by Nick Oldham
‘See you again.’
‘And you.’
Henry gave him a wide smile, whilst behind his own eyes he wondered what the hell was going on.
‘Starving,’ FB moaned dreadfully, holding his generous stomach. ‘My belly thinks my throat’s been cut.’
Wishful thinking, Henry thought. ‘Why don’t we grab a burger at the Arena? There’s a McDonald’s in the foyer. It’s only just round the corner, walking distance.’
‘Well, I don’t really do fast food,’ the chief said, ‘but I’ll make an exception this time. I’m ravenous.’
They trotted out of the police station, crossed the road and headed towards Manchester Arena.
Just before they turned the corner out of sight of the station, Henry glanced back, his eyes rising quickly to the third floor, where he glimpsed two people at the window he had stood at whilst taking the frantic mobile call from Karen Donaldson. He recognized the two as Detective Superintendent Easton and SPOC.
‘We need to talk,’ he said urgently once they were out of sight.
Easton turned to the detective sergeant, his face grim and worried.
‘Country bumpkins my backside,’ Easton said. ‘We should never, ever have taken on that pillock, Snell. You said he’d be trustworthy.’
‘Thought he would be.’
‘Proved wrong, weren’t you?’ Easton growled. ‘We may be in trouble here . . . Snell just complicates matters so much. It wouldn’t be so bad if it’d just been the inquiry, but Snell as well. It would have helped if he’d been dumped in Greater Manchester, wouldn’t it?’
‘It would,’ the sergeant said, chastened.
‘So what are you going to do about it?’
‘Think of something.’
‘Mmm, like I said,’ Easton muttered, ‘as if we haven’t got enough shit to deal with.’
At McDonald’s there were hordes of young kids knocking about, early arrivals for a later concert by Busted, the in-vogue band of the moment. Henry’s youngest daughter had been hassling him to get tickets for the concert, but Henry had left it too late and they had sold out when he rang. She still had not completely forgiven him yet . . . might never do so.
The expression fixed on FB’s face was something to behold. His discomfort and distaste were both clearly visible from the way in which his mouth was twisted down at both corners as he manoeuvred his way through the kids, hissing through his teeth.
They found a couple of spare chairs and pulled them up to a messed-up table full of discarded food wrappers and plastic cups. They stripped their burgers as though they were uncovering the crown jewels, as opposed to greasy burgers on sloppy sesame buns.
‘How did you get on?’ Henry was first to put a question in.
FB bit hesitantly into his purchase, found it tasted better than anticipated, chomping happily as he replied. ‘Told Easton what my plan was, told him we’d be here next week, told him we’d be thorough but fair, told him not to worry.’
Henry raised his eyebrows and bit into his own burger.
‘But I was lying,’ said FB coldly. He eyed Henry and cocked his own eyebrows. ‘I wanted to get a feel of things, the lie of the land, lull him a bit.’ Henry saw a glint in FB’s eyes, a bit like a hawk homing in on a rat. ‘And first thing I want to do is reopen the investigation into Jackson Hazell’s death, the guy Sweetman is supposed to have murdered.’
‘Good.’ Henry slurped his Fanta Orange. ‘Because I’m certainly not impressed by what I’ve seen so far, and how I’ve been treated. I got given a doctored Intel report on Keith Snell.’
‘Doctored?’
‘Sexed-down, you might say.’
‘Explain.’
‘My SPOC went to the Intel unit for me to dig out Snell’s file – allegedly. When I looked through it, something didn’t seem to gel. We have more Intel on town-centre drunks than they had on Snell, who was a high-volume offender. When I got a chance I snuck down to see an FIO who rooted out Snell’s file for me – which is this.’ He pointed to the paperwork on the messy table. ‘No comparison to what I was given originally. Apparently Mr SPOC was digging around in Snell’s file a few days ago. Don’t exactly know when, but from the sounds of it, it was after his body had been found but before he was identified, i.e. today. Coincidence?’ Henry finished. His face showed grave doubt.
‘Why doctor an Intel file?’
Henry shook his head, swigged his juice. ‘Who knows? I can only speculate at this stage, but I feel queasy about it.’
‘What’s your next move?’
‘I thought you were the chief?’
‘And you’re one of the fuckin’ Indians – don’t forget that.’
‘OK – two things. Firstly I’d like to go round and grab Snell’s current bit of stuff. She doesn’t live that far from here. I’d like to break the news to her that her loved one’s dead – if she doesn’t already know, that is. Then I want to pin some tough questions on her, but not round here. Somewhere where I feel safe and secure, because I think we need to start thinking safety first from now.’ He held up a hand. ‘Not that I want to be over-dramatic, you understand.’
‘No, I agree,’ FB said.
‘And then I want to get to Blackpool. There’s someone there I need to talk to urgently . . . so,’ he went on hesitantly, ‘if you’ve got the time, I’d like to do both this evening and then I want an emergency briefing at eight tomorrow because I think things are going to go skywards from now on.’
‘Well, you’re driving, Henry, so I’m in your capable hands.’
Sweetman and Mendoza embraced, kissed cheeks, but there was no warmth in the greeting, even when they held each other at arm’s length and regarded each other with smiles. They were the brittle expressions of two men under pressure, two men who did not totally trust each other, but needed each other.
Lopez stood back, just behind his boss, whilst Grant, Sweetman’s solicitor, assumed a similar position at Sweetman’s shoulder. Jackman and Cromer hovered by the door of the hotel suite, watching the meet with unease.
Informalities over, Mendoza said, ‘You and I need to speak – privately.’
‘Urgently,’ Sweetman agreed. He glanced at his three employees and jerked his thumb. Mendoza nodded at Lopez, who acknowledged the implicit order to leave with a smart click of his heels and an OTT nod of his own. The four men withdrew, leaving the main men to their business.
‘Do you wish to freshen up from the flight?’ Sweetman asked cordially. ‘Best hotel in Manchester, this – Jacuzzi, power shower – your choice.’
‘A two-hour flight is nothing.’ Mendoza gestured to the tray of food and drinks on the table. ‘This will suffice. We need to get talking. I feel that time is running out and we need to act quickly.’
Grant and Lopez moved together out of the room and along the corridor, trotting down the stairs to the hotel bar. They remained silent, aware of the presence of Jackman and Cromer, who were following them. Once in the bar, Grant bought a bottle of red wine and the two of them retreated to a table in the corner. Passing Jackman and Cromer, Grant said, ‘You need to keep on your toes, boys . . . those two guys upstairs need good protection.’ He winked, clicked his tongue, then walked on before either could respond.
The expressions on the faces of Grant and Lopez remained impassive, serious, non-committal. They spoke only a few sentences, their eyes constantly on guard for Jackman and Cromer. They did not have to wait long, actually, before the professional instincts of the two men kicked in and they quit the bar.
‘At last,’ gasped Grant.
Lopez took a long swig of his wine, wiped his mouth and smiled. ‘Much better than the shit grown by Mendoza,’ he said.
‘Things are moving on,’ Grant said.
‘Si.’
‘The question is, my friend, how do we manage everything from now on?’
Lopez shrugged. ‘We will find a way.’ He touched his glass on to Grant’s, making a nice, ringing chink. ‘One thing for sure is that ou
r two glorious bosses are now in very deep . . . what? Shite, you say in the north of England.’
‘Exactly – shite.’
‘And our time is about to come.’
‘I don’t know.’ Sweetman paced the suite. ‘My best men have been out investigating in the only way they know how, and they have uncovered nothing. No one knows anything.’
‘Soon the drugs will begin to seep into the market, then we might start getting names,’ Mendoza said. ‘But,’ he went on dourly, ‘that is no good for you.’ His words hung in the air. ‘That will be too late and it will be impossible to recover the drugs, even though you may be able to exact some revenge.’
‘We need to help each other, here,’ Sweetman said.
‘Up to a point.’ Mendoza’s words held danger. There were no circumstances in which he would ever truly reveal his own financial predicament. ‘I am the wholesaler, you are the retailer, we are in business and we need to support each other to achieve profitability. That is how we survive. I want you to recover the drugs, truly I do. Because if you don’t, you are a dead man.’
Henry Christie and Robert Fanshaw-Bayley concluded their McDonald’s delicacies with a large coffee each, which both found good and strong and which gave them each an injection of energy. They threaded their way out through the increasing mass of kids at the Arena and walked back to the police station to collect the car.
They chatted almost amiably.
‘What’s it like being chief constable, then?’
‘Not so bad, really. Lot of dealing with bullshit politicians; the people from the Home Office are a particular set of twats, and I seem to be sitting on a hundred national working groups, never seem to get enough time in force, but I’m going to change that. I’m going to pull out of some of the groups, particularly those dealing with sexism and racism, because they bore the crap out of me. Equality this, equality that – fuck!’
Henry chuckled. He knew FB was a racist and a sexist deep down, but had the wonderful ability to disguise both traits when necessary, though he had recently been taken to an employment tribunal from a sexism case going back over seven years. He had emerged unscathed, poohing of roses.
‘Do you really miss being a hands-on jack?’
‘Sometimes, but I do get the odd occasion when I can get a grip again, such as this investigation, so I haven’t lost it completely.’
Settling back into the front seats of Henry’s Mondeo, they set off, driving out under the raised barrier of the police-station car park. Both men glanced up at the building.
‘Shenanigans,’ Henry said.
FB nodded. ‘Shenanigans.’
Sixteen
The estate had one of the worst reputations for violence and intimidation in the country. Situated less than two miles from Manchester city centre, it was a warren of alleyways, a 1970s dream become a nightmare as employment plummeted, minority ethnic populations increased and the trade in drugs went right off the Richter scale – and the cops lost control.
‘Shit,’ FB said nervously, his wary eyes taking it all in: the deprivation, the dilapidation, the suspicion and anger on the faces of everyone on the street. ‘You can cut the tension with a knife.’
Henry gripped the wheel tighter, the palms of his hands damp. He felt very vulnerable. The car might as well have had a big pointy finger hovering over it accompanied by the word ‘Cops’ in bright lights. He had heard horrific stories about this particular area, where, though it would be strenuously denied, the police often feared to tread unless en masse and tooled-up to the eyeballs.
‘Makes Shoreside look like Palm Beach,’ Henry observed, suddenly jamming his brakes on as a big, dreadlocked black guy walked purposely in front of the car – then stopped in his tracks. The bonnet was only inches from the man’s legs. He glared defiantly at the two officers, rolling the whites of his eyes dramatically, daring them to do something.
On the roadside, others began to gather. Lots of teenagers, mostly black, some white faces in amongst them. There was a combination of laughter, sneers and jeers.
‘You got a radio?’ FB said through the side of his mouth.
‘Uh-uh,’ Henry replied.
‘My arse is twitching, half-crown, thrupenny bit.’
Henry wound his window down, slowly poked his head out and spoke to the man obstructing the highway. ‘Can you tell me where Sumpter Close is, please?’ He tried to keep the nervousness out of his voice, tried to inflect a certain jollity into the tone. The black man shrugged. ‘Please,’ Henry added.
The man shook his head, dreadlocks swinging like a maypole.
Another moment of pure, unadulterated tension passed. Then, slowly, the man moved to one side.
Once, during the riots of the early 1980s. Henry had been on duty in Toxteth, Merseyside, part of a mutual-aid contingent from Lancashire supporting their colleagues in Liverpool. He and a small number of other officers had become detached from the main crew and found that their return to safety had been cut off by a gang of stone-throwing, brick-lobbing individuals. The officers had been trapped for about twenty minutes, only a short time in the history of the world, but it had terrified Henry as petrol bombs, bricks and everything else rained down. Another few minutes and they would have succumbed. Henry often shivered at the thought of what might have happened. They were saved by the appearance of another police unit which scattered the rioters. He knew what it was like to be caught by people who wanted to see you dead and he could easily have seen it happening here on the streets of twenty-first-century Manchester. He would have been quite prepared to take drastic action if necessary, but it did not come to that. Not tonight. Maybe the populace was feeling relatively chilled that evening.
Henry drove smartly past with a smile and a wave of thanks.
The man grinned pleasantly.
‘I take it back,’ FB breathed. ‘I’d rather be on a national working group supporting the rights of gays.’
Henry, too, puffed out a breath, his heart hammering.
‘Is this a good idea?’
Henry did not reply. He drove on and eventually found the close he was looking for, fortunately stuck right on the outer perimeter of the estate, away from the core. He pulled up outside the address, looked round carefully. The close was fairly quiet, seemed safe enough.
‘It’s up on that landing, I reckon.’ He peered up through the screen to a first-floor concrete run outside a row of council flats. ‘You staying with the car?’
‘Up to you,’ FB pouted.
‘Might as well . . . but then again, we’d be split up.’
FB shrugged. ‘We’re big boys.’
‘Five minutes ago we were vulnerable boys.’
‘True.’
‘But I would like to come back to four wheels and an engine.’
‘I’ll stay here and car watch, then.’
Henry got out and walked toward the stairwell leading up to the first floor. Typical steps. Blood. Vomit. Needles. He stepped over the obstacles and emerged on to the landing. Number twelve he wanted. The door numbers rose one at a time, starting at eight. He glanced over the balcony and could see FB in the Mondeo, seat reclined, fingers clasped across his chest like some sort of Buddha. Henry gave him a short wave of acknowledgement. Nothing came back from the chief.
He arrived at twelve, stopped outside the door and inspected it. It had been forced open fairly recently. Wood was splintered around the lock and the door itself was insecure. This made him pause before carefully toeing the door open with the tip of his shoe. It swung open easily, revealing a vestibule, the inner door of which was ajar. He stepped inside, elbowed the inner door open wider and looked into the living room. It was in darkness. He reached to his right and, using his fingernail, flicked on the light switch. Like the steps he had just climbed, the living room was stereotypical of hundreds of similar council flats he had entered over the years. Cheap, stick-like furniture, a second-hand settee, huge TV with video and DVD player – and that unmistakable council-fl
at aroma: a combination of mustiness, dope and the toilet.
‘Grace,’ he called softly. ‘Grace? Are you here?’ His voice rose a little. ‘Grace – it’s the police. I’ve come to talk to you about Keith.’
His voice projected into an empty space. He set foot into the living room proper, his experienced eyes taking in everything. He moved through into the kitchen and this is where he stopped abruptly when he flicked that light on.
The kitchen looked as though a snow plough had been through it, destroying everything in its path. A kitchen table had been broken into matchsticks, two chairs smashed beyond repair. The kettle lay on the floor surrounded by the smashed remains of cups, plates and other crockery. And on the linoleum floor was a browny-red swatch of congealed blood. It was splashed all over the lower cupboards, flicked everywhere under two or three feet. There had been a terrific fight here and someone had been badly assaulted. To Henry, veteran of many crime scenes, it looked as though someone had had their head kicked in.
He took it all in, his mind already hypothesizing what had happened.
Behind him he heard a click.
He spun, then froze.
‘Put your fucking hands up!’ the man with the gun said.
Henry’s arms rose slowly, because pointed directly at his chest was a handgun which he recognized as a Luger. It looked an old gun, probably sixty years old, but nevertheless he did as instructed. Old guns were just as capable of killing as new ones.
‘I’m a cop,’ Henry said. His eyes moved beyond the fixation on the weapon to the man holding it. He was smallish, squat, dressed from head to foot in a camouflage gear, a green balaclava pulled down over his face with two eyeholes and a mouth hole.
‘What’re you doing here?’ the figure demanded. The gun did not waver, remained steady, pointing at Henry’s breastbone.
‘I’ve come to see Grace.’
‘Why?’ It was a sharp demand.
‘That’s between me and her.’
‘Wrong answer.’
‘It’s the only one you’re getting.’
‘I’ll shoot you . . . this gun is loaded and ready to fire.’