by Nick Oldham
He replaced the records as the custody sergeant finished off the booking-in process and sent the two prisoners to the comfort of their en-suite accommodation.
‘Sorry I couldn’t make it earlier, Bob,’ Henry apologised. ‘Got a bit tied up with one or two things.’
‘Believe so.’
‘You wanted to talk about the suicide attempt last night?’
The sergeant looked deadly serious and worried. ‘Have you got a few minutes? I want to show you something.’
Henry followed him to the female cell wing. It was all quiet, none of the cells were in use.
‘There’s something troubling you, I can tell.’
‘You’re not kidding.’
The cell in which Geri Peters had been incarcerated was locked, unlike the others where the doors were wide open, ready for the next incumbent. The sergeant opened the cell door and at the same time took something out of his pocket which he held up, dangling. It was a bootlace.
‘This is the same length and thickness as the one she tried to hang herself with. The original is bagged up.’
‘OK.’ Henry was intrigued.
The sergeant took a breath. ‘It’s been on my mind ever since she tried to top herself, so much so I couldn’t sleep. I was back in here at ten o’clock this morning. The first thing is that I’m a hundred per cent certain the prisoner was thoroughly searched. You were there, boss. Two WPCs searched her, found some drugs and a hidden knife. She was strip searched and given a zoot suit, so how she got the bootlace worries me.’
‘Maybe it was in the cell already.’
‘When I come on duty, I make a point of searching all the cells in the complex. I did that last night and this cell did not have a bootlace left in it. I had a prisoner kill himself on me once using a razor that’d been left lying about. I’m very touchy about things like that.’
‘So you searched this cell when you came on duty last night?’
‘I did. But OK,’ he said slowly, ‘it is possible I could have missed the lace. I admit it,’ he said honestly, ‘but I don’t think I did. I am as certain as I can be that she was put into a clean cell, which had been searched properly. Of course, she could have had it stuffed up her vagina or anus – but the lace was dry and it didn’t smell, so I don’t think she did.’
Henry waited uncomfortably. The sergeant was obviously a professional who cared deeply about the job he did. Henry was impressed.
‘So that’s one part. The next part is this.’ He dangled the bootlace. ‘I know full well that it’s possible to loop ligatures around the door hatch plates and it causes us major problems. Hatches come loose with use, the metal warps and prisoners who are intent on taking their own lives will do it. Having said that –’ He went to the door and closed the cell hatch. From inside the door he pushed the hatch and was able to feed the bootlace through the gap between the bottom of the hatch and the door where the metal had twisted slightly. ‘I can do this, but I can’t manage to loop the lace around the hatch handle like the girl did.’ To prove his point, he made a loop in the lace and tried to manoeuvre it around the handle without success. ‘I spent an hour trying to do it this morning. I tried it on other cell doors and I could do it on some of them, so it’s not as though it’s impossible. But I cannot do it on this cell door,’ he said firmly.
‘Let’s have a go.’ Henry took the lace off the sergeant. He held both ends of it and fed the loop through the gap, letting it hang down. He tried to swing it up over the catch. Missed. Tried again. No joy. After five minutes he gave up.
The sergeant stood and watched patiently. Henry handed the lace back to him. A horrible feeling was in the pit of his stomach.
‘You believe there is no way she could have got into the cell with that bootlace in her possession, unless it was maybe inside her, and you don’t think that was the case?’
‘No.’
‘And even if she had somehow smuggled it in, she could not have used it to hang herself in the way she did?’
‘Correct.’
‘What are you saying?’
The sergeant inhaled a deep breath and shook his head despondently. ‘I don’t know, I just don’t know.’ He looked to Henry for assistance.
Henry stalked up and down the corridor, kicking an imaginary stone, reviewing what had just been revealed. He stopped walking abruptly.
‘She must have had help to hang herself, or she must have been hung by someone else. Either way, another person is involved,’ Henry stated. Then what had been a vague memory came back into his mind: the comment the pathologist had made about a bump on the dead girl’s head sometime prior to her death. Henry was certain she did not go into the cell with any injuries, even after the tussle he’d had with her when he made the arrest. Perhaps this explained the bump – being overpowered in a cell, maybe knocked senseless while the bootlace was wrapped round her throat then attached to the door. Henry felt slightly queasy. He said nothing to the custody officer.
The sergeant looked down at the tiled floor.
‘I do not like what I’ve just said.’
‘Nor do I,’ replied the sergeant.
‘Right, keep this cell out of use. Get scenes of crime to come and take some photos of the door, the hatch and everything – just keep it a matter of course for now. No scaremongering, OK? Find out, if you can, the name of everybody who came into the custody office last night from when I brought her in to when she was found and obviously anybody who you saw going up to the female cells – not easy, but do your best. And let me have a think about how to take this forward. Bob, I don’t like what you’ve turned up here, but well done.’
The relief of unburdening himself was very visible on the sergeant’s face. ‘I’ll let you have a list of everybody I remember within the hour.’
‘Right.’ Henry nodded. ‘Let’s just keep it low key for the moment, between you and me. If what you’re suggesting is right, we don’t want to spook whoever might have done this. In fact, we don’t really want anyone to know that we might have an attempted murder in our own cells, possibly committed by one of our own people.’
Henry did not have any time to consider what course of action he might take in the matter as once again, his accursed personal radio squawked up and asked him to make his way to see ACC Fanshaw-Bayley urgently.
Eighteen
David Gill had some time to play with. Not much, because he had things to do, appearances to keep up, but he could not resist visiting his prisoner. He had to see her, talk to her, just for a little while, because he thought she was wonderful. Delivered into his hands by divine intervention. Turning up on the doorstep like an offering from the gods.
He made his way to where he was keeping her. A safe place, entirely appropriate for the occasion. He made his way to the locked room underneath ground level, a room no other person in the whole world knew existed. His own private room which he entered torch in hand, the beam shining into his captive’s eyes.
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Thought I’d pop in and see you.’
Jane Roscoe did not respond, or move. She was stricken with terror.
‘What’s up, cat got your tongue?’
Roscoe tried to see beyond the torch light to see his face. It was impossible. She was having trouble focusing with the beam burning into her pupils after having been in the dark for so long.
‘No point being difficult,’ Gill said, ‘that won’t get you anywhere.’
‘You won’t get away with this,’ she croaked dryly.
‘Oooh, she speaks,’ he applauded. ‘Get away with it? Course I will, you silly girl. I always do.’
‘Always?’ Roscoe said, picking up on the implication of the word.
‘Always,’ he confirmed.
‘You’ve done this before?’
‘What, is this an interview, Jane?’
She fell silent. The light was in her face. ‘Where’s DS Evans, the officer I was with?’ She had been trying hard to remember what had happened when the door to G
ill’s flat had opened, but could not. It had been a blur.
‘Dead, I’m afraid,’ he said in a matter-of-fact way.
Roscoe gasped then screamed, long, loud and piercingly. She could not help herself, it had welled up inside her uncontrollably, something she did not wish to do, but was unable to stop.
‘Oh now shut up,’ Gill said impatiently. ‘Come on, shut up.’
Still she screamed.
‘It’ll do you no good,’ he said, becoming angry. ‘No one will hear you. You are in a sealed tomb.’ Roscoe continued to scream. ‘Right, if that’s the way you want it, you can suffer.’
‘This is the voice of the military wing of Hellfire Dawn . . .’
Henry’s eyes flickered around the room at the same people who had been here to brief him before: FB, Andrea Makin, Karl Donaldson and Basil Kramer. All their eyes were riveted on the tape player on the table around which they were gathered. Only Kramer looked up and made eye contact with him.
‘I repeat,’ the gravelly voice on the tape stated, ‘this is the voice of the military wing of Hellfire Dawn. Now you can see it, now you can feel it. The backlash has already started. Our mission is to take the struggle to the streets, to bring about an uprising and in so doing exert the moral rights of the white majority. Your town was chosen as the one in which our fight to victory will commence. Last night we drove a family of black bastards from an estate where they were known to be drug dealers, corrupting our children. Tonight you have felt the power of the Hellfire Dawn movement through the force of the bomb. Be warned – this is only the beginning. This week Blackpool will burn and the government – that weak-willed bunch of queers and coons – will start to topple as the force of the true people of this once proud nation drives them from power – there will be no prisoners taken. Turncoats and informers will be weeded out and destroyed. Bombs are everywhere in the places you think are safe and secure. This is the voice of the military wing of Hellfire Dawn.’
The tape ended. No one in the room spoke.
Henry sat back thoughtfully.
One by one the others did the same with the exception of FB who remained on the edge of his chair, hands clasped, elbows on knees, knuckles white.
‘They’ve finally come out,’ Andrea Makin said.
‘Not the turn of phrase I’d use under the circumstances,’ Henry said. His remark brought a smirk to the faces of Makin and Donaldson. Basil Kramer gave him a hard stare. FB looked as though the words had not registered with him.
‘How did we get the tape?’ Henry asked.
‘A young lad dropped it off at the front desk,’ Makin said. ‘He’s on video handing it over, but at the moment we don’t know who or where he is.’
‘He’ll’ve been paid to deliver it,’ Henry said. ‘I can’t see one of the major players doing such a menial, but potentially dangerous job – dangerous in that there was the possibility of being recognised. I know I shouldn’t need to ask this – but has the tape and whatever it arrived in been properly preserved for evidence?’
‘Once it was established what it was – yes,’ said Makin.
Silence fell on the room. Henry decided to keep quiet now. He wasn’t exactly sure why he had been made privy to this.
‘Lady and gentlemen,’ Basil Kramer announced, ‘we have a very big problem on our hands. What are we going to do about it?’ He looked expectantly at FB, whose eyes remained evasive.
For the first time since he had returned to work, Henry was glad that all he had to do was keep the peace on the streets of Blackpool. It seemed like the easy option.
‘I shall rephrase that,’ Basil Kramer said coldly. ‘The question, ACC Fanshaw-Bayley, is what are you going to do about it?’
For the first time ever Henry saw FB at a loss. His spirit and drive seemed to have deserted him and maybe the true man was now apparent. Conceivably underneath all that bluff and bluster lurked an inadequate personality which was hidden by being overbearing and sometimes outrageous. Henry thought that he should have felt for him but, wicked as it seemed, he rather enjoyed the moment. Revelled in it, actually.
Donaldson and Makin shifted uncomfortably. Henry folded his arms.
Basil Kramer was remorseless, giving a glimpse of the ruthless streak in him which had enabled him to become such a massive business tycoon and an MP at such a relatively young age. ‘What are you going to do about the fact that last night riots tore apart your town on the eve of the party conference? That an Asian family were driven out of their home? That one of your officers is critically ill suffering from severe burns? That an Asian man has been murdered and another young man murdered? Two of your officers are missing under mysterious circumstances and a bomb has gone off destroying a club frequented by gay people. Just what are you going to do, ACC? You have simply lost control. The press are having a field day, and tomorrow – God, I hate to think what tomorrow will bring – and tomorrow is the day when the PM delivers his law and order speech. This police force and the government will look like fools. So I say again, ACC, what are you going to do about it?’
Henry exhaled, unaware he had been holding his breath. The public drubbing he had received from FB was nowhere near as bad as this.
FB took the tirade and reeled with the verbal assault. Henry wondered if he was seeing his hopes and dreams of advancement into the HMIC disappearing before him. If so, it must be a devastating sight. Black rings circled the senior officer’s eyes. He did not respond for a few moments. The room was deathly silent.
Slowly FB raised his head, his eyes fixed firmly on Henry Christie, making Henry’s heart sink down to his boots. Then he looked at Basil Kramer. ‘I can assure you,’ he said, ‘that I have lost control of nothing.’
Twenty minutes later, FB came back to Gold Command from an office on the floor below where, apparently, he and Kramer had exchanged views with a certain frankness.
Henry, Donaldson and Makin were helping themselves to coffee, chatting and wondering what the hell was going on.
They all looked at him as he entered. FB seemed to have returned to normal. Henry had liked the battered version better, but realised that all good things come to an end.
‘OK, this is the plan of action,’ the ACC said smartly. ‘It may well seem that everything is going to rat shit for us this week – and that may be a correct assumption – but let me assure you I haven’t completely lost sight of the squirrel yet. To say the least, resources are stretched. Everybody and his dog is now going to be dragged in to police the conference following the bomb and the disturbances – hardly a riot, in my book, still –’ he shrugged. ‘So the streets of the rest of Lancashire are going to be devoid of cops, pretty much, for the next seventy-two hours, but that’s the way it goes. What the government wants, the government gets,’ he said expansively. ‘As far as the bomb goes, I’ve got a team on it, scraped up from the bottom of the barrel, but what concerns me more than any of this is the disappearance of Jane Roscoe and Mark Evans. I’d like to think they’ve eloped. I could handle that – and sack the bastards – but I seriously doubt that is the case. I just have the vaguest feeling that their disappearance has something to do with the bigger picture – just a hunch from a man who used to be a real detective.’ He sighed. ‘Only problem is that I haven’t got anyone to put on to it.’ He paused and pursed his lips. ‘Except you three.’
Without exception, their chins dropped.
FB held up a hand. ‘I know, I know. Andrea, you are a Met officer and you are here to assist us in other ways and I can’t order you to do anything; Mr Donaldson’ – Henry noted FB’s retention of formality to Karl – ‘you are an employee of the US government and have no powers in this country, but I do appreciate you have highly developed investigative skills and I can only plead for your assistance. You don’t have to give it and I won’t blame you if you don’t. But I also know that you’ve worked very successfully with Henry in the past. Your choice. The only one I can order about, and it gives me great pleasure to do so, because I s
aw your expression of happiness when Kramer was bollocking me, is you, Henry.’
‘And I’m the recently transferred reactive inspector and I’ve got Blackpool to look after,’ he pointed out, hiding a gush of inner excitement.
‘Well tough shit. I want you on Roscoe’s case. I’ll get Dermot Byrne to act up. I want you to pick up where she left off and find her.’ FB’s eyes roved across all three of them. ‘We’ve got seventy-two hours before the conference ends. I’m asking you all to give that time to see if you can find Roscoe and Evans, alive or dead. What do you say?’
‘I say yes,’ said Makin.
Karl Donaldson nodded.
‘I don’t have a choice,’ Henry said. He checked his watch. It was one minute before midnight.
WEDNESDAY
Nineteen
The slow, almost sensual removal of his epaulettes was something that gave Henry Christie a great deal of pleasure. Opening a drawer in the desk in the inspectors’ office and letting them drop from between his finger and thumb, closely followed by his black, clip-on tie, was a wonderful feeling. As was the unbuttoning of his shirt collar. Not that he was under the impression that his days as a uniformed inspector were over, far from it, this was just a blip.
He looked at Dermot Byrne, who was watching this little ritual, feeling that Henry would have burned the items on a bonfire if he could have. ‘Congratulations,’ Henry said. ‘Bit like a field promotion for you.’
Byrne smirked. ‘A necessity for the organisation, nothing more. There isn’t even time to get me a white shirt and one pip,’ he said, talking about his temporary promotion to the heady rank of acting inspector. ‘Having said that, I won’t say no to it. I’m not stupid enough to believe that I wouldn’t get a black mark against my name if I did – so, anyway, it’s been a pleasure to work with you, Henry, even for such a short space of time. It’s been interesting to say the least.’
‘You talk like I’m gone for good. I’ll be back with you on Saturday night.’