by Nick Oldham
Henry rotated slowly at the voice and looked at the man now framed in the kitchen door.
Terry Cromer, undisputed head of the Cromer family.
‘We’re un-reporting him,’ he said firmly. ‘Thanks for your concern but we don’t need any police involvement. We’ll find him ourselves.’
‘Can I have a word?’ Henry said, knowing who he was speaking to and aware that, not two years ago, Henry had put his son away for life on a murder charge.
Henry Christie had been a member of Lancashire Constabulary for over thirty years and he had known about the Cromer family and their activities for most of those years.
Henry’s first posting had been as a PC to Blackburn and, at nineteen, he’d had plenty of run-ins with the wild, out of control Cromer family. They had various homes throughout the east of the county and although the core of the family came from Belthorn, some were based on the Shadsworth council estate in Blackburn, an area they ruled with intimidation and havoc, continually at war with other families and criminal factions. Henry had come face to face with a few of the younger Cromers, usually for minor offences and public order incidents.
As they had matured, their activities became more subtle and old father Cromer – Granny’s husband – took a grip of the family and realized the potential of drug dealing, especially as he could call on some of the more dumb, but violent members of the family to act as enforcers. He harnessed one of his two sons and they moved into the nightclubs of Blackburn and other towns, taking control of the doors – and therefore the drugs trade – and eventually some of the clubs themselves.
The business expanded quickly, but even old man Cromer could not stop the onset of cancer, which killed him as ruthlessly as any bullet, leaving the son – Terry – in charge of the business.
Terry was the favoured son because the other, Frederick, was always a liability. Weak-willed, mentally unstable and prone to outrageous violence, even against his own family. Nor did it help that he was built like a brick shithouse. Freddy was farmed out of the way to live in Rossendale with an aunt, but his isolation from the family only increased his paranoia.
Henry had come across Freddy in the mid eighties when, as a teenager, he tried to strangle his aunt, then attempted to kill Henry. It was during Henry’s days in uniform, working on the crime car in the Rossendale Valley before he moved on to CID
Frantic neighbours had called in the job after every window of the council house in Rawtenstall was smashed from the inside, closely followed by items of furniture being jettisoned into the garden – and, as Henry drew up in the police car, Freddy’s aunt joining the broken furniture from an upstairs window.
Henry was alone, not unusual for a cop down the valley, and he just missed catching her as she slammed down hard and awkwardly onto her pelvis, which he distinctly heard go crack, and which he later learned had shattered into six brittle pieces. He had been doing the obvious, caring thing and bending down on one knee to check out the moaning lady, when Freddy leaned out of an upstairs window and fired an air rifle at him. The pellet thudded into his chest, hitting the personal radio swinging around his neck, one of those Burndept things made of tough plastic, about the size of half a house brick slit lengthways.
Incensed, the younger, angrier Henry kicked open the front door and barged through, only to meet Freddy leaping down the stairs like a silverback gorilla, uttering a terrible demented scream. He launched himself at Henry from the fourth step, landing on him and driving him backwards out of the door, catching the raised threshold with his heel. Henry tipped over, cracked the back of his head – which split – and Freddy straddled and started to strangle him with big, thick thumbs and fingers, about the circumference of pork sausages.
Henry struggled, punching young Freddy on the side of the face repeatedly and as hard as he could, but even though Freddy was only a teenager, he was impossible to dislodge. Freddy’s red, rage-filled face still often came to Henry in nightmares, the wild eyes bulging, the sweat dripping, the jagged but smooth-surfaced lines of a burn mark down the side of his face.
Fortunately, backup was en route, though for Henry it couldn’t get there quickly enough. Freddy’s windpipe-crushing grip was having a serious effect on his vision as blood and oxygen were effectively cut off from his brain and his punches were losing force and coordination, becoming more like weak slaps as Freddy simply rolled with them.
The real ignominy for Henry was that he was going to die at the hands of a deranged teenager, which would only go to prove the old police adage that it was the routine jobs that were always the most dangerous.
First on the scene to assist was the local detective inspector, who just happened to be in the neighbourhood on an unrelated matter. He ran up and kicked Freddy’s head like it was a rugby ball – which did the trick momentarily.
Freddy released the killing grip on Henry’s throat as he rolled away. Beautiful, fresh, clean, lovely air rushed back into Henry’s lungs and he sat up, clutching his throat, but he didn’t have time for much convalescence because Freddy simply rolled over a few times, came back up as though he was on starting blocks and charged Henry and the DI.
The ensuing scuffle was messy and a bit dirty.
The DI – a certain Robert Fanshaw-Bayley – got stuck in and he and Henry managed to subdue Freddy, but only by getting him face down on the front lawn and, Henry having dropped with all his weight on one knee onto his spine between the shoulder blades, forcing Freddy’s thick arms around his back. They got him double-cuffed: in those days the police were issued with rather flimsy cuffs connected by metal links, not rigid handcuffs, and sometimes it was prudent to put two sets on a violent prisoner, ratcheting them tight into the skin. They then both sat on Freddy, gasping for breath as he continued to squirm and curse underneath them like a trapped crocodile.
‘Can’t believe this fucker is only a teenager,’ FB said, ruddy faced. Even back then he was a big, unfit bloke.
‘Big lad,’ Henry agreed, massaging his neck.
Freddy was arrested – thrown into the back of the section van by four officers. Having caused a lot of problems in the cells down at Rawtenstall nick, not least because he suffered severe claustrophobia, he was sectioned under the Mental Health Act and spent much of the rest of his life after that in secure and non-secure institutions, depending on his state of mind.
Henry didn’t bother to pursue the assault on himself (and neither did Freddy’s aunt, even though she was badly injured). The main reason was that when Freddy’s room at his aunt’s was searched, Henry found fifty beheaded pigeons, the heads having been bitten off by Freddy, two dead dogs that had been gutted, four dead cats – hung from the ceiling by their tails – and numerous rodents that had met their deaths in various ways, all stacked neatly away in Freddy’s sock drawer.
It was plain that Freddy was not remotely stable ‘up top’ and to prosecute him would be a pointless exercise, a waste of public money. It was going to cost the state enough to provide him with the care and treatment he needed, so Freddy pretty much disappeared into the system, never to be heard of again.
Until now.
Terry Cromer looked at Henry through half-lidded eyes, an expression of contempt on his face, and a little surge of something skittered through the detective. Apprehension and excitement.
Henry knew about this family. Despite their outward appearance as country hicks, they had become a well-oiled money-making machine, very disciplined and ruthless. To be honest, Henry hadn’t had much contact with them over the years. He was someone who investigated murders – and if asked, he would say that he had been put on this earth to do just that.
In an earlier period of his service, Henry had been a detective sergeant on the Regional Crime Squad, involved in long-term operations against outfits like the Cromers. Now he wasn’t, and he only really came into contact with such people when they had some connection with a murder that had been committed. But he did know that the Cromers were often the subject of long-range
investigations by major crime units; they may possibly have been so at that moment as Henry stood there, facing off with one of the north-west’s scariest gangsters – a man who shared a little of his younger brother’s mental state. Henry wasn’t routinely kept up to date with ongoing operations, which were often run very secretively.
He could imagine that if the Cromers were the subject of any sort of ongoing job by NCIS or the MCU, he might easily end up being bollocked by someone further up the line for stepping on toes without permission and putting a well-planned op in jeopardy by simply barging up to their house.
Maybe.
But needs must. Everyone had a job to do. He just hoped that he wouldn’t come across an undercover cop he might recognize who had infiltrated the family and was having Christmas dinner with them.
So, Terry Cromer.
He was the older brother. Mid forties, and although he was a stocky, muscled guy, he wasn’t built to the same proportions as Freddy. But he was still intimidating – or would like to be. He obviously worked out with weights, his arms being all Popeye muscle and tattoos and the tight vest he wore outlining his pecs and rippling six-pack. His shaved head and accompanying snarl harmonized with his tough persona.
He didn’t faze Henry, who loved stuff like this. Eyeball to eyeball. Henry and a crim. ‘Can I have a word?’ Henry had said.
‘You’re gate crashing our celebrations . . . and to be completely honest with you, no one here’s really that worried about Freddy . . . He’s nuts, always has been, always will be, and he’ll turn up somewhere drunk and incapable, hopefully face down in a ditch.’
Tension is a strange thing. Invisible, yet possible to slice with a sharp knife. And tension surrounded the two men. Henry watched Cromer as he spoke, could smell a whiff of alcohol on his breath, but could tell he wasn’t drunk.
Cromer’s forehead furrowed as he realized who Henry was. He jabbed a finger at him. ‘You’re the fucker responsible for getting Freddy sectioned all those years ago . . . and on top of that, you got my lad convicted for murder, too.’
Cromer had a good memory. In terms of the former allegation, Henry had actually had very little contact with the Cromer family and the sectioning had been done by social workers and doctors. In fact the only time he’d met any of them back then was when he had visited the aunt’s bedside at Burnley General Hospital to check on her progress and the family had turned up en masse to visit. Young Terry had been part of that entourage, Henry recalled; then he had been a slim, wiry youth with a cop-hate, sneery attitude well embedded in his psyche.
Years later, of course, he had got Terry’s son – Terry junior – convicted of murder. That had entailed a lot of very fractious encounters with Terry senior, but at that time no mention had ever been made of the incident with Freddy many years before.
The murder committed by the junior member of the family had taken place outside a nightclub in Blackpool, when he had stabbed a doorman to death in a frenzied attack witnessed by too many people and had been jumped on and restrained by other bouncers, still with the knife in his hands. A simple enough murder – bang to rights – but one for which the real reason was never properly explained. Henry knew it was about drugs and turf, but neither that nor the murder itself were ever admitted by Terry junior, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that included disturbing CCTV footage of the killing. Not that it mattered, because he was stuffed – and the family did not like it.
Henry’s only role had been to oversee the investigation, just to ensure nothing was overlooked. Everyone else did the work, as it should be.
But as SIO Henry could not avoid coming into contact with the Cromers, and at one point he had a stand-up row with Terry senior that almost came to blows in Blackpool police station foyer. Terry’s threatening rants then became a personal attack on Henry, who he blamed for taking away his only flesh and blood.
The lad was eventually jailed for life, with a judge’s recommendation that he must serve a minimum of fifteen years. The full story behind the killing was never revealed and it was played out as just another night out in Blackpool that had gone sour. As they often did.
And now Henry was back facing Terry senior, a man with pure hate etched across his features. Henry said calmly, ‘I’m simply responding to a missing person report.’
‘Fuck off, Christie,’ Cromer spat. ‘You’re just nosying. Just a friggin’ excuse to get into my house. I know. I’m not thick.’
‘OK, fine, have it your way.’
‘Yeah – my house, my way. You’re trespassing, so you’d better get out now or else I’m gonna smash your head in.’
‘Dad!’
Cromer looked over Henry’s shoulder at the young woman who had let Henry into the house. It jolted Henry to learn she was his daughter, mainly because he didn’t know that Terry had one.
‘Keep out of this,’ Terry warned her.
‘Dad . . . Gran’s worried about Freddy . . . you should be, too,’ she said forcefully, standing her ground. ‘He is your brother.’ She raised her chin defiantly.
Henry saw Terry’s right fist bunch up like a rock as he looked at Janine and seemed to want to utter something. His fist shook.
Henry said, ‘Look – seriously, we are concerned about him, Mr Cromer. I’m not here nosying, as you put it,’ he fibbed a little. He was being nosy, but he also had a right to be there, because he thought there was the outside chance that Freddy was the target for a serial killer.
Should he tell Terry that? As he looked at the man, Henry thought, No, sod it, you bastard. If he gets dead with feathers stuffed in his mouth, then so be it. He actually said, ‘Are you bothered or not?’
‘Get out,’ Terry stated. ‘Janine – show him past the dogs.’
SEVEN
Henry had been ejected from a lot worse places. He hadn’t expected a warm welcome and they were right to be distrustful of his motives – all crims were – but it was frustrating to be hoofed out without being given the chance to fully explain why he had turned up on the doorstep. He knew he could have forced the issue and made Terry pin his ears back, but that could have been counterproductive.
Their reaction to the possibility that Freddy fitted the profile of a serial killer victim would have either been laugh-out-loud dismissed, or taken so seriously it could have got out of hand. So, Henry had thought as he threw his big Teddy out of his cot, if they wanted to be twats to him, he’d be a twat to them.
The best course of action would be to back out gracefully, then go home and get laid. No contest. Or would have been if it hadn’t been for two things.
The first happened as, led by Janine, he walked down the hallway ahead of Terry Cromer. As he passed the door that had been closed when he’d arrived, the one behind which he’d heard male voices, it opened.
Henry could not help but glance to his right.
And just for the instant that the door was open – and it was opened by a man he instantly recognized – Henry glimpsed three other men in what was a large dining room. It was literally a glimpse. A man at the door, three at a table, and on the table a revolver and a sawn-off shotgun, side by side. The door was immediately slammed shut – because, also in that instant, the man who had opened it knew he had been clocked, and Henry could tell from his instantaneous expression of grief that he had committed a faux pas, or in his language, a fucking cock-up.
Henry walked on, internally jolted, but pretending he’d seen nothing. Janine went out of the front door ahead of him and collared the dogs.
As he stepped out, and Terry slammed the door behind him, the second thing happened.
Janine hissed, just loud enough for him to hear, ‘Park up the road and wait for me.’ Then louder, she said, ‘I’ve got the dogs, you’ll be safe.’
Henry didn’t acknowledge either statement, but set off for the gate and out to his car, dropping into it and heaving a big sigh. Then, as instructed in the stage whisper, he drove a couple of hundred metres up the lane, did a three-point tur
n and parked, lights out, engine idling.
Inside him, his own pistons were pumping. Guns on the table.
And the dining room door had been opened by none other than Iron-man William Grasson, or Bill the Grass as he was known with irony. Henry knew that in the organizational chart of the Cromer crime business, Grasson fitted in very nicely, thank you, as a violent enforcer, a vicious man once convicted of cutting off another man’s little finger with garden shears when chasing up a hundred-pound drug debt.
Henry had recognized him straight away, because Grasson was a difficult man not to know. Although he was an enforcer, he had himself once come a cropper when he encountered a couple of other rival enforcers chasing his debt. They branded him with the triangular and unmistakable imprint of a steam iron, hence the ‘Iron-man’ epithet. He was scarily recognizable, even to Henry, who had never met the man before.
From what he’d seen of the other men in the room, he didn’t know them, but they seemed equally appealing.
Henry worked through the scenario. Not the nicest bunch of people to invite around for Christmas dinner. He guessed that in the normal course of events, guys like these would only be at the family homestead for two reasons – protection or attack.
Or was he being totally preposterous?
Perhaps the Cromers always invited their best staff around at Christmas, then they could all share their war stories for the last year. The best drugs deal I made. That bloke’s finger I snapped off. That lad’s head I broke . . . that rival’s brains I blew out.
Perhaps the guns were merely Christmas pressies.
But knowing what he did about the lifestyles of the rich and criminal, their presence unsettled him.
And on top of that, Janine, daughter of Terry Cromer.
Henry didn’t even know he had a daughter.
A deranged, ultra-violent son, yes, but not a daughter, and one who at first glance didn’t seem to fit the profile of the rest of the tribe. But that didn’t mean anything. Looks could be deceptive.