Judgement Call

by Nick Oldham

  He was lying on a reinforced plastic mattress. FB tipped him off. He hit the cell floor hard and rolled onto his injured hand.

  Henry winced.

  When he had joined the police in the late seventies, a prisoner being smacked around the cells was not uncommon. It wasn’t that he’d never had confrontations in cells and he’d had to whack a couple of extremely uncooperative drunks who had attacked him, but those occasions had been moments in a chain of consecutive events, explainable and defensible. He had never arrested anyone, put them in a cell, and then gone back and cold-bloodedly given them a beating, even if he might have wanted to, either for revenge or to extract a confession. It just wasn’t in him to do so. He knew that whilst he was a ruthless hunter of the truth – that was a trait of his personality – he wanted to do it without compromising his own integrity and pride. If he had to beat someone up to get an admission, then it probably wasn’t worth it.

  Not that he didn’t want to beat the crap out of some of the vile, nasty, perverted and obnoxious pieces of work he’d come across, and he didn’t rule out that sometime in the future it might happen.

  But a callous visit to a cell in the middle of the night would not be on his agenda – ever.

  Using a situation to his advantage was one thing. Such as finding Jack Bowman pinned to a table. Henry had only intended to tease Jack for a few moments before pulling out the knife and calling an ambulance. But FB had shown, was showing, he was prepared to do things the ‘old school’ way of coppering and take everything to its limits in his own way of pursuing justice.

  Henry observed with unease as FB crouched down next to the prostrate and confused figure of Bowman, place a hand over the young man’s mouth, and lift up his injured arm with the other.

  ‘Now it’s time to talk properly,’ FB whispered.

  And with that, FB smacked the injured hand against the top corner of the bench, making a dull thump. Henry winced.

  Bowman would have screamed, but the palm of FB’s hand was clamped over his face like an octopus, effectively pinning the slender lad down and the floor, despite his wriggling and efforts to get free. FB’s face hovered a couple of inches over Bowman’s. ‘I want to know everything about Kaminski, where he is, what he’s going to do … Everything, lad.’

  To reinforce the demand, he repeated the move with the hand, striking it against the bench. Bowman, red-faced, wide-eyed and terrified, struggled futilely. FB had him pinned down.

  Henry could see the pain jolting through him and something told him that this was one of those pivotal moments in his career, in his life.

  This was about him being a decent human being first and cop second.

  If he was comfortable watching this happen, then so be it. His fate was sealed.

  But he wasn’t.

  Inside he was squirming. Not simply because of what he was witnessing in front of him, but by the complicit nature of the sergeant who had handed over the keys without question, and thus, by definition, the complicit nature of the organization that would allow this sort of thing to happen. It should be better than this.

  ‘Stop it,’ Henry blurted. He had seen enough.

  FB’s head turned slowly towards him, his eyes burning like a malevolent demon. ‘What?’ he growled.

  ‘Stop this,’ Henry said. ‘This isn’t happening.’

  ‘Get out of the cell,’ FB said. ‘Like you did before – remember? Leave him to me, if you don’t have the guts to see this through. There’s a lot at stake here.’

  ‘No, I won’t go,’ Henry said. ‘Not this time.’ He stood firm, even if inside he was quaking.

  ‘Did you hear what I said?’

  ‘You know I did.’

  Their eyes locked. FB must have expected Henry to back down, but he didn’t. He almost did, almost ran like a puppy, but he held fast and FB knew that it was over.

  He got up slowly, leaving Bowman on the cell floor, and shouldered his way furiously past Henry, who waited, listening to FB’s fading footsteps.

  ‘What’s this? Good cop, bad cop?’ Bowman said, groaning as he stood up and threw the mattress back onto the bench.

  ‘I’m not a good cop,’ Henry said. ‘But as soon as I turn my back, he’ll be in here and I won’t be around to stop him.’

  Nursing his hand tenderly in the crook of his arm, Bowman sat on the edge of the bench. ‘Is that supposed to shit me up?’

  ‘No, it’s the truth, Jack. He’s searching for a killer and he thinks you have the information he needs and he’ll wring your neck to get it.’

  ‘Wring away. I don’t know owt more than I’ve already said.’

  ‘Thing is,’ Henry speculated, ‘I think he’s probably right. People like you always hold stuff back. Matter of pride.’

  Bowman swung up his legs and pulled the blanket over them. ‘I don’t know anything else.’

  ‘What if I can get you off a murder charge?’

  Bowman squinted at Henry.

  ‘At the moment you are as implicated as Kaminski for Sally’s murder – and to be honest, Jack, you haven’t shown much sorrow at the terrible death of your sister. So maybe it shows you were in on it, knew what Kaminski had planned. You’ll have to work damn hard to convince a jury otherwise.’

  ‘I let him in, that’s all,’ he cried. ‘He told me he wanted to talk to her, not murder her. I’ve told you this already.’

  ‘And still no grief or remorse,’ Henry said. ‘Just trying to protect yourself.’

  ‘I haven’t had time to grieve. I’ve been pinned to a fucking table for hours.’

  Henry shook his head sadly. ‘Some brother … Look, final offer … Start blabbing now or you’ll be in the dock next to Vlad facing a murder charge. Tell us all you know and we’ll look after you … otherwise, you’re screwed for the rest of your life.’

  ‘How can you look after me?’ he sneered.

  ‘You’ll have to trust me.’

  ‘I don’t know anything more than I’ve already told you … well, not much anyway.’

  Henry beckoned him out of the cell. ‘Let’s have a proper chat.’

  He opened FB’s office door to find the DI on his chair, legs swung up onto the edge of his desk, crossed at the ankle. FB glared.

  ‘Who the fuck do you think you are?’ FB demanded. ‘Holier than thou.’ He made a spitting gesture.

  Henry jarred to a halt. ‘I didn’t join the cops to twat people around the cells, nor do I want to be a party or witness to it. I’ll do what I have to, but …’

  ‘You’re prepared to let vicious crims go, or let armed robberies happen, just for the sake of a good smacking?’

  ‘I’ll do it the right way, the only way.’

  Henry knew this was a claim of youth. A claim made when everything seemed to be clear cut, the division between right and wrong. He knew life became foggy and complex and he knew that someday in the future, if he ever found himself face to face with a sneering child-molester, he would probably eat those words. But for now, that was how it was. He was high-principled and he didn’t want to be woken up by the knock on his front door from the rubber-heel squad, the cops who investigate cops.

  Henry thought for a moment that FB eyed him with some degree of admiration … maybe just for a second. Or was it ridicule?

  ‘So where does this leave us?’ FB asked, then answered his own question. ‘With a killer still at large, us without clue to his whereabouts and a big job about to go down on our patch and no idea on that either.’

  For a moment, Henry considered playing the DI, but dismissed it, fearing for his life if he did. Instead he said, ‘You were right about Jack Bowman.’ FB continued to stare at Henry. ‘He does know more than he let on.’

  ‘I knew it.’ FB’s heels came off the desk and he shot forwards as his hands slapped his blotter.

  ‘But I had to schmaltz it out of him and make him a promise.’

  FB’s face of triumph waned slightly. ‘What promise?’

  ‘That we’d drop a
ny murder charge against him.’

  FB’s slug-like eyebrows met as he frowned. ‘You what?’

  ‘I’m certain he didn’t know what Kaminski intended.’

  ‘And you promised him he won’t face a murder charge, or whatever the appropriate charge is, because he told you what, exactly?’ His incredulity was almost tangible. ‘It’s all right being high-minded, Henry, but being naive as well? Double-dumb. He’s lying to save his arse.’

  ‘Don’t think so.’

  ‘Well, that looks like another point on which we’ll be begging to differ. I need my bed.’

  ‘It’s a cash in transit job,’ Henry said quickly. ‘Not a shop or other retail premises.’

  FB sat upright at this revelation.

  ‘It’s a bank job,’ Henry went on. ‘Apparently Kaminski’s been scouting for the gang with regards to all the shops that have been hit and stumbled across something else very tasty.’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘Each third Friday of every month – and that’s today – a security van delivers cash to the Rossendale Valley Building Society, the branch in the shopping centre, here.’ Henry pointed towards the town centre, less than a hundred yards from the station. ‘Vladimir discovered it by accident, he’s been keeping nicks on it and they’re going to hit it tomorrow – today, actually. And it’s a lot of money.’

  ‘And Bowman told you this? Without you having to beat it out of him?’

  ‘Yeah – amazing, eh?’

  ‘How does he know?’

  ‘Overheard Vlad and Constantine talking last night when they were waiting in a car before they dropped Jack off to break into the refuge. He was pretending to be asleep.’

  ‘And he told you this?’

  Henry nodded. ‘And he admitted breaking into old Mrs Fudge’s house, but that’s another story. And he said sorry for escaping. And I didn’t hit him once.’

  As shattered as he was, and flabbergasted he was still functioning – though barely – Henry knew it would be impossible to get to sleep even though FB ordered him to go home and get his head down for a couple of hours, then get back to work for nine. That gave him three hours – and Henry knew exactly what he was going to do with that time, and it wasn’t sleep. And his testicles felt so much better.

  He drove to Kate’s house, turned into her road, switched the engine off and cruised his car to a soundless stop outside the house and got out, closing the door silently. He looked up at the house, knowing her parents were back in residence but undeterred.

  He crept up the driveway, sprang over the gate and made his way along the side of the house to the rear garden, stepped back and looked up at Kate’s bedroom window. There was no way of contacting her without alerting her vigilant father, the only phone the family had being in the hallway on a stand at the foot of the stairs, so, frustratingly, he was reduced to this primitive, time-honoured way of waking her: stones thrown against the bedroom window, like some suitor in an Edwardian stage farce.

  But he didn’t want to break the windows, which were single-thickness glass, not double-glazing, set in old-fashioned iron frames.

  He used what he could find in the garden, a handful of chippings, and took a couple of practice throws just to get the height right, before actually going for his target.

  Four hits, four taps later, and no broken glass, and the curtain twitched and parted. And there she was, a sleepy-faced, hair-mussed, but beautiful young woman, looking down at him uncomprehendingly. Her face cracked into a smile of joy before she took control of herself, folded her arms across her nightie and gave him a stern look of disapproval.

  ‘Open the window,’ he mouthed.

  Kate shook her head. ‘Why should I?’ she mouthed back.

  ‘Because I love you,’ was his mouthy response.

  Her features softened. She shook her head again and opened the window. ‘Henry, what are you doing?’

  ‘I just needed to see you,’ he whispered up to her.

  ‘Right – you’ve seen me, now go.’

  He opened his arms. ‘Need a kiss.’

  ‘Do you know what time it is?’

  ‘Yep. Let me in.’

  ‘What about my parents?’

  ‘I don’t want to kiss them. Be sneaky.’

  Unable to believe she was actually going to do this, she closed the window, pulled the curtains together and disappeared from view. A long minute later the back door opened and she was there in fluffy slippers, a towelling dressing gown over her almost ankle-length nightie.

  Henry surged in, hardly able to contain himself. He took her in his arms and danced her around the kitchen as he kissed her passionately, lips, face, neck, pulling her dressing gown open, his hands finding her lovely breasts over the nightdress material.

  And despite herself and the slightly scary situation, she responded and pulled at his clothes, returned the passion.

  Within moments, Henry’s jeans and underpants were around his ankles, Kate’s dressing gown had been discarded, her nighty pulled up around her midriff. Henry backed her against the oven and she wrapped her legs around him and they made urgent, but quiet, love in the kitchen, Henry holding her up easily.

  They twirled thus engaged around the kitchen bouncing off the appliances, rattling the contents of the fridge, like a ball in a bagatelle gathering points, until both of them reached a stage where they really had to let go. Sensing forthcoming screams and load moans, Henry clamped a hand over Kate’s mouth, she clamped one over his, and so connected, they held each other’s sparkling eyes as they came together in muted silence with Kate’s bare bum perched on the edge of the sink.

  ‘Kate!’

  Suddenly both tensed up at the sound of her father’s voice hollering down from the top of the stairs.

  ‘Kate? Is that you?’

  Passionate stares were replaced by horror tinged with amusement. She called back, ‘Yes, Dad, just getting a glass of water.’

  ‘Are you all right, my love?’

  ‘I’m fine … just needed a bit of something.’

  ‘I thought I heard a crash.’

  ‘It was nothing.’

  ‘OK, love.’

  The lovers, still entwined, waited tensely and silently until they heard a bedroom door click shut. Then they giggled into each other’s shoulders.

  ‘Oh God, Henry.’

  ‘Nothing like living dangerously.’

  Slowly – unwillingly – they disengaged and Henry allowed Kate to stand on her own two feet. They rearranged their clothing and fell into a long, tender embrace before Henry stood back.

  ‘I’d better go,’ he whispered. ‘Got to be back in work by nine … been in all night, too … long day ahead, I think. Things are moving fast.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘But I’ll see you tonight. Pick you up at seven? Let’s go for an Italian at that place on Grane Road.’

  ‘Sounds good.’

  They kissed one more time and Henry stole out of the back door and made his way back to his car, now facing the slight problem of starting it. Henry’s motor was not a discreet car. The exhaust blew. The tappets needed adjusting. He thought that by turning the ignition slowly and bracing himself it would fire up quietly. It didn’t.

  He glanced at Kate’s house.

  She was framed in the downstairs lounge window.

  Directly above her was her father’s thunderous face at a gap in the bedroom curtains.

  ‘Shit,’ Henry said, and with a forced smile and a nice wave, he gunned the Marina away.

  He slept for two hours. Deep, solid, exhausted, dreamless sleep. He made certain he was up in time to shower and then have a decent breakfast, thinking that he would probably be eating rubbish food on the hoof for the rest of the day. He made scrambled eggs on thick toast and had fresh coffee and orange juice. Despite the lack of sleep he was buoyed up for what was to come – getting involved in a big police operation and hopefully catching some very bad men. The prospect thrilled him, not least because h
e’d had a major hand in generating what was to come.

  It was a proud day for him, one which he hoped would be the first stepping stone on his faltering way to CID which had been blocked by his ignominious secondment in Blackburn.

  He found a parking spot in the usual place and made his way on foot to the back of the nick. As he turned into the yard he had to back-pedal a few steps out of the way of a stream of police vehicles hurtling out. A personnel carrier, two plain cars and two liveried cars, all crammed with cops, one behind the other, clearly on a mission.

  Henry watched them all whizz by, his forehead creased, an uncomfortable sensation in the pit of his stomach.

  When the way was clear, he headed into the station.

  Inside, it too was bursting with cops and even a couple of police dogs.

  Something big was going down.

  Increasing Henry’s bad feeling.

  He twisted up the back stairwell and made his way along the corridor to FB’s office. It was empty, but the phone on his desk was ringing continuously.

  Henry’s lips pursed. He pushed himself off the door frame, feeling anger building inside him, and strode to the lecture room that had been converted into the incident room, easing through the door.

  DI Fanshaw-Bayley was sitting at a desk at the far end of the room in his shirt sleeves, tie askew, surrounded by four detectives to whom he was giving instructions, nodding at queries, asking questions. Other detectives worked on the flip charts and a time-line that had been pinned to the wall behind FB. Another detective was working head down at another desk, surrounded by ‘in’, ‘out’ and ‘pending’ trays stacked high with paperwork. Another pair were in deep discussion over some file or another.

  The air had a palpable tingle of excitement to it, but it only served to rile Henry, who was coming to a very clear conclusion as to what was happening.

  He walked slowly across the incident room until he stood behind the detectives milling around FB. He wasn’t really listening to anything that was being said, it was just white noise, kept at bay by the pulse now beating in his ears.

  The detectives, having apparently been briefed, peeled away one by one until just Henry stood in front of FB.

  FB suddenly became engrossed in sifting very important paperwork, reckoning he hadn’t seen Henry at all.