Unforgiving

by Nick Oldham

  ‘I know, I know,’ he bleated. He finished tying the boots, stood up and grabbed his windcheater from the radiator. ‘Been called in for a briefing at four.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘No idea. You know the score. Sorry and everything … it’s just my job.’ He rubbed his forefinger and thumb together, meaning money. ‘Can’t turn it down, can I?’

  Anna’s face set like granite. Then she realized how she must be coming across to him and forced a different expression on it. One of disappointment. ‘I thought we could have had a curry tonight.’

  ‘Yeah, me too.’ He touched her shoulder. ‘I’ll let you know what’s happening as soon as I know. Whether it’s a job, or what,’ he promised. He brushed his lips against her cheek and shoved past, going out through the front door without a backward glance.

  ‘Jake,’ she called meekly – but the door had slammed and he was gone.

  She sat down on the same step he had been on and clasped her hands together on her lap, just as her face collapsed and the tears came.

  Jake couldn’t wait to get on the mobile and was fiddling with it as soon as the car moved away from the house. Kirsten’s number wasn’t kept in the phone’s memory, so each time he called her he did it from scratch, then deleted all traces after the call was complete, including time elapsed. He drove with his right hand, his left dealing with the phone, using his thumb to negotiate the numbers, glancing up at the road ahead and back continually, even letting go of the steering wheel and holding it between his thighs at some points.

  He had just the vaguest moment of disquiet when he thought about how deceitful he was being, but then tossed that away. Because there was no doubt about it, Jake had fallen out of love with his wife and was madly in love with Kirsten, and he didn’t give a flying fuck about anything or anyone else. He was certain he could manage it.

  He wedged the phone between his right shoulder and ear, waited for the connection.

  Anna looked down accusingly at her mobile phone. ‘The number you have dialled is busy,’ the cold electronic voice of the operator told her. ‘Please hang up and call again.’

  She thumbed the end call button with disgust and threw the phone down the hall against the front door. It bounced and clattered on the laminate flooring, bursting open, the back, battery and front of it scattered in three different directions.

  ‘It’s me.’

  ‘I know.’ Kirsten sounded sleepy.

  ‘You up?’

  ‘Sorta.’

  ‘You been called in?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘See you there, then.’

  ‘Un-huh.’

  ‘Thanks for this morning. It was fantastic.’

  ‘Uh – yeah, it was.’

  ‘I love you – you know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ she said absently.

  Jake waited. Nothing came. ‘See you there, then.’

  Anna reconstructed the phone and switched it back on, then went into the tiny lean-to conservatory at the rear of the house, opening the back door. The rain had stopped, and the atmosphere smelled fresh and vibrant.

  She slid her hand behind one of the cushions on the cane-backed sofa and found the pack of cigarettes hidden there. She flipped open the lid and put a cigarette between her lips, lighting it with the throwaway lighter kept in the already half-smoked packet. She took a deep lungful of smoke, went to the door and exhaled into the air.

  She leaned there, not certain what she was even thinking.

  Then her phone rang.

  ‘Hi sweetie, how are you?’ It was Jackie.

  ‘Still doing OK,’ Anna lied.

  ‘Hon, you asked me to look at something?’

  Anna’s whole being tensed up. ‘Yes.’

  Afterwards, Anna went back into the kitchen and looked at the wall-clock for a very long time, remembering her exchange with Jake that morning about arrest times. With each tick and each sway of the pendulum she felt like a knife was being pushed further and further into her heart. And she knew, right there and then, that she wanted, more than anything else in the world, to die.

  SIX

  ‘First of all, big apologies for this.’ Henry was standing next to the interactive whiteboard at the front of the classroom situated at one end of the long, narrow building that was the main firing range at the Police Training Centre, Hutton, four miles south of Preston. The classroom was at the back of and separated from the firing range itself and was used to teach theory and some basic firearms handling to participants attending the various firearms courses held at the venue. The whole facility was as up-to-date as any in the country.

  Jake Niven thought Henry looked downright exhausted. His face was pale, his eyes set deep and black in their sockets. Each time he moved, pain carved lines in his shotgun-scarred features.

  Jake knew a bit about Henry, but hadn’t come across him often.

  He knew that maybe a year earlier Henry had come face-to-face with a deranged female who’d produced a handgun and tried to gun down the detective. One bullet had gone into his shoulder, and it was only misfiring, defective, home-produced ammunition that had saved his life, because on the second shot the gun had not gone off. The woman had subsequently been killed in a hail of bullets after a no-win siege with French police when she had been found holed up in a grotty flat in Marseille.

  Jake also knew that much more recently – hence the still-prominent scarring on Henry’s face and ear – he had come up against a shotgun wielding nut job, and though Henry had survived the attack, that particular night had ended tragically. The offender, one Charlie Wilder, was now on remand, awaiting a Crown Court trial.

  Jake had no idea what had happened in the intervening hours since he’d last seen Henry after Oxford had been arrested, but he guessed something significant, hence the firearms team being called back in and now being briefed.

  Jake thought it a bit ironic when Henry said, ‘I know you all must be shattered … and once again, thanks for last night. It was a brilliant operation and arrest.’ Henry pressed a wireless clicker in his hand, and an image appeared on the whiteboard. It was a mugshot of Wayne Oxford. ‘You all know this fella,’ he said, wincing as he turned sideways to glance at the screen.

  Jake felt the leg of the firearms officer sitting alongside him press against his outer thigh. The classroom furniture had been arranged ‘boardroom’ style – basically, all the individual tables pushed together in the centre of the room to form a large rectangle. The firearms team were seated on three sides, leaving the open end where Henry, Rik Dean and the whiteboard were situated. As unintentionally as they could make it seem, Jake was next to Kirsten, close and touching. Jake kept his eyes firmly on Henry and the board, but was aware in his peripheral vision that Kirsten had peeped at him.

  He grinned until he caught sight of Dave Morton’s eyes. He was sitting directly opposite, scowling unkindly.

  Jake’s gaze lingered for a second, then focused back on Henry.

  ‘We’ve been working all day on this guy, with little success at first – until we discovered his address and went to search it.’ Henry paused theatrically. ‘Then something very unpleasant happened when we entered the property … Oxford’s girlfriend accidentally shot herself … dead.’

  The firearms team muttered with surprise and shock.

  ‘It’s all been referred to the IPCC, but we are blameless, thankfully,’ Henry explained. ‘But that’s not the real reason you’re here … The reason is that, firstly, we discovered a little arsenal of weapons at the address.’ Henry clicked the remote in his hand and a new photo appeared on the board: the four guns from the flat laid out side by side. The image drew one or two appreciative gasps and whistles from the audience of firearms experts. Then he brought in another photo – this time of the revolver that Sophie Leader had killed herself with. He explained what had happened and drew more responses from them, mostly uncomplimentary. Then he went on, ‘As much as interviewing Oxford was like pulling tee
th initially, once he learned of his girlfriend’s death, his grief opened him up wide.’

  ‘Sang like a canary,’ Rik interjected.

  ‘Whatever,’ Henry said, frowning at him. ‘Point is – and this is where you guys come in – Oxford admitted he was holding the guns for a third party.’ Seeing the ‘yeah, right’ body language from a few of the sceptical officers, Henry held up his hand. ‘Yes, I know he would say that to save his own skin, but in this case I believe him.’ He did another little dramatic pause. ‘He told us he was keeping the weapons for this guy.’ He pressed the remote and a new face appeared on screen. ‘One Fraser Worthington, a man who I can best describe as a gangster.’

  A few of Jake’s colleagues muttered under their breath, but Jake just frowned. The name and face meant nothing to him, which irked him somewhat.

  The face on the screen was a mugshot of Worthington taken about ten years earlier. It showed a sallow, spotty-faced youth, front view and profile, glowering challengingly at the camera. The freshness of his teenage features was tempered by a swollen, ugly looking black eye, an injury not elaborated on by Henry, though clearly there was a story to tell.

  ‘Fraser Aldous Worthington,’ Henry announced grandly, ‘to give him his full title. And as old as the photo is, this wasn’t even the beginning of his criminal career. He has convictions from the age of ten onwards, mainly assault and robbery. He likes hitting people and stealing their money and valuables. Nothing has changed in the intervening years, except the scale of his ruthlessness and his deeds – and the fact that he’s got a lot more savvy and difficult to catch.’

  Henry pressed the remote. Worthington’s photo pixelated out and was replaced by another – this time a slightly grainy black and white one, but more recent. It showed a casually, but well-dressed man walking along a shopping street, which Jake recognized immediately as Clifton Street in Lytham. He also recognized the man as being the older version of Worthington. Henry clicked through a series of similar images – Worthington strolling along, apparently nonchalantly, maybe window shopping or, as every cop in that room believed, casing business premises.

  ‘Taken six months ago,’ Henry explained. ‘Part of a surveillance operation run by our surveillance branch and the Serious and Organized Crime Unit.’ He paused and readjusted his stance with another painful wince as he moved his head and shoulders. He cleared his throat. ‘OK, so for those of you who don’t know, since that original mugshot was taken ten years ago, Worthington has streamlined his activities and become a prolific armed robber. An old-fashioned crime these days, but still highly profitable, if risky. He is connected with various trusted associates and tends to work in short bursts, then fades into obscurity, usually keeping his head down in Spain or Northern Cyprus. When the money he’s made runs out, he comes back for more, keeps under the radar, does a few well-planned jobs – then he’s gone again.

  ‘Although we can’t prove it, we suspect he committed six high-value armed robberies across the region last year. Two shops, two betting offices, one cash-in-transit and a jeweller’s. But no arrests. Two people bludgeoned with baseball bats; one security guard shot in the leg, the lower part of which had to be amputated. Just short of a million in cash and a quarter of a mill in gems – split between four.’

  Jake squirmed at the thought of so much money.

  ‘We think his brother Arlow fences the jewels … They go in fast, hard and well-drilled,’ Henry emphasized, ‘and are clearly not reticent about using force or firing their weapons.’

  ‘So what’s the significance of that photo, boss?’ one of the team piped up, pointing to the whiteboard.

  ‘I’ll come to that in a minute … I just wanted to impress on you what dangerous people you might be coming across in the near future. The actual tactics they employ are something you as a team will be scrutinizing very closely, very soon. Imminently, actually.’

  Something inside made Henry crease up – a jolt of pain. ‘Excuse me, just need to take a seat for a second … getting old and creaky … so apologies if anyone can’t quite see me clearly, but I’ll keep my voice up.’ Henry eased himself into a chair, and Jake saw the relief flood on his face and really felt for the guy. Never having been shot, Jake could only guess at the lingering pain.

  ‘Why’s he never been locked up?’ someone asked.

  ‘He has … but, as we all know, knowing someone has committed an offence is different than proving it in court,’ Henry answered, then went on. ‘The significance of these surveillance photos is we believe Worthington is doing a bit of reconnoitring. This photo was taken about four months after the series of crimes I’ve just mentioned to you. In that gap, we think Worthington and his crew were sunning themselves in the Med and we just got lucky when he turned up back in this country and got this photo, after which he shook off the surveillance team and disappeared. Which is something else you need to know – he is very surveillance conscious – it’s part of how he operates – but, so far, nothing has come of this stroll, no jobs that could be attributed to him.’

  Henry smiled grimly. ‘Because of this morning’s arrest we have accidentally stumbled across the person who has been holding some weapons for Worthington, plus’ – Henry’s face brightened up – ‘we have also found a possible address for him, which is now under surveillance, although we’re not sure if he is actually in it. But, from what we gleaned from Wayne Oxford, we’re pretty sure Worthington’s somewhere back on the plot, and this time we aim to keep a tight rein on him and catch him in the act.’

  Jake raised his hand. Henry nodded at him.

  ‘How will this morning’s arrest affect him, though?’ Jake asked. ‘Surely, he’ll be spooked by it – especially if the guns are now in our hands … It’s not as though we can hide the fact we have them, is it? We can’t exactly lure him in.’

  ‘No, probably not,’ Henry admitted, ‘and there is a big chance he’ll be spooked, though we have tried to keep the arrest under wraps as much as possible … but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t run an op against him. There are a lot of imponderables, but if he has planned some jobs and they need to go ahead, then he will probably be able to source weapons from elsewhere, and if he learns Oxford has been arrested, he’ll hope that he doesn’t blab to us – even though he has. Under normal circumstances, Oxford wouldn’t have said a word to us, but because his girlfriend managed to shoot herself, he opened up. I bet right now he’s regretting it.’

  ‘So what’s the plan?’ someone else chirped up.

  Henry shrugged painfully. ‘Hopefully, to keep tabs on Worthington, and if he pulls a job we’ll – you’ll – be on to him like a hawk on a rabbit.’

  ‘All a bit vague, isn’t it?’ Kirsten said crossly. ‘What was the word? Imponderable?’ She was in the queue at the training-centre dining room with the rest of the firearms team, tray in hand, waiting to choose her food. Unusually, the meal was being paid for out of the Force Major Investigation Team’s budget, Henry Christie’s department. It was unusual because in these tight-fisted financial times it was rare for the cost of any meal to be subsidized. She went on, mimicking Henry, ‘They don’t know this, they don’t know that.’ Then she added, under her breath, ‘Boring old fart.’

  Jake was alongside her in the slow-moving queue, which consisted of others who were on training courses at the centre. Patiently, he said, ‘That’s how it goes … ambiguity.’

  ‘Chances are it’ll come to nothing,’ she moaned.

  Jake noticed she did a lot of moaning and had been doing so ever since Henry had finished his briefing, following which the team had been given a tactical briefing from a Serious and Organized Crime Unit detective inspector and their own firearms inspector based on what was known about how Worthington’s gang operated and what weapons they were likely to use. Plans were still being formulated as to how the operation was going to pan out and, yes, it was all a bit vague, but that came with the nature of the job.

  Even though Jake realized Kirsten was tired,
her negativity was beginning to grate on him a little, and he couldn’t be bothered to continue the conversation because he, too, was feeling tetchy and weary. The last thing they needed was a lovers’ tiff in the dinner queue. He took a deep breath, pointed to the minced meat and onion pie and chips and smiled sweetly at the dinner lady who was dishing out the food. She responded by smacking an extra-large portion on to his plate, to which he added mushy peas and a dollop of gravy. Real stodge, but genuinely tasty.

  Kirsten was ahead of him as they left the servery and turned into the dining area. He was so rankled by her that he did not really want to sit next to her, but knew he would have to. Sometimes she just annoyed the living crap out of him, but he could not resist her even though he had an unpleasant premonition that their liaison would end disastrously. For not only were they breaking the ‘unwritten rule’ that you didn’t shag a team colleague because of the terrible implications – not just about skewing judgements on an operation, but also team dynamics – but he was also committing adultery.

  But that was how it went when your head was up your arse.

  As it happened, Kirsten, perhaps sensing Jake’s irritability, sat next to another team member. With relief, Jake sat down heavily on an adjacent table and dragged his plate off the tray, propping up the tray next to his chair leg. He began eating his meal, feeling the energy buzz from the hot food as it seeped down his throat into his stomach. Under the right conditions, ‘county pie’, chips and gravy could be the best food in the world.

  He glanced sideways as Dave Morton slid in alongside him and arranged his own plate. Jake eyed him with weary suspicion and gave an inner sigh, but Morton concentrated on getting himself comfortable, then launched into his food whilst Jake continued to mull over his relationship with Kirsten.

  He supposed it wasn’t any different from any other man cheating on his wife.

  It sucked you in.

  It became horribly irresistible.

  The sex was amazing, the stolen companionship terrific.

  The way he could talk to Kirsten in a manner he could not even begin to talk to Anna. Talk about his true feelings, his hopes, his expectations. So yes, surface-wise, it seemed so right. But the gnawing, deep-down feeling was that he was conning himself. He thought he had the wherewithal to handle anything that came from it, even the fallout, because a big part of him wanted to believe that Kirsten was his future, not Anna. The kids would be there, for sure. He loved them to bits. But he and Anna, or so he tried to convince himself, had become used, shoddy goods. They seemed to have lost all means of communication. Two people trapped in a going nowhere marriage, and this affair (more self-convincing here, or delusion, possibly) could be the catalyst needed to finally rip them apart and fire each of them off into different orbits, from which they could begin again, separately.