Fighting for the Dead

by Nick Oldham

  So his present office had some pleasing personal history for him, which always made him glow fondly as he sat there lording it as a superintendent – a rank he never thought he would achieve in a million years of police service.

  ‘Do you want to grab a brew in the training-school dining room? Give me about half an hour and I’ll come and collect you?’

  ‘OK,’ Flynn said dourly. He hadn’t actually expected to be invited across to the main HQ building but walking over to the training centre was fine.

  Henry walked Flynn out of FMIT and they went their separate ways. Henry turned left and headed across the sports field to the front of HQ, sailing in past reception and up to the first floor on which were the offices of power – the chief constable, the deputy and two assistant chiefs. Henry turned right into the carpeted corridor, through a set of double doors and then the door leading to the office that housed the chief constable’s admin staff, and staff officer.

  They all looked at him, shocked by his battered appearance.

  The staff officer was a female chief inspector. She gestured for him to go straight in to see the chief, who was expecting him after an earlier, urgent phone call. He went through the solid mahogany doorway.

  He then spent about fifteen minutes briefing the chief, before emerging, giving the still stunned admin staff a jaunty salute and leaving for his next port of call down on the ground floor.

  He walked through the less than salubrious corridors to the intelligence unit, tucked away in one corner of the building. He entered by keying in a code and scanning a thumbprint, stepping into a long, narrow office, desks arranged in two rows. The office of the DI in charge was at the far end behind a lot of glass, but just in front of that was Jerry Tope’s domain, the man he had come to see.

  Henry walked down the centre of the office between the desks, his bashed-up appearance drawing looks of horror. Part of him wanted to drop into the lope of the Hunchback of Notre Dame, cover his ears and proclaim something about ‘the bells’, but he was a superintendent and had decorum.

  Tope did not see him coming. He was in deep concentration at his computer and it was only as Henry dragged a spare chair and positioned it alongside the gable end of Tope’s desk and plonked down on it, did Tope glance up.

  ‘Holy cow, Henry!’

  Henry gave him a crooked smile – which was the only smile his face was capable of cracking anyway. Anything normal hurt bad.

  ‘Now, then, before our phone call was rudely interrupted last night, you were about to tell me something which wasn’t suitable for Steve Flynn’s ears – am I right?’

  He then spent a further twenty minutes with Tope and emerged from the conflab disquieted but also determined.

  He walked slowly back across the sports field, deep in thought, as well as making a phone call on the way. He went straight past the FMIT block and to the training-centre dining room where he found Flynn nursing a half-drunk cup of coffee and an empty plate that had been filled with breakfast.

  Henry gave him a ‘follow me’ gesture. Flynn stood up, swilling back the coffee, and he and Henry then made their way down the outside of the training-centre admin block, past the gym to the new, but not so recently built, firearms range. This time Henry did not have access codes and had to ring the bell before being allowed entry, and had to vouch for Flynn even though he was wearing a visitor’s badge.

  Once inside they could hear the dull ‘bam-bam’ of gunfire in the range, making Henry wince at the recent memory. They entered the actual range – at the safe end – to see a demonstration being carried out by an instructor for the benefit of a few would-be firearms officers.

  Suitably kitted out in dark blue overalls, a ballistic baseball cap, boots, goggles and ear defenders, and holding a Glock17 pistol in his hands, the instructor made his way down the range, accompanied by another trainer at his shoulder.

  It was a simple, no-nonsense walk-through.

  At various points targets appeared at the far end of the range, mostly the obligatory charging soldier ones, but occasionally different ones, such as a mother holding a baby, or a mother holding a baby and a gun, just to test the reactions of the shooter.

  He had to make several split-second decisions, not knowing in what order the targets would spin into view, nor what was on them. This was done randomly by computer.

  It was basic stuff for firearms-officer training, but absolutely vital.

  Henry, who had been a firearms officer in his time, remembered shooting dead a vicar on a similar exercise.

  The instructor worked his way down the range, watching and responding, double-tapping the appropriate targets brilliantly, and reloading swiftly without the aid of a speed-loader. When he reached the end of the range, he showed his empty gun to his colleague. Then the students, who had watched from the safe area, were beckoned down to witness the results, which were highlighted in chalk on the target. Even from the other end of the range, Henry and Flynn could see it was a 100% shoot. The murmur of approval from the students confirmed this.

  ‘Nice shooting,’ Flynn said. Henry nodded.

  The students were ushered back down the range by the trainer who had been observing, and once the other instructor had holstered his weapon he wandered back up the range, removing his safety goggles and ear defenders, revealing that he was PC Bill Robbins, long-time firearms instructor and an old friend of Henry’s who had fairly recently assisted him on a few investigations.

  ‘Boss,’ Robbins smiled, then acknowledged Steve Flynn, who he recognized as an ex-cop, noticing the injuries that both of them sported. ‘Flynnie!’ he said and shook hands with him. He turned his attention back to Henry. ‘You don’t half both look a mess . . . is there something I can do for you – like kill the bastards who did this?’

  Flynn and Henry exchanged a nervous glance.

  Henry coughed. ‘Bill, I’ve just been to see the chief and I’ve convinced him to let me have your services for a while, if that’s OK with you? I’m not sure what it might entail, going to have to suck it and see.’

  ‘Fine by me, but I’ll have to run it past my boss . . . I’m just about to start running an initial firearms course – hence the superb demo. Any idea how long you’ll want me for?’

  ‘Not long, hopefully . . . I might just need you on tap, that’s all. If you have any problems with your boss, tell him to call me.’

  ‘OK . . . then what?’

  ‘My office at FMIT, say half an hour? Refreshments provided.’

  ‘I’ll be there.’

  Henry and Flynn left the range. Outside, Henry said, ‘Something else entirely down to you, Steve, but the offer’s there . . . I’ve arranged for two rooms to be available for us here on the campus, en-suite bedrooms, TVs, desks, all nicely refurbished. I’d really like you to move in for the time being. It’ll be safer down here.’ Flynn blinked. ‘Obviously you’d have to pay for your own food.’

  ‘Substantial threat?’ Flynn said, quoting from the witness-protection policy and procedure documents he had once known off by heart.

  ‘Down to you,’ Henry said. ‘I know you can look after yourself, but until I bottom whatever the hell’s going on around here . . . I know you have the shop to look after, but that won’t be a problem. I’ll stick a uniformed bobby outside when you’re there as a deterrent.’

  ‘Deterrent for what?’

  Henry shrugged. ‘We’re into seriously dangerous territory here and I’d rather be safe than sorry.’

  ‘I didn’t know you cared.’

  Henry weighed this up. ‘I care more than I did before, put it that way . . . but on a scale of one to ten, we’re still in pretty low numbers.’

  ‘That’s reassuring. You say there’s a room here for you too?’

  ‘I don’t want to drag Alison into this. Haven’t told her yet.’

  ‘She’ll go ballistic.’

  ‘Understatement,’ Henry agreed. ‘So what do you want to do? Offer’s there.’

  ‘I’m touched
and I accept – only problem being transport.’

  ‘My plan is to let you use Alison’s car. I’ll try and prise one for me out of HQ Transport and Alison will be OK because she can use Ginny’s car for the time being.’

  ‘Something else you haven’t quite run past her?’ Flynn smirked.

  Henry shot him a sullen look.

  They returned to Henry’s office, where Henry set his coffee filter machine going, then brought in some extra chairs. Flynn sat on one, shuffled it to the back corner of the office and crossed his legs.

  Henry dragged a flip-chart board in from another office, found a clean sheet and started to brainstorm his thoughts, Flynn observing with interest, saying nothing.

  As Henry worked, Jerry Tope arrived carrying a file of papers – almost collapsing from shock when he saw Flynn sitting in the corner. Then Bill Robbins landed followed by Rik Dean, a DI from Blackpool that Henry knew well. In fact Rik was due to marry Henry’s flaky sister Lisa next year, so he and Henry would soon be in-laws – for at least as long as the marriage lasted. Henry gave it three months.

  Finally the chief constable landed, the very portly Robert Fanshaw-Bayley, a man with whom Henry had had a very mixed relationship over many years. He was known as FB.

  Henry finished his jottings and folded the front cover sheet over the flip-chart pad to hide what he had written for the moment. He nodded at his little assembled team – a group of people he trusted implicitly, both with secrets and his life . . . with the slight exception of FB, who he didn’t trust with anything except his own agenda.

  Rik Dean, who hadn’t set eyes on Henry for a few days, was wide-eyed at his appearance. ‘Your face is a mess.’

  ‘Really . . . I didn’t know . . . in what way?’ Henry said.

  ‘And so is yours,’ Rik said, turning to Flynn, Henry’s sarcasm sailing right over his head.

  Flynn grinned. The two men knew each other quite well.

  ‘Right, folks,’ Henry began, running a hand across the crown of his head. ‘Quite a lot been going on in the past couple of days, as you’re probably aware. Myself and Steve have, unintentionally, been at the vortex of things. It’s a story that involves violent death, Russian hoodlums . . .’ Henry started to enjoy this little opening slot, speaking in a bit of a pantomime voice. ‘Unidentified bodies, attempts on the life of a police officer – me – and innocent members of the public – Steve . . .’

  They’re eating out of the palm of my hand, he thought.

  But the moment was broken by a knock on the office door.

  ‘What?’ Henry snapped.

  The door edged open an inch. It was the FMIT secretary, a lady who had an office on the same floor. She looked apologetic.

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ she said meekly. Henry bit his tongue and held back from telling her that he’d said no interruptions, which he had. ‘It’s just that there’s someone at HQ reception who wants to see you. I thought you’d want to know.’

  Henry knew the secretary well enough to realize she would not have interrupted unless it was urgent. ‘Who?’

  ‘It’s the daughter of Joe Speakman.’

  He could have done without the intrusion. It seemed that just as he was in a position to get his thoughts back in line, something came along and barged him off track. It was very frustrating, mainly because he knew there was so much going on and he didn’t want to forget anything, which was a distinct possibility based on the way his brain was spinning now and how tired he was. He knew he had some very important nuggets and to forget them would be catastrophic.

  But the family of a victim could not be ignored.

  Henry apologized to the men in front of him, bowing and scraping to the chief constable especially, who breathed out long and hard down his hairy nostrils and said, ‘Just give me a call when you’re ready to go again.’

  Five minutes later Henry led a very clearly distressed lady from reception into a meeting room just inside headquarters, and asked one of the receptionists to go and buy some tea and biscuits with the fiver he handed her.

  The woman was red-eyed from crying.

  Henry regarded her, wondering if he remembered her at all. He was usually excellent with faces and places – one of his few attributes as a detective – but it was usually where criminals were concerned, not people he might have met socially in the dim, distant past.

  ‘I know you,’ she said.

  ‘I think I know you.’

  ‘You came to my twenty-first, just after we’d moved into the barn – you know, Mum and Dad’s house in Halton.’

  Henry racked his brain cells. That was it! He vaguely knew he’d been to Joe Speakman’s house before, but he’d been finding it impossible to say where, when or why. It was for this woman’s coming-of-age party, over ten years ago, and he realized why he didn’t have a clear memory of it.

  ‘You’re Melanie,’ he said, ‘and I was drunk.’

  She nodded. ‘And you’re Henry Christie and you were drunk to start with, then got very drunk. You did that “Mule Train” thing with a metal tray.’

  ‘Oh God,’ Henry said shortly. ‘Embarrassing.’ In days gone by that had been his little party piece, smashing his head with a tray to represent the whip-crack in the cowboy song ‘Mule Train’.

  ‘And you tried to hit on me.’

  Oh-oh, he thought.

  ‘I’m really sorry.’ Now he remembered going out with the CID from Lancaster and Morecambe for some reason. They’d been for a meal, drinking steadily, then ended up at Joe Speakman’s, where they drank even more and . . . from that point Henry wasn’t sure. He knew he’d woken up in a friend’s front room with his head halfway underneath the sofa, staring at a frightened cat.

  She shrugged. The memory went. The present cascaded back and she dropped her head into her hands, started weeping.

  Henry let her. By the time she’d got over the bout, the tea had arrived, a cup was poured, a Nice biscuit propped on the saucer. Henry handed it to her.

  ‘What’s happened?’ she asked. ‘To Mum and Dad.’

  ‘Before I get into that, can I just ask how you heard?’

  ‘From my brother.’

  ‘Right, OK.’ Henry’s brow furrowed. She’d almost spat the word ‘brother’.

  ‘And then I saw the news, even though no names were mentioned.’ Her voice faded.

  Henry watched her. She was a nice-looking woman, early thirties now with nicely trimmed bobbed hair and a fine complexion. She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring and Henry assumed she had travelled alone to get here.

  ‘You’re the officer in charge, aren’t you?’

  ‘I am, and I’m very sorry for your loss.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she swallowed meekly. ‘Can . . . can you tell me what happened?’

  Henry blew out his cheeks. Then he took her through his step-by-step guide to the scene of a double fatal shooting, plus dog. He told her enough to fill in some of the gaps in her knowledge, but not too much. Firstly for reasons of consideration. Relatives rarely appreciated gory details. Secondly because, as always, Henry liked to have the upper hand, just in case. Just in case this woman had something to do with the murders. Maybe she’d planned it. Or maybe not, but any half-decent detective kept something back. That said, unless she was a very fine actor, her horrified reactions to his story were very real indeed.

  When he’d finished she stared numbly at him, her mouth open. Eventually she said, ‘Unbelievable.’

  ‘We think the person responsible might be involved with Russian gangsters . . . but we have a lot of things to look at before we are certain of that.’

  ‘Russian gangsters?’ she said incredulously. Her face was screwed up tightly, but her eyes narrowed fractionally.

  Henry picked up on it. ‘Do you know anything about that?’

  ‘Oh Christ, oh Christ,’ she said rubbing her face intensely. ‘No, no not really.’

  ‘I think you do,’ Henry said.

  Her face then set, as though a decision had been ma
de. Her lips went into a tight line and she breathed through her nose, which dilated.

  ‘C’mon, tell me,’ he said.

  ‘Ugh,’ she said. ‘Look, I haven’t had much to do with Mum and Dad for a while now. Not through any fallout, just, y’know – I’ve been living in London, got a decent job and I don’t have a lot of time for travelling up and down the country. So what I’m saying is that I haven’t been in their lives much, but we do keep in touch-ish.’

  ‘When did you last speak to them?’

  ‘I spoke to Mum about three days ago.’

  ‘How was she?’

  ‘Uptight . . . fit to burst.’

  ‘About what?’

  She snorted contemptuously. ‘Fucking Cyprus,’ she said with vehemence. ‘I’m sorry, didn’t mean to swear.’

  ‘That’s OK – do it myself occasionally.’ Henry poured her a refill of tea and gave her a little time to come down. ‘What about Cyprus?’ he probed.

  She tilted her head from side to side, marshalling her thoughts. ‘Mum and Dad have been going out there for years – holidays, y’know? In fact a few people who live in the village go out there a lot and have property there. My brother moved out there and actually set up in the property business. He encouraged Mum and Dad to buy a place and invest in some land. Dad bought a villa – quarter of a million, I think . . . but I also heard it was a good deal. I mean . . . way too good. Tom – my brother – introduced them to a well shady developer and I knew it just wasn’t right. But Tom said it was and Dad always believed him.

  ‘Fancy investing in a property over two thousand miles from home and in a culture you don’t understand, with people you don’t know. Trouble at the best of times and I bloody warned them! Tom and I had horrible arguments about it . . . and then I started hearing things about . . . stuff . . .’

  ‘What stuff?’

  ‘It sounds so unreal and dramatic.’ She sighed and gave a helpless shrug. ‘Russians . . . prostitutes . . .’ She closed her eyes. ‘Trafficking . . . girls.’ Her head was shaking. ‘But I truly don’t know the details, honestly. I kept my head in the sand. I think they got into a situation they couldn’t get out of . . .’