Low Profile

by Nick Oldham

  ‘Here, darling.’

  He turned. Alison stood there with a fresh mug of coffee in her hand, offering it to him. Unlike him, she had pretty much recovered from her earlier shock and upset, although she looked drained.

  Henry took a steadying breath, reached out with a dithering hand and took the mug. ‘Thank you. I’m really, really sorry about—’

  ‘Hey, not your fault.’ She moved in close and put the tip of her forefinger over his lips. ‘OK? He’s a bad man and you’re probably right, he wouldn’t dare come back.’

  He nodded, but knew different. What Alison had not seen was the detailed background on Jason Hawke that Donaldson had sent through as a file attachment. His obsessive, violent behaviour, his ruthless hunting down of people who had wronged him, his cold-blooded ability to kill people and leave no witnesses or evidence behind. Henry now knew he was on Hawke’s list, and probably Alison and Ginny were too. Henry knew that Hawke was suspected of obliterating a family in witness protection he had hunted down for a crime boss. He had killed each one, father, mother and two young children.

  At this moment in time, therefore, Henry and his new family were easy meat for this guy.

  And at this moment, Henry was struggling to get anyone to help him and until he did, he wasn’t going anywhere.

  Protecting people was difficult at the best of times. It was complicated and, if done properly, very expensive in terms of staff hours.

  So far all he had been able to achieve was snaffling a traffic car from Ops and getting someone to sit in it outside the pub, a uniformed presence. That had been the subject of the phone call he had just made to the uncooperative sergeant.

  Henry had hit on the idea of assigning the underused PC Bill Robbins to this task. Bill had been a firearms officer until he’d had a nervous breakdown after some particularly nasty incidents and no one really wanted him on their staff, so he found himself mooching around various headquarters departments, basically killing time. Henry’s idea was to put Bill in a traffic car and get him to drive to Kendleton, park in front of the Owl and act as a deterrent of sorts. Even that had taken threats and pulling rank.

  Henry slid an arm around Alison’s waist and they hugged, Henry trying not to spill his coffee. They were at the bar in the pub, close to the fire Alison had just lit with logs from the woods.

  ‘I’ve managed to get a traffic car to park up outside, but he’s the best part of an hour away. I’ve also got an Armed Response Vehicle coming from Lancaster to drive past and a mobile to keep cruising as and when possible. It’s just a stop-gap for the moment; then I’ll get something more permanent – until we catch him.’

  Alison stepped backwards. ‘You need to get in to work to do that, don’t you?’

  ‘I do, but I’m not going anywhere until you and Ginny are protected. It would help if there was a local bobby, but we know there isn’t.’ He looked pointedly at her and she nodded. The last one in Kendleton had never been replaced; now the police house in the village was deserted and the people of the village did their own policing, up to a point. The nearest cops were in Lancaster, a good fifteen minutes away.

  ‘I’m sure I’ll be fine,’ Alison said. ‘You go in, get hunting.’

  ‘Not until that traffic car is parked up outside and I’ve seen an ARV drive by at least once, and a section mobile … only then and maybe not even then.’

  Henry glanced past Alison’s shoulder as the revolving doors swished and four men entered the pub, each one carrying a double-barrelled, twelve bore shotgun.

  ‘Oh my good—’

  Alison smiled and said, ‘This is why I’ll be all right.’

  The relief that coursed through Henry was so intense he almost cried – but he kept it together.

  ‘Well?’ the first man through the door demanded, brandishing his firearm. ‘Where is the bastard and where do you want us?’ This was a local farmer called Singleton, also a regular in the pub, as were the three others. One was the local doctor, Lott; another a gamekeeper from the nearby estate owned by the Duke of Westminster; and the final one a young lad who worked in an abattoir. Henry knew each and every one of them well and, whilst they were not friends as such, they weren’t a million miles away. He had served them all drinks from one side of the bar and drunk with them on the other. Each was a respected member of the local community. They supported their local hostelry with ferocity but, although their hearts were in the right place, Henry could not allow this, as much as he would have liked to.

  ‘Guys,’ he said, ‘lower the weapons for a start.’

  Singleton – flat cap, large ruddy face, a stereotypical farmer – took a menacing step towards Henry.

  ‘I knows what you’re going to say, Henry, so don’t even start. This lass –’ fortunately he chose to point at Alison with an arthritic finger rather than with the barrels of the shotgun – ‘this lass is one of us now and we love her. This place belongs to the village and we protect each other out here, which you should know by now. We’re all licensed to own and carry these guns, we know what we’re doing with them and we’re here to protect Alison and Ginny. Not that bothered about you, yet. Only if you arrest us will we back off. Otherwise –’ he glanced at the three others, who came to a sloppy sort of attention – ‘we’re here for as long as necessary, understand? And we’ve decided to call ourselves the Wild Geese.’

  Henry blinked back his tear, then said, ‘You wonderful people.’

  Two hours later, after a flurry of activity, Henry sat down at his desk in the MIR and checked through his ‘to do/have done’ list. His finger worked its way down it until he reached the bottom two items: ‘Archie Astley-Barnes’ and ‘Steve Flynn – murderer!’

  He heaved himself out of his chair, went to the office door, leaned out, caught Pete Woodcock’s eye and beckoned him in.

  ‘Close the door.’

  Woodcock sat down across from Henry.

  ‘Archie,’ Henry stated.

  ‘Boss?’

  ‘First impressions – I don’t believe it’s connected to Percy’s murder, but I am willing to be proved wrong.’

  ‘I’ll bet it is, somewhere down the line,’ Woodcock said.

  ‘Absolutely … maybe, maybe not … however, I want you to run with it, Pete.’

  The DCI’s face lit up. ‘Really, boss?’

  ‘Yeah. I’ll keep going with Percy and Lottie and we’ll run Archie’s death alongside them from here, just in case there is a link, and so we can keep an eye on everything. You pull a small team together in addition to those we’ve already got and we can share resources. I know it’ll be a tight squeeze, but the HOLMES system is already up and running, so it’d be daft not to. But you run it, yeah? Chase down the blood samples from the house – those that don’t belong to Archie – and the PM is down to you and that’s later today.’

  ‘OK, thanks, boss.’

  ‘Scoot.’ Henry flicked his fingers at Woodcock, who left quickly, closing the office door behind him.

  Henry then glanced at the last item on the list. Steve Flynn. Arrested for murder in Spain. The one bright thing in Henry’s horrific day and he couldn’t help but grin at the prospect of Flynn being incarcerated in a Spanish hell hole.

  Finally, he thought.

  But before he did anything he made another call to the Tawny Owl.

  ‘Hi, babe, it’s me.’

  ‘OK, Henry, enough is enough,’ Alison said. ‘This is the third call since you left. I’m OK, OK? I’m surrounded by people who would lay down their lives for me. There’s a cop car parked outside now, and I’ve seen two others drive past, flagged them down and fed them. I’ll be OK, you just concentrate on catching the guy.’

  ‘OK, OK,’ Henry said.

  ‘And I do love you.’

  ‘Me too, love you, that is … er, watch out for me on TV later … big press briefing in an hour, all channels I think.’

  ‘I will, so don’t forget your lines.’

  ‘I won’t … hey, don’t give an
y of those gun-toting yokels any beer. They’re likely as not to shoot each other, rather than a bad guy.’

  Alison giggled. The phone call ended when Alison cut Henry off after about a dozen back and forth Byes, like they were teenagers. Henry stood up and went into the MIR, which was buzzing with renewed activity. He passed from desk to desk, chatting to each person, asking how they were getting on.

  It was obvious they all liked working for Henry. He was a good boss who took time with his staff, mostly. When he’d been a local DI on CID, there had always been a mad scramble to get on his team.

  As he moved around, he was pleased by the progress.

  Then he went into the office marked ‘Intel Cell’ where he found Jerry Tope with his head down at the computer.

  ‘You got a mo?’ Henry asked when Tope finally looked up.

  ‘Uh – yeah, sure.’

  ‘In my office, two minutes? Bring two brews.’

  Tope nodded, Henry retreated.

  A few minutes later Tope backed in through Henry’s office door bearing two mugs of instant coffee. He sat and shoved one across the desk. Henry took it with thanks, cleared his throat, had a sip.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, surveying Tope across the rim of the mug.

  Tope returned a cautious look, unsure why he had been summoned, albeit in such a pleasant way.

  ‘You know how much I like coincidences, don’t you?’

  ‘Er, yeah, sorta … why?’

  ‘Got a phone call this morning from the FIM, who in turn had just got a message from the police in Gran Canaria, of all places.’ Henry let the words permeate into Tope’s massive brain.

  ‘OK,’ the DC said.

  ‘Mm,’ Henry said, starting to draw out what he hoped would be a time of mental torture for Tope. The man’s Adam’s apple rose and fell in his scrawny throat. ‘They have contacted us to say they are investigating a double murder.’

  ‘Some connection to us?’ Tope ventured.

  Henry gave a shrug. ‘To us, maybe, not necessarily to this investigation. The police there have asked me to contact the families of the deceased and also give them any background we can about the victims, a man and a woman.’

  ‘A man and a woman,’ Tope echoed.

  Henry took a deliberately loud slurp of his coffee, which he thought actually tasted shit. ‘And, like I said, I’m a man who likes coincidences.’

  Tope furrowed his brow. ‘So how can I help? I presume I can?’

  ‘I’m certain you can.’

  Tope shifted nervously.

  ‘I take it you are aware that when a senior officer does an Intel check on any person, the system automatically flags up to the senior officer the names of the last three members of staff who also carried out a check on that person.’

  ‘I’m aware of that.’

  ‘OK – so, earlier this morning the FIM received the request from the police in Gran Canaria about a double murder, naming both victims, as you would expect,’ Henry said. Tope nodded along. ‘So what I want to know, Jerry, is this: bearing in mind my penchant for coincidences, how is it that you had the foresight to check out the name of one of the victims before that person was even dead?’

  ‘I check out a lot of people. It’s part of my job. Anyway, who are you talking about?’

  Henry noted that Tope now looked decidedly unwell.

  ‘Scott Costain,’ Henry revealed like a trump card, although he was pretty sure Tope knew what was coming. ‘You checked out the name of someone who was going to become a murder victim. Now that, to me, is one hell of a coincidence. What are the odds of that?’

  ‘We have an ongoing investigation into the Costains. You are almost single-handedly smashing their organization, so checking one of them is … is …’

  ‘Is what, Jerry?’ Henry’s voice was cold and clinical.

  ‘A …’ Tope hesitated, dreading to say it, ‘… coincidence.’

  ‘OK,’ Henry then said evenly, ‘let me lay one more on you before I actually ask you why you checked Scott Costain. The police in Gran Canaria have a suspect in custody for the double murder.’

  Tope’s skin actually changed colour at this revelation.

  ‘So guess who that might be?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Tope said, his lips hardly moving.

  ‘I’ll give you a clue. He’s a mate of yours and you’ve been known to give him sensitive information in the past.’

  ‘Flynn?’ Tope whispered.

  ‘Right in one! Now what am I supposed to do with this?’ Henry asked. ‘Tell me why you checked Scott Costain –’ Henry leaned on his desk and pointed at Tope – ‘and if you don’t come clean, I promise you we’ll do this the hard way and the first thing I’ll do is seize your mobile phone and check on all numbers dialled and received and see if I can get the Spanish cops interested in you as an accomplice. How does that sound?’

  Tope’s eyes dropped and he stared into his coffee.

  Henry sighed. ‘Shit, Jerry.’

  ‘I didn’t actually give him any information. He did phone me, yeah, and asked me to give him anything on Costain, but though I looked I never got the chance to call him back with anything, so I haven’t done anything wrong this time.’

  Henry laughed starkly. ‘You imbecile … what was it? The same old ruse? “I covered for you when you shagged some bird other than your wife?” That one? Isn’t that a bit long in the tooth now?’

  ‘I didn’t pass him any information.’

  ‘Deal’s done, though, innit? As soon as you type in that name and press “enter”. It’s all about intent, mate.’ Henry shook his head. ‘Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, what am I going to do with you? You’ve teetered on this precipice before, haven’t you?’

  Tope nodded dumbly.

  ‘Right, I want you to make contact with this detective in Gran Canaria and tell him we’re on with his request and that you and me will personally go and tell Costain’s relatives of his death, and also the girl’s if she’s local enough.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Scott Costain? He’s not on our radar, is he?’

  ‘No he isn’t. He was brought up in Northern Ireland, where his convictions are.’

  ‘But it seems his home address is on us?’

  ‘LKA up on Shoreside with the rest of the clan.’

  ‘I’ll send you a copy of the email from Gran Canaria. You get some Intel together for them, then let’s go and break some bad news. If nothing else it’ll be an excuse for me to have a look into the wasps’ nest … after the press briefing, that is. Oh, and Jerry? Watch your arse, OK? You know what I mean.’

  Tope scuttled out of the office red-faced and terrified.

  The press briefing took place at Blackpool police station and went well. All sections of the media were present and hungry for this sort of thing, a grisly double murder, one of the victims a well-known local businessman – and a confirmed suspect, a hit man from America no less. The journalists were almost slavering as they recorded Henry’s words and were particularly interested in fuelling speculation about Percy’s dubious business dealings, although Henry refused to comment on that. It lasted the best part of an hour and Henry fended off questions about Percy’s father, stating that at the moment there did not seem to be a link to his son’s murder, but he was keeping an open mind on the subject.

  After they dispersed, Henry made his way back to the MIR and settled down in his office for five minutes of getting his head together. That was his plan, anyway, but there was a knock on the door and a very sheepish Jerry Tope slithered in, clutching a file of papers, eager to make amends.

  Henry regarded him stonily, then gestured for him to take a seat.

  ‘Fire away.’

  ‘Scott Costain and his girlfriend, shot to death in their holiday villa. Steve Flynn was found at the scene and arrested and is still in custody. Seems Costain and the girl chartered Flynn’s fishing boat and they had a falling out about something, ending up in fisticuffs in Puerto Rico town centre. They were sent on
their way by cops, then the morning after the police attended a report from a neighbour and found Steve at the scene.’

  ‘Steve Flynn shot two people to death?’

  ‘Well, he was at the scene of the murder.’

  ‘He is one nasty piece of work,’ Henry said.

  ‘Capable of killing two people in cold blood?’

  ‘Capable of anything, though I wouldn’t have thought daft enough to get caught. Still, not our problem, is it?’

  ‘Don’t you think he deserves some help?’ Tope said in disbelief.

  ‘Nah, not really. We’ll just do what’s been asked of us and deliver some death messages, shall we?’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Yes, you’re coming with me, pal.’

  ‘What about me?’

  A large figure had appeared at the office door and, despite the man’s size, neither of the two had noticed his approach. Henry looked up quickly; Tope’s head swivelled.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Henry demanded, rising from his chair and smiling.

  ‘Sounds like you’re gonna need a bodyguard. I’m your man,’ Karl Donaldson announced.

  Donaldson had never intended to travel north, or ‘oop newerth’ as he liked to call it now, mimicking a Lancashire accent. He’d thought that getting some information for his friend Henry Christie was just a diversion and as far into the criminal world as he could go, then it would be back to the grindstone of terrorism.

  That morning he had risen at six to get ready for work – commuting by train from his local station, into London at seven-ish. He had actually boarded the train and was trying not to imagine gunning down his fellow travellers.

  To get his mind off it, he fished out his mobile phone and called Henry Christie’s number. Since sending Henry the email the night before concerning Hawke, he’d heard nothing from his northern pal.

  The call went straight to voicemail and Donaldson left a short message.

  Then he checked the time and wondered if Henry had even set off for work yet, so he called the landline number of the Tawny Owl, knowing his friend was virtually part of the furniture there now.

  This time it rang out for a long time. This was fairly unusual because Donaldson knew Alison was a stickler for answering the phone quickly as part of her business. ‘You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression,’ she had quoted continually, ‘especially in the hospitality trade.’ She was particularly keen on an almost corporate approach to answering professionally, so he let it ring, knowing it would get answered, which it was.