ Barlow said rather crossly. ‘What’s your plan, then?’
‘To be honest, Ralph, I haven’t completely got my head around things… but I think my first port of call is Harry Sunderland.’
‘Eh? Why? What’s he got to do with you being shot at?’ Barlow blustered.
‘I know it’s a bit lame, but I need to question him about his wife and the circumstances of her disappearance, just to find out how she really did end up in the river. I’m not completely convinced by his story.’
‘And what has that to do with last night? Completely unrelated,’ Barlow insisted.
‘Also I’d like to know why the two heavies wanted to find what was in the wife’s property… that’s really bothering me,’ Henry bullshitted. ‘So I think I’m going to lock him up for murder and take it from there. A bit thin, maybe, but I want to lean on him.’
Barlow hissed an unimpressed breath.
‘Shall I meet you at Lancaster nick in about half an hour?’ Henry asked. ‘We can go and see him together.’
‘Yeah, good idea.’
Barlow ended the call and shook his head despondently at the visiting DI. ‘Henry bloody Christie,’ he said by way of explanation.
Rik Dean nodded agreement. ‘Don’t I know it.’
‘Look, I hope you don’t think I’m being rude here, but I need to make a personal call.’ Barlow waggled his phone at Rik, who stood up with a wave of understanding and said, ‘Sure, no worries. Brew after?’
‘See you up in the canteen.’
Rik left the office, closing the door behind him.
In the corridor outside he leaned on the wall, took his own mobile phone out and made sure it was receiving a signal. It was: full strength.
Bill Robbins poked his head out of the CID office door further down the corridor and arched his eyebrows at Rik.
The wait seemed interminable.
But then Rik’s phone vibrated in his hand.
He answered it quickly, listened for a moment, said, ‘Right,’ tersely, and finished the call.
He glanced at Bill Robbins and nodded.
Henry Christie’s mobile phone rang five seconds after Rik Dean had slid his own back into his pocket.
Henry had it ready in his hand and answered it instantly, listened for a few moments, said, ‘OK, thanks,’ and ended the call.
He glanced sideways at FB and nodded.
As Rik Dean pushed himself upright off the corridor wall and spun towards Ralph Barlow’s office door, with Bill Robbins right behind him, the door actually opened before Rik could reach the handle.
Barlow emerged, stunned to almost barge straight into Rik.
‘Oh, sorry mate,’ Barlow said. ‘Need to get going. Something’s come up.’
Rik stood immobile in front of him, his eyes stone hard, face deadly serious. ‘I don’t think so, Ralph.’
‘What?’ Barlow snorted and tried to ease his way past Rik. ‘Excuse me.’
‘Can we just go back into your office?’ Rik said pleasantly.
‘For why?’
‘I think you know…’
‘I know fuck all, except you’re in my way.’ He tried to move past, but Rik held up a hand — almost the police number one stop signal.
‘I’ll do it here if you want,’ he said, the tone of his voice becoming brittle. ‘In the corridor.’
‘Do what?’
Two female civilian members of staff walked down the corridor, past the three men at the DI’s office door, sensing something very amiss.
Rik sighed. Underneath the surface, he was quite nervous, but did not betray any of this in his outward demeanour. He’d been in tougher situations, but had never had to arrest a fellow officer before. ‘I’ll do it in front of everyone, if you like,’ he said impatiently.
‘I don’t know what the hell you’re on about, but I’d guess you’re about to make one big fucking mistake — so let me pass before this gets ugly.’
‘It’s already ugly… back into the office, last time of asking.’
‘Go to fuck, Rik,’ Barlow snapped and tried to barge past. Rik laid a restraining hand on his chest that stopped him going any further. Barlow froze and looked down at the hand, palm on his sternum, fingers splayed out, then along Rik’s arm and into his face. ‘You’d better take that away.’
At which point, Rik had had enough pussyfooting about.
‘I’m arresting you on suspicion of corruption. You don’t have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if-’ Rik began to caution him, but wasn’t allowed to complete the little speech as Barlow slammed his right fist in a wide-arcing blow into Rik’s face, knocking him sideways into Bill Robbins, who had been watching the verbal transaction with trepidation, realizing it was all going very sour.
Barlow was a bigger man than Rik, who was quite small in stature, and he followed up the blow by pushing Rik into Bill then tearing down the corridor.
‘Get him,’ Rik said.
Bill was no spring chicken. In fact he was stoutly built and getting on a little, but being a firearms trainer meant he was very fit in a lots-of-stamina way, though not especially fleet of foot.
He also heaved Rik out of the way and charged after Barlow, who careened down the corridor, turning sharp left at the end of it.
Bill pounded after him but by the time he reached the turn, Barlow had vanished. But Bill knew he hadn’t been that far behind, so Barlow must have gone into one of the doors on this stretch.
First was a store
room. Locked. Next was a ladies’ loo. There was slight hesitation on Bill’s part, but he opened the door an inch and called, ‘I’m coming in!’
He opened the door fully. Directly opposite the door was a bank of three washbasins and at one of them was one of the lady support-staff members who had just walked down the corridor. She had her back to the basins and a very confused look on her face.
Bill twisted to his left where there were three toilet cubicles, two doors slightly ajar, the third closed.
‘Is he in there?’ Bill demanded. The woman’s mouth popped like a goldfish. But nothing came out of it. Bill cursed.
He couldn’t even check by looking under the door because these were fully enclosed cubicles, offering complete privacy, so he had a decision to make he hoped he would not regret.
He stepped across and pounded on the closed door. ‘Mr Barlow.’
There was no response.
If there had been an indisposed female in there, Bill would have expected some response — probably a scream.
He pushed the door: locked. So he took a couple of backward paces, picked his spot, prayed there wasn’t a lady on the loo, and flat-footed the door by the flimsy lock.
Bill had kicked down many doors in his service. He practised it regularly on team training.
And this one was no problem. It clattered open, slamming back and connecting with Ralph Barlow’s back as he knelt in front of the toilet, fumbling with something and reaching for the flush.
Bill grabbed him just as his fingers touched the handle, dragged him by his collar out of the cubicle and deposited him at the feet of the still-shocked woman. The component parts of Barlow’s mobile phone came out of his hand and scattered across the tiled floor, front, back and battery.
Rik Dean came in just as Bill was heaving Barlow over onto his front and forcing his arms behind his back.
‘Trying to flush the evidence away,’ Bill gasped. ‘SIM card, I think.’
Rik saw the pieces of the dismembered phone. ‘Did he manage?’
‘Don’t think so. That one,’ Bill said, pointing into the cubicle.
Rik tutted, stepped over Barlow’s legs into the cubicle. He was holding his face, throbbing from Barlow’s punch. He squatted down and peered into the toilet bowl, which was fortunately filled with clean water, but could not see the SIM card.
Only one thing for it.
He unfastened his shirt cuff and pulled up his sleeve, then reached into the water, gently feeling along the porcelain U-bend with his fingertips, hoping he wouldn’t find anything other than a SIM card.
He touched something, small, rectangular, placed a fingertip on it and drew it carefully backwards all the way out of the water, then took it between his thumb and forefinger and thought, ‘Thank God you were right about this one, Henry Christie.’
Henry had known Robert Fanshaw-Bayley — FB — for almost thirty years now, having first encountered him in the very early 1980s when Henry was a uniformed PC in Rossendale, far to the east of the county of Lancashire. At that time FB was the local DI, ruling the roost like some sort of malicious demigod. Their relationship over the intervening years had been rocky, to say the least, but had survived many ups and downs.
Although he was now chief constable (and had reached the year of his obligatory retirement) FB had the word ‘Jack’ written through him like a stick of Blackpool rock. He had been a detective for most of his service, a good, if ruthless one — and like most cops of rank, still loved to ‘go out playing’ on the front line now and again.
Hence his decision to accompany Henry that day.
And now they were parked in the village of Slyne in the constabulary pool vehicle Henry had managed to coerce from the transport department, near the gates of Sunderland Transport. It was a rather beaten-up Vauxhall Vectra and when he picked it up he was warned to check the oil level because it burned the black stuff like an old steam train. FB sat alongside him.
Henry said, ‘Right, thanks,’ into his mobile phone and ended the call, then glanced at FB as he slid the phone back into his pocket. He pursed his lips and said, ‘It’s happening, boss, the call’s being made now.’
‘Let’s roll, then.’
A few minutes earlier, Steve Flynn, in Alison’s car, had pretended to do a mistaken turn into the car park at Sunderland Transport and had clocked that Sunderland’s Aston Martin was parked up in its usual position.
Flynn was here because Henry had decided to tell him what was going on and asked him along — in a purely observational capacity — to witness events unfold if he so wished. Although Flynn had only just opened up the chandlery, he could not resist and joined Henry in Slyne, where they worked out their not very complicated plan, including Flynn’s accidental turn around in Sunderland Transport to check out the lay of the land.
After he’d clocked the Aston, Flynn had parked discreetly behind Henry and settled down to see what transpired. He knew he should have been at the shop, but, having been nearly killed on more occasions in the last couple of days than almost all the time he’d been a commando in the Falklands war, he did not want to miss anything. And he promised Henry he would just watch, not get involved, even if Henry was getting his head kicked in.
As Henry pulled away from the kerb with FB, Flynn dearly wished it was himself in the passenger seat. Having left the force under an undeserved cloud he felt he had a lot of unfinished business. He had loved being a cop and still hankered for it and would gladly have forgone his life in Gran Canaria to still be one.
But it was not to be. Life had moved on. He allowed Alison’s car to roll forward a few feet and take up the space the Vectra had occupied. He watched Henry turn into the gates.
Henry instantly saw the Aston. He drove into one of the visitors’ parking bays and he and FB climbed out. They walked side by side into reception.
Harry Sunderland was behind the desk, tugging his jacket on hurriedly, explaining something to Miranda, the receptionist. He glanced up as Henry entered through the revolving doors, followed by FB. He did a double-take and his expression changed to that of the rabbit in the headlights, about to be mown flat. But it was only momentary — because he bolted out of the headlight beam and sprinted to a fire door behind reception, crashing through it, emerging at the side of the office building, skidding towards the car park.
Henry went after him. He vaulted the reception desk, virtually flying past the bewildered Miranda, who screamed and covered her head. Henry had slightly misjudged the width of the desk and had to scramble untidily off the far side, but he was not far behind Sunderland, who had slammed the fire door shut behind him.
FB did not run. He calmly did an about-turn and stepped into the revolving door.
Sunderland ran hard towards his car, fumbling for the keys and desperately trying to use the remote control to unlock it.
Henry was held back only seconds by the door, then he was through, only feet behind Sunderland, who reached his Aston and wrenched open the driver’s door. As he swung himself in, Henry caught up and manhandled him back out just as FB joined them.
‘What the fuck’re you playing at?’ Sunderland demanded, as Henry, relishing it, spun him and splayed him across the expensive bonnet of the magnificent sports car. He pinned him there, leant over and spoke into the man’s ear.
‘You’re under arrest,’ Henry growled as he fought to get the man’s arms behind his back to apply the rigid cuffs.
‘What for? I’ve done fuck all.’
‘We’ll start with murder.’
‘Of who, you knob?’
‘Your wife, Jennifer.’
Sunderland stopped his ineffective struggling. ‘What?’ he said incredulously.
‘You heard.’
‘I didn’t kill her.’
‘In that case, we can talk about other things… like corruption.’
Sunderland started to struggle again, which Henry thought was a good sign. He held him tight and glanced at FB.
‘Not sure what y
our plans are, Henry — but beating a quick retreat might be the order of the day here,’ FB said pointing.
Henry’s eyes followed the fat finger.
Two large men in oily overalls had emerged from one of the warehouse doors, each with a heavy wrench in hand — and they were jogging towards the scene of the arrest, looking menacing and possibly mistaking an official piece of police business for two men in plain clothes assaulting their boss.
Sunderland twisted his head up and saw them. ‘Better let me go, guys, or these two’ll enjoy whacking you.’
The men ran on, wrenches raised — just as Flynn sped in through the gates in Alison’s car and accelerated across the car park to position himself between the men and the arrest. He swerved the car to a stop on the gravel surface, throwing up stones like pebbledashing, his sudden appearance causing the two men to slow to an unsure jog.
Flynn dropped out of the driver’s seat, coming up to his full height and waited for the men to arrive.
He looked pretty awe-inspiring, with his beaten-up, stitched face atop his wide stature, and Henry thought he was definitely a good man to have behind you.
‘I’ll go for both of you guys,’ he said, not boasting, just stating fact. ‘Monkey wrenches or otherwise.’
Their run slowed to a stop. They were ten metres away from him.
FB walked up. ‘Very commendable, guys,’ he said, ‘but your boss is under arrest and unless you want to end up in the same cell complex, I suggest you down tools and go back from whence you came. Like now!’
‘And who the fuck are you, fatty?’ one snarled at him.
FB did something he hadn’t done for a very long time: he flashed his warrant card. Relishing the drama, whilst also feeling just slightly silly, he announced, ‘I’m the fucking chief constable.’
It would have been unwise to have lodged the two prisoners in Lancaster’s cells. Henry needed to get them away from their home turf, particularly Barlow. He was a well-liked detective with a lot of friends at the station, a situation that could conceivably make things difficult for Henry.
To that end, Henry had already warned the custody office at Blackpool to be ready for two prisoners who were to be kept separate and given cells at the opposite ends of the big complex so they could not communicate in any way with each other. Henry did not reveal who the prisoners would be.