by Nick Oldham
Don’t answer that, he thought . . .
The two files were substantial and Henry had to cart them out of FB’s office one under each arm, shouldering his way carefully through doors, down steps, eventually emerging at the front of the HQ building and walking across the footpath that dissected the playing field.
He hadn’t completely got his head around how he was going to manage the week ahead, personally or professionally, but he knew that some skilful juggling would have to take place.
What he didn’t expect was to be blindsided by something unexpected – which came in the form of a phone call.
His mobile started to ring as he was halfway from HQ to his office, situated in a refurbished former student accommodation block at the Training Centre. With both files clamped tightly underneath his armpits, he couldn’t shuffle them without dropping either, so he ignored the ringing and carried on across the sports pitch in the gloom of the evening.
The phone continued to ring as he walked, with the accompanying sound of text messages pinging as they landed. Something was going on.
He struggled up to his middle-floor office in a building that seemed to be deserted and dumped the files on his desk, fished out his phone and slid it open: four missed calls, two texts and a voicemail.
He checked who each was from. One from Alison, two from his daughter Leanne, one from his sister, Lisa. The texts were both from Alison and the voice message from Lisa.
With a feeling of dread, Henry started to listen to Lisa’s voice message, knowing it could only be about one thing.
It was one of the fastest drives of his life: Preston to Blackpool. Police headquarters to Blackpool Victoria Hospital, BVH. Twenty minutes.
And then twenty more minutes finding somewhere to park.
And then ten minutes walking from his car to the A&E department and another five to find the patient in a curtained cubicle somewhere at the back.
As he drew aside the heavy plastic curtain, his eyes alighted on the frail figure of his mother in the bed, hooked up to various monitors and drips stuck in veins at the back of her bony hands, and on the faces of Lisa and Leanne, his sister and daughter, at the bedside.
Both women turned and gripped him, suddenly in floods of tears.
Henry consoled them, an arm around each, as he looked at his mother, her eyes closed and, he guessed, very close to death.
Something cold and rock solid sank in his chest.
He could have driven down the lane, using his rank, but instead he parked the Audi on the main road, pulled the Chatsworth jacket tight, got out and decided to walk. He grabbed his Maglite torch from the footwell and stuffed a few pairs of latex gloves and shoe covers into his pocket, just a few items from the kit every half-decent detective would carry with him.
As he approached the stationary police car, the officer inside got out wearily. Henry flashed his warrant card, even though the PC recognized him.
‘I’ll let you drive down, if you like, sir,’ he told Henry. ‘There’s plenty of parking outside the unit and quite a few cop cars down there.’
‘Maybe later, when I see what’s what,’ Henry said, ducking under the cordon tape that had also been strung across the entrance to the lane. His mind was already starting to take in the location, trying to assess its importance, and he worked quickly back over the existing murder files as he walked to the scene of what might actually be the fourth murder in the series. And he shook his head at the memory of the past week and all that he had endured . . .
THREE
It had been a heart attack that had floored Henry’s ninety-one-year-old mother, Veronica Martha Christie, née Redwood. Fortunately for her it struck when Lisa, Henry’s somewhat flaky sister, was paying one of her very infrequent visits. (Cruelly, Henry wondered if the fact that Lisa had turned up had been the reason for the attack.)
His mother lived – still fiercely independent at such a great age – in sheltered housing in Bispham, to the north of Blackpool. She had survived a previous heart attack a couple of years before, but it had become obvious to the family that she had started to deteriorate health-wise in the last six months. She was eating less and less, hardly had any energy in her frail body and was approaching, if not death, then at least the time when she would need to be cared for by professionals.
Henry had seen the decline and begun what he knew would be the very delicate process of convincing his mum that a home would be a much better place for her. This did not go down well – she was convinced that ‘a much better place’ meant better off dead. ‘Because I might as well be dead in an old people’s home with all those old codgers about,’ she remonstrated. Henry found that, although she was in physical decline, her mental faculties were still top notch and she refused point blank to move. She had access to a warden if necessary and her main meal of the day was delivered by a charity, although it often remained uneaten.
The other problem for Henry was the commitment needed from his family to look after her – a family that now consisted only of himself and Lisa. It didn’t help that his mother’s decline had coincided with Henry having to investigate the Joe Speakman scenario which took up so much of his time, nor was it helpful that Lisa cringed at the thought of spending too much time with their mother.
‘I’m not cut out for that sort of thing,’ she grimaced when Henry tackled her. ‘Y’know, cleaning up pots with food dried onto them and helping an old biddy get to the loo.’ She shivered repulsively at the prospect.
‘She’s your mum, not an old biddy,’ Henry said, trying to keep his cool. At the time he was trying to balance the investigation, plus his newish relationship with Alison that had suffered after her assault, and he felt like he was a daddy-long-legs having its limbs pulled off. It was exhausting for him, even though Alison was wonderful and understanding about it all. And yet . . . he thought the cracks were starting to appear.
It was also hard to get his daughters involved. Leanne, the younger, was too busy flitting from man to man and Jenny lived in Bristol with her husband.
Henry was struggling.
‘I know she’s my mum,’ Lisa whined, ‘but things aren’t going well with Rik . . .’
‘You’re going to get freakin’ married, aren’t you?’ Henry exploded.
‘And that’s the problem. We both have cold feet . . . Well,’ she said awkwardly, ‘I do.’
‘Just keep living together, then,’ Henry suggested wearily.
Lisa shrugged. ‘I might’ve . . . kinda, er . . . been seeing someone else . . .’ The words became almost inaudible.
Instead of anger or sympathy, Henry said pragmatically, ‘Well if you split with him, then you’ll have more time for Mum, won’t you?’
‘You’re all heart.’
Henry shrugged. Struggling.
‘And I’m thinking of moving back to London, maybe.’
‘Shit,’ Henry said, sinking in an emotional mire. ‘How imminent is all this?’
Lisa shrugged this time.
‘Are you splitting or not?’
‘I think so . . . things’re a bit fraught.’ There was real pain behind her eyes, and Henry felt sad for her and Rik. He thought they had confounded everyone and found some peace and happiness.
‘You can crash at my house whenever you need to,’ Henry offered. ‘But,’ he said, raising a finger, ‘no shagging there, OK? And you start visiting Mum more. For some reason I can’t fathom, she still quite likes you.’
The months following that conversation had been hard and tiring. Lisa did split with Rik after a few unpleasant weeks and bedded down occasionally at Henry’s house in Blackpool, the one he and his late wife, Kate, had shared for much of their married life. Henry spent too much time at work, and had also gone abroad to Cyprus to follow up connections uncovered whilst looking into Joe Speakman. He visited his mother’s flat as often as possible and enjoyed as much time with Alison as he could, but with her running and living at the Tawny Owl in Kendleton, their moments together were limit
ed and unsatisfactory.
And no matter how he tried, he could not convince his mother to move to a proper care home. It was easier getting a confession from a murderer.
Lisa’s visits started strongly, then dwindled as her private life became increasingly messy (Henry keeping well out of it) and her relationship with Rik swung on and off. It was fortunate that she and Leanne had been there when Mother collapsed after suffering shortness of breath, followed by a twinge in the chest that suddenly felt like a sabre had been stabbed through her left shoulder joint. She fell at Lisa’s feet.
Twenty minutes later she was in A&E. An hour after that Henry was on the scene, consoling Lisa and Leanne and watching as his mum was transferred up to the cardiac unit.
The second big scare. The first time she’d even denied that she’d had a heart attack and had recovered sufficiently to be allowed home. She had been lucky that time. This time, Henry thought, might be different.
Henry was eventually left alone with his mother, who was under sedation and very much out of it. He sat by her bed for a long time, clasping a thin bony hand in his, looking at her, pain etched across his face.
Two murders – and this, he thought creakily, feeling his mind splitting, wondering if he could handle it all, unsure if he had the mental resilience to do so.
He stood up and stretched, then walked out into the corridor, shuffling along, his mind swirling like thick pea soup. He was heading for the coffee machine when he walked past an office where a young nurse was working hard at a desk, filling in paperwork. Henry had zoomed in on a filter coffee machine on a shelf behind her.
He knocked, and the nurse glanced up with an instant beaming smile that made him feel much better instantly.
‘Can I help?’
Henry introduced himself and they chatted for a few moments about his mother, then he broached the subject timidly, scratching his head like Stan Laurel: ‘Is that coffee machine broken?’
The nurse glanced over her shoulder, then back at Henry, with a knowing look. ‘No, just not had time to fire it up today.’
‘If I get the water . . .’ He gave her one of his well-used, probably overused, lopsided, boyish grins (designed, he believed, to melt any woman’s heart). ‘Do you have any coffee for it . . .? I’ll gladly pay.’
It worked. A deal was struck and Henry walked down the corridor with the jug to fill it up in the restroom.
On his way back he spotted a small room. He put his nose up to the window in the door and peered through, seeing a space about the size of a police cell with a desk and a couple of chairs in it, with stacks and stacks of files backed high against the walls and no sign of occupancy. There was no computer on the desk, nothing to suggest the room had been used recently.
Back in the nurse’s office, filling the coffee machine with water from the jug, then heaping coffee into the filter section, Henry broached the next subject. The office down the corridor.
Won over again by his charm, the nurse rooted in a drawer and produced a key, saying, ‘I’m sure no one’ll mind.’
With his mother fast asleep and snoring like a chainsaw, Henry went back to his car and recovered the two murder files which he had efficiently scooped up as he’d raced out of his office. Ten minutes after that, in the small office he had commandeered, he opened the first file, the title of which read: MURDER: CHRISTINE BLACKSHAW.
Christmas Eve two years earlier, and a woman in her mid-forties had been staggering through the streets of Blackburn, very much the worse for wear from drink. She was twice married, twice divorced – but had reverted to using her maiden name – and had two children both now in their twenties, each by a different father. Now single, she lived alone in a council flat in the Eanam district of town. She had a job at ASDA and worked long hours to keep her head above water and to pay for an annual two-week burnout in Benidorm. She liked drink and men, but could not hold either.
She had spent the evening with some friends, getting drunk, and just before midnight they had gone their separate ways.
Christine had been making her way to a pub on Darwen Street to meet up with her latest man friend, a relationship that like most of her others was volatile and violent. That said, they had planned to get a Chinese takeaway, hop into a cab back to her flat, eat, watch the box, hopefully not argue, then crash out.
She never made it to the pub.
Her body was discovered a week later stuffed into a wheelie bin behind a derelict shop in the town centre, where it had also been set on fire.
Henry winced a little as he skim-read the pathologist’s report. It painted a gruesome picture of the suffering that Christine must have endured before finally being put to death with two gunshot wounds to the head. In short, she had been tortured repeatedly, although there was no sign of sexual assault.
Her body had only been partially burned, almost as though her killer was simply making a statement. She had been tipped and folded into the wheelie bin, then the bin had been stuffed with kindling and balled-up pieces of newspaper and an accelerant had been poured over her and a match tossed in. All this had happened, the pathologist said, after death.
It had only been because her body had been stuffed into the bin that enough of it was preserved to allow the pathologist to make his deductions.
The subsequent murder investigation, led by Joe Speakman, was thorough, as far as Henry could see. Everything had been done. Boyfriends, ex-husbands, one-night stands and family were pulled in and sweated. Leads were followed up painstakingly and everything was done scientifically and forensically. Crimewatch even did a short item on it which brought forth a glut of nothing leads.
Six months down the line, the investigation began to peter out. The murder squad was reduced, and even though an investigation room was kept going, Speakman was floundering.
Henry blinked and stretched. He’d been reading for an hour and he needed to check on his mother.
Some Christmas Eve, he thought . . .
He locked the room and walked back to the cardiac unit, which was quiet now. He smiled at the nurse and saw there was still at least one more mug of coffee in the filter machine. He filled up and went to see his mum.
She was still asleep but not now snoring. The monitors seemed to indicate that things were OK for the moment.
‘Hi.’
Henry spun around and saw what he thought, not for the first time, was the most beautiful woman ever.
Alison Marsh, owner of the Tawny Owl, whom he’d met on a hike through the village of Kendleton where he had stumbled slap-bang into the middle of a blood-soaked standoff between gangsters. At the time Henry had been married to Kate, and only after her tragic death did anything blossom between him and Alison. In her he knew he had found a gem – and the fact that she owned a great little village pub and hotel only added to her wonderfulness.
They embraced tenderly and Henry seemed to draw energy from her.
When they stepped apart, Alison said, ‘How is she?’
‘Not good,’ he whispered. ‘Not on life support, but not good. Last time she had a heart attack, she was certain she hadn’t had one. This time she knows. And anyway, what are you doing here? Haven’t you got a pub to run? Christmas Eve and all that?’
‘Ginny’s doing it with her boyfriend, and you know the staff are great, so no worries.’
Henry nodded, nudged Alison out of the ward and led her to his new office, where her eyes alighted on the two files.
‘I got collared just as I was about to skedaddle,’ he explained. ‘FB foisted these on me. Two of Joe Speakman’s unsolved murders.’ Henry watched Alison closely as he mentioned the name Speakman. He saw a look of dread come over her face. Her memories of what had happened because of Speakman were very fresh and fragile. Henry went on, ‘They’re connected, we think, and, er . . .’ His voice became a man-squeak. ‘I’m going to struggle to get time off this week . . . shit, I know.’
Alison’s expression had returned to normal.
‘Even so,�
� Henry said hurriedly, ‘I’ll spend as much time with you as I can. I know it’s been a rough few months . . .’ His voice trailed off weakly as he thought about how Alison, unwittingly and innocently, had been sucked into Speakman’s violent mess and badly assaulted for simply being connected to Henry. She’d had to undergo surgery to reconstruct part of her smashed-up face. It was only now that she was starting to look completely right again, although to Henry she had always been gorgeous anyway.
Henry knew he was on shaky ground with his announcement. Things had been tough for them and they’d been looking forward to the ‘Twixtmas’ week, just to hang around, do things together, chill.
Alison nodded and gave a long drawn-out ‘Okaaay.’ Then she said, ‘Are we in love?’
Henry said, ‘Yes, course, indubitably.’
‘I mean, truly, madly, deeply?’
‘Yes.’
‘In that case, we’ll work through it. It’s not what happens to you, it’s how you deal with it that’s the key.’ She locked eyes with him. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Gutted and drained. I could’ve done without either, but both together . . .’ He swished a hand at the two files, then gestured helplessly in the general direction of the cardiac unit.
‘What about tonight?’ Alison asked. Henry started to say something, but bit his bottom lip. ‘Do you want to stay here in Blackpool to be near your mum?’
‘Yeah,’ he admitted.
‘I’ll stay with you then . . . I’ll go and sort your house out and I’ll be there when you land, whatever the time.’
Henry shook his head in amazement, but then squinted at her. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘Erm . . .’ Oh God, he thought inwardly. Not good at this sort of thing. ‘Err . . .’
‘You mean because of Kate?’
‘Kinda.’
‘I know it was her house, but it’s part of you as well. She’s gone and you’ve moved on. I know what it means to you and it’s fine. It’s not like I haven’t stayed there before, is it? I even have a key,’ she said grinning. ‘You gave me one.’