by Nick Oldham
They pondered this for a while before turning to each other and going, ‘Naaah!’ simultaneously.
‘I’ve known JJ for a long time and he’s really nothing more than a sad old junkie who wouldn’t hurt a fly. He’s been knocking around with Carrie for donkey’s years. They doted on each other in a sort of hippyfied way. I know that anyone is capable of murder, but I can’t see him whacking her, but I could be wrong. It just doesn’t seem to fit.’
‘Unless someone else did it and pushed him out of the window,’ Rik Dean suggested.
‘I like that. It’s something we must bear in mind. Let’s see how the PMs pan out tonight, but in the meantime let’s be making some enquiries into JJ’s current lifestyle. See what he’s been up to recently.’
The next stage of the mission found the three men arriving at a large garage premises on the periphery of an industrial estate on the outskirts of Bispham, just north of Blackpool. The doors were already wide open and the van was driven in.
Here, they de-bussed with all their gear and transferred it to another vehicle which was waiting for them in the garage. It was a Golf GTi, stolen a couple of weeks earlier from south Manchester, given a new paint job and a set of number plates referring to a clean GTi owned by some poor soul in Derbyshire. Just enough work had been done on it to keep any inquisitive cop at bay for a few minutes at least. It had been stolen for a particular purpose and after today would be delivered to a scrap yard in Rossendale to be crushed into a square no bigger than a cardboard box.
Crazy slid into the driver’s seat. He was the wheelman and wanted to get comfortable. He was wearing his latex gloves, pulled tight over his fingers, as were the other two. This would ensure that no prints belonging to them would be found in the car should the police somehow get to it before it became a cube of crushed metal. None of the men had been in physical contact with the car before today.
The garage owner, who ran a profitable sideline ‘ringing’ stolen cars, gave Crazy the thumbs up and said, ‘It’s a beast, this motor. It won’t let you down.’
Crazy nodded.
‘Better fuckin’ not,’ murmured Marty loud enough for the man to hear. He got into the back seat.
Ray retreated to the far end of the garage, out of hearing, his mobile pressed to his ear. He had a brusque conversation, which ended as he slid his phone into his overall pocket and looked across at the others.
‘It’s still on,’ he said. ‘Let’s go . . . we need to meet Pete.’
With a curt nod to the garage owner, Crazy reversed the GTi out of the premises and turned back towards Blackpool. Ray and Marty slid low in their seats, keeping their chins to their chests.
All three were now beginning to feel the tension.
Henry was in no particular hurry to move Carrie’s body, but he did allow JJ’s corpse to be moved once it had been photographed, videoed, and given a once-over by scientific support and the pathologist. The paramedics kindly offered to remove it to the mortuary and Henry ensured that a police constable accompanied them in order to provide continuity of evidence.
He let the experts do what they had to do in the flat after he had assessed the scene himself. He was not a hundred per cent convinced there would be much for the SIO team here, other than to lend a guiding hand. If the facts seemed to point to JJ having killed Carrie and then topped himself, it would be pretty much a paper exercise which could be handled locally.
‘You were close by when you got the call,’ Rik Dean commented to Henry, more by way of small talk than anything else.
‘Mm,’ said Henry. He told Dean why he had been so close and as he told him, something somersaulted into his memory. ‘You were involved in that investigation, weren’t you?’
‘Yeah, just took a few statements, that’s all.’
Henry frowned. ‘Did you interview Jacqueline, alias Jack, Burrows . . . you did, didn’t you?’ Henry now clearly recalled seeing Dean’s name at the bottom of one of the statement forms in the file.
‘Yeah, yeah, I did.’ Rik looked a tad uncomfortable for a passing moment.
‘What did you think of her?’
‘Er . . . who?’ he asked dumbly.
‘Jack Burrows,’ said Henry, almost spelling the name out.
‘Oh. Okay, I guess.’
‘Did she tell the truth?’
‘Er, I think so.’
Henry eyed Dean thoughtfully, not remotely happy with the response he was getting from the officer. He wanted something meaty, tangible, but all he was getting was the impression that Rik Dean did not want to discuss Jack Burrows. It puzzled and intrigued Henry at the same time.
They were standing on the walkway outside Carrie’s flat, leaning on the balustrade overlooking the car park below. Out of the earlier chaos had emerged some sort of order. The fire service was now withdrawing having drenched the flat and probably destroyed any evidence the fire had not. The entrance to the crime scene was now being controlled by a uniformed PC, who was keeping tabs on everyone coming and going, providing people with overshoes and paper overalls, but mainly ensuring that as few people as possible entered the scene in the first place.
Scenes of crime and scientific support officers were beavering away at the remains of the flat; someone from the forensic science lab was en route, so things were pretty much bottled up. Door to door enquiries had started in a limited way, to be expanded later when staffing allowed. Once Carrie’s body was moved, they would soon have the result of the post-mortem.
Henry checked his watch. It was 4 p.m. already. He had missed his surprise lunch with Kate, but as it had been a surprise, she did not know any different, so there was nothing lost there.
A car drew on to the car park below. Henry half thought he recognized it.
‘It’s the DI,’ Dean said.
The driver’s door opened and the detective inspector climbed out and looked up towards Henry and Dean, acknowledging them with a little wave.
Dean waved back. Henry, however, found he could not move. He was in deep shock.
‘First day back at work,’ the DI said to Henry. They were walking slowly along the concrete walkway outside Carrie’s flat, shoulder to shoulder, touching occasionally. ‘I wasn’t going to turn out to this because I knew you were here and I was busy with other things . . . but then I couldn’t resist,’ she admitted ruefully.
Jane Roscoe let her shoulders rise and fall in a gesture of submission.
‘I didn’t even have a clue you were coming back. I thought you were having a long career break, especially after all you went through.’ Henry fell quiet for a few seconds as he thought about the fairly recent past. ‘And you were trying for a child, weren’t you?’ Henry was quite nervous being so near Roscoe. His voice wavered slightly.
‘Yeah, we were, but it never seemed to happen. I suppose it helps if you have sex.’
‘Usually part of the equation.’
‘Well it started off like having sex to order . . . can you imagine that?’
‘Bliss.’ Henry laughed.
‘Not in our house,’ she said seriously. ‘But apart from that, I got bored being at home, doing the wifey thing. It just didn’t seem natural, so I asked to come back and luckily my job was still open, so . . . here I am! Large as life and twice as dangerous.’ They reached the end of the landing and stopped walking. Roscoe took a deep breath, which she then exhaled unsteadily. ‘Things aren’t right between me and Tom, which doesn’t help.’ She had a sad expression on her face.
Henry could feel his heart beating away, thumping away at his ribs.
‘What’s wrong . . . why the sad face?’ he asked, the words sticking slightly in his throat, afraid of the answer.
Roscoe had big eyes and they looked into Henry’s.
‘What’s wrong?’ she said. ‘You really want to know?’
Henry nodded, but not with great enthusiasm.
‘You,’ she said. ‘I can’t get you out of my head. Can’t stop thinking about you. I know we’ve never actual
ly done anything other than kiss – and that was bloody brief.’ She chuckled. ‘Yeah, all we ever did was kiss, but I had to get back to work because it was the only way I could think of seeing you again.’ She blinked, her eyes moist, then gave a short laugh. ‘That’s why.’
Henry was speechless. It had been the same for him.
‘I think we can move the body now,’ Professor Baines declared as he emerged from Carrie’s flat. ‘Done all we can here.’ He caught sight of Henry and Roscoe standing face to face, inches apart. He tilted his head back and looked down his nose at the pair of them. ‘Obviously I’m sorry to interrupt,’ he added, ‘but a murder has been committed here.’
The King’s Cross public house was situated on Lytham Road, South Shore. It was a large building, double fronted, bars on either side of the front door. Its clientele was drawn mainly from the seedier side of town and much drug dealing was carried out on the premises, which were owned by a man called Rufus Callan.
Callan had four such pubs, all of a similar nature, none very upmarket, but they made him vast amounts of money, as did the drug dealing he controlled in them and which he was keen to expand. It was this desire to grow which had led him to cross swords with Ray Cragg. And why, on that day, Ray Cragg had decided that Rufus Callan was going to pay the ultimate price for trying to muscle in on his territory.
Rufus Callan was going to die.
Four
Henry had met Jane Roscoe a few months earlier under very difficult circumstances. He had returned to work following a virtual nervous breakdown, expecting to return to his old position – detective inspector at Blackpool Central. He had been shocked to be told that – for his own good – he had been transferred to uniform duties and that someone else had been given his job, that someone being Jane Roscoe. He had wanted to despise her, but had found himself deeply attracted to her and she to him, although neither of them did anything about it.
In a particularly traumatic incident Jane had become the target for a deranged serial killer who had kidnapped her with the intention of murdering her. Henry had tracked him down and released her. This incident had made Jane decide to take some time off work and start a family with her husband, with whom relations had been somewhat sour.
At the same time Henry had started to try and make a permanent peace with Kate. He had moved back in with her and was doing his best to make the relationship work. He was ecstatic to be back with his daughters, but things were often pretty strained between him and Kate. Not only had he found himself thinking about Jane Roscoe more than was healthy, he was not completely sure he was still in love with Kate. He told her he was, but sometimes he did not believe his own words, and without that true love, he knew the chances of their relationship working were pretty minimal.
Henry and Jane accompanied the blackened, charred body of Carrie Dancing to the mortuary at Blackpool Victoria Hospital. It was laid out on a slab next to the one with JJ’s now undressed body on it. Girlfriend next to boyfriend.
In a corner of the room, Professor Baines was preparing to carry out two post-mortems back to back. He looked across at Henry, who was inspecting the two bodies. ‘Y’know, it’s funny, but every time I bump into you, Henry, there’s never just one body to cut up. Usually I get a whole busful!’ He laughed.
‘It’s the effect I have on people.’
‘I have no doubt there’ll be even more for me to do before the day is done now that you’re on the scene. You seem to attract violent death.’
‘Cheers . . . at least it keeps you in luxury items, doesn’t it?’ Henry said knowing how much Baines charged for his work.
‘Yes, beluga caviar and champagne tonight.’ The pathologist smiled, blowing into a latex glove so it resembled a cow’s udder.
Jane Roscoe came to the door. She and Henry caught each other’s eyes. He knew they needed to talk.
‘We need to nip out and get a few things sorted,’ he told Baines. ‘Back in about twenty minutes, half an hour or so.’
‘Whatever.’ Baines moved to the bodies, flexing his fingers. ‘I’ll be here for a good few hours I expect.’
They parked in a side street off Lytham Road. Crazy kept the engine of the GTi ticking over. He thought the car felt good and knew it would not let them down if they needed it.
All three were silent, waiting.
About a hundred metres away, around the corner and out of sight, was the King’s Cross, where their business was going to be conducted very shortly.
Marty tapped his foot on the floor. It was beginning to aggravate the other two.
‘Fuckin’ stop that,’ Ray said impatiently.
The sound ceased instantly. A short while later Marty started keeping a beat by slapping his thighs. Ray decided to let it ride. He was nervous, too, but he kept things bottled up inside, like Crazy did. Later he would allow himself an outlet for his emotions. Until then they would remain as controlled as they could be under the circumstances.
Soon they would be on the move.
A small man came round the corner from Lytham Road and approached the Golf. Ray wound his window down. Looking furtively round, the man bent down to the car window and breathed out smoke and beer fumes from which Ray recoiled slightly.
‘What’ve you got, Pete?’
‘He’s in the snug. Through the door to the left. He’s sat at the bar with Teddy Wright and Big Townley on either side of him. There’s one barman and no one else inside the place when I left. It’s dead quiet.’
‘You a hundred per cent?’
‘Yep.’
‘Right. Thanks. I’ll square this up with you later.’
The small man nodded and walked hurriedly away, lighting a cigarette as he went.
‘Shit,’ muttered Crazy.
Ray and Marty looked up quickly as a cruising police car turned into the side road and rolled slowly past them. All three tensed, but the PC at the wheel did not seem to notice them as he drove by.
Crazy, his hands gripping the steering wheel rigidly, watched the police car get smaller and smaller in his rear-view mirror.
‘Gone,’ he said.
All three puffed out together.
‘Times like this I wish I’d been a banker,’ Crazy said seriously.
‘Mate,’ said Ray sympathetically, ‘you are a banker!’
They all laughed in a release of tension.
‘Right. Let’s go and do this. Remember, Marty, in and out. No fucking around. We walk in quick, up to them, guns to their heads, as little distance as possible. Bang, bang, bang, they’re dead. Leave Rufus to me. Don’t say a word. Shoot ’em and then we’re out and away. Okay?’
Marty nodded.
‘Crazy – you know what you’re doing?’
He nodded.
‘Right – let’s go.’
Crazy pulled away from the kerb, drove to the junction with Lytham Road and into the line of sight with the King’s Cross. He edged on to the busy main road and into the traffic heading south. Nice and easy. Seconds later he stopped outside the pub on the single yellow line. He did not anticipate getting a ticket. Wouldn’t be there long enough.
Ray and Marty climbed out together, crossed the wide pavement and stepped into the entrance vestibule. They pulled on their ski-masks and drew their weapons.
Through the eyeholes in their masks, they appraised each other.
‘Ready?’ Ray asked, his voice muffled by the mask.
Marty nodded and raised his gun to show he was.
Ray put his weight against the door which led to the snug. He opened it an inch so he could see through. It was quiet, dead, even, as their small informant had said it would be. He could see the barman, but only two figures sat hunched over the bar, deep in conversation. He was unable to tell if one of them was Rufus Callan or not.
One way or another he had to do something, though.
He could not wait where he was for fear of some innocent customer coming in and tripping over them in the vestibule. He pushed the door open and wal
ked smartly – did not run – towards the men at the bar.
‘Snug’ was an inappropriate term for the room because it was extremely spacious and it was perhaps thirty feet from the door to the bar. A long way to walk with a gun in your hand.
As Ray came in, Marty behind him, time seemed to move very slowly. Ray felt like he was walking through treacle, as though his hearing had been tampered with and he was wearing mufflers. Nothing seemed real – except for the realization that Rufus Callan was not sitting at the bar.
The barman was first to notice their approach. His head jerked up and he shouted something which, to Ray’s ears, was loud, strange and distorted. It was obviously a warning, but Ray could not distinguish the words.
Instinctively Ray raised his chosen weapon, the Glock.
The two men at the bar looked over their shoulders. Expressions of horror creased their faces as they reacted to the sight of two armed, masked men approaching.
One of the men pushed himself up and away from the bar, his stool tipping over, and turned to run, but even in the slow-motion time in which Ray was operating, he did not have a cat in hell’s chance.
Ray shot him in the back, two bullets double tapped from the Glock, driving between his shoulder blades. The man’s arms flew up, he pitched down on to his knees, then smack down on to his face where he squirmed on the beer-sticky carpet.
The other man at the bar belonged to Marty. He did not move, just stared rigidly at their approach and raised his hands in surrender.
Not a good enough gesture for today. Marty waltzed up to him, jammed his gun hard into the man’s temple, forced his head to the bar top and pulled the trigger.
Ray stood over the man he had taken out and, shot him in the head.
Time returned to normal for Ray with a blinding flash, as though he had stepped out of a time tunnel.
‘Where the fuck is Rufus, where is he?’ he yelled. He jumped across to the bar and pointed his gun at the cowering barman. ‘Where is he?’