A Time For Justice

Chapter Sixteen

Henry slithered into work at nine the following day, not feeling particularly well nor particularly proud of himself. He’d got home just after 4 a.m. and sneaked into bed in a drunken stupor in the belief that he’d managed it without waking his wife; as the reality of the sober world hit him he realised there was no way this could have been the case.

Kate, however, hadn’t said a word. She’d been her normal cheerful self, waking him up prior to setting off for her own work. She’d kissed him gently and placed a glass of orange juice on the bedside cabinet.

With his aches and pains and breakages, it took him about twenty minutes to get dressed.

He grabbed a coffee in the canteen which he intended to drink in the office. On his way to the lift he was waylaid by Natalie in police uniform. Henry took comfort from the fact that she looked worse than him — but she was on the early shift and could have only managed an hour or so’s sleep at most. It didn’t stop her being gorgeous though. And that perfume…

‘ Did you enjoy last night, hero? I did,’ she said.

‘ Yes, yes I did,’ Henry coughed. He vividly remembered the sex in the car. It was a long time since he had fucked in a back seat. He’d forgotten how difficult it was. But it had been good, fast and exhausting. Different. A change.

‘ What about tonight?’ she asked.

‘ Oh, I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Commitments, y’know?’ He knew he should have said no, quashed it there and then, but could not bring himself to do so.

She nodded understandingly. ‘Give me a call if you get free. I’ll be in all night.’ She tiptoed up and gave him a less than subtle peck on the cheek which was witnessed by several others.

I can handle this, he thought as he made his way to the office. No probs. I can handle this.

Donaldson was already in the office, sifting through paperwork, a visitor’s badge on his lapel. Much to Henry’s disgust he looked positively healthy.

‘ Mornin’,’ Henry croaked and sat down heavily, jarring his ribs painfully. ‘I feel about nine thousand years old.’ He rooted through the drawers in his desk for an aspirin. He knew they were there somewhere.

‘ Howdy,’ said Donaldson.

‘ Good night?’ Henry enquired of him, knowing he’d taken Alex back to his hotel room.

‘ So so,’ he said. ‘Good points and bad points.’

‘ Oh,’ said Henry. He couldn’t work up the energy to pry. He found and devoured two pills, swallowing them with his coffee. He wiped his mouth and said, ‘To business. Let’s try and find out what Mr Dakin’s been up to recently, and also where he and Mr Corelli are holed up.’

‘ I have an idea where they might be today,’ said Donaldson.

‘ Oh?’ said Henry. He was about to ask when the phone rang.

‘ DS Christie — can I help you?’ It wasn’t a good line for some reason. ‘Sorry, just hold on a second.’

Some of the other detectives in the office were laughing and talking quite loudly, making it difficult for him to hear. He shouted, covering the mouthpiece first: ‘Will you lot shut your gobs! I can’t hear a fuckin’ word. And it is the Chief Super on the line.’ Silence clamped quickly down. Henry returned to his phone conversation. He wrote furiously and listened intently.

A few moments later he hung up.

‘ Well, Karl, sorry about this, mate, but I’ve been taken off this investigation as of now. We’ve got another murder — a double one, in fact.’

Henry drove all the way east across the county of Lancashire to the Rossendale Valley. He had two Detective Constables from his office as company. All three men had been assigned to the Murder Squad.

On the moors above Rossendale there are many quarries, both used and unused. These workings scar a bleak but beautiful landscape. It was to an old stone quarry above the town of Whitworth in the most easterly part of the valley that Henry drove that day.

He knew the way well. He’d served in that part of the county as a young uniformed PC on the beat and returned occasionally, to see friends made in that era of almost twenty years ago. It was an area he knew quite well and missed. He often thought of it with the affection of distance and time. The harsh winters, the placid summers, the contrast of hill and valley — all things lacking in the western half of the county.

The road he took now was rough and pot-holed. Only cautious driving prevented the bottom being ripped out of the car. However, they arrived at the scene without mishap.

It was a bustle of hectic police activity — cars, vans and cops milling everywhere. But thankfully no blue flashing lights. Henry did not wish to add to the apparent chaos and parked well away, walking the remaining distance, much to his companions’ muttering annoyance. The only place a detective likes walking to is a pub.

A Detective Chief Inspector from the Division strode out from a cluster of worried CID men and greeted Henry, shaking hands. ‘Oh good, my Murder Squad,’ he said. However, he seemed more concerned with money matters than catching a killer.

‘ Bad do, this, lad,’ he said glumly in his cloth cap accent. ‘The bloody division’s on its last legs financially and I don’t know where the money’ll come from to finance this. Bloody bankrupt us, it will. Headquarters’ll have to dig in for this.’

The economic aspects of the affair didn’t particularly concern Henry. If he’d wanted to juggle figures, he’d have become an accountant. That was his argument. All he knew was there had been an alleged double murder and he wanted a chance at catching the culprit. The money would come from somewhere. It always did. It had to.

He commiserated with the DCI. Then: ‘What’ve we got, sir?’

‘ Two mutilated bodies down disused quarry workings,’ said the DCI. ‘Found a couple of hours ago by a man who’d been shooting rabbits in the area. No idea, as yet, who they are. Man and a woman by the looks. Doctor says they could’ve been here for up to a week. Decaying quite quickly now, apparently. Trail’s cold here, I’d say.’

‘ What about the mutilation?’

‘ They’re both face down at the moment, but it looks pretty extensive from what we can see.’

‘ Jealous lover?’

‘ Nope, looks like a professional job.’

‘ Hell,’ said Henry, heart sinking. ‘Makes it more difficult.’ Then his spirits soared again. ‘Never mind, the cost might ruin the county for good and we’ll all be made redundant so it won’t matter anyway.’

‘ Very funny,’ murmured the DCI. But there was the glimmer of a smile on his face.

He led Henry towards two disused workings which had been dug side by side many years before behind a dilapidated redbrick stone-crusher. Both workings were roughly the shape of huge upturned and sunken ice-cream cones, about 30 metres across. They were partially filled with rainwater, old tyres, junk and the rotting hulks of abandoned cars that had been pushed over the edge.

The two bodies had been discovered in the right-hand excavation in relation to Henry’s approach.

He carefully went to the edge and looked over.

From where he stood it was a sheer drop to the water’s surface, but to his right was a grassed pathway clinging to the inner circumference of the working which led down to a ledge about twenty feet below the rim. It was a wide ledge and he could see it clearly. It was the scene of the crime.

‘ This area is used a great deal by kids on scramblers,’ said the DCI into Henry’s ear. ‘Surprises me they haven’t been found earlier.’ Henry raised his eyebrows. ‘If you don’t look, you don’t see.’

‘ No, suppose not,’ admitted the DCI.

There were the only two living people on the ledge at the moment. One was the Scenes of Crime photographer, who was combining stills and video shots of the scene. The other was the Home Office pathologist, Dr Baines. He was dressed in an all-in-one disposable paper suit, with plastic gloves and plastic shoes. He looked like a painter and decorator.

The bodies themselves were tucked virtually out of sight under the bonnet of the decomposing shell of an old car which was on its roof. As Henry looked at the scene all he could see clearly was a naked foot, half-covered in grass.

‘ Have a look,’ urged the DCI. ‘The pathologist should have completed his initial by now. Time to go and get them turned over.’

At the top of the path stood a uniformed PC with a clipboard and pad. On the ground next to him was a supply of paper suits, plastic shoes and disposable gloves. He issued Henry and the DCI with a full set each and instructed them to put them into evidence bags when they’d finished at the scene. This way there was less chance of any vital evidence being carted away on the clothing and shoes of heavy-footed coppers.

It was not a simple task to get the suits on over normal clothing. Henry and the DCI jigged about comically for a while. Once dressed, Henry led the way down to the scene.

On the ledge he nodded at the doctor who, on recognition, smiled broadly at the detective. They had previously spent several revelrous nights together.

‘ Henry, you old bastard!’

‘ You not been struck off yet?’ Henry asked lightly.

‘ No… the dead tend not to complain.’

They shook hands, despite their disposable gloves.

‘ So what d’you think?’ asked Henry. ‘Suicide pact?’

Baines chuckled. Then he became serious. He moved his large head from side to side, pursed his lips and thought for a moment or two.

Henry liked him very much. He was young, just forty, and for the position he held that was good going. He knew his job well, so well in fact, that Henry felt in awe watching him work. Henry enjoyed being in the presence of people who knew their specialised fields intimately and he was honoured that Baines classed him as a friend. Henry looked upon himself as a jack-of-all-trades. Their friendship also assisted their professional relationship no end when at the conclusion of an investigation they knew they would be out together on the town, celebrating success (or failure) in some dive of a nightclub. But now, in all seriousness, they both became the two pros they were.

‘ From here,’ the doctor said, ‘I’d say they’ve been rolled down that slope behind you.’ He pointed to the steep side of the quarry. ‘Or maybe pushed out of a car.’

‘ We’ll get it checked for tyre-tracks,’ the DCI cut in. ‘Forensic can do that. They’ll be here soon.’

‘ And they’ve come to rest under this car,’ Baines concluded. ‘And

…?’ Henry urged.

‘ Can only see one of them really, and not very well. A male. I’d say the other’s female, but that’s to be confirmed. He looks like he’s had his brains blown out. Not pretty. Been butchered too. Can’t say an awful lot about that either, yet.’

‘ Bloody messy,’ commented Henry.

‘ So how do you want to recover the bodies?’ the doctor asked. His question was directed at the DCI.

All three men turned to consider the problem.

The bodies had rolled down the slope and come to rest underneath the bonnet of an overturned car which looked like it had been there for years. It was badly rusting, had no windows intact, no wheels and probably no engine. It might once have been a Vauxhall of some sort, Henry thought, one of the bigger ones, but he couldn’t be sure. They had wedged next to what used to be the front windscreen.

Henry knelt down and looked. The bodies were face to face, both naked, trussed up together in a large polythene sheet. One arm had come free and protruded into the cab of the car through the windscreen.

Henry noticed that there was no hand on the end of it. For a brief moment he was stunned. He pulled himself together.

Baines squatted down next to him. ‘As I see it,’ he said, ‘there’s three options. One — drag them out by hand. Two — get your lads down here to do the heave-ho and roll the car away…’

‘ And the third?’

‘ Get a crane to lift the car away inch by inch,’ said Baines. ‘But,’ he admitted, ‘there are problems with each.’

Henry waited.

‘ The first one will be very messy and unpleasant — and we might do something silly like pull one of their legs off, or head off, or something. Fraught with danger, as they say. The second one is OK, but as you can see, from where we are, as soon as the car is rolled over, it will topple down the quarry on top of all those other cars which is a good sixty-foot drop. So if there’s any evidence in the car, it’ll be a pain recovering it.’

‘ And what about option number three?’ asked Henry. ‘It’s like a TV game show, this.’

‘ Best of the lot,’ enthused Baines.

‘ Why?’

‘ Everything is preserved. The only problem is that the crane might destroy any tyre-marks which are up at the lip of the quarry. ‘

‘ Unless we get forensic to move their arses and do the business up there ASAP,’ said Henry. ‘Yep, I’m for that one.’

They stood up simultaneously.

‘ I don’t want to put a damper on this,’ said the DCI, ‘but where the hell do you intend to get a crane from? It’ll cost a fortune to hire one.’

‘ No problem,’ said the doctor. ‘There’s a working quarry half a mile up the road from here. Plenty of cranes there. I’m sure if you ask nicely enough they’ll oblige.’

‘ Something tells me,’ said Henry with a smile, ‘this is a decision already made.’

Donaldson knocked hard. There was no reply. He looked through the downstairs windows, shading his eyes with his hands, then went round the back of the house to check the rear garden, but it was clear there was no one at home.

Next he tried the neighbours. No one could help him.

Then he sat in his car on the road outside the house. He felt an incredible empty sadness pervading his whole being. She was gone. He had lost her. She didn’t want to see him now.

And there would be no time to tell her what he felt.

He swore at the girl from the London office of the FBI who had contacted him that morning to tell him the news: he had been recalled to the States. The British cops didn’t need him any more. He had done his job. His flight had been booked from Manchester for the following day. He was expected to be on it. It gave him just enough time to attend Ken McClure’s funeral.

He punched the centre of the steering wheel in abject frustration, and cursed aloud.

Fanshaw-Bayley arrived at Rossendale’s public mortuary. He looked a worried man. With good cause, as Henry was soon to find out.

After a cursory inspection of the two bodies which were laid out on the slab, still encased in their polythene coffin, he beckoned Henry and the DCI outside.

He sighed before he talked. ‘Severe money problems here,’ he began. ‘And manpower.’

‘ So what’s new?’ asked Henry.

‘ Different this time,’ said FB. ‘I’ve been to see the Chief this morning and he’s told me we cannot afford to launch a full-scale murder enquiry on this one. Basically there’s no money left in the coffers. We feel we need to keep resources channelled into the M6 bombing so we tie up all the loose ends. And that means keeping the majority of the squad working on it for at least another two weeks. As and when it winds down, we’ll release officers to this enquiry — unless you finalise it first.’

‘ Well, judging from this,’ Henry said, ‘there won’t be any quick result here.’

‘ So what’s the set-up?’ asked the DCI.

‘ You’re the head of the investigation, and Henry here will run the operation itself.’

‘ What?’ said Henry nonplussed. ‘Shouldn’t it be a DCI at least?’

‘ The divisional DI is off sick and I’ve no one else available,’ said FB. ‘Anyway, they’re only toe-rags, these two, crims topped by crims by the look of it. So it’s your baby, Henry. Look on it as a reward for Hinksman. ‘

‘ Another good decision by the Chief,’ said Henry sourly.

‘ Look,’ said FB, a hard edge coming into his voice, ‘I don’t particularly like it either. But it’s all about money these days, and that’s something the county doesn’t have much of… and I don’t like a DS talking that way about the boss. He’s under a great deal of pressure at the moment, what with Jack Crosby dying.’

Amongst other things, Henry thought.

‘ And we’re making the best of a bad job — OK?’ concluded FB.

‘ No, not really,’ said Henry truthfully. ‘We always make do in the police. Pisses me off, it really does. But what choice do I have?’

‘ Absolutely none,’ said FB.

‘ How many men will I have?’

‘ Ten detectives.’

‘ Ten! Jesus! Impossible.’

‘ I’ll try and get one of the support unit teams to assist too. That’ll give you another ten PCs and a uniformed Sergeant. But no overtime, either.’

‘ Can’t be done,’ said Henry, shaking his head.

‘ You’ll have to do it,’ insisted FB.

‘ I am not happy, not one little bit.’

‘ It’s not your job to be happy or not,’ said FB shortly. ‘You’ll do as I say, understand?’

Glumly, Henry nodded. He began to realise now why Karen didn’t much like FB.

FB turned to the DCI. ‘You keep the media sweet, OK?’

‘ I’ll do me best, sir.’

Creep, thought Henry.

‘ Let’s just hope we don’t get any more murders this year.’ FB swivelled back to Henry. ‘Oh, by the way, I’m satisfied you’ve done enough background re Hinksman. Well done. I’ve spoken to the FBI office in London and told them they can take their agent back. We don’t need him any more.’

‘ But Corelli’s landed in Manchester! I sent you a memo. He’s hobnobbing with Lenny Dakin. Karl Donaldson’s input could be crucial. We really need him and his knowledge.’

‘ Unfortunately he’s going back to the States — tomorrow, I believe.’

‘ So who’s going to keep an eye on Corelli then? This connection has the makings of a big one — and there are the links with the M6 bombing too. Rumour is that Corelli put the finger on Carver and hired Hinksman to do the dirty business.’

‘ Just pass your info onto the incident room and let them handle it,’ said FB dismissively.

‘ But we need someone in the know!’ Henry stressed.

‘ Unlucky,’ said FB finally. ‘He’s going and that’s that. Right, I’m off now. Hope you catch someone.’

Henry and the DCI watched FB’s car drive away.

‘ I take it you knew this was going to happen,’ Henry suggested.

‘ I had an inkling,’ admitted the DCI.

‘ Thanks a bunch,’ said Henry, throwing his hands up in the air. He turned and made his way back into the mortuary, talking to himself. ‘Fine, fine, a double underworld killing, ten jacks to sort it, no bloody overtime. It’s not a problem, I can handle it, I can handle it — I’m a Sergeant, aren’t I? I should be off fuckin’ sick.’

He felt completely overwhelmed and out of his depth. It was probably the last thing he needed at this time.

Baines stood by the slab, smock on, plastic gloves on, cap on, mask on, dissecting-knife at the ready. An attendant stood by his side. The Scenes-of-Crime photographer was standing halfway up a stepladder, video at the ready, in a position to record the whole post mortem.

‘ Problems?’ asked Baines. ‘Politics?’

‘ With a capital "P",’ said Henry. ‘But I can handle it. If you’re ready, let’s get on with it.’

‘ Lights… camera… action!’ said Baines. His knife descended towards the polythene wrapper.

The post mortems carried out by Dr Baines were thorough and remarkably smelly.

Death, thought Henry, has a peculiar tang all of its own. Always the same — musty, dirty, clinging to clothing for hours, even days after. That was why he hated having to attend post mortems.

He was not physically sick, nor had he ever been. He knew of cops who couldn’t face PMs even after a dozen years. But it was no big deal, nothing to be ashamed of.

Once, early in his career when he’d been a PC, he had sat through four in a row, one after the other. He’d not been remotely affected by any of them, despite the fact that one had been a road accident victim and another a child.

All he hated was that damned smell.

Today’s PMs were not even as bad as some he’d had to attend, of people who’d been dead for weeks, gone bloated and bad. Today’s victims had bellies that had been slit open and thus all the gases which normally accumulate had been able to disperse. Even so, they reeked strongly.

It took Baines four hours of hard toil to complete the task. He was sweating heavily when he finished.

Once he’d scrubbed himself down, he and Henry adjourned to a nearby public house for a confab.

The doctor was a troubled man.

‘ The bullets killed them both, as you saw. Massive brain damage. No doubt in a couple of days’ time you’ll have the exact calibre of weapon and other information from ballistics.’

‘ Couple of months, more like,’ said Henry.

‘ Both were mutilated after they were shot, and very skilfully too. Sharp instruments, good technique. You’ll never get a match on dental records and you’ll never be able to build up models of their facial features. The only leads you’ve got are the bullets that I recovered from the woman and the man’s tattoos. I think that’s where the killer made his mistake — by wrapping them in polythene and dumping them where he did. The circumstances have acted to preserve the outer skin, which is fortunate for you.’

‘ And the missing hands suggest they might have criminal records,’ said Henry. ‘LCRO are checking files re the tattoos. We might get lucky, but I think it could be a long slog. Smacks of a London gang killing, this. Could be a real ball-acher.’

‘ Yeah,’ said Baines. He took a sip from his glass. He was drinking bitter. ‘I reckon they were murdered and then passed on for someone else to chop up. Someone who is good at it. It’s relatively easy to pull a trigger, but to dismember a body takes certain skills. Know what I mean?’

‘ Like a sicko?’

‘ Or a doctor.’

‘ Or a pathologist. You’re pretty sick.’

‘ Yeah,’ laughed Baines. ‘I am.’ He sighed and dredged his brain. ‘Something rings a bell, but I’m not sure what.’ He thought, but came up with nothing. ‘Nope… it won’t come, Henry.’

He drank the last of his pint. ‘I’ll let you have a full report on the PMs, probably late tomorrow.’

Henry nodded. ‘If you do recall anything at all, will you let me know personally?’

‘ Sure, Henry.’

The detective stretched and yawned.

‘ Henry, can I say something?’

‘ Fire away.’

‘ Don’t let this thing overburden you. You look pretty worn out to start with and I know what you’ve been through recently. I’m not preaching or anything like that, but watch yourself, OK? And that’s from a friend and a doctor.’

Henry said, ‘Don’t worry about me, I’m as tough as old boots.’

The funeral was a miserable affair, made worse by the incessant drizzle which rolled in from the Irish Sea like a fine cloud. There were just a handful of people in attendance and the ceremony only lasted as long as it had to. The coffin, bearing the murdered body of Pepe Paglia, was lowered into the ground with a thud as it touched the bottom of the sodden grave. Within moments of the soil being scattered on it — earth to earth — the mourners began to move away, relieved it was over.

Two men strolled to a Rolls-Royce parked nearby. A chauffeur rushed out of it, opened the rear doors for them and when they were settled, the big car pulled sedately away.

Another man stood by the cemetery gates. He was not a mourner. He was a watcher. His hands were thrust deep into his raincoat pockets. The collar was pulled up. His hair was plastered to his head. He’d watched the arrival and departure of everyone, but his interest centred on the Rolls-Royce and its occupants.

The big car lumbered towards him down the narrow cemetery road.

He stepped out into its path.

The chauffeur said, ‘Trouble, I think, Mr Corelli. What do you want me to do?’

Corelli and Stanton leaned forwards.

Jamie Stanton recognised the man quickly. It was his job to do so. ‘It’s that fibbie, Donaldson.’

Corelli laughed. ‘Pull over next to him.’

‘ He might be armed,’ Stanton warned. ‘He might do something stupid.’

‘ No, he won’t. He’s in England. He can’t afford to,’ said Corelli with certainty.

The car rolled to a halt by Donaldson, its brakes exhaling a soft sigh. Corelli’s electric window opened and he looked up at the agent in the rain.

Neither man spoke for a moment.

Donaldson merely stared impassively down his nose at Corelli through half-closed eyes. He was chewing gum which he masticated like a cow chewing the cud. He blew a bubble which burst with a crack.

Corelli smiled.

Eventually Stanton shouted, ‘What do you want, dickbrain?’

Donaldson leaned forwards, keeping his hands in his pockets, and looked into the car, his grey eyes level with Corelli’s.

‘ I want you, Mr Corelli — and I shall get you. There’s nothing more certain. I’m gonna get you for all the pain, misery and suffering you’ve caused.’ His voice was level, emotionless, frightening. He felt very in control.

Corelli blinked, but was not daunted.

Stanton leaned over his boss. ‘Let me take the fucker. There’s a grave back there and it’s big enough for two.’

Corelli wagged a lazy finger at Stanton. ‘No need for violence.’ He then addressed Donaldson. ‘Pass my best wishes to Mr Kovaks’ ladyfriend. I believe she met with an unfortunate accident. Perhaps you should take note of it, Mr Donaldson… and be wary yourself. Accidents are always happening.’

‘ You don’t even begin to intimidate me, you son of a bitch,’ said Donaldson, feeling his composure evaporating. It took a great deal of effort not to reach in and rip the Italian’s head off. He’d made a conscious decision to keep his hands firmly in his pockets for just such a reason.

‘ Who’s trying to intimidate whom here?’ said Corelli calmly. ‘You seem to be intent on frightening me for some reason I fail to comprehend. Me — a man with no criminal convictions who has just attended the funeral of a close relative. All I was doing was simply offering advice from one human being to another. Let’s just leave it at that.’

‘ I’m gonna have you. One day you’ll walk into a courtroom and never walk out again, I promise you that. From one human being to a sack of shit.’

‘ We’ll see,’ laughed Corelli.

He pressed the button on his electric window. It rose slowly and the car moved away.

‘ Who the fuck does he think he is?’ growled Stanton, frustration boiling up in him.

‘ An FBI agent — one of the Untouchables. But he’s wrong. I’m the one who’s untouchable.’

Henry sat down in the room which had been commandeered as the incident room at Rawtenstall police station, which was the only decent-sized station within reasonable travelling distance of the murder scene. The room was normally used for lectures but even so it wasn’t really large enough to house a full-scale murder enquiry. But it would have to do. After all, this wasn’t a full-scale murder enquiry.

One HOLMES terminal had been installed in the corner of the room. All being well there would be someone to operate the damned thing tomorrow.

It was 9 p.m. Henry had dismissed his team, with the exception of the two who’d travelled with him from Blackpool, and told them to be ready for a briefing at 8 a.m. the next day. He wanted the show to be on the road for 8.30.

The question of overtime had been raised, as always. Cops are very money-minded. Henry had told them that there would be as much as necessary- in direct contravention of FB’s warnings. He was sure that FB had been bluffing and they had all gone home happily contemplating December’s pay cheques.

Henry quickly scribbled a list of lines of enquiry to action the following morning. These included finding the origins of the polythene sheet and the rope wrapped around it; the tattoos on the man, checking Missing from Home files countrywide, ballistics liaison for a quick analysis of the bullets; liaison with Surrey police who had contacted him already to say they had a similar murder — unsolved on their books, as had Northumbria and Kent; liaison with forensic to chase up the tyre-track impressions taken from the scene.

That would be enough to get the enquiry underway.

When the uniformed support team arrived he also had a few ideas for their deployment: house-to-house enquiries in Whitworth and a fingertip search of the scene.

An appeal by radio, TV and the press would be launched too.

He put his pen down and slumped backwards in his chair. This is ridiculous, he thought. Nine-thirty showed on the wall clock. Over twelve hours worked already on very little sleep and he didn’t anticipate getting much more in the next few weeks either. Travelling every day from Blackpool was going to be a hell of a strain too: something like an eighty-mile round trip every day. It was a daunting prospect. His head throbbed at the thought. He rubbed his eyes. They were becoming sore and gritty.

He knew he should go home, get to bed and fall into a good long sleep to get himself up for tomorrow. That’s what he knew he should do for the best. But he didn’t.

He lifted the phone and called home. Kate answered, sprightly, glad to hear from him. He made some weak excuses — lies, really — and prepared her not to expect him until the early hours. Murder enquiry, work to do, God knows when he’d finish, all the responsibility… blah blah blah. All crap.

However guilty he felt, though, it didn’t stop him from phoning another number. Natalie answered. Yes, she’d be more than pleased to see him. He could come round at any time.

‘ Come on guys, let’s hit the road,’ he announced.

The three of them went downstairs and headed out through the ground-floor communications room which was buzzing with activity. A harassed uniform Inspector looked up from a desk. Henry recognised him. He’d last seen him fifteen years before when they had both been PCs.

Henry acknowledged him.

‘ You will not effing believe this,’ said the man, shaking his head.

‘ Try me.’

‘ Another suspicious sudden death. A firearms dealer has been found by one of his business associates out on the moors. Looks like he’s been murdered, shot in the head and chest. Probably been there a few days, by the sound of it. I’m just on my way for a looksee. Want to come?’

‘ Thanks, but no thanks,’ said Henry with an apologetic shrug. ‘Got enough on my plate at the moment.’ He joined his two colleagues who were already sitting in the car, one in the driver’s seat revving the engine.

Henry dropped into the back seat. ‘Blackpool, my man — and give it some wellie!’