Psycho Alley

by Nick Oldham

  ‘I want everyone out into the corridor.’ He turned. No one had moved. They were lined up behind him like actors in a farce. ‘Out,’ he ordered, ‘and keep away from the door.’

  One by one they left, albeit with reluctance, though none questioned him. Once he was sure they were gone, he crossed to the bedroom door and touched it: warm. He bent low, reached for the handle and turned it, knowing the possible consequences of opening the door. He’d seen enough episodes of London’s Burning to know that fanning the flames with an input of oxygen could result in a fireball.

  ‘Is there a fire extinguisher out there?’ he called.

  ‘Not a chance in hell,’ came the response.

  ‘OK, here goes,’ he yelled.

  Then, all caution to the wind, he threw the door open, stood quickly to one side just in case there was a backdraft, knowing in his mind that if there was, he’d be fried, but also believing in the naïve way that human beings do, that he would be quick enough to save himself.

  Flames did lick out of the door momentarily, but died back almost immediately. He waited for a second blast – none came – before peering into the room, fully expecting his clothes to be burned off.

  It was a bedroom, and the bed itself had been pulled into the centre of the room and was almost encircled in flame which rose from the carpet. The body of a man sprawled untidily across the single, metal-framed camp bed. Henry’s torch beam played across the figure from head to toe, finally resting on the man’s ghastly face through the flames – the very dead face of George Uren.

  ‘Shit,’ he uttered.

  Then there was a crack, like a bullet going off, making Henry duck instinctively, and more flames began to rise from beside the body. This was followed by another crack, then flames, then two more until the body was amass with fire, like a funeral pyre.

  ‘Incendiaries,’ Henry shouted. This time he threw caution to the wind, pulled the corner of his jacket over his nose and mouth and dived into the room, stepping through the gap in the flames and sweeping the four recently-ignited devices off the bed with his torch. They landed on the floor, breaking up as they hit, flames scattering across the carpet like mini firecrackers.

  ‘Get in here,’ he screamed, then began dancing like a maniac as he attempted to stamp out some of the less nasty-looking flames, ‘but don’t turn the lights on … Ow! Ow!’ he yelled as the heat penetrated the soles of his Marks & Spencer slip-ons, footwear not designed for walking on hot coals.

  Jane and two PCs crowded urgently into the room and began a stamping dance with him, then two more PCs barged in with fire extinguishers they’d sourced from somewhere. ‘Out the way, out the way,’ they shouted and started using them, spray going everywhere.

  Within moments, they had done the trick, amazingly.

  ‘OK, OK,’ Henry coughed, smoke now being the problem, lots of it. ‘Well done, folks, well done.’

  Debbie Black appeared at the door. She reached for a light switch, her forefinger only centimetres away before Henry bellowed ‘NO!’ at her, possibly louder than he had ever shouted. She froze instantly. ‘Don’t switch on the lights,’ he said through gritted teeth, teetering on the edge. ‘Just don’t,’ he added almost irrationally. Then he calmed down. ‘Not until they’ve been checked, OK … just fuckin’ leave ’em, OK?’ He was terrified that the light bulbs could have been tampered with in some way, maybe injected with petrol, primed to explode when the light was switched on. Paranoid, maybe, but he’d taken enough chances for tonight. ‘Right,’ he went on, ‘I want everyone, except Jane, to go out of the flat. Retrace your steps and get out, please.’ The two bobbies holding their fire extinguishers looked affronted. ‘Thanks for coming to my assistance,’ Henry said to them, ‘but this is a murder scene.’

  To reinforce his words, he shone his torch into George Uren’s dead face and then allowed it to linger on the deep, jagged cut under the chin where his throat had been sliced open and a gaping, horrendous gash smiled grimly at him.

  Eight

  Henry’s neck cracked as he raised his chin, rolled his head and tried to ease some of the tension in his shoulder and neck muscles. He gave himself a minor shoulder massage, feeling stiff all over, exhausted all over, and wondered why he did this shitty job.

  He was standing on the street outside the block which contained Uren’s flat, There was some satisfaction gained by looking at the police and fire brigade activity which had awoken nearly every resident in the vicinity, the old adage ‘If I’m awake, you sods can be too’ spinning through his brain, though he knew this was just him being cranky.

  The whole building and the ones either side had been evacuated just in case there were more devices to be discovered which might not yet have ignited. Two had actually been found underneath Uren’s bed, a good find, valuable evidence.

  As the building was declared safe, residents were allowed back into their homes, and the CSIs, Scientific Support and the Home Office pathologist began detailed work up at the scene, a place from which Henry had done a runner for a breath of fresh air, and a coffee if he could find one.

  A car turned into the street, Henry recognizing it immediately. Anger’s Shogun with personalized plates. Henry’s heart did a little sag. The car pulled in behind a fire engine and the occupant got out, marching purposefully toward Henry who, for a fleeting moment, thought of diving for cover behind a wall. His indecision meant he was captured. Dave Anger collared him, the man he loved most in life.

  ‘Henry,’ Anger called. ‘Hot briefing, please – if you’ll pardon the pun.’

  ‘Er,’ Henry hesitated, looking around.

  ‘There’ll do.’ Anger pointed to the Support Unit personnel carrier parked away up the street, just the driver on board. He pushed past Henry, who turned into his slipstream like a little puppy and followed. Anger ousted the driver and the duo had the bus to themselves, sitting between riot shields, helmets and assorted kit bags. Henry took a seat by the door, sliding it shut. ‘What’ve you got?’ Anger demanded, though he knew quite well what Henry had because he’d been briefed in detail over the phone. However, Henry wasn’t going to argue. Didn’t have the time and was too tired.

  He took a breath. ‘Basically, acting on information obtained from Percy Pearson – the guy who stuck a knife in Rik Dean earlier – we came to this address and started working our way through the flats until we eventually found Uren. He was as dead as a dodo, throat cut, knifed in the chest and stomach, though not long dead. He was on a single bed in the middle of the bedroom, surrounded by several incendiary devices, some on the floor, some on the bed itself. Some went off, others didn’t – which is good for us. Obviously the plan was to destroy as much evidence as possible by fire, and it nearly worked. As it is, we’ve got Uren’s body almost untouched by the fire, and these incendiary devices.’

  ‘Suspects?’ barked Anger.

  Henry shrugged. ‘Probably the guy who was in the Astra with him … maybe … dunno yet.’

  ‘And we don’t have a clue who he is?’ Anger said impatiently.

  ‘Not as yet.’

  ‘So where does this leave the murder investigation into the young girl in the back of the Astra?’

  ‘With one unknown suspect still outstanding and the girl yet to be identified, which we hope to achieve later today based on the DNA swabs obtained from some people in Harrogate.’

  ‘Square One, in other words,’ Anger said unfairly.

  Henry bristled and held Anger’s gaze for a moment. ‘The girl’s body was discovered in the early hours of Saturday morning, it’s now the early hours of Monday morning and we’ve made significant progress, so, come on, give it to me.’ He flicked his fingers as though inciting Anger into a brawl. ‘What the fuck have I done? I’ve asked you before, but now I want to know.’

  Anger reached across and opened the carrier door, moving across Henry and dropping out on to the pavement. He leaned back in. ‘Just catch that murderer, OK?’ He slammed the door shut and strutted away, leaving
Henry speechless.

  Henry opened the door and slid out, rubbing his eyes. One thing was for sure: once this murder scene had been tied up, he was leaving some bugger else in charge and going home to bed, whether or not there was a murderer still on the loose.

  Under the very pressurized circumstances, Henry was amazed he managed to get five hours sleep, a period of time that successfully recharged his batteries. He did continue to ache all over, as though he was coming down with some bug or other; the leg which had been glanced by the Astra was very sore and his face had turned a nasty shade of green underneath his eye. But he wasn’t going to let the small matters of serious physical injuries and illnesses deflect him from his tasks.

  The briefing at Blackpool central was fairly quick, and even though there was much to do following the discovery of Uren’s body, Henry did his best to delegate every task, from attendance at the post mortem (even though he would also be attending it) to crime scene management. Tempting as it was to try and get involved in everything, he knew that he had to take a big step back and, where possible, keep to a management role. His troops were professionals and he knew he had to trust them to complete their tasks. The investigation was becoming too complex for him to get involved in anything other than what an SIO would be expected to do.

  When the team had dispersed – a team now larger and more unwieldy that ever, after that morning’s influx of new blood – Henry scuttled away to his office where he began to make some notes in order to make sense of where he was at. He wrote out bullet points in no particular order of importance.

  Initial job / flasher / indecent assault / kidnap / Could this be Uren? Or are they unconnected incidents?

  Percy Pearson – how much does he really know?

  Dead girl? Harrogate? Visit parents if ID matches. Shit!

  Uren – keep digging into background / who is his best mate?

  Revisit bail hostel in Accy. Ms Harcourt. Is she hiding something? Why do I think this?

  Rik Dean – keep track with his progress. Welfare issues?

  XXXX – Who was with Uren? Need to find. Priority 1.

  Who uses incendiaries? Unusual MO / Circulate far and wide? FBI? Karl?

  Other abductions in other forces? Circulate.

  He took a breather, knowing this would only be the beginning of a list which would ultimately translate into actions – and these were just his own jottings. He would have to sit down with Jane and Debbie – and Dave Anger – and others, to carry out a massive brain dump. There was no way he could even think of not including them in this process, because this was a team thing and he had to be seen to be running the job as head of a team, not as some maverick individual operating on hunches and luck. And the sooner that process began, the better. He picked up his phone and called a few people.

  By midday he was at force headquarters at Hutton, four miles south of Preston, entering the FMIT building on the campus. Formerly a residential block for students attending the Training Centre, it had been snaffled and converted into offices for what was the SIO team, now FMIT. He entered and made his way to the first floor, passing his old office and hoping to find Dave Anger in his at the end of the corridor.

  Anger’s office was empty. He could well have been at lunch either at the Training Centre or at HQ, or in some meeting. Henry paused at the door, slightly deflated. He had been hoping to get Anger to authorize an even bigger pool of detectives for the investigation, something Anger had the power to swing at superintendent level. He needed to get into the ribs of the divisional commanders to release more of their staff, because Henry felt he needed more bodies, pronto.

  He lingered at the door, weighing up his next move. His stomach made the decision for him: a sandwich from the canteen accompanied by an Eccles cake probably … but first … he stepped into Anger’s office and sat down at the desk, intending to write a post-it note … then his eyes locked on to a couple of family photographs on the desk top.

  He reached across. One was a wedding photo in a frame, Anger and his bride; one of those typical 70s shots, all flared trousers, sideburns and hair like a Roman emperor. Anger had looked pretty good in those days, actually, a bit of a stud. Henry looked at the bride and thought she looked familiar, but could not place her. He replaced the photo, swivelled in the chair and looked at another framed photo on the bookshelf behind the desk. This was a class photograph from Bruche, the Regional Police Training Centre, near Warrington, circa August 1978.

  Working on that timescale, Henry guessed Anger could possibly have been in the recruit intake just ahead of him. Henry had gone to Bruche as a raw sprog in September 1978. He did not recall Anger from those days, but it was not unusual not to know other people, especially from other forces. In those halcyon days, Bruche had big intakes, hundreds of students coming and going through the doors following the Edmund Davies review of policing which had hiked up police pay and attracted many willing fools to the job, Henry being one. There was about thirty young, impressionable officers in Anger’s class photo who wanted to be coppers. Three rows of them and three class instructors in the middle of the front row. ‘Q Class’.

  Henry chuckled: good, simple days, when being a young cop was great fun.

  There were few females in the intakes, unlike the present day. The majority were white, male and overtly heterosexual – and Bruche had been a hotbed of sex; just a few girls to go round – and certainly no gays, at least none who took the risk of being identified.

  Henry scanned the faces. He spotted Anger, boyish, smiling, confident and a bit of a looker. There were a couple of Lancashire officers Henry knew, still in the job, one a DI over in Pennine Division who was a big mate of Anger’s and who Anger wanted on FMIT. He looked at the other faces and recognized one of the girls, a lass from Merseyside; the name he could not recall, but the body he could. One of three conquests he had made at Bruche, all short-lived flings, but great memories. The one in the photo he recalled seducing – or was it the other way round? – on a disco night; she’d dared him to take her on the bonnet of the commandant’s car, and he had not been able to resist. His bum shone brightly in the moonlight that night.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ he shivered at the thought. If he’d been caught it would have ended his police career there and then.

  He replaced the photo, and smiling broadly, left the FMIT building. Outside, underneath the trees in the grounds of the training centre, he saw a dead squirrel on a grass bank near to an oak tree. Some wag had put a half-smoked cigarette into its mouth, making Henry giggle out loud.

  He was still chuckling when his mobile rang, but he checked himself when he looked at the display and saw who was calling him.

  ‘Hi John, how are you?’

  ‘I’m good, Henry.’ It was John Briscoe, a forensic submissions officer who must have been calling from a distance of no more than a hundred metres. His office was in the Pavilion Building close by, recently built to house the Serious and Organized Crime Squad and Scientific Support. Briscoe worked for the latter, dealing with all submissions requiring forensic analysis. The DNA swabs taken from the family in Harrogate as well as those from the dead girl had gone through him.

  ‘Got something for me?’ Henry asked tentatively.

  Briscoe paused. ‘I have – we fast tracked the DNA swabs from the murder victim and those taken from the family in Harrogate – and did a dental comparison.’

  Henry waited, a curious charge in his guts, knowing what Briscoe was going to say.

  ‘It’s a match,’ Briscoe confirmed. ‘The dead girl is the daughter of the woman in Harrogate. Your victim has been identified.’

  ‘Thanks, John, thanks,’ said Henry, glad on the one hand that things were moving on, sad on the other for the family in Harrogate who were about to be devastated.

  Henry had no choice in the matter. Visiting the next of kin of victims was a given for an SIO, probably the worst job that had to be done, but maybe the most important. Many SIOs believed that catching the offender was the
be-all and end-all of the role, and whilst this was vital, the police relationship with the victim’s family was more crucial even than that, and Henry was not about to shirk this responsibility. He briefly toyed with the idea of asking the local DI at Harrogate to do the job, but dismissed this almost instantly. He was the one who had to be the bearer of the news, even though the family were already primed for the worst – and then he had to set up a full incident room in Harrogate. What fun that would be, he though wryly. Cross-border shenanigans between forces were always a nightmare.

  His biggest problem was who to take with him on the hundred-and-forty-mile return trip. It had to be either Jane or Debbie, because they had already formed a relationship with the dead girl’s family and Henry needed a bridge into their world before he completely and utterly destroyed it forever.

  Jane or Debbie? A real conundrum.

  He’d had an affair with Jane which had ended acrimoniously – and boy, was she intent on never letting him forget that! He did his best to avoid her as much as possible because he didn’t really trust her, as he suspected her to be in league with Shark Man. He actually thought they were having an affair at one point, but now he just believed they were out to get him for their own individual reasons. So a two-hour journey to Harrogate, plus whatever time it took to deal with the family, then a two-hour return did not really appeal, coward that he was.

  Nor did the prospect of a substantial time spent with Debbie Black really tickle his fancy. Fortunately he hadn’t had an affair with her, but they’d had a smoky clinch or two, which had been awfully nice, and she’d made it clear that she had hots for him, which had been sizzling away for most of her career. But he guessed she was an emotional basket-case. Dangerous territory. And at a time when he was doing his utmost to stay on the straight and narrow, to have a straightforward life watching his (yet to be acquired) plasma screen TV with wireless surround-sound. Unfortunately, he was often quite weak when it came to the opposite sex and was walking proof of the truth in the old adage ‘a standing cock has no conscience’.