Bad Blood

by Nick Oldham

  ‘I overheard your conversation,’ the man on the phone said. ‘Well, Dobson’s side of it.’

  ‘OK,’ Jake said, now interested.

  ‘Look, mate, I don’t know what’s going on but I’ve been told to keep my mouth shut, or else.’

  ‘OK, but who are you?’ Jake asked.

  ‘You don’t need to know, but I can tell you that Lady Chalmers took off from Hyde Heath on the morning you’re interested in.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I saw her. I saw her take a briefcase from a bloke in an Aston Martin, then take off.’

  The call ended abruptly. Jake looked at his phone and thought, ‘Aston Martin?’

  SEVENTEEN

  Rik looked across the expanse of the highly polished desk at the chief constable, having once more been summoned to his office. He hadn’t had far to travel this time because he had been in his own office (previously Henry Christie’s) over at the FMIT building, once an accommodation block for students at the training centre.

  The chief was busy writing and had gestured for Rik to enter and sit down without even looking up.

  Rik waited patiently, fingers interlocked, thumbs rotating, hating this petty rudeness.

  Eventually the chief looked up and set down his bulbous fountain pen. He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. It had been a long day and was now eight p.m.

  Rik wanted to get home.

  Henry was still staying with him and Lisa and the day after would be Alison’s funeral.

  ‘Where are we up to?’ the chief asked.

  ‘Sorry, sir?’

  ‘The shenanigans.’

  ‘Enquiries are on-going.’

  ‘What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Do not be cheeky with me.’

  ‘Sorry, sir. OK, the murderer of Alison Marsh and the kidnapper and possible murderer of her daughter Ginny is still at large. We believe him to be one and the same person and we are trying desperately to identify him by our own means. Obviously this process could be speeded up if MI5 or SIS, or whoever they are, actually told us who this person is instead of playing games with us.’ Rik paused, tried to get a grip on his rising fury. ‘But I will identify and catch this man.

  ‘Two men have been arrested for attempting to murder Henry Christie, who has since identified them as the murderers of Lord Chalmers, whose body was found at his house with his dead security guard, both having been eaten by his dogs, since destroyed, sadly. We have yet to trace Lady Chalmers but we believe she could be in a light plane that could have crashed in the Forest of Bowland. Search parties will be out again tomorrow, although I have heard that the army, the SAS no less, are running an operation on the moors, but I have no details of this. I do not know why Chalmers was murdered, but he was – by the men who tried to kill Henry in hospital.’

  ‘Who were arrested during an armed operation of which I was not aware?’

  ‘Yes, sir, but the deputy was.’

  ‘Mmm,’ he said dubiously, clearly unhappy about that. ‘Anyway, how is Henry?’

  ‘Not good.’

  ‘Physically?’

  ‘Recovering.’

  ‘Mentally?’

  ‘Struggling at the moment. He has lost everything.’

  The chief looked past Rik’s shoulder through the big window overlooking the helipad and sports pitches at the front of headquarters.

  ‘So he’s not a great witness?’

  Rik Dean’s insides suddenly became very chilly.

  ‘He’s a very good witness, actually.’

  ‘Emotional, injured, not thinking straight … doesn’t sound good to me,’ the chief said. ‘Any half-decent defence barrister would tear him to shreds, add that to R v. Turnbull with regards to identification.’

  He was referring to a famous stated case which laid out everything that should be considered in relation to the visual identification of a suspect.

  ‘I’ve covered it,’ Rik said. It was basic stuff.

  ‘He’ll get shredded,’ the chief said again. ‘I’ve already heard the CPS is unhappy about it.’

  ‘From who?’

  ‘The CPS.’

  ‘Look, boss, I don’t know what’s going on here and I don’t think I want to, but I’ve got two killers in custody and I ain’t letting them go.’

  ‘Insufficient evidence. Bail them.’

  ‘We don’t even know for sure who they are yet. We can’t bail someone we don’t know.’

  ‘Cut them loose, then.’ The chief readjusted his glasses. ‘Say bye bye to them without bail.’

  ‘National security?’ Rik asked.

  ‘You got it in one.’

  Rik stared at the man. ‘How can that possibly be?’

  ‘Just is. Release them and they will never cross your path again. We’ll keep the investigation up and running for a decent length of time, then we’ll pull the plug. Sometimes it happens,’ the chief said off Rik’s horrified expression. ‘Sometimes we don’t get a result. Play this as some kind of gangland killing, you know the score.’

  ‘But it’s not a gangland killing, is it? It’s state-sanctioned murder as far as I can see.’

  ‘Just do it.’ This time the chief removed his spectacles. ‘I don’t like it either. Keep looking for the guy who killed Henry’s fiancée and if you apprehend him, then he will be the person whose details you were given in that undercover legend, a loner, a loser, a pervert, a fantasist, a sad man acting alone.’

  ‘But not who he actually is … a state assassin gone to the dark side of mental health.’

  ‘Just do it, Superintendent. End of …’

  Because of the difficulties in keeping the Tawny Owl open without Henry or Alison’s presence, Rik and Donaldson, with Henry’s consent, decided to close it down, hopefully temporarily, though that very much depended on Henry.

  However, Alison’s funeral procession began from the front door of the pub with her flower-festooned hearse and Henry, Rik, Lisa, Donaldson and Karen in the following car.

  It seemed as though the whole village had turned out to pay their respects.

  Henry sat numbly in the rear of the stretched limousine, staring at the head of the driver and beyond to the black-suited funeral director in the road, who, when the procession was ready, began to lead the funeral on foot to the edge of the village where he got into the hearse.

  It was a slow journey to the crematorium in Lancaster.

  Still in his funeral suit, but ripping open the shirt collar and discarding his tie, Henry slammed the front door of the Tawny Owl and walked through to the deserted bar area where he stood for a few minutes and turned in a circle to look around before going into the owner’s accommodation area, having to tap in the four-digit entry code on the keypad next to the door that had also been used by the man who had killed Alison.

  Ironically, Henry realized, the number had not yet been changed.

  The living area was also deserted, exactly as it was when he had set out to see Lord Chalmers. This was the first time he had properly been back since being discharged from hospital. He had returned once with Lisa to get some changes of clothing, but had sat in her car, afraid to step inside.

  Now he was back, with no idea of what the future would hold for him.

  He had been kept at arm’s length from the police investigation into Alison’s death, Ginny’s abduction, the Chalmers murder and also into the incidents in which he was personally involved, much of which he could still not recall anyway.

  But it didn’t change a thing.

  Even if he could have recalled every detail, he would still be without Alison, still be wondering if Ginny was dead or alive.

  He was alone.

  He had good friends, good relatives – his daughters had been incredible, Lisa, amazingly, had been a rock – but that still did not stop him from being alone.

  He understood the police stance on things. He would have done the same. There was nothing worse than pesky relatives. They had to be fed just enough to keep them ha
ppy, and that is what Rik was doing with him, but the other thing was that he knew Rik too well.

  He could tell when he was holding something back.

  Supposedly there was a name for the suspect (not shared), who was some kind of ex-military nut who had locked on to Alison and Ginny by pure chance. Yet when Rik was telling Henry this, he could tell there was more – but he had to accept that Rik was telling him all he could under the circumstances.

  It was a balancing act an SIO frequently had to manage. Henry got that.

  In respect of Lord Chalmers’ murder and Henry’s attempted murder, Rik was also reticent, talking about insufficient evidence, R v. Turnbull (which Henry knew backwards), a possible procedural hiccup in regards to the identity parades which might make them invalid. Rik did make vague allusions to Henry’s delicate mental state in all this and that the CPS was looking very closely at it.

  Henry could not understand what was meant by all this but he knew the accuracy of his evidence was in question; even more so when an SAS training unit on the fells found and recovered the remains of Lord Chalmers’ plane and the body of Lady Chalmers. It seemed that human error was the reason for the crash and there was no evidence of shots having been fired at it as Henry had claimed, and Lady Chalmers had died from injuries sustained in the crash.

  All things Henry had to accept.

  That he thought he had seen something he hadn’t. That his recollection of events was, at best, rubbish.

  He went into the kitchen, found a clean mug, then came back out into the bar and spent some time cleaning his beloved coffee machine, refilling it with fresh beans, making a large Americano which he took outside then sat on the steps, looking out across the village green, as he had done on so many other occasions.

  The coffee was good.

  Alison had laughed at him taking a course as a barista, but she had eaten and drunk her words.

  The cost of the course and the fancy machine was money well spent. He had become an expert ‘grinder of the bean’ as she often called him.

  He smiled at the thought.

  There was nothing special about Alison, other than she was an extraordinary person who had begun a new life in this village after the death of her husband. She had taken Ginny under her wing, never thought of deserting her, and both had started a new chapter in their lives.

  And then Henry had appeared on the scene and entered this life, became a part of it.

  His mouth tightened.

  He took a sip of the coffee.

  ‘Fuck,’ he said.

  Then his eyes caught a movement on the edge of the trees. The old red-deer stag Henry had christened ‘Horace’. He was staring haughtily across at Henry, then with a condescending shake of the head, he turned and plunged into the woods.

  ‘Even you came,’ Henry said, raising his mug to the beast, to Alison, to Ginny. ‘Cheers to you all.’ He pushed himself up and went back into the pub, locking the doors behind him.

  He walked through, room by room, inhaling the aroma of each space.

  The private area, his and Alison’s bedroom where he could smell Alison’s perfume still; then Ginny’s bedroom, picking up one of her hairbrushes and putting it back down. Then through the pub, the kitchens, the bars, dining room, and upstairs to the bedrooms and the function room used most recently for a press conference, still arranged as it was.

  Henry stood on the low stage and went behind the table where Rik had addressed the media.

  Even the waste bin was still there with some papers crumpled up in it.

  Henry glanced in it, then reached down and picked the papers out, unscrewed and flattened them out.

  At first he read with incomprehension, not sure what he was reading initially.

  There was a grainy passport-sized photograph of a man’s face in the top right-hand corner of the front sheet. Then just a list of straightforward details: name, date and place of birth, details of bank accounts, a national insurance number, details of a Nectar card even. Name of schools attended, qualifications attended, a list of dead-end menial jobs with big companies and some vague military details.

  ‘An ex-military nut?’ Henry thought.

  He folded the papers neatly and slid them into his jacket pocket, then continued his walkabout going across into the new annexe.

  ‘So how much am I going to get for you when I sell up?’ he asked the building, because at that moment, all he wanted to do was get rid of it and run.

  He needed another coffee, which he made with care, wondering if a career at Costa or Starbucks was on the cards as the coffee dripped through into the mug. ‘Or maybe not,’ he thought.

  Once more he took it outside, sat on the steps.

  His head was truly hurting now. He had been told he might have headaches for the rest of his life. Well, he’d thought, so be it.

  Then he frowned, remembered a moment, a fleeting image, then it was gone.

  Not so much a moment, but a look.

  A look on Alison’s face.

  Then it dawned on Henry what it meant.

  He took out the two sheets of paper he had found in the waste bin and placed his coffee on the wall.

  What was the significance of this, he wondered.

  ‘Henry?’

  He raised his head and saw Jake Niven at the bottom of the steps, not having noticed him approach. Like Henry, Jake was still in his funeral suit, having attended with Anna and their two children.

  ‘Jake,’ Henry said.

  ‘How you doing?’

  Henry had to smile. ‘Brilliant.’

  ‘Thought so. Any of that coffee left?’

  ‘Machine’s on,’ Henry gestured. ‘You’ve seen me do it enough times. Help yourself.’

  Jake was back five minutes later, mug in hand. He sat next to Henry and sipped the coffee.

  ‘Don’t say sorry again,’ Henry warned him. ‘Or it was a nice service.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Jake promised. ‘But, fuck!’

  ‘Yeah,’ Henry said, ‘but fuck.’

  Jake paused awkwardly, then said, ‘I need to tell you something, Henry. You won’t like it, but I suppose it’s academic now.’

  ‘Alison was having an affair with Dr Lott?’

  ‘Well, obviously that as well, yeah …’

  ‘Spit it out.’

  ‘I know I’m only a mere pawn in this game, a mere PC who does what he’s told to do, but you – you – now don’t have any rules to stick to any more. No law, no procedure, no bosses … a lone wolf.’

  ‘You’re right. I’ve got nothing.’

  ‘I don’t mean that.’

  ‘I know you don’t. I just search for the double meaning in everything these days.’

  ‘How’s the head, the arm?’

  ‘Head sore, arm sore.’

  ‘Brain?’

  ‘Scrambled as in eggs – how d’you think it is?’

  Jake paused. ‘I was asked to look into the last flight of Lord Chalmers’ private plane, piloted by Lady Chalmers.’

  ‘Mm.’ Henry sounded disinterested.

  ‘I couldn’t find any actual take-off records or flight plans for that day, as though she never even took off. But I also found that all her previous flights were recorded, so it seems unlikely to me that she would take off without submitting a plan that day.’

  ‘OK,’ Henry said.

  ‘So I phoned the private airfield where the plane was usually kept, stored or whatever it is they do with planes, because many of the previous flight plans were submitted via that airfield, a place called Hyde Heath, near London somewhere. I got told she definitely did not take off from there that day … except she did.’

  Henry looked at Jake. Up to that point he’d been looking at the trees.

  ‘I got an anonymous phone call from a guy who said he saw Lady Chalmers take off, said he saw a guy give her a briefcase, then she took off and the guy drove off in an Aston Martin.’

  ‘Anonymous?’

  ‘Obviously the guy works at
the airfield cos he’s been told to keep his trap shut and say he saw zilch. Could probably weed him out if I had to.’

  ‘All very interesting … and it’s scrambled my grey matter even more.’

  ‘Thing is,’ Jake said excitedly, ‘when I was trying to locate private airstrips using the web, an unconnected news item came up about a murder near to Hyde Heath on that day. A guy in an Aston Martin. Police are looking for some men supposed to be in black Range Rovers who shot to death some sleazy ex-cop private eye called Brooks. Still unsolved. Guys in black Range Rovers,’ he prompted Henry. ‘I took it to Rik Dean who said, get this, “Forget it.”’

  Henry shrugged. ‘How far away from Kendleton is Hyde Heath? Seems unlikely that—’

  ‘I know where you’re going … it’s doable,’ Jake said. ‘They could have been up here just in time to meet the plane if roads were clear. Guess what – no accidents on any of the major motorways north on that morning.’

  ‘Interesting,’ Henry said.

  ‘I didn’t want to tell you this, but the guys you picked out of the line-up? They’ve walked, insufficient evidence – and we never even knew their identities.’

  ‘Really?’ Henry said, feeling a sudden chill but also a shimmer of excitement. ‘What’s the significance of this?’ he said and showed Jake the sheets of paper from the bin. Jake read them, handed them back.

  ‘Not for me to say.’

  ‘Who, then?’

  ‘Rik Dean.’

  Henry nodded.