Backlash

by Nick Oldham

  Henry had often had dealings with the Khan family, but had only ever caught glimpses of the daughter. She never seemed to be involved in any of the business, legit or otherwise, and Henry had never really given her much thought. Except for now – he had to agree that Dave Seymour’s grudging accolade of her looks was spot on.

  Naseema was an exceptionally beautiful young woman, exotically so, with dusky mysterious eyes, a wonderfully smooth complexion the colour of milk chocolate, and a small mouth shaped like a heart. She was dressed in a stunning red Indian trouser suit. Her slim legs were crossed, displaying finely boned ankles and petite feet in sandals. Henry knew she was twenty-three and unmarried. He did not know enough about her culture or religion to be certain as to whether this was an unusual state of affairs.

  He introduced himself and offered her his hand which she shook with such delicate fingers that he could easily have crushed them. ‘I’ll be running the identification parade, so there’s just a few things I need to go through with you beforehand, OK?’

  She nodded and looked past Henry towards her brother. Her face clouded over with annoyance as Saeed pushed himself away from the filing cabinet and said, ‘No, not OK. You’ll talk to her through me – is that understood?’

  Henry bristled. He pursed his lips and slowly reappraised Saeed, a young man he had arrested twice previously for quite serious assaults. He had a quick temper and was always ready with a fist or a knife to ram home his point of view.

  ‘It’s our custom,’ Saeed stated.

  ‘And it’s a necessity for me to talk directly to witnesses – unless they don’t speak English, in which case I’ll use an official interpreter. And I know that your sister speaks English, so while I respect your customs, I have a job to do here and not much time to do it in – so we’ll achieve more, quickly, if you let me get on without interruption, OK?’ He spoke to Naseema, ‘If that’s OK with you?’

  Throughout the exchange Henry had noticed that she had been glowering stonily at Saeed. Henry knew, therefore, he was on to a winner. She smiled radiantly, if falsely, at Henry. ‘That will be just fine, Inspector,’ she said with a hint of triumph.

  Henry shot Saeed a quick warning glance and he backed down with an angry snarl of his lips, eyes blazing at his sister.

  Henry wondered what the undercurrent of tension was all about; maybe Dave Seymour had hit the nail on the head with the Shakespearean scenario. It was obvious there was a sparking friction between the two siblings and Henry began to suspect that maybe the family had lost control of Naseema. Was she a wild child? Was she seeing one of the Costains? If so, this whole job could be a tricky one to handle. For the most transient of moments Henry was glad that his only involvement was the ID parade . . . but it was only a passing shiver of thought: secretly he would have given his back teeth to be the Officer in Charge.

  ‘Good,’ said Henry. ‘You’ve already made a statement, I believe.’

  ‘Yes, she has,’ Saeed interrupted rudely, ‘which says that Joey Costain assaulted our father in her presence in an unprovoked racist attack. This parade will just confirm that.’

  ‘Saeed!’ Naseema clucked with hostility. ‘Let me speak, please.’

  ‘And don’t give me the pleasure of showing you out of the police station. Just let her answer – OK?’ Henry had had enough of Saeed now.

  Saeed’s nostrils flared wide.

  Henry turned slowly back to Naseema. ‘Did you actually see Joey Costain assaulting your father?’

  She thought hard for a few seconds. ‘They had a push and shove while I was there, but nothing much. I saw them walk away together towards the bus station. I knew they were going to fight. Next time I saw my father he was being put in an ambulance.’

  Henry nodded. He was about to say something when suddenly the office door burst open, no knock. A huffing and puffing Dave Seymour stood there, his bulk filling the doorway, tie askew, shirt stretched over his expanding gut. But for the hair – Seymour’s was short, neatly trimmed – he reminded Henry of Kojak’s sidekick, Stavros. The journey from the CID office, with his insides recently filled with kebab and cola, had exhausted him. ‘Henry . . . can I have a quick word?’ His eyes took in the Khan brother and sister, then returned to Henry. ‘In private . . . urgent.’

  ‘I’ll be back in a moment.’ Henry smiled at Naseema, stared coldly at Saeed, then followed Seymour outside. As he closed the door, Saeed launched a verbal assault on his sister in Urdu.

  ‘What is it, Dave?’

  ‘Bit of bad news, actually.’ Seymour flinched. ‘Mo Khan clocked out about half an hour ago. We’ve now got a murder investigation on our hands.’

  ‘Fuck,’ said Henry eloquently.

  Three

  ‘How would you feel,’ Henry demanded, ‘if I knew your father was dead and I didn’t tell you?’ He raised his eyebrows, daring a response. ‘If we don’t tell them, they’ll have good grounds for a complaint and we will look completely and utterly stupid and insensitive. We have no justification for it at all.’

  Detective Inspector Roscoe swallowed and stared coldly at Henry. Roscoe had been the one who had decided that Naseema and Saeed Khan should not be informed about their father’s death before the ID parade took place.

  ‘Despite that,’ Roscoe said stubbornly, ‘I still don’t think we should tell them. That way no pressure is put on the girl – at least no more pressure than she’s already under. If we drag a hysterical, sobbing female down a line of stooges, it’s more than likely she will not perform.’

  ‘Perform to our standards, you mean, by picking Joey Costain out of the line-up?’

  Henry saw he had momentarily hit a nerve before the DI spoke again. ‘What I mean is that she needs to be able to think straight, keep her head together and pick the little shit out.’

  ‘If she wants to pick him out,’ Henry observed.

  ‘Yeah, well, there is that to it,’ Roscoe conceded. ‘Rumour has it they’re shagging each other.’

  There was a beat of silence between the two officers. They were discussing this delicate matter in a corridor – a location often used to conduct police business – both trying not to raise their voices. The atmosphere between them was fragile to start with, but when Dave Seymour had told Henry that Roscoe did not want the relatives informed of Mo Khan’s death until after the ID parade, it had smacked Henry’s ‘ethical’ button. He had immediately stormed up to the CID office and confronted Roscoe. There was a degree of devilment involved too, because he knew that if he had been in Roscoe’s position, he would probably have pushed for the same thing: a nice, clean parade at which the suspect was identified – then arrested for murder.

  But he wasn’t in Roscoe’s position and the last thing Henry needed was to be the subject of a complaint, which if attached to the ‘race card’ could be very uncomfortable. As much as anything, he was watching his own back. He had enough complications in his life without taking on any further grief.

  ‘No easy answer,’ Roscoe admitted. She looked thoughtfully down at her wedding ring, twisting it around her finger, while making a clicking noise with her tongue. ‘I could really do with a quick result and, to be honest, I know that if we did tell them about Mo’s death, Joey Costain would probably have to be re-bailed and I’d’ve lost the element of surprise. I intended to drop it on his toes tonight, because he won’t know Mo Khan has died.’ She was pensive. Henry watched her face carefully. ‘And that estate they live on is buzzing with tension. If Joey Costain was out of the picture, the place would be a lot calmer. He’s a real shit stirrer. A riot up there – and that’s not an exaggeration – is the last thing the town needs this week with the conference starting tomorrow.’

  Henry let her ramble on, while he remained tight-lipped. His problem was the here and now: how to deal properly and sympathetically with the brother and sister. Yet he could appreciate where Roscoe was coming from, even though she had not expressed it in so many words. She was new to the job. This was her first big case here
in Blackpool and there was a good chance Roscoe and her crew could bottom it without help from the headquarters SIO team. And if they did, her credibility rating would soar with her team of detectives, predominantly made up of white males lying in wait for women officers to trip up and show their fannies.

  ‘So what are you going to do? I know you probably don’t like me very much because I’ve got your job, even though we hardly know each other. I can understand if you don’t feel inclined to help me, but the end might justify the means in this case . . . for the greater good.’ She obviously had more to say, but shut up there and let the words hang around, knowingly playing on Henry’s instincts as a jack . . . former jack, that is.

  He rubbed his face, jaded already. Not much more than an hour into the shift and he was having to look to his morals now . . . morals he had often hung out to dry when he had been a detective, just to get that result.

  ‘Right, this is how it stands, Jane: we haven’t had this conversation; I don’t know that Mo Khan is dead; you haven’t told me a thing, OK? But the minute this ID parade is over, I want to know. Get me?’

  ‘Thanks, Henry.’ Roscoe sighed with relief. Henry was pleased to hear her words were not tinged with triumph. However, he was highly annoyed with himself for being swayed from what he knew was the right course of action.

  ‘By the way,’ Roscoe said. ‘I didn’t ask for this posting, I was given it.’

  Henry spun quickly away without responding and headed towards the identification suite, hoping that his decision would not be one which would come back like a crocodile and bite his arse. It was 7.15 p.m.

  ‘How much longer are we going to give him?’ The question from Sergeant Dermot Byrne was directed at Henry Christie.

  It was three minutes before eight and Joey Costain had not yet answered his bail. He was almost three-quarters of an hour late. Restlessness was beginning to creep in. The pool of ten stooges – the volunteers rounded up to make up the numbers on the parade and paid the paltry sum of £10 for all their hanging around – were becoming bored. The novelty value of the experience was wearing dangerously thin.

  Saeed Khan was becoming increasingly obnoxious, muttering and ranting about ill treatment and racism.

  Joey Costain’s solicitor, one of Blackpool’s best-known defenders of criminals, much despised by police officers, was also agitated. He had arrived at ten past seven, having arranged to meet his client in the public foyer of the police station.

  Henry turned to the solicitor, a man by the name of Keith Dasher. He knew Dasher well and had developed a tolerably good working relationship with the guy over the years. Henry sighed. ‘He definitely said he was coming, yeah?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When did you last speak to him?’

  ‘Earlier this afternoon, by phone. He was going to come, definitely.’

  Henry raised his eyebrows and wondered why solicitors believed their clients.

  ‘I could’ve told you he wouldn’t turn up,’ Dermot Byrne said. Henry’s eyes moved to him quizzically. ‘Because people like him don’t,’ Byrne said, responding to Henry’s expression. ‘I don’t know why we give people like him the chance,’ he added, looking challengingly at Dasher, anticipating a reaction but getting none.

  Dasher looked extremely indignant about the whole situation. It was evident that Joey Costain’s non-appearance was irritating him immensely. Even Dasher had better things to do in the evening than wait around in a cop shop. His problem was that the Costain family paid him good money, well over and above the normal rate, to represent them, so keeping them sweet was a necessity.

  ‘Perhaps you could give him a ring now and see where he is,’ suggested Henry. ‘If he’s not here by 8.15, he’ll be circulated as wanted.’

  Dasher opened his briefcase and pulled out his mobile phone. He left the ID suite, punching a number into it.

  Byrne said, ‘I find it hard to be civil to people like him. Really annoys the life out of me.’

  ‘It’s just business, isn’t it? He’s got a job to do and so have we. The catalyst is our prisoners.’

  ‘Suppose you’re right,’ Byrne said grudgingly. He did not look terribly convinced by Henry’s liberal viewpoint. In his turn, Henry was not too surprised by Byrne’s attitude. A lot of cops thought in very clearly defined terms of right and wrong, them and us, and often lost sight of the overall picture – a tableau which Henry knew was very murky indeed with no fine lines and lots of ambiguity. He had long since stopped trying to make any sense of it.

  Dasher came back into the room, a forlorn expression on his face. ‘No reply.’

  Henry nodded. It was close enough to 8.15 to call it a day.

  ‘Give them their money and send them on their way with our thanks,’ he instructed Byrne cheerfully. More seriously he added, ‘And I’ll go and see Mrs Roscoe.’

  As he put on each piece of equipment, his shoulders became a little more rounded, sagging a fraction more as the weight pulled them down.

  First the heavy stab vest went on over his shirt, then the black Gore-tex blouson, followed by the Batman-like thick black leather belt round his waist onto which he hung his side-handled baton, personal radio, CS canister, rigid handcuffs and mobile phone. He felt like he was going to topple over. He put on his inspector’s flat cap – more comfortable and better padded than a mere sergeant’s or PC’s cap. More befitting such a high rank, Henry thought. It seemed the only perk going, a soft cap.

  He had a look at himself in the mirror, aware that critical self-appraisal seemed to be the order of the day. He hoped he wasn’t getting to be vain. He thought he resembled a New York street cop rather than a Lancashire bobby and it hit him quite hard that the traditional days of policing were long gone.

  There was a sharp knock on the office door. Henry pulled his cap off quickly and tried to move away from the mirror, but was not fast enough. The door opened and Dermot Byrne came in. He just knew what Henry had been doing.

  ‘You’ll get used to it,’ he reassured Henry. ‘By the end of the night you’ll hardly remember being a detective . . . it’ll be a vague, distant memory.’

  ‘Won’t be if I have my way,’ Henry stated firmly. ‘Right,’ he announced, businesslike, unconsciously coming to attention, drawing his heels together with a click. ‘As there’s nothing of great importance for me in the custody office at the moment, I quite fancy a chauffeured ride out . . . see what’s happening at the conference, then maybe we could have a look up on Shoreside and see what’s bubbling. After that we’ll nip up to casualty and see how things are panning out up there with our injured parties.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ Byrne said.

  ‘And you can fill me in as to who’s on duty, what’s been going on around here and what’s going to happen this week. I am so out of touch, it’s unbelievable. I’m going to be relying on you for a few days, Dermot – and I don’t mind admitting it.’

  ‘Yeah – no worries, boss.’

  Henry was quickly getting to like Byrne. He seemed cool, capable and very much in control: the kind of sergeant who could be depended on. Byrne pointed to a black canvas duffel bag in the corner of the room. ‘Is that your public-order gear?’ Henry nodded. ‘Best put it in the boot with mine, just in case.’ Byrne picked it up and slung it over his shoulder.

  ‘Let’s go then and see what the streets of Blackpool have to offer.’

  Feeling very self-conscious in all his gear, Henry walked alongside Byrne through the police station. They passed the report-writing room on the way in which a lone PC sat scribbling away at a statement.

  ‘Just a second, boss,’ Byrne said. He swung into the room and the PC looked up. Henry continued to shuffle himself inside his uniform, taking little heed of the conversation. ‘John,’ said Byrne, ‘sorry I didn’t get a chance to welcome you back properly at parade.’

  ‘That’s OK,’ the PC said.

  ‘Good to have you back, anyway.’

  ‘Good to be back – a month of searching
the Garden has sent me scatty,’ he said.

  ‘At least you’ll know the place well,’ Byrne said.

  ‘Like the back of my hand.’

  ‘Anyway – see you later,’ Byrne waved. He and Henry continued on their journey. ‘He’s just done a month of pre-conference searching at the Winter Gardens,’ Byrne felt the need to explain to his inspector.

  ‘Oh, right,’ said Henry.

  The conference security operation was very obvious and very high profile because this year it was the party in government holding its annual bash in town.

  As Byrne drove north along the promenade, through what had become an extremely blustery, cold, wet night, Henry’s sympathies were with the numerous uniformed officers drafted in from all over the county who were very much in evidence along the route. When they reached the Imperial Hotel on North Shore, the police presence was even more high profile, the hotel virtually surrounded by sodden, miserable-looking cops, all wearing high-visibility jackets.

  The planning for the policing operation had actually been underway since the beginning of the year, but it was only since the previous Friday night that a ring of steel had been wrapped round the Imperial – the main hotel where government ministers, including the prime minister, were staying during the conference (which took place from Tuesday to Friday). The routes likely to be taken by VIPs from the hotel to the conference venue, and the venue itself – the massive Winter Gardens complex in the centre of Blackpool – had also been subject to the most rigorous security checks and searches.

  ‘It’s a big one this year,’ Henry commented. Over the last few years security had actually been scaled down, but this year had been one of those controversial ones which seemed to come to every government, when they seemed to upset everybody. The consequent threat level from many sources had therefore risen dramatically.

  ‘Yeah, tense on a lot of fronts this year,’ Byrne said. ‘Irish peace talks fucked up as usual and the IRA have already hit a couple of targets on the mainland; the animal liberationists are up in arms about testing chemicals on hamsters, or something ridiculous . . . er . . .’ Byrne was thinking ‘. . . the right wing has had a big resurgence recently – could be a big demo from them later in the week – the anti-capitalists have threatened some sort of action, too – all sorts of things happening. Could be an interesting week.’