by Nick Oldham
Her eyelids closed and opened slowly. She looked down her imperfect nose at him. ‘I’m sorry you’ve had a wasted journey, but the fact is that police officers on the premises upset the residents. We are trying to create a positive atmosphere here, working to try and rehabilitate offenders, provide a secure environment in which they can thrive … So.’ She made a ‘shooing’ gesture, waving her fingers away.
‘What about inter-agency cooperation?’ Rik blurted, getting mad.
‘And what about procedures?’
‘You don’t even know why we’re here, do you?’
‘No, I don’t …’
Henry could see Rik bristling in front of him. ‘Look,’ he interjected, hoping to pacify things. ‘I know we’ve jumped the gun by turning up unannounced and I’m sorry about that, but if you’d just hear us out, maybe you’d make an exception in this case?’ He knew he had a habit of not phoning ahead, but he always liked to catch people on the hop, especially during a murder investigation, even if sometimes time was wasted. He gave her his best lopsided, boyish grin, which he knew was wearing thin at his time of life, but he believed there was still a few miles left in it.
Jackie Harcourt regarded him thoughtfully and for a tiny moment, Henry thought he had lost. But then her lips pursed, the shoulders dropped and victory was his. ‘Come into the office. I’ll give you a couple of minutes.’
‘Thanks, appreciate it.’
There was a male member of staff sitting behind a desk.
‘Can you give us a few minutes, Guy?’ Jackie Harcourt asked him pleasantly.
He scowled, but responded to the request without a murmur, collecting his papers and leaving them to their business.
‘OK, so which one is it?’ she asked. ‘Which one of my little angels had been doing wrong?’
‘Actually it’s not about one of your present residents. It’s about one who should be a resident, but isn’t,’ Henry explained none too clearly, though Ms Harcourt immediately understood.
‘An absconder? Which one? Carl Meanthorpe? Danny Livers?’
‘I take it they’re recent absconders?’
She nodded.
‘Neither,’ Henry said and saw Ms Harcourt’s lips pop open and a cloud quickly scud across her face; he saw something in her eyes which made him watch even more closely when he said, ‘George Uren.’
Her lips came together, tight. She blinked and swallowed, then coughed nervously. Her composure, for a brief but telling moment, had been lost. It was quickly regained. She said, ‘Ah, him. What do you want to know?’
‘Anything you got, love,’ Rik slid in, getting her back up again.
‘I’m afraid there’s not much I can tell you. He was released from prison on licence, conditions to stay here until he settled back into society, received counselling, got himself a job … that sort of thing. He didn’t stay long.’
‘Have you got a file on him?’ Henry asked.
‘It’s confidential, can’t let you see it.’
Henry noticed her hand was dithering as she ran it across her face. His eyes narrowed thoughtfully, but before he could speak, Rik intervened like a panzer tank again.
‘We need to see it, love, and if you won’t show it to us, we’ll just get a court order.’
‘Rik,’ Henry snapped. ‘Just fuck off, will you?’ Actually he did not say it, but was very tempted. Instead he said, ‘Jackie … we’re investigating the murder of a young girl and we have reason to believe Uren was involved. Unfortunately we can’t find him. By coming here we hoped to generate some leads which might take us to him. I know it’s an imposition.’
‘I don’t know where he is,’ Ms Harcourt said.
‘I appreciate that, but maybe you know who he knocked about with, any residents past or present who might know anything about him, anything really that might be of use.’
‘OK, OK,’ she sighed. ‘I’ll get his file, but this is strictly against policy. All client information is confidential.’
‘I understand,’ Henry said, ‘but please trust us. This is a very fast-moving investigation and the quicker this man is caught, the safer the streets will be … and that’s not just rhetoric. It’s God’s honest truth.’
The file was fairly thin, containing details of Uren, his background, conditions of release and then a log of his time at the hostel which ran for a couple of pages, then ended abruptly on his unauthorized departure. Henry slam-read it, his eyes taking it in quickly, realizing that it did not actually tell him very much. He sniffed as he finished it and passed it over to Rik who started to peruse it. Henry regarded the hostel manager.
‘There’s a visitor referred to … who was that, do you know?’
She shook her head. Henry could tell her teeth were clamped tightly shut. He watched the muscles in her jaw pump as she tensed them. ‘He only came the once, a sort of rat-faced man, but he didn’t spend much time here. He and Uren spoke in the residents’ lounge for a few minutes, then he left. I don’t remember much about him. It was eighteen months ago.’
‘Yeah, yeah … so what sort of resident was Uren?’
‘Nasty, unpleasant,’ she said with feeling. ‘Glad to see the back of him, to be honest.’
‘Are there any people here now who were resident when Uren was here?’
‘We have an ever-changing clientele, but old Walter Pollack was here, still is and probably will be this time next year. He’s institutionalized.’
‘Did he have any dealings with Uren?’
‘Not specially, I don’t think.’
‘Is he in now?’
‘Yes, but …’
‘We’d like to chat to him, please,’ Henry said firmly. Ms Harcourt backed off, still flustered underneath her smooth veneer. Henry could not make out what was troubling her, but something was bubbling.
‘He’s in his room — upstairs, number three.’
Rik, who’d had his head in the Uren’s file, looked up and snapped shut the ring-binder. ‘Bugger all in here,’ he announced, words which drew an expression of condemnation from Ms Harcourt.
‘What’s Pollack in for?’ Henry asked.
‘He feels up little boys.’
He was sixty-four years old, thin and wiry, had the hook nose and eyes of a predator, which is exactly what Walter Pollack was. Henry recognized a dangerous individual when he saw one and Pollack was one of those horrendously dangerous people who pick on the young — and destroy them. Ms Harcourt had been obliging enough to show the two detectives his file, including his list of previous convictions. They stretched back over thirty years, many with a common theme: indecent assaults on young boys, gross indecency with some, and stealing to subsidize his lifestyle. Pollack was obviously a lost cause, his perversions not mellowing with age, and the best thing society could think to do with him was keep an eye on him until he slipped away and re-offended, and then jail him again. It was something Henry would have bet his last week’s lottery winnings on happening, all ten pounds of it.
His room was neat and tidy with a metal-framed bed, wardrobe, sink and desk, reminding Henry of the rooms at the police training centre at Hutton where he’d spent many a sleepless night over the years. Pollack was sitting at his desk, smoking, emptying his lungs out of the open window overlooking Manchester Road.
Pollack’s head turned slowly as the detectives entered, Ms Harcourt in their wake.
‘Walter, these men are-’ she began.
‘-the filth,’ Pollack finished for her, a sneer of contempt on his face. He stumped out his cancer stick and coughed, a rasping harsh noise which sounded as though a lot of fluid was gurgling around inside his chest. Henry hoped it was nothing minor. ‘I clocked you walking in and made you straight off. I’ve done fuck all.’
‘Never said you had,’ Rik retorted.
‘They want to ask you about George Uren, Walter,’ Ms Harcourt said over Henry’s shoulder.
‘Why, what’s he done?’ There was smirk on Pollack’s face.
‘We just ne
ed to talk to him. You don’t need to know what he’s done,’ Rik said.
‘It’s that Fleetwood job, isn’t it?’ he guessed correctly. He tapped his ear. ‘Radio Lancashire.’
Henry regarded the man’s face. Wrinkled with age, grey hair, bald on top, permanent curl on his lips and piercing cold eyes. Paedophilia had never been Henry’s field of expertise, though he had dealt with a few offenders, mainly via murder enquiries. He had found that he had always despised the offenders he came across, usually men, probably because he always had to fight against the images of his own children and the thought of what he would do to anyone who hurt them. He detested Pollack immediately and his right hand balled into a fist at his side.
Pollack saw the movement, smiled. ‘Want to hit me? All cops do.’ He raised his wiry eyebrows. ‘Except for the ones who molest kids like I do.’
Henry did the quickest count to ten ever, still felt like kicking the living shit out of this old paedophile, but got a grip, relaxed … c’mon … relax … ‘Have you got any idea where George Uren is?’
‘Why should I know?’
‘You were here when he was,’ Henry said. ‘Presumably you talked to him.’
‘Not specially. I practise talking to the little people … that’s my speciality.’
Rik Dean reacted instantaneously. Before Henry could stop him, he’d blurted the words, ‘Sick bastard!’, crossed the room with one stride, heaved Pollack out of his chair and pinned him up against the wall by the open window. His face was centimetres away from Pollack’s. ‘I’m going to throw you out of this window, you perverted git.’
Pollack’s expression remained unchanged, as though this was something that always happened to him.
‘You let that man go!’ Ms Harcourt screamed. ‘And you get off these premises now.’ She pushed Henry out of her way and tried to drag Rik off Pollack.
Dean was a strong, burly man, and he did not flinch. Instead, he almost shrugged Ms Harcourt off and slammed Pollack against the wall once more, inducing a further scream from her: ‘Get off him! I knew this was a mistake, letting you two in here.’
‘Rik, put him down,’ Henry said.
‘Yeah, you’re right. I don’t know where this piece of shit’s been, do I?’ He released Pollack with a flick and stepped away. Pollack sniggered, unshaken by the event. He brushed himself down disdainfully. Hard-faced bastard, Henry thought. Love to meet you in a back alley.
‘Come on.’ Henry touched Rik’s shoulder.
Rik’s teeth were grinding, his whole being coiled up tight. He gave Pollack a last look which would have killed him if there had been any justice, then strutted out of the room. Henry also shot Pollack a last glance.
‘Expect a complaint of assault and police brutality,’ Pollack said coolly. He sat down and tapped a cigarette out of the packet on the desk top, placed it between his curdled lips. Henry reached out, snatched the cigarette and ground it to pulp in the palm of his hand, allowing its content to flake on to Pollack’s lap. He leaned in close.
‘Don’t,’ he whispered, ‘or I’ll revisit.’ He winked and left it at that, easing past the trembling Ms Harcourt.
By the time Henry got to the front door of the hostel, Rik had already reached the car. He waited for Ms Harcourt, who came down the stairs and walked angrily toward him.
‘I’ll be reporting this,’ she said.
Henry shrugged. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Didn’t go the way I’d intended.’
She held Henry’s eyes for a few moments, some internal wrangling going on behind her eyes. Then she relented slightly. ‘I’ll see what Pollack wants to do.’
‘He won’t do anything.’
‘How can you be sure?’
‘Because if he does, he’ll get investigated. I’ll get a surveillance team on him and I guarantee he’ll re-offend — and he knows that.’
‘Are you saying I’m not doing my job?’
‘I’m saying he’ll never change.’
Henry was about to leave it at that when Ms Harcourt said, ‘Just hang on there a sec.’ She spun away down the hallway, disappeared into the staff rooms and was back a minute later, a piece of paper in hand. She waved the paper. ‘Look,’ she said unsurely, ‘don’t think I don’t want George Uren caught. I do. He’s an evil man … This is the name and address of a previous occupant who did spend some time with him. He’s moved on to the coast now and this is the address we have on file here. It may not be current. If it isn’t, he should have registered with the Probation Service on the Fylde. He might know where Uren is.’
‘Thanks.’ Henry took the paper.
‘I heard what you whispered to him up there,’ Ms Harcourt said. ‘That sort of thing can be very scary, the threat to return.’
‘And? I meant it.’
‘That’s what makes it scary.’ She looked into Henry’s eyes. He saw fear there, terror maybe. Henry was puzzled, but did not have time to pursue it because his mobile phone rang. He gave her a business card and Ms Harcourt opened the door for him to leave.
He answered the phone as he trotted down the front steps of the hostel. It was Debbie Black calling from Harrogate. ‘Got anything?’ Henry asked, doubling into the driver’s seat of the Mondeo.
‘Could have,’ she replied. ‘Obviously we can’t be a hundred per cent, but the young girl went missing last night from an estate on the outskirts of Harrogate. Would be about the right age and height as the dead girl in the Astra. Won’t know for sure until we get the forensic matches back, but I have a feeling about it.’
‘Where are you up to with it?’ Henry slotted the key into the ignition, fired up the engine.
‘Just off to the parents with the SIO. We’ve brought some DNA kits, so we’ll take swabs and also turn out the family dentist for those records, too.’
‘Good stuff,’ Henry said, raising an eyebrow at a po-faced Rik Dean, who was still smarting from his recent encounter. ‘Get the kits back over here and we’ll fast-track them tomorrow.’
‘Yeah, no probs with that.’
‘How are they treating you out in the sticks?’
‘Excellent.’
‘Good — and how’s Jane?’
‘Being a first-class bitch as ever.’
Debbie cut the connection, leaving Henry with a dead phone at his ear and a twisted grin on his face. ‘Could be some progress,’ he said to Rik.
‘Was that Debbie Black?’ Henry nodded. ‘Hm,’ Rik grunted.
Henry turned squarely to the DS and looked disappointedly at the grim-faced officer. ‘Two things: first off, I thought you were a wow with the chicks?’
Rik shrugged. ‘Sometimes things just don’t gel … not that I wouldn’t give her one, all things being equal. Actually, she was pretty bloody tasty. And secondly?’
‘Your temper could get you in the shit. I always thought you were a pretty placid sorta chap.’
‘Got it wrong on two counts, then, haven’t you, boss? The temper’s an experience thing,’ he explained. ‘The more experience I have, the less patience I have for crims, pervs in particular.’
‘Hm, going by that logic, my temper should be just about at ground zero.’
‘From what I’ve heard, it is.’
The two men eyed each other for a moment, then Henry waggled the note Ms Harcourt had given him, the Ms Harcourt he could not quite figure out. ‘She relented a bit — gave me this name and address as one of the previous inmates who knew Uren and may know where he is now.’
‘How did you manage that?’ asked an astonished detective sergeant.
‘Boyish charm … crumbled under my aura of male sexuality … a combination of things.’
‘Hardly,’ Rik muttered, snatching the note. ‘Bloody hell!’ he blurted on reading the name. ‘Percy Pearson — Percy Pearson the perverted person from Preston — now living on us, that is. He was locked up on sus of gross indecency last week sometime … luring boys into public toilets, then introducing them to the delights of his donger. Enticed one kid
back to his flat, I think.’
‘Oh,’ said Henry, not quite slapping his forehead. The penny had not dropped when he had read the name. Now it had. ‘He’s the one who said where Uren might be in the first place. We were in Fleetwood because of something he’d said during an Intel interview. Could’ve saved us an eighty-mile round trip if I’d remembered.’ He pulled an agonized face, annoyed.
‘You wouldn’t have had the pleasure of the frigid Ms Harcourt, though.’
Henry pulled away from the kerb. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever have that pleasure,’ he admitted sadly, ‘but something tells me that behind that chilly veneer she isn’t frigid.’
Rik gave a wistful, ‘Mm, quite fancied her, actually.’
The return journey across the county was tedious. They joined queues of the great unwashed masses heading into Blackpool. It only dawned on Henry he would have been better going back by another route than the motorway when he hit a tailback of slow-moving traffic as he left the M6 and joined the M55. He began to zigzag through the crawling morass, but to no real avail. Progress was tortoise-like at best. The section of the journey which would normally take about fifteen minutes took almost an hour on a day that was becoming hotter and hotter, and every driver seemed fractious.
Rik Dean chuckled when Henry middle-fingered a guy and his family who unintentionally cut him up in their people-carrier. ‘You were right about your temper,’ he laughed. ‘Mr Road Rage personified.’
Henry uttered a ‘Harrumph!’ and his mouth tightened as another car veered across his bows, causing him to brake hard. He said nothing more, bottled up his frustration and decided to ease off, get back in one piece.
There were definitely no crowds of day-trippers on Shoreside, Blackpool’s largest council estate, one of the most deprived areas in the country. A place where unemployment ran to a staggering percentage and drugs and crime all but dominated an estate where kids ran riot and the cops trod very carefully. Whole avenues of houses were boarded up, abandoned by tenants who had lost all hope; rows of shops that had once provided essential local services had been destroyed and burned down, with the exception of one which, steel-grilled and CCTV-protected, somehow continued to trade.