Critical Threat

Thirteen

And then there was the next agonizing delay between Leyland and Preston when a points failure halted the train perhaps two miles short of his destination for almost thirty minutes, making Henry want to scream. He could almost see Preston railway station and it felt like it would have been quicker to jump off and walk.

When it eventually slid into platform 3, Henry was ready and waiting at the door with his luggage gripped under his arms, leaping out on to the platform and racing to the car park pay station, which also seemed intent on delaying him as he attempted to feed it a?20 note.

Frustration boiling over, he found his car on the car park, threw his gear on to the back seat and dropped behind the wheel. Before setting off he rang Angela’s mobile from his. The phone went straight on to answerphone, which he found peculiar. Shrugging his shoulders, he headed the four miles south to police headquarters at Hutton.

The Special Projects office was empty apart from one person, Jenny ‘Attitude’ Fisher. He nodded at her, went into his own office and picked up his PR, then came back into the open plan area. ‘Can you give me an update?’

Jenny was on the phone, but put her hand over the mouthpiece. ‘The dep and Graeme have gone to look for Mansur Rashid.’

‘I know that!’ he almost squeaked. ‘What time did they go?’

‘About nine.’

Henry’s eyes rose to the wall clock, doing a few quick calculations. Half an hour to Blackburn, ten to fifteen minutes finding the address, say … if Rashid was there, arrest him, then down to the cells by 10.30 a.m., he guesstimated. If things went according to plan.

‘Have you heard from them since?’

Jenny shook her head and pouted, then concentrated on what was being said to her down the phone and said, ‘Thanks for that.’ She scribbled something on a notepad and hung up.

‘Boss … just been on to Orange — oh, you won’t know, will you?’ she said, seeing Henry’s puzzled expression. She stood up and crossed to him. ‘During a search of Jackie Kippax’s flat, we found phone bills relating to Eddie Daley’s Orange mobile account.’ Henry was suddenly interested. ‘The latest bill wasn’t there, but I’ve been on to Orange today and they’re going to fax it to me … but in the meantime — voila!’ She showed Henry her pad. ‘This is the last number he phoned from his mobile — at 10.05 p.m. on the night he was murdered. It was to an O₂ number and I’m going to try to get the name of the subscriber without all the bureaucracy if I can.’

‘Well done, Jenny,’ he said. ‘Keep at it.’ He ducked back into his office where he dialled the extension for Blackburn custody office. It rang … rang … and rang … and was then answered by a harassed sounding gaoler. ‘Custody.’

‘DCI Christie here … is the deputy chief constable there? Or has she been there?’

‘No to both.’

‘Is there a guy called Mansur Rashid in custody?’

No hesitation. ‘Nope.’

‘You’ve been exceedingly helpful.’

‘Ta.’ The phone slammed down, leaving Henry holding a dead handset. He dialled Angela Cranlow’s mobile again. But got the same response as previously, the answerphone. ‘Jenny?’ he yelled through his door. ‘Have you got Graeme’s mobile number?’

‘No.’

‘Has anyone?’

‘Don’t think so.’

Henry replaced his phone, which he’d been holding in readiness to use. He hurried out of the door, down one flight of stairs and along the corridor. He didn’t knock, but just turned into the anteroom that housed the bag carriers and secretaries. Only the deputy’s secretary was at her desk, no one else in.

‘I need to make contact with the dep,’ Henry told her breathlessly.

‘You and me both. I can’t get hold of her.’

‘Has she got her PR?’

‘Yeah — no reply on that, either.’

‘Did she say where she was going?’

‘To make an arrest in Blackburn,’ the secretary said sourly. ‘DCCs should not be doing things like that.’

‘Any address?’ The secretary shook her head. Henry said, ‘Thanks,’ and scurried back to Special Projects, a scary feeling in the pit of his stomach. He did not like it when cops could not be contacted. He went to Jenny’s desk. ‘Did they tell you Rashid’s address?’

‘No … something wrong?’

‘Bloody hope not.’ Henry gestured to the office. ‘Where’s everyone else?’

‘Out doing jobs … on Eddie Daley’s murder, yeah?’

‘Right.’ Henry stomped back to his office, cursing today’s reliance on communications. If you couldn’t get hold of someone these days it was always a problem. In the old days, if you couldn’t make contact you lived with it. Maybe he was being a bit too nervous, but Mansur Rashid, whether he had killed his wife or not, was a violent man, as evidenced by Dr Khan’s injuries. If Angela Cranlow and Graeme Walling had gone in a bit gung-ho, they might have bitten off more than they could chew.

He tried her mobile again and got the same response, then sat at his desk deep in thought, tapping his chin with his knuckles before rising and walking into the outer office and going to the desk of the woman who’d been given the job of Murder Incident Room manager when the Special Projects team was turned into SPMS.

‘Where’s Delia?’ he asked Jenny.

‘Gone sick.’

‘What a surprise,’ he muttered, shaking his head. He picked up a sheaf of actions. The top one of the pile gave him what he was looking for. It was handwritten by Angela Cranlow and simply said, ‘From info received, arrest Mansur Rashid on sus of murder.’ There was nothing else. He took the sheet and went to Jenny’s desk. ‘Mansur Rashid,’ he said, placing it in front of her. ‘See if you can find out his address for me, somewhere in Blackburn. Interrogate all the intel systems if you have to … then call me on my mobile and let me know it. The dep and Graeme have found it somehow and they should’ve written it on here, but they haven’t.’ He leaned to her. ‘This is urgent.’

Henry hurried out to his car.

His radio was already tuned into Blackburn’s frequency. As he drove out of HQ he turned up the volume to listen.

Airwave traffic was busy, a lot going on, much of it generated by the visit later that day of Condoleezza Rice, even though the operation actually dedicated to it had its own specified channel and was running separately to the day-to-day policing of the town. It would have been impossible for such a large-scale operation not to have some overlap. Cops from all over the county had been drafted in for the day. Search teams and sniffer dogs were scouring the venues she was due to visit and the routes she would use were being constantly patrolled by armed officers. It seemed to Henry that a visit instigated at the whim of a politician was causing uproar — and not just within the police. The public, particularly the Asian community, were not exactly welcoming her to town and some demonstrations had been planned.

But that was not his problem.

He drove hard and fast through the country roads behind HQ before joining the motorway and heading towards Blackburn for what seemed the millionth time in just a few short days. Throughout the journey he continually called Angela’s mobile but got no answer, which increased his agitation and concern.

He hated it when officers went to a job and then you didn’t hear from them.

Ninety-nine per cent of the time it was for a legitimate reason and sooner or later they came back on the radar.

It was that last percentage point that bothered him today. He wondered if Cranlow, in her eagerness to be hands-on, had been a bit reckless and not obeyed the golden rule of telling someone where you were, what you were doing and that you were OK when you’d done it.

Henry grimaced.

Even the most experienced made mistakes. The unfortunate thing was that sometimes those mistakes became banner headlines.

Or was he overreacting?

During the course of his journey he picked out the voice of Bill Robbins on the radio, his old friend he had faced the pit bull with. It seemed he was not working the Condoleezza Rice operation, but doing a general ARV patrol — much to his chagrin, Henry suspected.

Henry tapped Bill’s collar number into his PR and called him up, using the mobile phone facility.

‘Bill, Henry Christie … are you available to give me a chuck-up?’

‘Is there a dog involved?’

‘Hope not.’

‘In that case I’m free.’

Henry suggested an RV point at Blackburn police station in ten minutes. As his conversation with Bill ended, his own mobile rang.

‘Henry, it’s Jenny … got that address for you. Took a bit of doing, though. It’s only on the Special Branch system.’

Major relief flooded through Henry’s system.

Fifteen minutes later Bill Robbins and his partner for the day, the policewoman called Carly, were travelling behind Henry’s car towards Whalley Range, an area in Blackburn which is predominantly Asian. Henry had been there many times over the years, particularly in the late 1970s just after he had joined the force, when there had been a great deal of racial unrest caused by the activities of the extreme right-wing political party, the National Front.

As he turned on to Whalley Range, a long, narrow road, sided by terraced houses and various Asian shops just off Blackburn town centre, he noticed a lot of street activity, more than was usual. No doubt generated by the arrival in town later that day of the American Secretary of State. From the snippets he’d heard, Henry knew there was to be a protest at the town hall by the Muslim community later that day, and maybe the bustle on the street was connected to this. A visit to a local mosque had been called off because of fears that protesters would invade. There was a distinct buzz of tension and he saw many people stop and coldly watch the liveried ARV behind him.

Henry drove on, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck begin to prickle. He wasn’t a cat amongst the pigeons any more; he was a cat tiptoeing through a dog pound.

The street he was searching for was just off Whalley Range, one of the myriad of tight terraces clinging to the steep hillside north of the town centre: Balaclava Street, a name to conjure with, one which gave a good idea of the time when it was built. They were all pretty standard, two-up, two-down, many now extended at the rear for a kitchen, and almost all the outside privvies demolished and the toilets now indoors, although some outside loos still did exist. The street reminded Henry of the one in Accrington into which he had led a PSU on a dawn raid that seemed an eon ago. A stroke of luck had saved him that day. He hoped he wouldn’t need such fortune again.

Still the questions lingered. Where was the dep? Where was Graeme? Henry had asked Blackburn comms to try and contact them, but there had been no reply. And still no reply from the dep’s mobile phone.

Henry pulled in on Randal Street, just before the junction with Balaclava Street, the ARV Ford Galaxy drawing up behind. He jumped out with the intention of speaking to Bill and Carly. Before he could open his mouth, all their personal radios interrupted.

‘Chief Constable to DCI Christie, receiving?’ FB’s gruff tones demanded over the airwaves.

Henry rolled his eyes. He knew that FB was at the helm of Condoleezza Rice’s visit today, that he was to be found at Blackburn nick, kicking everyone’s arses. ‘Go ahead, sir.’

‘I’ve been made aware of the situation, Henry … any developments?’

‘I’m just about to knock on a door.’ Henry gave FB the address.

‘Is there any reason why we should be concerned?’

‘Only in as much as communication has broken down and we can’t contact two officers.’

‘OK — do what you have to do … oh, have you got back-up?’

‘Yes — an ARV crew have joined me.’

‘Keep me informed.’

‘Roger.’ He regarded the two firearms officers. ‘I’m just going to go and knock on the door, just like I’m a cop knocking on a door. Can’t see any reason to do it any other way, except if you’ve got a spare ballistic vest in the back, I’d appreciate it.’

They did and he put it on. It was a new style vest, very light and flexible, giving just as much protection as the older, heavier vests; however, it didn’t stop a bullet to the head or the groin. He put his leather jacket over it.

‘If I’ve worked this out right, it’s up on the right. I’ll walk to it and you just stay here ready to rumble and I’ll see how the land lies. If I suspect anything’s amiss, I’ll yell. I don’t want to spook anybody unnecessarily.’

‘OK, Henry. What about tooling up?’ Bill asked.

‘Based on what?’ Henry replied. Bill shrugged, understanding that so far there was nothing to suggest that firearms were likely to be encountered — that anything was likely to be encountered, actually. He and Carly climbed out of the Galaxy and lounged against it, arms folded. Henry set off around the corner and up Balaclava Street, out of their sight.

The house looked no different than any of the others — and why should it? A front door, opening directly on to the footpath, with a living room window next to it, two windows above on the first floor. The curtains were all drawn. But nothing outwardly untoward.

Henry paused outside the door, holding his PR in his left hand and warrant card in his right. He banged firmly, using the bottom edge of his radio, waited. There was no response, so he banged again — harder. Still no response. As he was about to turn away and make to the back, there was a noise from inside and the sound of footsteps approaching the door.

His cop instincts, honed over many years of knocking on doors, tingled and told him to beware. Two experienced cops didn’t go missing for nothing. It was always the ‘routine’ jobs that took everyone by surprise.

There was someone behind the door. He could hear them. Then it opened an inch to reveal the eye of a man peering out across a security chain.

‘Hello,’ Henry smiled. ‘I’m DCI Christie from Lancashire Constabulary … I wonder if I could have a word, please?’ He held up his warrant card.

‘About what?’ Through the gap, Henry could make out the guy was of Asian background and appeared to be quite big.

‘I’d like to speak to Mansur Rashid, if he’s at home.’

The man shook his head. ‘Don’t know him.’

Henry’s guts did one of those sick-inducing somersaults. He swallowed as he identified the first lie.

‘I’d still like a word.’ He moved slightly closer to the door and gave the eye he could see the evil eye from himself. ‘I won’t be going away,’ he added.

The man nodded. ‘I have to close the door to unlock the chain.’

‘Please make sure you reopen it.’ Henry saw the man smile.

The door closed. The chain slid back. The man opened up and stood on the threshold, one step above Henry on the pavement. He had to look up to the man and did not like what he saw — an unusually tall and wide Asian man with yellows for his eyes, rather than whites, and a scar on his face running from his upper lip to just below his right eye. He was probably in his mid-thirties and looked mean. He smelled clean and wore a crisp white shirt and pressed jeans, as though he had just got showered and dressed. His thick black hair was slicked back, and wet. Henry noticed his hands and wrists were thick. They looked capable of strangulation.

‘May I come in?’

The man smiled again, stepped down off the threshold and looked both ways up and down the street before standing aside to allow Henry to brush past him into the hallway. The man came in behind, making Henry realize that, because there was a Yale lock on the door, it was now locked from the outside.

Henry hesitated but the man gestured, saying, ‘Go through, please … the door at the end is the kitchen … we can talk in there … I’ll make tea.’

‘Thanks,’ Henry said, lulled by this. He set off down the hallway, horribly aware of his vulnerability, but at the same time chiding himself for being so cynical as to tar everyone he came across as a potential psycho. There could be the simplest explanation for two cops being out of contact. Maybe they’d just gone for a brew somewhere, switched everything off. Cops had been known to do stupid things like that, difficult as it was to believe.

Four steps down the hall and Henry knew he was in real trouble.

What gave the game away was the blood on the floor and the walls.

His eyes firstly saw a blood spurt on the wall, level with his shoulder.

Since blood gets pumped by the heart around the body under great pressure, when a major artery or vein is severed there is a forceful gush of blood — and what Henry saw was a textbook example of such a spurt.

He had seen enough bloodstains in his life to know when he was looking at one caused by such an injury. Even as he was registering this, and seeing the rest of the blood splattered around the walls and floor, his body was reacting by spinning around to face the man behind him — and seeing the knife in the man’s right hand already on its downward trajectory as he tried to stab Henry in the back.

It was a hell of a knife too, ten inches of honed steel blade, and even then, part of Henry’s mind tried to work out where it could have been concealed — but that was an academic muse in that split second of time. The fact was, he had hidden it and now he was using it.

Henry twisted away with a grunt and the knife slashed harmlessly through the air, narrowly missing him. He heard it whoosh by.

Now standing at ninety degrees to the man, Henry brought up his elbow and rammed it ferociously into the man’s face before the knife could come back up. He caught him a hard blow just on the nose, knocking him staggering backwards. But the blow did not connect with the accuracy or force Henry would have truly wished, and instantly, despite the blood flow from his smashed nose, the Asian guy found his balance and charged back at him, with a howl on his contorted lips, the knife coming upwards towards Henry’s solar plexus.

There was hardly room to manoeuvre in the three-foot-wide hallway, but as the knife curved upwards, Henry jumped back like a scalded cat, knocking the knife out of the way and feeling it slice across the soft, fleshy part of his left hand below his little finger, making him drop his radio. Still the man came at him, yelling, ‘You should not have come!’ and trying to slash Henry, who found himself stumbling backwards in an effort to keep clear of the attack, his forearms raised defensively. He felt the material in the sleeves of his leather jacket slice open, but offer more protection than a normal suit jacket.

The man was moving quickly at him.

Henry’s back slammed against the kitchen door, trapping him, making him an easy victim.

But then the attack stopped, but only because the man realized that he now had Henry just where he wanted him. He readjusted his grip on the knife, wiped the blood from his face, smiled and lunged again, intent on murder.

Which gave Henry no choice in the matter.

Either he stayed where he was and tried to fend off the attack, which he knew would end in a messy, sliced-up death; or he got in close and personal and fought dirtier than he’d ever done in his life.

The knife arced towards him, its silver blade flashing.

Henry knocked it away with a sweep of his hand, making the man’s right arm flick briefly sideways and thereby giving Henry an ‘in’ into his body which he knew he would not have again.

He flung himself low and mightily into the man, twisting and driving his shoulder into the man’s chest, expelling all the air out of him as his shoulder connected with his breastbone. Henry did not stop, did not allow the impact to break his momentum, but continued to power back down the hall, wrapping his arms around the man, pushing him relentlessly back, keeping him off balance, all the way to the front door, crashing against it with a massive whack. Henry kept himself crushed tight into the man, body to body, and began pummelling him as the man struggled to climb away from Henry’s onslaught and get himself into a position to drive the knife over Henry’s shoulder into his back.

Henry managed to deliver a powerful body punch, making the man drop the knife. The man gasped, hurt, but immediately smashed his forehead into Henry’s face, catching him below his right eye.

The blow stunned him. Stars and lightning rushed past Henry’s eyes. Instinctively his hands went to his face, even though he knew he should not let it affect him.

He took a blow to the groin as the man tried to ram a knee into Henry’s testicles. It was a weak blow, not serious or painful, but it made Henry respond by grabbing the man’s throat and whacking his head against the front door, twice.

Suddenly the man got a surge of energy and power from deep within.

With an inhuman cry he managed to wrestle Henry’s hands from his throat and bend back Henry’s fingers, forcing him on to his knees as he attempted to break his fingers.

Meanwhile, Henry’s own strength had evaporated and he found himself being overpowered by a big, fit man. He stared into the man’s wild eyes, the eyes of the man who was going to murder him.

Simultaneous thoughts skittered through Henry’s mind as he sank to his knees: I haven’t called Kate this morning; why did I screw Angela Cranlow? I don’t want to die here.

Then he deliberately fell backwards, catching the attacker by surprise, upending him so that he would lose balance, let go of Henry’s fingers and fall on top of him. Suddenly they were face to face, rolling from side to side across the narrow hall, each trying desperately to be the one who got on top, get the advantage. They punched, kicked, scratched.

As they smacked against the skirting board, they were cheek to cheek. Henry opened his mouth, bared his teeth, then sank them into the man’s ear lobe and bit hard, worrying the ear like a dog on a rabbit, drawing blood which he tasted. The man howled in excruciating pain, spurring him on with a resurgence of effort.

The man’s face reared back and he spat a mouthful of blood into Henry’s eyes and for the next few moments Henry had to fight blind, until suddenly the man got in a punch, connecting with the side of Henry’s head, jarring his brain. He went limp and disorientated, let go of the man, who scrambled away from him and crawled down the hall.

Henry’s senses flooded back. He wiped his face and rolled on to his stomach, realizing that the man was trying to reach the knife. Henry grabbed the man’s left ankle and yanked him backwards and tried to crawl up him as though he was climbing a rope. The man kicked out and caught Henry in the face, just on the spot where he had previously head-butted him under the right eye. Something cracked, sending a nauseous feeling through him, but he held on, grimly determined that he would not lose this one. The man continually kicked back, but Henry wrapped his arms round his legs, preventing him from reaching the knife.

Henry saw that his radio, dropped when he was initially attacked, was in easy reach. The man pulled and kicked and fought, but Henry held on for death, wondering if he could keep him secure whilst getting the radio and screaming for help.

The man twisted so he was on his back, Henry holding on, his face now level with the man’s knees. The man managed to sit up and reached out, pounding Henry’s head with his fists. Henry tucked his face between the man’s shins, riding the blows, which hurt badly.

Then, with a great heave of strength, he broke one leg free of Henry’s grasp, flat-footed Henry on the shoulder and managed to yank his other leg away, then lunged for the knife.

Henry grabbed the radio and teetered unsteadily to his feet, backing breathlessly towards the front door, whilst at the other end of the hall, the Asian guy was in a leopard’s crouch, having retrieved the knife.

Both men panted heavily, eyeing each other warily.

‘You put up a good fight, infidel,’ the man said through the blood streaming down his nose. He wiped his face with his forearm. To Henry, he looked terrifying, waiting to pounce, blood soaking him. He spun the knife in his hand and Henry imagined it plunging into his neck.

Henry raised the radio to his lips. He had to get the call out. He had twelve feet in which to do it, in the time it would take for the man to reach him. Maybe a second and a half.

The man rose, pushing himself up as though he was a sprinter, except he held a knife, not a baton.

Henry was about to shriek something into the radio, along the lines of, ‘Fuckin’ help me!’

Two things did not happen.

The man did not reach Henry.

Henry did not manage to utter any words.

There was a massive, all encompassing ‘boom’ from somewhere behind the man and his right shoulder seemed to explode into bloody fragments. His arms shot up and he crashed down on to his knees, dropping the knife, then falling on to the floor, moaning and writhing in agony.

Henry’s mouth clamped shut and he lowered the PR.

A man in a ski mask and dark clothing stood at the now open kitchen door. A big man, his wide frame and height almost filling the gap. In his right hand he held a smoking pistol, which he lowered slowly. With his left hand, he pinched the top of his ski mask and slowly pulled it up off his head, revealing his features. Then he stepped forward and stood with his big feet straddling the knife man. There was a big grin on his face.

Henry was speechless, but the guy with the gun wasn’t.

In an American accent, he drawled, ‘Well, Henry, the cavalry’s come to bail you out again, I reckon. What you say to that, pal? Nothin’? Cat got it?’

Then Henry found the power of speech and said simply, ‘Thanks, pal … what the hell’re you doing here?’