Big City Jacks

Three

There was nothing special or remarkable about the murder, other than the fact that all murders are special and remarkable to those affected by them. A man and wife. A silly drunken row about nothing which escalated into violence and then a brutal stabbing. Just another something that happened every day that was impossible to prevent but easy to detect. In police terms, a ‘one for one’.

The only thing about it was that tonight it happened in the sleepy backwater town of Bacup in the Rossendale Valley, tucked away high on the hills in the very eastern corner of the county of Lancashire. God’s country, some say; others would be less enthusiastic about it.

Following the procedures laid down for such occurrences, the duty police inspector ensured that the scene of the crime was dealt with professionally, as well as the arrest of the offender, then informed the on-call Senior Investigating Officer (SIO), who, at the moment of the phone call, was playing a game of late-night chess with his eldest daughter, Jenny, whilst the rest of the family, mother and daughter number two, were tucked up in bed.

Instinctively, and before picking up the phone, the SIO — Henry Christie — checked the time and made a mental note of it. Times could end up being crucial to an investigation and several investigations that he knew of had rocked because of disputes over them.

Henry knew the call would be for him and a frisson of excitement tremored through his whole being. He cleared his throat, announced his name, then, ‘Can I help?’

‘Henry, sorry to bother you. This is John Catlow over in Pennine Division.’

‘Hello, John.’ Henry knew Catlow and also knew that he was the uniformed night duty inspector in the huge division which covered Bacup, but stretched from the Greater Manchester boundary in the east, right up to abut with North Yorkshire in the north. It was a big, sprawling area, one which used to be covered by an inspector in each of the towns therein. Now it was down to one poor soul. How times had changed. As night-call SIO, Henry had made it his business to know who was on duty throughout the force of Lancashire. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘We’ve got a domestic murder in Bacup. . big drunken row, big falling out, wife stabs pissed-up husband to death. . twelve times at least. It’s pretty much sewn-up. She called the ambulance, they called us, we went and she gave herself up. Cut and dried, so to speak.’

‘Is your on-call DI aware?’

‘Yeah. He’s turning out.’

‘Where did it happen?’

‘Moorside Terrace.’

Henry knew it. Visualized it. ‘Is everything done that needs to be done?’

‘Yes. Body’s still in situ, scene sealed, CSI en-route, police doctor pronounced life extinct. Home Office pathologist informed and on the way. .’ It was as though the inspector was counting things off with his fingers. ‘Offender banged up, clothing seized, forensic issues addressed — no cross-contamination anywhere. . yep, all done.’

Even so, Henry made him go through it in more depth and when he was satisfied said, ‘Right, I should be across there within the hour. I’ll make to the scene and meet the DI there. Can you ensure he meets me, John?’ The Inspector told Henry that the DI was actually at Burnley police station, where the offender had been taken. Henry accepted this and said he would see him there after the scene visit instead.

They hung up. Henry looked at his daughter. She tilted her pretty head and squinted quizzically at him.

‘Dad?’ she said. ‘Don’t you think it’s a bit odd?’

‘What’s that, my dear?’

‘Y’know — sitting around, waiting for people to pop their clogs?’

Henry pouted thoughtfully. ‘Never really considered it in those terms.’

‘Anyway,’ she said, her expression changing to one of glee as she moved her Queen regally across the chessboard, dramatically wiping out Henry’s remaining Bishop with a flourish. She announced, ‘Checkmate!’ very smugly.

Father and daughter faced each other over the board for a few silent moments.

‘You’ve been toying with me,’ Henry accused her.

‘Yep — out-thought and outmanoeuvred,’ she admitted, stood up and said, ‘Bed for me.’ As she walked past him, she patted him patronizingly on the head.

In terms of the county of Lancashire, Bacup and Blackpool — where Henry lived — could not be much further apart, but he arrived within the environs of the small Rossendale town in about fifty minutes without breaking the speed limit too many times.

Henry knew the area well, having spent a large proportion of his early police service in the east of the county. He had been on the Task Force prior to its abandonment in the early 1980s and in that time — those ‘hallowed times’ Henry called them — he had regularly worked the ‘Crime Car’ as it had been known, in that neck of the woods. He was very comfortable about finding his way around, ably assisted by a detailed street map.

Whilst driving across the county from the flatness of the Fylde coast up into the hilly region of the east, Henry reminisced a little about those days. A time when coppering had been a simple fun job, when a guy in uniform could do almost anything — and get away with it.

In some ways he missed it, but some of his memories made him cringe and wonder how the hell he’d survived some of the things he’d done.

Society had been very different then. The Toxteth riots and subsequent public enquiries had changed the face of policing forever.

But one thing that could never be changed was the popular music of that era, and on his late-night journey Henry allowed himself to wallow in some nostalgic rock of the time by sliding one of his ‘sad old git’ compilation tapes in and turning it up. He arrived in Bacup accompanied by Queen.

He found Moorside Terrace easily, parked up some distance away and got out of the car.

The cold hit him hard and immediately. A cold he had not felt for years. Half-past midnight in Bacup on a braw windy night was no place for the faint-hearted. He wrapped his coat tightly around him, pinned his ID to his chest and trudged towards the crime scene, hoping that most of the scientific work had been carried out by now. The house was slap-bang in the middle of a terraced row on a steep cobbled street which seemed to be holding on to the hillside by its fingertips.

The street was a buzz of activity. Staring, nosy people, and cops.

Every available officer in the division seemed to be hovering around. Probably all been to have a sneak peek at the body. A job like this was a magnet for the curious and it was often surprising how many cops turned up out of the woodwork. Henry prayed that the night-duty inspector had been telling the truth about scene preservation. Nothing fucked-up a crime scene better than a bunch of wanna-see bobbies in size elevens.

As it happened, the scene was well preserved. The only people who had trudged through it were the ones who’d had no choice: the paramedics, the first officers on scene, the CSIs and the Home Office pathologist who, as Henry poked his head around the kitchen door to have a look at the carnage, was just rising to his feet having examined the body which was still in situ.

The room was swathed in blood and the body itself lay pretty much in the centre of the floor, skewed at an awkward angle, limbs splayed to all points of the compass. Theatrically, Henry thought, the murder weapon was still sticking in the man’s chest. It was a very big kitchen knife. Henry winced.

Backing off carefully, placing his feet with caution, the pathologist turned away from the body to be greeted by Henry’s beaming smile.

‘Hallo, H,’ he said pleasantly, easing his hands out of his latex gloves.

‘Dr Baines, I presume,’ Henry responded. The two men had known each other for many years and had established a friendly rapport which, on occasion, spilled beyond the professional and into drinking establishments. Baines was as thin as a post, with ears like car doors, but Henry knew his ability to imbibe was second to none. All the beer, Henry guessed, went straight to his legs. ‘You’re a bit off your patch, aren’t you?’ Henry asked. Baines covered the west of the county usually. ‘Filling in for a colleague out collecting dead bodies, or something?’

‘Something like that,’ Baines replied as though hurt.

‘OK, pleasantries over — what’s the prognosis?’

Baines and Henry both turned their heads down and looked at the body on the kitchen floor. ‘Not good. Not likely to recover. He’s been stabbed to death, probably over a dozen times. The knife is in the heart at the moment, but any one of six other wounds could have been the fatal one. I’ll know for sure when I carry out the PM.’

There was a blinding flash as a CSI moved in with his SLR to record the scene.

‘As far as I’m concerned you can move the body to the public mortuary. I’ll do the PM now and get it over with. No point trailing all the way home only to have to come back in the morning.’

‘Good idea.’

He and Henry withdrew from the scene. After ensuring continuity of evidence regarding movement of the body — an officer had to accompany it to the morgue — Henry took his leave of Baines and headed back towards his car, thence on to Burnley custody office to take a look at the perpetrator of the foul deed.

It took about fifteen minutes to get there, travelling over the wild moors at Deerplay between the two towns and dropping down into Burnley. Henry spoke to the on-call DI on the way.

Burnley’s custody office had been recently refurbished and this is where Henry met up with the local detective inspector. His name was Carradine, one of the old school who had adapted pretty well to the new ways of doing things. Henry had known him for many years. They had been together at the Police Training Centre at Bruche near Warrington, having joined the job at the same time. Carradine had originally been a member of Merseyside Police, but had transferred quite a few years before to Lancashire. The two had never been close friends, but were comfortable enough with each other. At least Henry thought they were.

‘Hello, Barry.’

‘Henry,’ Carradine nodded curtly.

Henry picked up a strange tension in the DI’s manner which he had not locked into during the phone call.

‘Everything OK?’

‘Yeah — shouldn’t it be?’

‘Er, yes,’ Henry shrugged uncertainly.

‘Wanna see the prisoner?’

‘Yeah. . yeah.’

‘This way.’ He beckoned Henry, calling out to the custody sergeant, ‘Bernie, me and the temporary DCI are going down to the female side to have a glance at our murderess. Make a note on the custody record, please.’

‘Whatever,’ groaned the old-lag sergeant.

Henry and the DI walked down the corridor.

‘She’s drunk out of her skull,’ Carradine explained. ‘We’ve done a preliminary interview in the presence of a duty solicitor — authorized by the on-call super,’ Carradine qualified; it was a very big no-no to interview drunken suspects unless particular circumstances prevailed and then it had to be signed off as necessary by a superintendent or higher rank. ‘We didn’t get much from her, to be honest. She got stripped and swabbed and banged up for a good sleep. It’ll be the morning detectives who’ll be sorting it.’

‘Fine,’ said Henry.

‘Have I done all right?’ Carradine asked sycophantically.

‘Beg pardon?’

‘I just want to know if I’ve done OK — sir.’

Henry stopped in his tracks and held Carradine back with a touch of his hand. ‘What’s eating you?’

Carradine eyed Henry through slitted lids. ‘Nowt,’ he lied very obviously and carried on walking. ‘She’s in here.’

Mmm, Henry thought, guessing that the earlier dig to the custody sergeant — the ‘temporary DCI’ business — could be the key to Carradine’s less than enthusiastic welcome. Henry wondered if his continuing temporary promotion had ruffled feathers across the world of Lancashire detectives.

As per force standing orders, the cell door was open and the occupant, the murder suspect, was inside, now deep asleep; outside the cell a uniformed constable sat on an uncomfortable plastic chair, reading a magazine and — hopefully — keeping an eye on the prisoner. It was referred to as ‘suicide watch’ and was applied to all people arrested on suspicion of murder in Lancashire, people who often had their minds unhinged and were capable of doing themselves in. The officer engaged in this task — a policewoman — looked glazed with boredom.

‘How’s she doing?’ Carradine asked her.

‘Fine — flat out — no problems yet.’

The DI nodded. He and Henry glanced through the door into the poorly illuminated cell. The prisoner was stretched out on the concrete bench/bed, lying face up, mouth open, snoring. Her own clothes, taken for forensic examination, had been replaced by a paper suit about ten times too big for her. She looked a slight woman in her late twenties, hardly capable of brandishing and using the size of knife Henry had seen embedded in her husband’s chest. However, he also knew what strength rage could bless on a person.

To the policewoman, Carradine said, ‘OK, keep vigilant. Never trust anyone accused of murder.’

‘Sure, boss,’ she responded with surly lack of interest, settled back with her magazine and started to flick through the pages.

‘Shall we talk it through?’ Henry suggested to the DI.

Carradine nodded and led Henry back through the cell complex, out through the custody office and up into his own cubbyhole of an office on the first floor of the building. There was freshly filtered coffee on the side, smelling wonderful. Carradine poured out two mugs of the steaming black gold.

Easing himself into a chair, Henry took a sip, then, over the rim of the mug, got straight to the point. ‘What’s gnawing away at your bones, Barry?’

‘What do you mean?’ he replied innocently.

Henry’s mouth twisted sardonically. He said nothing.

Carradine shrugged and kept up the pretence.

‘I think you know — the attitude.’

Carradine manoeuvred himself to his desk chair and sat down on it. He swivelled slowly around, stopping at 360 degrees and considering Henry. ‘All right,’ he relented. ‘You have severely pissed off a large number of detectives in this force by coming back from suspension and being given your sweet job back — and keeping your temporary promotion to boot! Quite a few people I know were chasing a job on the SIO team.’

‘You being one of them?’

Carradine’s narrow eyes seemed to hood over. ‘I’d been made a promise.’

‘By whom?’

‘Can’t say, but all I can tell you is that a lot of people think you’ve been given preferential treatment. Everyone knows you’re right up the chief’s arse. Pity there isn’t a competence in brown-nosing.’

Henry bridled, feeling his whole body shimmer. He reddened angrily and shifted on the chair. It took a lot of self-control to keep himself from banging the mug down and rising both physically and metaphorically to the bait. Instead, he tried to remain unaffected and calm — except for the redness, which he could do nothing about.

‘All I did was return to the job I left,’ he explained.

Carradine shook his head slowly, in disbelief. ‘Many, many people are not impressed,’ he insisted, sticking to his guns.

Henry cracked a little then and blurted, ‘In that case, a lot of people can go and fuck themselves.’ He winced inwardly as soon as he’d said it; not a turn of phrase designed to get ‘a lot of people’ on his side. Huffily, he said, ‘Shall we talk about the case in hand?’

Henry stumbled out of Burnley police station into the chill Pennine night. The briefing about the domestic murder had gone well, if a little coldly, after his and Carradine’s exchange of views about Henry’s predicament. As he slid back in the car, Henry grated his teeth and grimaced as he reviewed what the DI had said.

Henry had known that his return to work would be difficult. He had envisaged it many times in his mind. He knew that the detective fraternity was a close-knit but intensely competitive bunch of individuals who would have been eyeing his post up like salivating dogs — or a pack of hyenas — the stimulus being the SIO job and their response being their tawdry elbowing and kneeing to jockey themselves into position. Henry almost chuckled as he imagined the insistent lobbying and kow-towing that would have been going on whilst he was suspended.

Being a member of the SIO team was one of the plum detective jobs.

And Carradine had the audacity to accuse Henry of being up the chief constable’s backside.

However, it was only to be expected. Henry had been suspended for allegations of disobeying a lawful order and displaying judgement that was, to say the least, suspect. The resulting disciplinary action had been dropped and Henry exonerated, but he was intelligent enough to know one thing about cops: when mud got slung, some of it always stuck, usually in big clods.

He now had the difficult task of proving that the allegations that had been made against him were unfounded, not to a disciplinary panel but to his peers. Far more difficult.

In some respects it would have been better to have returned to a less prominent role, somewhere out in the sticks, but he was actually glad to be doing what he was doing. He felt very suited to the SIO role. Only thing was, there would be many out there only too ready to take a pop at him, not least the detective chief superintendent in charge of the SIO team, who simply did not want Henry on the squad.

Henry knew he would have to be meticulous in his approach. He would have to work to the book and yet get results — quick. He had a very tattered reputation to repair and it would not be easy pulling the threads together.

This was his sixth week back at work and it was still early days. He had dealt with two other domestic murders successfully and had been given a fifteen-year-old cold case to review. A fair proportion of his time had been spent working on the job he had foolishly got himself involved with whilst on suspension — one of the reasons why the detective super did not want Henry back on the team, because he suspected Henry of telling lies. That case was ongoing and still generating more questions than answers. It would be a long, drawn-out process before the horrible mess was anything like sorted.

In the six weeks he had also drawn the short straw in terms of night cover, having had to cover three weeks in that time. Henry saw this as a less than subtle message from the boss: don’t think for one moment you’re going to have an easy ride of it.

Yes, Henry had no illusions. He would be up against it for a long time. In the past this could easily have fazed him, but now, being physically and mentally balanced, he was up for the challenge. He felt so confident he believed he could take on the world.

Before setting off home, he spent a few moments ticking off a mental checklist to ensure he had done everything necessary; then, positive he had hit all the buttons, he started the car.

The first call came on his mobile just as he accelerated down the slip road on to the M65. Using his recently acquired ‘hands-free’ kit, he kept both hands on the wheel and complied with the law. ‘Henry Christie.’

‘Dave Anger.’

‘Hello, boss.’ Henry had been expecting the call. The Detective Superintendent checking up on him. Yes, he was expecting it, but on the other hand he wondered who had informed Anger that he had turned out to a job. No doubt Anger had secretly briefed the control room inspector to call him if Henry was mobilized. Anger would be eager to keep a close eye on the disliked new boy. . or was it that Henry was being paranoid?

Henry shrugged. Just because you are paranoid it doesn’t mean that people aren’t out to get you.

Anger skipped the pleasantries. ‘What’s the job?’

‘As if you don’t know,’ Henry wanted to say — but didn’t. ‘Domestic murder.’

‘Why haven’t I been informed?’

‘You obviously have been, otherwise you wouldn’t be calling me,’ Henry said, too sharply. ‘Or are you just calling on spec?’

‘Don’t push it, Henry. You might well be up FB’s shitter, but that doesn’t mean to say you’re untouchable,’ Anger responded with a dangerous undertone. ‘You haven’t informed me, that’s the point I’m making.’

‘Only because it’s a straight-up, no complications murder. All angles covered. One body, one offender — who is too drunk to be properly interviewed now. You don’t need to be told. The morning would suffice.’

‘Judgement call, eh?’ Anger sneered. ‘We all know about your judgement calls, don’t we?’

‘Procedural call, actually,’ Henry corrected him.

‘I like to be kept up to date.’

‘OK, fair do’s,’ Henry acceded, seeing no mileage in annoying Anger any further. He’d made his point. ‘I’ll tell you in future.’ He did not have the willpower to carry on an argument at that moment in time.

‘So it’s sorted?’

‘Yes. . I’ll go back across in the morning. We’ll have the offender in court by the afternoon.’

‘OK, fine.’ Anger hung up.

‘Twat,’ Henry uttered, feeling himself flush red. He took a deep breath and put his foot down. The motorway was quiet and, just to be awkward, he moved out to the fast lane and stayed there.

The second call he received on his mobile was totally unexpected. He received it as he looped round on to the M6 northbound. The display on the phone told him that the person calling had withheld their number. He assumed it would be control room contacting him with another death, perhaps, as all calls from police numbers were automatically withheld.

‘Henry Christie.’

At first all he could hear was a hollow, metallic emptiness. He repeated his name.

‘Hello. . hello. . Henry?’ came the female voice he recognized instantly.

‘Tara?’

‘Henry — hi.’

He did a double-check of the time on the dashboard clock.

‘Tara — hello.’

The connection seemed to break and then re-establish itself. He knew why it was a poor line. She was calling from Lanzarote.

Her name was Tara Wickson and it was because of a request from her that Henry had become involved in something whilst suspended from duty. A little something, a favour that had ended up in a complex and murderous investigation into Mafia activity and connections across the world. Henry had foolishly become embroiled because he had been bored witless whilst on suspension, then the whole kit and caboodle had got completely out of hand. He could trace his involvement back to the fact that Tara was a very attractive and sexy woman, appealing full-on to Henry’s main weakness in life: the female of the species.

After it was over, Tara and her daughter had gone away to help them recover from the trauma they had undergone.

‘What’s up?’ Henry asked.

‘I’m sorry to call. I half-expected your phone to be off. . I was just wondering how things were going,’ she said weakly.

Why at this time of day, Henry wondered. ‘Oh, slowly,’ he said. ‘It’s all very complicated. Another of my colleagues is actually dealing with it. I’m involved, obviously, but it’s not my job, if you know what I mean?’

‘Yeah, yeah.’ She sounded distant. More than just in a geographical way.

‘What’s the matter, Tara? How are you?’

‘OK — ish. Physically battered, as you know; mentally fucked up, feeling guilty.’

‘Don’t,’ Henry counselled her quickly, firmly. ‘There’s a lot to get over, a lot to come to terms with, but you can do it. I have total faith in you.’

Once again, the line seemed to go dead. Then Tara’s voice came back. ‘No one has ever said they have faith in me,’ she said tearfully.

This time it was Henry who hit the pause button. He gulped. ‘How’s Charlotte?’

‘Bearing in mind what she went through, pretty good.’

‘Nice to hear that.’

‘Henry?’ Tara’s voice faltered. ‘I’m really sorry to bother you. . it’s just that I can’t stop thinking about you. . and what you did for me.’

‘Don’t. . it’s OK,’ he insisted.

‘But I can’t stop thinking about you. . you put yourself out for me and you did something that has deeply affected me. . shit!’ The line then did go dead, leaving Henry open-mouthed, hurtling along at ninety miles per hour, his mind not on the driving, and he almost missed the Blackpool exit off the M6. He could easily have landed in Lancaster, but he veered left just in time and gunned the car west towards the coast, wondering what the hell Tara had meant.

Was it that she had fallen for him?

Or was it that she’d been thinking about what Henry had actually done for her and she was now having mega problems in coming to terms with it?

The former thought was reasonably pleasant; the latter made him shudder, because if Tara bottled out, Henry would be finished for good. He could say ‘ta-ra’ to his pension and possibly ‘g’day’ to a prison cell.

The third call on his mobile was the one that kept him from hysteria. It was another job, this time much closer to home.

In some ways, Henry was relieved. This, too, looked as though it would be pretty straightforward to solve: stolen car, pursued by police, driver crashes and legs it, one dead passenger in the car. They knew who the felon was — local toe-rag, prolific offender — the only problem being tracking him down. Only a little problem, because people like Roy Costain are creatures of habit and sooner, rather than later, he would be caught. This would be an easy one to bottom, Henry thought as he surveyed the wreckage. The hard part here would be dealing with the media uproar that would be caused. Another fatality caused by a reckless police chase. Henry could visualize the headlines now.

Bugger, he thought.

He walked round the stolen Ford Escort, now mashed sideways on to the front end of a black cab. Stopping at the front passenger side window, Henry bent down and looked at the young girl, the body not yet having been removed from the scene.

Henry knew Renata, just as he knew Roy and the rest of the Costain family, which had a notorious and fearful reputation in Blackpool. He had encountered Renata a couple of times. Young though she was, she dallied on the periphery of the main activities of the Costains; bit of a shoplifter, bit of an assaulter on other girls, bit of an old-lady mugger. Her future was pretty much mapped out: crime, unwanted pregnancies, abuse. . probably. Who was Henry to say? Maybe she would have turned her back on it all, become respectable.

Whatever, her death was a tragic waste. Henry hated it when young people died.

Standing upright, he turned. Looking north up Dickson Road he saw the figure of a man hurtle across the road as though his life depended on it.

‘Mr Christie?’

Henry’s puzzlement about what he had seen was curtailed by the appearance of the local road policing sergeant. But before he could respond to the officer, another figure raced across the road, as though in pursuit of the first one.

‘Boss?’

Henry’s attention twisted to the sergeant. ‘Yep?’

‘Can we get the body moved now?’

‘I think so, yeah. . I need to speak to the officers in the vehicle which chased this one as soon as; but before that I’ll need to contact your divisional commander and my super. Both will want to have a handle on this,’ he said, ever so slightly troubled by the image of the dark shapes running across the road. Why he was affected, he could not really say. Blackpool is Blackpool, he thought wryly, one of the weirdest places on planet earth. He shrugged. Bollocks to it. He had more on his plate to think about than two idiots running around town in the early hours.

Renata’s dead, but wide-open eyes seemed to catch his, sending a shiver down his spine.

‘We’ll catch him, lass,’ Henry said under his breath, ‘but you shouldn’t have been here in the first place.’

As he walked back round the Escort, something in the glint of the streetlights reflecting on the front windscreen made him stop. He stopped, puzzled, eyebrows meshing together.

The sergeant, who had been standing next to him, saw the hesitation.

‘Summat up, boss?’

Henry tilted his head, peering at the windscreen. Above the domed bulge made by the impact of Renata’s head in the glass, just on the edge of the screen, he had spotted something unusual. ‘What is that?’ He pointed.

The sergeant followed the line of the pointed finger, then his own eyes widened. He stepped in for closer inspection.

‘Well,’ he drawled without too much commitment, ‘I wouldn’t stake my reputation on it, but I’d say it was a bullet hole.’

The close proximity of cops just down the road made Lynch uncomfortable. Justifiably so. After all, he had blasted someone to death in an alleyway not very far away from a dozen boys in blue.

After shooting Snell, he had dragged his body to one side, to lie in shadow, then returned to the guest house.

The police were very busy, dealing with what looked like a nasty accident. Blue lights, ambulances, the works. But Lynch, though uneasy, smirked: not half as nasty as the ‘accident’ in the dark alley behind the prom, prom, prom.

As he crossed back over Dickson Road, he was tense, but exhilarated.

He made it unscathed.

At the guest house, Bignall was lying in Snell’s recently vacated room, bleeding from the wound to the upper arm inflicted by the fleeing thief. He had ripped a dirty bedsheet into strips, then bound the injury with it, afterwards slumping weakly on to the metal-framed bed, pale, dithering. Blood seeped through the grubby material like spilled ink on blotting paper. He attempted to sit up when Lynch returned, but did not have the strength.

‘Not good,’ the wounded man rasped. ‘Not good at all.’

‘You’ll be right,’ Lynch breezed without concern. ‘Bloody body armour didn’t do you much good, did it? Anyway — look! Success!’ He held the blue sports bag aloft triumphantly. ‘Got the dosh back.’

‘Great.’ Bignall winced with pain. ‘I need a quack. I think I’m bleeding to death.’

‘Rubbish,’ sneered Lynch. ‘I’ll get you to one when we get back, OK?’

‘Did you shoot him?’

‘Right between the shoulder blades,’ Lynch nodded. ‘Went down like a sack of spuds.’

Bignall shuddered. He knew he was involved in a deadly game now, but just how ruthless and nasty it was, was only just dawning on him as he lay there feeling strength ebb out of him. It had just spiralled out of control and suddenly he felt very foolish and vulnerable. Shit, shit, shit, his mind whirred. Get me out of this now.

‘We need to get him back to Manchester.’

‘Who?’

‘Snell.’

‘Why?’

Lynch looked despairingly at his wounded partner in crime. ‘Control. . it needs to be controlled and we can only do that if his body turns up within the environs of the city. . yeah?’

‘Fuck!’ Bignall muttered. A searing pain radiated out from his arm. ‘Hell!’ he grimaced, gritting his teeth.

‘And there’s no way on God’s earth that you can see a doctor around here, mate. That needs controlling, too. Fancy getting bloody shot!’

‘Yeah, fancy. Just what I wanted. How the hell am I going to explain this away?’

‘We’ll think of something.’ Lynch’s nostrils flared as his mind cogitated. ‘Let’s get Snell-boy sorted first.’

Henry took a great deal of wicked pleasure in telephoning Detective Superintendent Dave Anger. He left it until the last possible moment when he thought he could get away with it. . then rang him.

It was five thirty a.m.

He had waited at the scene of the accident after Renata’s dead body had been removed to the mortuary and then until the local rota garage had turned up to remove both cars. He watched the vehicles being pulled apart with an ugly-sounding tearing of metal, then winched into place on the back of the recovery truck. He knew the garage had a secure compound in which the cars would be stored. He instructed the recovery driver to ensure that no one, other than himself and crime scene investigators, had access to the cars. Henry wanted to see if a bullet could be dug out of the stolen Escort.

He phoned Anger as the fully loaded recovery vehicle was driving away. It was a very satisfying moment to hear the sleep-jumbled voice at the other end of the line.

Just following orders.

Well in that case, Mr Anger, I’ll follow them to the letter, Henry thought.

His smile was warped as the conversation ended and Henry folded up his mobile phone.

‘Right,’ he then said to himself, suddenly feeling a chill from the Irish Sea. ‘Let’s go and knock on a door.’

Lynch and Bignall drove across the breadth of Lancashire and back into the Greater Manchester area without incident. Both men were at cracking point on the journey, not surprising as the dead body of Keith Snell, low-level low life, was folded up neatly inside the boot of their motor, covered by an oily blanket. One pull by a curious cop, one pull by a cop who wasn’t impressed by their credentials, would have ended the game for them there and then. Such a cop would have found a murder victim, the best part of 25,000, an injured passenger, a revolver and a shotgun. It would have made the cop’s career.

But their journey was uninterrupted and no cops were even spotted.

Lynch, at the wheel, mumbled angrily to himself for much of the way. He was annoyed at having to heave Snell’s body into the boot of the car with no assistance from his partner, who claimed that his injury prevented him from doing anything other than sitting there like a spare part, or as Lynch said, ‘Spare prat.’

As spindly and light as Snell might have been, he still seemed to weigh a dead ton. Manoeuvring, dragging and heaving him into the car required a lot of effort and more time than Lynch would have liked to spend on the job.

He was sweaty and panting when he finished and did not let up on reminding Bignall that he was a ‘soft, lazy, mardy-arsed twat’ for most of the journey.

Wounded, hurting badly, pain increasing all the time, Bignall did not care. All he wanted was a doctor and some drugs.

Lynch drove the full length of the M55, turned south on to the M6, then bore left towards Manchester on the M61. At the first junction he left that motorway and headed down to the M65, making Bignall stir from his torpor.

‘Where we going?’

‘We need to dispose of our chum in the back, don’t we? We’re not gonna take him home with us, are we?’

Bignall groaned. ‘OK, OK.’

‘I know just the place,’ Lynch declared.

‘But you’re driving into Lancashire,’ Bignall said, protesting mildly.

‘Yeah, but I’m gonna drive into Manchester another way. . to somewhere quiet where we can dump him and then set fire to the fucker. . I know just the place. . Deeply Vale. . peace guaranteed. . which reminds me. . need to get some petrol. .’

Bignall slumped down, now in agony. It was as though electrodes were being applied to him with shots of a million volts. He swore, felt weak. . and passed out.

Lynch shook his head with annoyance. Bignall was turning into a liability now. He sped quickly down the M65, exited at junction 8 and headed across the moors to the Rossendale Valley along the A56, a good fast dual carriageway taking him high above the old mill town of Accrington and towards Bury, which was back in Greater Manchester. Rain began lashing down as the car descended into Rossendale, driving as hard as the car, and also annoying Lynch.

Before the A56 merged to become the M66 — a motorway which speared into the heart of Manchester — Lynch came off and drove towards Bury.

He was back on home turf. Disposing of the body and dealing with the aftermath would now be a simple matter.

Lynch relaxed. Control had reverted to him.