Critical Threat

by Nick Oldham

  Henry was irritated by Hall for keeping him in the dark regarding the identity of the deceased, but allowed him his little charade because he seemed to be getting some amusement from it and he did brief Henry on everything else with a fairly succinct narrative before they entered the premises …

  ‘Treble-nine came in about half past midnight to Blackburn comms. Hysterical female by the name of Jackie Kippax … yeah? Jackie Kippax?’ Hall seemed to expect Henry to know the name, but at that moment in time with a brain still slightly dulled by sex and sleep, it meant nothing to him. ‘Hm, OK … so hysterical female calls, a double-crewed car attends and finds her down at the phone box there’ – he pointed to the box down the road – ‘which, surprisingly, worked … anyway, they speak to her, get some sort of story. One stays with her and the other, with trepidation, goes up into the flat over the Spar shop here and finds the dead body, who had been shot through the head. I’m already en route and get here about ten minutes later, speak to the woman, still hysterical, and get her carted off to the nick to be looked after – emotionally and evidentially – and then I lumber up to the scene and lo and behold, I’m pretty sure there’s a murderer on the loose.’

  ‘Unless it’s the hysterical woman.’

  ‘Unless it’s her, which I doubt. She, by the way, is the dead man’s common-law wife, Jackie Kippax?’ Hall raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Means nothing.’ Henry shook his head.

  ‘It will,’ Hall said confidently.

  Henry remained to be convinced, but gave a shrug, then walked across to the Scientific Support van and helped himself to a paper suit and shoes, introduced himself to the young copper who had been detailed to note the comings and goings to the crime scene. He told the young lad not to let anyone else in until further instructed. He’d then followed Hall into the property, through the ground-floor door adjacent to the front door of the Spar shop.

  As he’d entered the premises behind Hall, Henry had checked to see if there was any sign of forced entry at the front door and seen nothing to suggest it; no splintering of wood either on the door or its frame …

  Hall stepped into the room which was the crime scene ahead of Henry, then took a sideways step to the left to give the senior officer an unrestricted view.

  Henry placed his feet on the threshold but did not move into the room, just stood and let his eyes wander.

  ‘It’s the dead guy’s office,’ Hall explained. ‘He’s a private investigator.’

  It was sparsely furnished: one desk with a black swivel chair behind it and a chair on the other side of it, one of those uncomfortable plastic ones found the world over. He could see a pair of feet sticking out from behind the desk, trainers on. Behind the desk was a wall and on it Henry could see the mess and blood that had once been the innards of the dead man’s head. His eyes lingered on that for a few seconds.

  And that was about it.

  No other furniture, just a calendar on the wall; nothing on the desk either, other than a pen and an old-fashioned telephone.

  A blank canvas. Something Henry was grateful for. Cluttered rooms were a nightmare. At least with an empty one it was generally pretty easy to work out what might be missing or what might be extra, two things that could be crucial to any investigation. And already, Henry was thinking that there was something missing that should be there, but he didn’t know what.

  So the dead man was lying on the floor on the far side of the desk.

  Henry’s eyes narrowed as he started to put the pieces together, even though he hadn’t yet got a clue what the picture looked like.

  He glanced at Hall, who was looking enquiringly at him.

  ‘I like to take my time, think about things,’ Henry said. ‘Only one chance at a pure crime scene before everyone gets their mits on it.’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’

  ‘What are your thoughts so far, Trevor?’

  With a meditative pout, he said, ‘Just practicalities at the moment, boss.’ He munched his words. ‘Front door not forced, which could mean one of several things. Either the offender had a key or was allowed in, unless the door was actually open. It’s a Yale lock, so if it was closed, whoever comes in either needs a key or has to be let in. My first thought is that he knew his killer and met him here.’ Hall shrugged.

  ‘You could be right,’ Henry agreed. He rubbed his face and looked around the room again. Nothing particularly caught his eye, but he did have that uneasy feeling again that something was missing from the whole set-up.

  Working on the assumption that the killer would have walked from the door straight to the desk, a matter of six feet, and may have left some evidence on that journey, Henry and Hall avoided this route and edged their way around the perimeter of the room, sticking close to the walls until they arrived at the wall behind the desk, the one splattered with blood, brains and cranium, behind the body.

  The swivel chair had been upended, and was lying on its side like some strange, stranded sea creature and the body also lay on its side at an angle to the desk, almost in the recovery position, one knee drawn up, arms pointing forwards. But there would be no recovery from this position.

  Henry swallowed as he slowly bent his knees and settled on his haunches, inspecting the back of the man’s head. He could not yet see the face properly. He blinked as he thought of the damage the bullet must have done, spinning through the guy’s brain.

  ‘Recognize him yet?’ Hall asked hopefully.

  ‘Not from this angle.’ He pushed himself up. Because of the position of the body, they could go no further in this direction without actually stepping over it, which would have resulted in lost evidence as they would have been forced to step in blood. For Henry to see the man’s face, he had to edge back around the room and come in from the other side. He told Hall to backtrack to the door, where they both paused.

  ‘So the killer – or killers – possibly known to the deceased, comes up the stairs after having been invited in, comes down the hall, maybe with the deceased. Perhaps the deceased is already sitting at his desk, waiting for the killer, or he plonks himself behind the desk after entering the room with the killer, who he has just let in. Whichever, he is sitting at his desk and the killer then shoots him in the head, spreading most of his grey matter across the back wall, knocking him out of his chair.’

  ‘Fair supposition,’ Hall said.

  Henry tried to imagine the scene, which wasn’t too difficult. He took a few seconds to take it in, measuring the angles, working out what might have happened.

  ‘OK, got that,’ he said and was about to move past the door and sidle around the edge of the room to come in to see the victim from the opposite direction when the noise of footsteps on the stairs made him pause and look back down the hallway. ‘I said no one else should come up here,’ he shouted. His mouth was still open with the last word when the paper-suited figure of the deputy chief constable appeared on the landing. ‘Ma’am,’ he added.

  ‘Oh, sorry, am I not allowed up here?’

  ‘Everybody but the deputy chief constable,’ Henry said. ‘I didn’t expect you.’

  She walked towards him, paper suit billowing out, far, far too big for her, giving the impression of a Teletubby bearing down on him. ‘I’m hands-on as you know,’ she said, reaching him, then looking beyond into the room and seeing the wall of blood. ‘Jesus,’ she gasped, recovered and said, ‘What’ve we got, Henry?’

  He detailed where he was up to, the deputy nodding and listening carefully.

  ‘… so we’re just going to have a look at the guy’s face.’

  ‘And we don’t yet know who he is?’ Cranlow asked. She saw Henry and DC Hall exchange a glance.

  ‘Not yet formally identified, ma’am,’ Henry said, turning and walking around the outside of the room with Hall in tow. Two and a half walls later, Henry’s knees cracked as he bent down and examined the man’s face, amazed by the smallness of the entry hole just above the bridge of the nose, in contrast to the size of the exi
t wound.

  The dead man’s cheek was resting on the thin carpet. His mouth slopped open, drooling thick globs of blood. One eye was fully open, the other half closed, as if he was trying to wink, and his features had been horribly distorted by the impact of the bullet, reminding Henry of the way that G-forces work on a person’s face.

  He could not see the face clearly. The light was poor and the body was lying in the shadow cast by the desk and he didn’t want to touch or move it. A lot of work had yet to be done and he didn’t want to spoil anything.

  Henry twisted his head and shoulders, trying to get a better view without getting any closer than necessary.

  He glanced around at the two people behind him, both attempting to do the same thing, neither seemingly affected by the sight of such a violent death. The three stooges came to mind and he wondered how long it would be before they all fell over or started poking each other in the eye. He knew he should have had the courage to tell Cranlow to leave, then there would have only been a comedy double act.

  A penlight torch appeared in the deputy’s hand, which she offered to Henry.

  ‘This help?’

  ‘Cheers.’ He twisted it on and shone the beam into the dead man’s face.

  The light did help.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ he said sharply.

  ‘See, I knew you’d know,’ Hall said.

  ‘Who is it, Henry?’ Cranlow asked.

  Henry said nothing, but shone the torch into the face again and peered as closely as he dared.

  Despite the way in which the features had been misshapen, despite the back third of the head being missing, Henry recognized the man on the floor. He glanced quickly at Hall, who gave him a knowing wink.

  ‘You were right, I do know him.’

  ‘Henry!’ Cranlow said, almost stamping her feet in annoyance. ‘Will you please let me in on this little secret?’

  ‘This guy is an ex-Lancashire detective who was basically drummed out of the force maybe twelve years ago, and I’ll bet this is the perfect example of that old saying relevant to a murder inquiry – find out how they lived, find out why they died.’ He stood up. ‘This is the body of Eddie Daley.’

  Seven

  ‘He was a sleazeball cop,’ Henry explained, ‘and I’ve no doubt he was a sleazeball ex-cop too, and because of that I’m pretty sure this won’t take long to bottom,’ he finished confidently.

  ‘You sound quite heated about him,’ Angela Cranlow said.

  They had driven – separately – from the crime scene down to the new police station in the Whitebirk area of Blackburn and were walking from their parked cars to the police staff entrance. They had divested their paper suits, handing them to a Crime Scene Investigator to be bagged and tagged. Trevor Hall had remained at the scene to await the arrival of the pathologist, then to accompany the body to the mortuary in order to maintain the chain of evidence.

  Cranlow slid her swipe card down the slot, the door buzzed and they entered the station, which was all white walls, glass and modernity; a complete contrast to the Victorian monstrosity that had been left behind in Blackburn town centre which, for some bizarre reason, Henry preferred. Maybe it was its sense of history he missed, because this new place, flanked by car dealerships and DIY stores, had no character to it. It was just another fancy office complex that just happened to house the police.

  ‘I am,’ he said, but did not expand. It was quite obvious to Cranlow that something about Eddie Daley had touched a raw nerve in Henry. She didn’t pursue him, just yet, but her curiosity was well-whetted, and she surreptitiously watched him as they strode down the corridor to a witness interview room near to the custody complex. ‘She’s down here somewhere, ma’am,’ Henry said, referring to Jackie Kippax, who they had come to see.

  As they turned into the custody area, an interview room door opened and a crime scene investigator emerged carrying her bag of tricks and a cluster of paper and clear plastic evidence bags. Henry knew the CSI and that she had been dealing with Kippax.

  ‘Sir,’ she said on seeing Henry.

  ‘Hi, Alex – is Ms Kippax in there?’

  ‘Yes … very, very distraught.’

  ‘I can imagine. You got all you need from her?’

  ‘Yeah – all her clothing – she’s got a change, swabs, DNA, you name it. She’s been very compliant even though she’s so upset.’

  ‘Think she did it, from what she’s said?’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head without hesitation. ‘Not for me to say, but no.’

  ‘Does she know who did it?’

  ‘I think she has a pretty good idea.’

  ‘Thanks for that.’

  ‘Good luck boss. Ma’am.’ The CSI moved away, nodding at Cranlow.

  ‘You coming in?’ Henry asked the deputy.

  ‘If it won’t cramp your style.’

  ‘If only I had a style,’ he sighed and opened the door.

  Jackie Kippax was seated at the table, her head hanging downwards. A young female constable sat opposite, with her outstretched hands holding Kippax’s for support. The officer looked at Henry, a haggard, emotional expression on her inexperienced face. It looked as though having to deal with Kippax had all but drained her.

  Henry acknowledged her with a wan ‘well done’ smile. With a gesture of his hand he indicated she could leave. The officer flooded with relief and almost ran from the room, but Henry caught her before she could scarper and gave her his best little boy look (designed, he hoped, to get just what he wanted) and whispered, ‘Three coffees, white, with some sachets of sugar. Can you manage that?’ then released her.

  He eased himself into the vacant chair, still warm. Cranlow seated herself on a chair in the corner of the room.

  Jackie Kippax did not move, her head hanging loosely down. Her breathing was laboured.

  ‘Jackie,’ Henry said softly. ‘Jackie.’

  She did not respond.

  ‘Jackie, we need to talk. I know it’s tough, but we need to have a chat, urgently.’ He reached across and touched her hand. ‘Jackie, it’s me, Henry Christie.’

  The words, together with the touch, acted like a charged cattle prod. Kippax’s head shot up, eyes wide. She sat bolt upright and looked at Henry as though he was the devil. Their eyes clashed – hers on fire with rage, her face twisted with anger.

  ‘That’s all I fucking need,’ she snarled. ‘You! A cunt like you!’

  ‘I hated you with a vengeance and now you’re the one investigating his murder.’ Kippax and Henry were standing outside the police station on the paved area by the front entrance. A cigarette dangled from the fingers of her right hand, a coffee in the other. ‘Can’t no one else do it?’

  Henry shook his head as he took a mouthful of his coffee.

  Angela Cranlow stood several feet away, lounging against the station wall, sipping her coffee, listening to the dialogue, watching the interaction with interest.

  ‘What happened between us twelve years ago has no bearing on this case, Jackie,’ he told her, now very definitely remembering who she was and the fun time he’d had with her and Eddie Daley a dozen years before.

  ‘You tell that to Eddie.’

  ‘Look, the past is gone—’ he started to say.

  ‘You!’ She pointed her cigarette-bearing, nicotine-stained first and second fingers at him. ‘You lost him his job.’

  ‘No, you’re wrong … Eddie lost his job for himself. He was corrupt and he could not stay a cop, Jackie. I did my job, that’s all.’

  Her head jerked as though she had some sort of nervous tic, her face scowling, and her furious eyes blazed at Henry. Finally, she could look at him no longer and turned sharply away, starting to sob. ‘I loved him,’ she said jerkily. ‘I stood by him. We had a life, not much of one, but we did OK. We were good for each other and I don’t know what I’m going to do now. He was everything to me. He looked after me.’

  Henry took a tentative step closer to her. ‘And I’ll catch whoever did this and
that’s a promise. Doesn’t matter what he felt about me, or what you feel, I’ll do my job.’

  Jackie Kippax turned slowly. ‘That’s you all over, isn’t it, Henry? No matter what, you do your job, don’t you? Eddie was your friend and yet you still did your job on him, didn’t you?’ she said bitterly.

  ‘Jackie, we can let this hinder us or we can bin it and solve his murder, which I’m assuming is what you want?’ He held out a hand, a gesture which said many things. Her hard features softened. Her nostrils flared and she regarded him, her eyes roving up and down him. She nodded almost imperceptibly.

  ‘He wouldn’t be dead if you hadn’t hounded him out. He wouldn’t have had to make a living doing shitty things.’ She took a long drag of her cigarette, dropped it, ground it out. She coughed deep from within her chest.

  ‘I’m not sure those things are related.’

  ‘Think what you want.’ She shrugged.

  ‘So what happened tonight, Jackie? Are you going to come in and sit down and tell us? Then maybe we can make an arrest.’

  Back in the interview room, another fresh coffee in hand, they were talking. Henry was making notes as he listened and chatted, but he had also switched on the tape recorder. Angela Cranlow had joined him at the table, introducing herself by name only, omitting the rank.

  ‘Tell me about Eddie,’ Henry had prompted.

  Jackie Kippax gave a snort and started counting on her fingers. ‘Failed cop, failed insurance agent, failed legal rep, failed solicitor’s clerk, failed private investigator … but not a failed man. He’d had bad experiences with women in the past, but he’d made bad choices. But me an’ him were made for each other and he really looked after me.’

  Henry smiled sadly. He could see how much she loved him, which was good, but he wanted to get beyond the touchy-feely and get some details to start the investigation. He knew it was like playing a fish, though. It needed a bit of give and take, because if he leapt in and rode roughshod over her emotions, she would withdraw into herself.