by Nick Oldham
Once again he had time alone; time to consider just how radically his life had been turned upside down.
On the stroke of 8.30 a.m. the gates at Risley remand centre were flung open to release a convoy of police vehicles. Lancashire’s force helicopter hovered above.
They were scheduled to arrive, all being well, at Lancaster Castle approximately one hour later. This would leave ample time for the prisoner to be given his new cell at Lancaster prison, confer with his lawyer and prepare himself for his court appearance.
The hooded figure of a police marksman in a dark green combat-style anorak patrolled the battlements of the medieval castle. He was equipped with his personally issued, personally adjusted sniper’s rifle and a pair of high-powered binoculars. He paced the ramparts slowly, policeman’s pace, keeping an ever-vigilant eye on the scene below. Pausing briefly to talk to a similarly dressed and armed colleague, he pointed to something in the distance across the rooftops of Lancaster. Both men put their binoculars to their eyes. It was nothing to worry about. Moments later they resumed their beats.
Down at street level, all the approaches to the castle were covered and kept under constant police surveillance. Dozens of uniformed officers, some with dogs, either patrolled the streets or maintained strategic static points.
Many of these officers were armed too, handguns hidden as discreetly as possible in hip-holsters covered by their tunics. So that the weapons could be drawn quickly if necessary, the tunics were fastened with Velcro strips rather than buttons. Each officer was well practised in flipping up his tunic with one hand and drawing with the other before bouncing down into a firing position, weapon aimed and ready.
High-ranking officers with tense faces paced nervously around, checking and re-checking their Constables and Sergeants, keeping them on their toes, never allowing their watchfulness to waver.
The Chief Inspector from Lancaster had already had just about enough of Chief Superintendent Fanshaw-Bayley that morning. Despite constant reassurances that everything had been covered, FB mithered and moaned, and was getting on the Chief Inspector’s nerves.
Fortunately the Superintendent was called back to the station, giving the other officer some much-needed relief and an opportunity to have one last slow look around the perimeter of the building and then check inside the courtroom itself, which had already been searched several times by specially trained teams.
Near the entrance to the Crown Court, which, paradoxically, was at the rear of the castle, three Portakabins with eighteen telephone lines had been installed for press use. TV companies were setting up transmitting equipment. Press men and women mixed with TV reporters, comparing notes. Every national British newspaper was represented, as well as all the radio and TV companies. There were also many American journalists and TV companies present to cover the trial, which was expected to last a month and had caused a storm in the States.
The Chief Inspector walked past the melee of media, many of whom had arrived several days before and checked into hotel rooms which had been pre-booked for several months.
There was an expectant, circus-like atmosphere amongst them.
At the Crown Court entrance, more armed officers were on duty. The muzzles of their revolvers poked out from beneath the hems of their tunics.
Public access to the building had been restricted and everyone entering the court was searched three times: once manually, twice electronically. Even the Chief Inspector.
The officer submitted to the search with dignity and patience, scanning the entrance foyer as the searches progressed.
Here the presence of armed officers was less subtle.
Two officers from the district firearms team lurked at the back of the room. They were dressed in their dark blue work overalls, complete with Kevlar body armour and ski caps. Holstered pistols hung at their sides. One had an MP5 machine pistol slung casually across his chest; the other had a pump action shotgun held firmly across hers, loaded with heavy shot capable of smashing a car engine block to pieces or bringing down a charging bull elephant.
Both officers looked sinister.
Once the searches were over, the Chief Inspector walked through the court. Because of the showpiece nature of the trial, it was being held in the Shire Hall, possibly one of the most magnificent courtrooms in the country. Built in a neo-Gothic style with a high vaulted ceiling, its inner walls decorated with one of the largest collections of heraldic shields in the world, it was an ideal setting, steeped in tradition and legend.
The Chief Inspector looked round the room.
Two PCs patrolled it. They were unarmed. The High Court Judge who was presiding over the trial had been consulted and had stipulated that armed police officers would not be allowed into her courtroom, no matter what the apparent threat was. No amount of reasoned argument from the police could shake her.
The Chief Inspector consulted her watch. 8.45 a.m. Something should be happening.
Suddenly the personal radio crackled into life.
On a cue from the force control room, officers in reflective jackets strode out into road junctions and stopped all traffic. Lancaster city centre came to a standstill.
A chauffeur-driven car escorted by police motorcycle outriders threaded its way through the streets, past the stationary traffic and up to the castle, parting at the entrance to the Crown Court.
Already decked out in wig and robes, the High Court Judge stepped out of the back of the car, accompanied by the High Sheriff of Lancashire. Smiling affably, posing momentarily for the media, she walked into one of England’s most secure courthouses and gaols.
The police officers on guard around the castle breathed a sigh of relief. That was the first hurdle over with. At least the Judge had arrived alive, safe and well.
The Chief Inspector smiled with a trace of triumph. Time for breakfast.
She left the court and made her way on foot towards the police station which was on the other side of town.
For the first time in six months, Karen Wilde felt reasonably content with herself and life in general. She was back in the land of the living, instead of that dazed state of rape trauma which seemed to dog her every hour, asleep or awake. There was light at the end of the tunnel at last.
Yet she also felt slightly nervous.
Karl Donaldson was listed as one of the essential prosecution witnesses and it was very likely that they would meet at some stage. After all, she was in charge of the security operation at the castle and she would be in attendance every day the trial was running.
She wondered if he actually wanted to see her again. She knew for sure she wanted to see him.
By 9 a.m. the prison escort was already on the M6, travelling north, passing the Preston exit, the helicopter overhead all the time, watchful like a kestrel.
On the opposite carriageway was the site where Hinksman’s car bomb had exploded; now repaired, the road surface bore no sign of the devastation of that day.
High up on the grass banking though, someone had erected a stone cross which was surrounded by bunches of flowers of remembrance to the people who had lost their lives. Motorists often stopped illegally and dashed from their cars up the grass to drop off wreaths or bouquets. The motorway police turned a blind eye to this practice.
The escort was moving at a good pace.
At its centre was the ‘prison bus’ — a Leyland Sherpa personnel carrier with a 3.5-litre engine, easily capable of sustaining 90 mph, as it was doing that morning. The inside of the van, behind the front seats, was an inbuilt cage made of steel. Inside this sat Hinksman and two police officers. He was handcuffed. The officers were unarmed. He had not spoken during the journey so far, but had been compliant.
At the very rear of the van there was a space between the end of the holding cage and the back doors, in which a bench seat had been installed. Two armed officers sat there, one having the key to the door.
There were two people up front, driver and passenger.
Four other veh
icles formed the escort. All high-powered, unmarked police cars, but fitted with blue flashing lights set into their front grilles and blue lights on the rear window ledges.
Two were at the front of the Sherpa, two at the rear.
They literally forced their way through the traffic, while at the same time preventing any other vehicle from passing by ruthlessly blocking any overtaking manoeuvre — just on the off-chance it might be a hostile act. It was textbook security escort driving and these officers had it off to perfection.
Two hundred metres behind the escort was a Mercedes saloon car being driven by Lenny Dakin. He drove with one hand on the wheel, the other holding a voice-activated tape-recorder. He spoke continually into the machine, recording his thoughts and observations all the while.
This was a recce run to see how it was all handled by the cops.
It worried him. They were good. Very professional, taking it all very seriously indeed. ‘Shit,’ he swore into the tape, not for the first time.
He realised he had a hell of a task ahead of him and that he hadn’t yet formulated an action plan to carry it out. And there would only be one chance after this morning.
They were now north of the Blackpool turn-off.
Suddenly the escort veered sharply out towards the fast lane, from the middle lane which it had been hogging.
A second later Dakin saw the reason why: some fool in a clapped-out motor had been day dreaming and forgotten to look in his mirrors. Without warning he had pulled out into the middle lane from the slow lane, causing all manner of chaos.
No accident happened.
The man in the car panicked when he realised the problem and swerved back into the slow lane. Within a matter of seconds the escort was past him.
A few moments later Dakin passed him too.
Dakin stayed with the escort all the way. It wasn’t difficult to be inconspicuous as there was a fairly substantial build-up of traffic behind the police cars and being part of it drew no attention to him. They came off at Junction 33, south of Lancaster.
From here they headed north up the A6, through the small town of Galgate, past the university and into Lancaster itself. Obviously warned by radio, the cops in Lancaster had ensured that all traffic was running in favour of the escort. They sailed through town and up to the castle where the prison doors were opened and the prison bus drove in.
Hinksman had been delivered with only the whisper of a hitch And Lenny Dakin had decided how he was going to get him out.
Henry Christie swore out loud as he looked in his rearview mirror and realised what he’d done. Lost in his thoughts, he’d allowed his Metro to drift unexpectedly across to the middle lane; the ear-shattering sound of sirens confirmed he’d landed slap-bang in front of a police escort which was conveying a prisoner and didn’t intend to take any more.
He yanked his steering wheel down to the left and waved an embarrassed apology as the escort sped past him. The cop in the front passenger seat of the Sherpa indicated to Henry that he thought he was a dickhead. Henry didn’t really disagree.
He looked into the rear of the Sherpa, but the smoked side windows prevented him from seeing anything other than vague, indistinct shadows inside. But he knew it was Hinksman. He was glad to see they weren’t taking any chances with the bastard.
When settled back into the slow lane, he tried to concentrate more so as not to be a danger to other road-users.
He failed to spot Lenny Dakin’s Merc sigh past him.
Henry’s mind gradually returned to his previous thoughts, but this time he managed to keep his car on track.
He tried to pinpoint where it had all begun to go wrong, but couldn’t exactly put his finger on it. It was all too recent for him to dissect it analytically, though he often tried.
There was one thing for certain — he had made a complete fuck-up of his personal life and career, and they were both presently in one tangled, horrible mess that even Ariadne herself couldn’t have unravelled.
On that first night of the murder enquiry he’d gone to Natalie’s and ended up staying over. When her alarm had gone off at seven, he’d dashed home for a quick wash and a change of clothes, and given an open-mouthed Kate some lame excuse which she obviously didn’t believe.
He had lied to her. Maybe that was the real start of it all. With a lie to someone he’d never lied to before.
From that point his home-life began to crack.
Lie followed lie, deceit followed deception, until his head was spinning and his emotions were in such a turmoil he might as well have had his head in a spin-drier.
Yet lying became easy. The words tripped glibly off his tongue, and it all seemed so straightforward. In the space of several days he was’ convinced he’d fallen in love with a young woman he hardly knew, other than carnally. And he’d fallen out of love with his wife whom he’d known since school and always regarded as his friend, confidante and lover.
The children became a dead weight around his shoulders. He had no time for them at all and they began to suffer too. They avoided him if at all possible.
He eventually began to hate going home.
Everything that was so familiar to him became despised.
He was in love with Natalie. A new woman in his life. A new impetus. And she loved him, her hero, wanted him, needed him, wanted to be his wife.
The sex was brilliant, like no other he’d ever experienced. He was swimming in a sea of sensuality with Natalie, caught up in a tide, drowning. They couldn’t get enough of each other. Every time they looked at each other they wanted to fuck. It overpowered him. Drove him.
He began to use the murder enquiry as an excuse for not going home. He was genuinely working long hours, but could have got home every night if he wished. He didn’t wish. Often he would book into a motel in the east of the county and Natalie would come across and stay the night with him.
It all felt so right. At least he made himself believe it did.
He didn’t give Kate and the kids a second thought. They simply became unimportant to him as he began to lose his sense of values and judgement.
His judgement went on the back-burner at work, too.
Even though he had been ordered not to hand out overtime, he did so. By the end of the first month each man had worked in excess of eighty hours, totalling over eight hundred hours which had to be paid from somewhere.
And yet the investigation seemed to get nowhere.
He was losing all control of it; couldn’t keep his mind on it. He regularly had to confront a sea of blank faces as detectives under his direction floundered and turned to him for inspiration — inspiration which never came.
The pressure grew on him from all sides.
Family — work; wife — daughters; Detective Constables — Detective Chief Superintendent; wife — lover.
All breathing down his sweaty neck.
He did not know which way to wriggle for the best.
Yet he thought he had a bolt-hole of sanity to escape to, or so he believed.
He eventually left home after a particularly fraught period with Kate when, at the end of it, he confessed everything. She took it all with great dignity and poise. She cried, of course. She was devastated. Her life had suddenly crumbled around her, although if she were ruthlessly honest with herself, she had seen it coming but had avoided it.
She forgave him immediately. She knew that you didn’t just fall out of love with someone, but he couldn’t see that. She held him in her arms that night and rocked him gently as he cried too. But he found he could not stay. His betrayal had been too great and the cracks it had caused too wide to paper over. And he loved Natalie.
‘ We can’t ever go back to what it was,’ he remembered telling Kate.
‘ But we can go forwards,’ she insisted.
He was having none of that. His foolish stubborn streak could not be shaken.
He moved in with Natalie.
Bliss. Initially.
Then the nightmares started
again as the stress of his marriage bust-up and the disintegration of the murder investigation crept clammily on to and all over him.
He woke up with a start, sweat pouring down him.
He’d seen the faces again. Those children clawing at the windows. Begging him for help. Fish caught in a bowl. Yet he couldn’t help them. He had been powerless and they had died.
There was something new, too.
The head of that drugs dealer exploding all over his chest. Brain and snot and blood. The way his head had been distorted before finally bursting open. Frame by frame, in slow motion.
Then Ralphie’s execution by the wall. Then that breathless chase down Blackpool Front, his clothing splattered with blood.
The woman taking the bullet meant for him.
Pointing that shaking gun at Hinksman — then having to fire it.
In his dream he could see his forefinger curled around the trigger, pulling it. He could see the hammer going backwards, the cylinder slowly revolving and the hammer falling and bang! He had shot someone.
He woke with the sound of the gun going off reverberating around his cranium like thunder.
At first Natalie was wonderful and understanding. She couldn’t do enough for him. Comforted him. Held him. They made ferocious love after that first nightmare and he slept well afterwards, drained of all his strength. It was a black sleep.
After a dozen nightmares the sheen began to wear off for Natalie. She wasn’t so wonderful after all. She grew tired and irritable and told Henry to pull himself together. She began to wonder exactly what she’d taken on here, as though she’d been deceived. A man possessed by demons? He was supposed to be tough. He was a hero, wasn’t he? Not a wimp.
The love-making after the nightmares fizzled out. Instead she turned over and yanked the sheet over her head. He would lie there awake, dreadfully tired, but terrified of sleep.
Then he would get up and tiptoe to the tiny lounge of her flat where he would slide into the warmth of a bottle of whisky — and remain there.