by Nick Oldham
‘Dad? You OK?’ It was his youngest daughter, Leanne, now twenty-three years old, so no longer young in that sense, and starting a career as a pharmacist. She had moved back home temporarily. To keep an eye on Henry had been the excuse, but the high cost of living and a bad on-off relationship made it seem to Henry that she was back for good. Whilst he loved her to bits, having her home again, mothering him, was not what he wanted or needed.
‘Just a call-out.’ He looked at her in her night things, still wearing jim-jams covered with bears cuddling each other. She was heartbreakingly beautiful, the spitting image of her mother. She moved into him and gave him a hug, asking if he wanted a brew doing.
He didn’t, but she wanted to feel useful, so he said that would be great.
He had a very quick shower and a wet shave, timed to take only five minutes between them, and came out of the en suite with a towel wrapped around his waist. He was about to say something to Kate, his wife, purely out of conditioning. She often had some pithy remark about his turn-outs, something negative, usually funny. But Henry snapped his mouth shut. He hadn’t got used to the fact she was no longer there and the sight of the empty bed made his chest jar sickeningly.
With anger he threw down the towel and entered the walk-in dressing room, shutting the door firmly behind him.
Henry actually enjoyed the mug of tea made for him by Leanne, even though he could only manage a few hasty mouthfuls before stepping out into the night, just before three. It was late spring, still chilly, making him shiver. He sniffed the air and smelled the sea two miles west of him. A good smell. If he found time he thought he would get down to the front and take a bracing stroll. It was a nice thought, but not very realistic. In his experience of turning out to murders at three in the morning, there was rarely any time for breaks in the day ahead. He would happily lay odds that he would be working till gone seven that night. Only sixteen hours away.
He had treated himself to a new car, thought he deserved it and the pleasure it gave him, even though its cost was crippling. A rare smile came to his face as he pointed the remote and unlocked it with a satisfying clunk. Then he climbed into his Mercedes E-Class coupe and reversed it carefully off the driveway.
There wasn’t far to go. A few miles through the mainly bare streets of Blackpool, then out towards Poulton, cutting across the southern edge of that fairly affluent town to a small village called Carleton, making his way along narrow roads to the entrance to the crematorium, at which there was much police activity.
He purposely parked his car a couple of hundred metres away. Not just to ensure it didn’t get scratched, but because he always liked to get the feel of a crime scene on foot. Too many detectives, he thought, rolled up and rolled out. If pressed he would probably struggle to provide concrete evidence that his considered approach ever proved fruitful, but he knew intuitively that good detectives liked to feel crime scenes. To inhale them. To taste them. It was maybe a way of getting somehow into the mind of a killer because crime locations often had some significance to either the killer or victim.
He hunched deep into his wind jammer, zipped it up, slotted his hands into the pockets, and approached slowly.
Henry had seen too many murder scenes like this one. The frail body discarded on a grass verge by the roadside. The tangle of thin limbs. The blood-soaked clothing. The battered face and head. Long hair splayed and matted with mud and blood. Eyes wide open. That last look of terror and disbelief on the face.
Henry had stepped into the zoot suit and paper shoes, the forensic overalls required of everyone attending the scene, logged in with the constable holding the clipboard down the road who was noting all comings and goings, then walked as directed on the chosen route that all officers had to take to the body and back.
He was standing perhaps six feet away from the body. His torch beam played over it from toe to head, then hovered on the girl’s face.
She had been pretty and petite. Maybe sixteen, eighteen, he estimated. He glanced around at the location, the body next to the crematorium gates, trying to get his mind working.
The local detective inspector appeared at his shoulder. His name was Rik Dean, a man Henry knew well, not least because Rik was now living with Henry’s feckless sister Lisa in a smart flat in Lytham. And because Henry had been instrumental in getting Rik on to CID years earlier as a detective constable. Henry had seen Rik’s early potential to become a jack because as a PC in uniform Rik had been a superb thief-taker. Rik’s subsequent rise through the ranks had been all his own doing — he was also a natural boss — and now Henry was trying to get Rik a place on FMIT — the Force Major Investigation Team — of which Henry was joint head with three other experienced detective superintendents.
‘What’ve we got?’ Henry asked.
‘You probably know as much as me,’ Rik replied. ‘Body of a female teenager found by a uniformed PC on patrol. Thought it was fly-tipped rubbish, just a bundle of rags. On closer inspection turned out to be a body.’
‘Which PC?’
Rik pointed him out, leaning on the bonnet of his unmarked patrol car. ‘Paul Driver… a bit shaken by it.’
‘What was he doing around here? A bit out of the way, isn’t it?’
‘Part of his normal route,’ he said.
‘Uh, huh,’ Henry said. ‘ID?’
‘Not as yet, but there is a girl missing from Blackpool who fits the bill. A Natalie Philips, just turned eighteen, attends Shoreside College, doing a hairdressing NVQ. Reported missing by her mum last evening just gone, but had been missing a day before. I’m just waiting for the file to be brought up from Blackpool Comms, but…’ Rik produced his BlackBerry, ‘I got them to e-mail me a photo of her.’ He pressed a few buttons and turned the screen around for Henry to see. A pretty young lady pouting at the photographer. ‘Looks like her.’
Henry nodded, his face tightening. Something strange was churning inside him, making everything wrench up. His stomach was getting the cramps, and his chest seemed to be contracting around his heart, squeezing it. His legs felt abruptly weak.
A look must have come across his face.
Rik said, ‘Henry, are you all right?’
The feelings dissipated as he breathed in and out slowly.
‘Yeah, yeah.’
Rik laid a steadying hand on Henry’s arm. ‘You sure? You don’t look it.’
‘Hundred percent.’
‘I know it’s early days…’
‘I said I’m sure,’ Henry snapped. Rik, a hurt expression on his face, pulled his hand away. ‘Sorry,’ Henry said. ‘Let me look at the body before the circus moves in, please.’ He wondered just what the hell he’d felt inside him. Whatever it was, it was extremely unpleasant.
Then, as his torchlight played over the dead body, the sensations started again. His whole torso felt like it was in a vice, legs weak and rubbery; a deep bass pounded in his head as if a hand was inside his skull squeezing and releasing his brain; then dizziness and a roaring sound in his ears, and all he could hear was the rushing of the waves…
He had no recollection whatsoever of how he ended up in Rik Dean’s office at Blackpool police station. Just a series of blurred images, a sensation of car travel, lamp posts hurtling by, his head spinning, someone else’s hands firmly gripping him, while he tried to breathe normally, regulate his oxygen intake, steady his whole being.
The door opened. Rik Dean entered, holding two mugs of tea, one of which he handed to Henry, who was frowning.
‘I know it sounds a stupid question — but what am I doing here?’
Rik sat down next to him on the small two-seater settee. ‘In my office, you mean?’
‘Uh — yeah.’
‘I think you had a panic attack.’
‘What!’ Henry almost spilled his drink, which was halfway to his mouth.
‘I might be wrong, but you sort of froze, then started gulping air and clutching your head, hyperventilating or something.’
‘I what?’
‘It was really weird. Then you said, “I don’t know what to do”.’
Henry’s frown deepened. He recalled looking at the girl’s body — then basically nothing. Other than the unpleasant sensation that felt like he was on a drug-induced trip, not that he’d ever been on one to make such a comparison. He guessed that was what they were like. ‘It all went kinda strange,’ he admitted.
‘Panic attack,’ Rik confirmed knowledgeably. ‘People under stress, people who’ve suffered personal loss… it happens.’
‘I don’t have panic attacks,’ Henry said, affronted.
Rik shrugged. ‘Well, maybe not, but you weren’t yourself. Something came over you and affected you, so I made the decision to get you away for your own good.’
‘For my own good?’ Henry blasted him. ‘I’m not a child.’ He stood up quickly, started pacing around the room. Still not right. As if he wasn’t quite there. Rik studied him warily.
‘I suggested taking you home, but you wouldn’t have it — nor the hospital.’
Henry stopped abruptly. ‘We had that conversation?’ Rik nodded. ‘I don’t remember that at all.’
‘Henry — it’s only been two months.’
He stopped mid-prowl, glared at Rik, daring him to say more, to patronize him, but Henry’s expression did not stop Rik from continuing.
‘You’ve hardly taken time off, have kept going. This is the third murder you’ve overseen in that time, plus dealing with all the shitty fallout from that nightmare up in Kendleton which still rumbles on. Maybe you need to stop, hop off the world and take a breather. Maybe it’s all catching up with you now.’ Rik blew out his cheeks. ‘You just keep going… I know what you’re doing — compartmentalizing, boxing things off. Perhaps the walls are starting to cave in, Henry.’
‘You a shrink now?’ Henry asked harshly.
‘No — a mate,’ Rik said gently. ‘With all the things that go with that little word.’
Dawn came. Henry found himself on the promenade, not planning a long walk, just something to clear his head. The air tasted pure, a hint of sea salt in it, and he inhaled deeply, feeling it passing sweetly into his lungs as they expanded.
He had walked from the police station up to North Pier, then started to stroll south towards Central Pier, continually casting his eyes west across the silver shimmer of the Irish Sea, which seemed a mile away, the beach that lay between golden and pristine. No hint of the constant pollution that dogged the sands.
He stopped for a short while at the sea wall, gripping the rail. The sun was rising at his back and he could feel its warmth.
It should be raining, he said to himself. It shouldn’t be a beautiful day.
He pushed himself away from the rail and continued his short walk south, able to see the snake-like metallic structure that was the ‘Big One’ a mile away on the pleasure beach, one of Europe’s most terrifying roller-coaster rides. When he reached Central Pier he crossed over to the twenty-four-hour McDonald’s and bought himself a filter coffee, taking it to a window seat in the otherwise empty restaurant, famous for once having been visited by Bill Clinton.
The coffee, he found, was actually excellent. He marvelled at how coffee had sustained him, kept him going, gave him energy over the years. His constant companion. That and Jack Daniel’s Tennessee sour mash whiskey.
He was flicking his fingernails together, thinking about how ironic it was that he had ended up on the seafront after all, when he became aware of someone standing by his table. He hadn’t seen the approach or noticed anyone come into the restaurant. He looked slowly around, his eyes rising up the torso of a man who was grinning lopsidedly at him. A good-looking guy, very tall, built in proportion, with an all-American chiselled superhero face and a boyish innocent aura that fooled many people, because this man had a very dark side to him.
‘What are you doing here?’ Henry asked.
The man’s name was Karl Donaldson. He had been Henry’s good friend for over a dozen years now. He was an American, formerly an FBI field agent, now comfortably ensconced in the American Embassy in London working as an FBI legal attache, though he still liked to think of himself as ‘active’. They’d met way back when Donaldson had been investigating American mob activity in the north-west of England. They had subsequently become good friends as their paths continued to pass professionally and personally over the years. Donaldson had even ended up marrying a Lancashire policewoman, and he moved to the job in London, whilst she transferred to the Met.
‘Could ask you the same.’
‘I work and live in this town. You don’t even live close.’
Donaldson said, ‘I do now — for today, at least.’ He checked his wristwatch, a chunky and horribly expensive Rolex Oyster Perpetual that his wife Karen had treated him to on the recent birth of their daughter, Katie — named after Henry’s wife. ‘I’ve got a half hour, then I need to get into a briefing… I’ll explain in a moment. More coffee?’
Henry nodded and watched his friend go to the counter and order two coffees, returning with them and sliding in opposite Henry.
‘Hey, good to see ya, buddy,’ Donaldson said.
‘You too.’ Henry broke the hinged seal on the lid of his drink and took a sip. ‘You must be here on some sort of hush-hush job?’
‘Terrorism — following up some information with a house raid. Pretty low level stuff.’
Henry pouted. He hadn’t heard anything was going on, but that wasn’t unusual these days as his head often felt like it was in a bucket.
‘Can’t say more than that,’ Donaldson added mysteriously.
Henry shrugged acceptance and found himself to be curiously uninterested. He knew Donaldson was deeply involved in the handling, sifting and grading of intelligence in connection with terrorism during the course of his work. From that he often got involved, as an observer, in the knocking down of doors, or surveillance of suspects and then, if arrests followed, the interviews of detainees to gather more intelligence. It was like doing a ten thousand piece jigsaw that was mostly blue sky, no corners and pieces missing. The ultimate aim was to disrupt ‘events’, as terrorist incidents were called, and maybe, just maybe, pick up that one vital clue that would lead the Americans to their ultimate goal — one Osama Bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda. In respect of today’s operation, Henry did not have a clue about it, but assumed that the Intel must be pretty spot on to lure Donaldson out of his plush office.
‘How did you know…?’
‘That you were here? Bumped into Rik Dean… he told me where you’d sneaked off to and I watched you walk in. Last time we were in here was the day I found out Karen was “up the duff”, as you Brits romantically refer to being knocked up.’
‘I remember,’ Henry grinned.
‘Rik told me about… er…’ Donaldson coughed with embarrassment.
‘That I’d frozen at the scene of a murder?’ Henry said sharply. ‘Had a shed collapse?’
‘Another quaint British phrase,’ Donaldson said. ‘But, yeah, something like that.’
Henry laughed sourly and shook his head at Donaldson’s forthrightness, then looked sideways through the window to hide the bitter kink on his lips. Then he sighed in defeat, peeled the lid completely off his coffee and took a proper mouthful. ‘So what’s your advice?’
Donaldson had been very much alongside Henry over the last year or so as he crashed through an emotional roller-coaster ride, rather like being on the ‘Big One’ time and time again, so he knew what his friend had been through. Hope, despair, tragedy. It was only in the last few weeks that Donaldson, at Henry’s insistence, had backed off and given him his own space.
‘What’s the job?’ Donaldson asked.
Henry drew a breath. ‘One likely to attract lots of attention and scrutiny. Minute fucking scrutiny. Female teenager murdered, something the press will love to bits… and I guess I’m not up to it.’ He shrugged pitifully and swallowed something hard and sour tasting at the admission.
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br /> ‘Why do you say that?’
‘Just feel I’ve lost all my drive, my rhyme and reason. I typed out my intention to retire report yesterday, you know? Three lines and a date. Just waiting to be printed off and submitted.’
‘That what you want?’ Donaldson lounged back and watched Henry grapple with the question.
‘I have no idea what I want.’
‘Let me ask you another question. What were you put on this earth to do?’
Henry knew the answer, but fought the response.
‘But more importantly, H,’ Donaldson said, ‘let me tab back to the previous question and ask not what you want, but what would Kate have wanted you to do?’
Donaldson had gone. Henry was alone again, swirling the dregs of his coffee, watching the grains as though they might give him inspiration, like reading tea leaves. Nothing. He refitted the plastic lid and put the cup in the bin before leaving the restaurant and stepping back into the clear, warm morning.
He crossed the prom and retraced his earlier walk, not so quiet now as the day came to life and people and traffic began to move. He walked up to North Pier, Blackpool Tower on his right, but his gaze was drawn across to the north-west, where the hills of the Lake District were etched clearly on the horizon. It was a place Kate had loved and where Henry, following her wishes, had scattered her ashes.
Everything had happened so quickly, no preamble, no warning. Henry, emerging from a very bad situation in the village of Kendleton, having been shot in the left shoulder — not seriously, as it happened — then had to deal with the detritus that included police corruption and multiple murder, including the death of a policewoman. He had been overwhelmed with the paperwork and interviews and inquests and trials and the CPS and the forensics and the press. The list seemed endless. His mind was completely waterlogged with tasks and it had been a month later, during a breather from the mountain of statements he’d brought home to read that, seemingly, for the first time in weeks, he’d looked at Kate and thought, ‘She looks as whacked as me.’