Critical Threat

Eight

Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea after all. Henry gazed across at the shocked faces in front of him and almost wanted to turn and run out of the office. It was as though he had just declared that a nuclear warhead was en route and they had four minutes to live. He glanced quickly at Angela Cranlow, who had approved his plan, and she grimaced back as if in severe pain.

‘So what do you reckon, guys, gals?’ Henry asked, trying to whip up some enthusiasm. The Special Projects team, his mad idea of a murder squad, looked at him aghast and in stunned silence. ‘Look, this’ll be good,’ he said positively, guessing this was what it was like swimming in treacle. ‘Just imagine,’ he said, looking beyond them to the wall and seeing an imaginary banner, ‘the Special Projects Murder Squad. What d’you think?’

They were in their nice, warm, open-plan office on the top floor at headquarters, having all dragged their chairs from behind their desks, and formed a U-shape around Henry in one corner. His eyes moved from individual to individual.

‘It’s been approved by DCC Cranlow’ — he gestured to her with a shift of his shoulders — ‘and it’ll do you all the world of good.’

‘Speak for yourself,’ someone unidentified, but suspected, muttered.

‘Right,’ he began, and perched himself on the edge of a desk, about to launch into his reasoning behind the idea. Before he could speak, a sergeant piped up.

‘Henry, the truth is, that’s real pressure. We don’t do real stress or pressure in here, that’s why we’re in here. We’re the land of misfit cops — and that includes the support staff in here, too.’

There was a general murmur of agreement and nodding of heads.

‘It sounds like you’re proud of it.’

‘No, not proud — we just are who we are.’

Henry gathered his thoughts. ‘This office,’ he declared, ‘is full of people who have got skills, knowledge and experience. Why you’ve all ended up here is not the issue, but the fact is that you are all here and I’ll lay it on the line: I believe that in reality, none of you truly wants to be here, do you? You’ve all got talents and the truth of the matter is,’ he said, using a pointing finger, ‘I’ve got the chance to investigate a murder until next Monday, a chance given to me by Ms Cranlow, and I desperately don’t want to blow it. I need your help and I know you can do this, be part of a team catching a murderer instead of just pushing paper around that no one reads, if truth be known.’

He picked up a thick manila file.

‘In here I’ve got printouts from the HR system of all your careers to date. I know from looking at it that we have the combined ability to run an MIR — which is a Murder Incident Room, for those of you who don’t know.’ Henry opened the folder and looked at the person sitting nearest him. He was a constable nearing retirement, well overweight to the point of morbid obesity, but who had once been a detective locally and regionally. He had worked on numerous inquiries, but had snapped when the force refused to let him stay on NCIS when his three-year contract expired.

‘Graeme — you can be my intel cell. What d’you reckon?’ The PC — Graeme Walling — shrugged, but could not hide a small smile. ‘I know you can interrogate all the computer systems and analyze stuff. It’s what you’ve been doing in Special Projects for months anyway. How about it?’

The PC inclined his head in agreement, not the most loquacious of individuals.

Henry looked along at another PC, this time a female, whose attitude problems had caused her and everyone else around her severe problems, ensuring she was passed from department to department like a hot spud. No one ever got a real grip of her because she always threatened discrimination or harassment, making managers afraid of managing. She had become one of the most disaffected and bitter people Henry had ever met.

‘Jenny — you’ve been a HOLMES indexer.’

‘Years ago.’

‘I’d like you to do it again — only this time you’d be all things combined: manager, inputter, quality control … yeah? I’ll have a machine installed within the hour.’

She pulled a face. Apart from her attitude, Henry also found her to be extremely lazy, but once set off on a task, she usually got it done in her own sweet time, but to a high standard.

‘OK,’ she relented after consideration. Nothing like a volunteer, Henry thought.

He took a breath. This was going to be real graft, he thought, recalling the film The Dirty Dozen, who had nothing on this lot.

By 6 p.m., Henry and Angela Cranlow had managed to convince the Special Projects Team that they were the ideal fodder for a Murder Incident Room. Henry had laboriously worked his way from person to person, glancing at the HR file, extolling their virtues and skills, building them up in an effort to convince them they could do it.

In some cases the argument was pretty thin and he had to use poetic licence.

One of the women, who did word processing, had taken a lot of convincing. She was very old school and had joined the constabulary as a typist even before Henry, and it had taken over ten years to wean her off the Remington, via an electric typewriter, finally on to a computer. This had resulted in her struggling desperately, and because she could not keep up with new technology, no department had any use for her, however nice she was. The constabulary, in time-honoured fashion, did not give her the boot as it should have done, but shuffled her around and around until she ended up on Henry’s scrapheap. She was good at making tea, filing, running errands, manual paperwork and providing emotional support for others.

Mrs Delia Wantage, thirty-three years’ service, all in headquarters departments, therefore became the Murder Incident Room manager.

In front of all the others, tears rolled down her face and she could not control herself. She rushed from her seat and embraced Henry, crushing him to her ample chest and saying he was the best boss in the world. Whilst embarrassed, Henry enjoyed the moment, but only for the wrong reasons. The close proximity of a big-chested woman, even one ten years his senior, did that sort of thing to him.

Delia then went and made tea for everyone.

At 6 p.m. Henry had done his job well, he thought. The department was now buzzing with a childlike delight he had never witnessed in a group of adults before. A warm glow flushed through him, not least at the memory of Delia Wantage and her bosom.

With the best will in the world, Henry was exhausted. He had been on the go since yesterday morning and in another hour he would have been up for thirty-six hours without a break. His brain had gone fuzzy and weariness was invading his body like the slow march of a disease. He could not sustain it any longer and knew that nothing more would be achieved. He decided to call it a day, telling everyone to be ready for a 9 a.m. briefing next morning. He watched his team as they collected their personal belongings and left, still chattering excitedly about the prospect of being a murder squad. He had sold it to them well.

With the last one gone, he said, ‘Shit,’ and walked across to his office in the corner of the room and slumped behind his desk, rubbing his eyes and yawning. Before he left he was going to root out the Standardized MIR operating procedures and Murder Investigation manuals. The MIR manual listed roles and responsibilities and Henry intended that each of his team would know exactly what they were supposed to be doing next day.

Following this he was going to touch base with the CSI people, the pathologist and the forensic lab in order to get as much stuff processed as soon as possible. He knew that unless he struck very lucky, very quickly, he would be fortunate to crack the case of the murder of Eddie Daley with the time and resources available to him. His intention for the days ahead would be to ensure that all the policy and procedural stuff was done correctly; that all intelligence available was accessed and some inquiries surrounding the Class Act were undertaken. When he handed the whole shebang back to Dave Anger, he wanted everything to be spot on.

He opened the murder policy book — the book in which the SIO records all actions taken and decisions made — and began to jot down a few things under headings such as Crime Scene Assessment (location, victim, offender, scene forensics, post-mortem), Evidence and Facts, Mental Reconstruction, Hypotheses, and Lines of Inquiry.

There was not much detail in his notes yet, just a few lines or words, which would be expanded when he came back tomorrow.

At 7 p.m. he closed the book and left the office, wandering through the eerily empty corridors of HQ. As he walked down the steps, his mobile rang.

‘Henry, it’s me, Angela.’

He had to think for just a moment: Angela? Then the penny dropped. It was the deputy chief constable. His backer.

‘Ma’am?’

She had left Henry with his team a couple of hours earlier to catch up on her own work. He hadn’t seen her since and assumed she had headed home, wherever that was.

‘What’s your location?’ He told her. ‘My office — come straight in.’

The first-floor corridor was particularly quiet and dark. Henry walked through the double doors halfway along, then turned right into the outer office, which he expected to be empty. On reflection he shouldn’t have been surprised to see his best friend, Chief Inspector Laker still at his desk, tapping away on his keyboard, impressing everyone by working late. The door to FB’s office was open and it was clearly empty.

Laker looked at him, puzzled. Henry thumbed towards the dep’s door to his right. ‘Ms Cranlow’s expecting me.’ Laker’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Honest.’ Henry winked at him, gave one rap on the door and entered. The office was almost as big as the chief’s and easily housed a large desk, a conference table, coffee table and sofa. Cranlow was sitting cross-legged on the sofa, surrounded by a sea of papers which also covered the coffee table.

She had changed her clothes, having divested the uniform in favour of a T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms with running shoes. Her hair had been pulled back into a short ponytail, revealing the true shape of her face. Which was a pleasing oval. She had no make-up on and it was obvious she had recently showered.

‘Sit down, be with you in a second.’ She patted the sofa and Henry eased himself on to it, very aware he now sported a thirty-six-hour shadow and desperately needed a long, hot shower, a shave, and something proper to eat, followed by a JD on the rocks — then bed.

Cranlow scanned a few sheets of a very important looking document, then straightened the whole lot into a neat pile. She turned to Henry. ‘Performance figures … do you know we’re the top performing force in the country?’

‘I’ve heard FB spout it a few times, bit like a cockerel crowing.’

‘He’s very proud of the force.’

‘I know.’

‘So, Henry,’ she said, shuffling herself more comfortable, ‘another big wow from me.’

‘Why?’

‘Special Projects, Mr Motivator. I half expected them to be fighting on the beaches.’

‘They’ll be back to normal next week. Happy, smiling, hard working — not!’

‘And this week they’ll work like demons, I bet. You did a good job with them.’

‘Ta.’

She tilted her head slightly. ‘I don’t usually do this, but do you fancy a drink? It’s been one hell of a day.’

‘I was on my way home.’

‘To your ex-wife?’

‘Yeah.’ The word sounded almost apologetic.

‘Make it a quick one, over at the Anchor? You can tell me your plans for tomorrow.’

‘Sounds good.’

‘I’ll see you over there.’

The Anchor Inn, situated a short distance from police headquarters, is just off a roundabout on the A59 which, in its time, had claimed the lives of several police officers, as Henry was explaining to Cranlow.

‘This place used to be crawling with cops on courses at headquarters. A lot of drinking and driving went on, but less so now. A few still come in, but way back when, Tuesday and Thursday nights used to be heaving in here before everyone headed for town. Not much studying got done on courses the day after. Tuesday used to be grab-a-granny night, if I recall correctly.’ He smiled at a hazy memory.

‘I’m nearly a granny,’ Angela revealed.

They had taken their drinks into the conservatory. Henry had gone for his usual, Stella; Angela, a red wine.

He almost choked on his. ‘What?’ he asked incredulously.

‘My daughter’s pregnant.’

‘Well, ma’am, I’m sorry — but you don’t look anything like a granny.’

She smiled at the compliment.

After a slight pause, he asked, ‘So, what’s your story?’

She considered the question. ‘OK — whirlwind tour of life: preggers at sixteen to a bastard who did a runner. Gave birth to a daughter, who I adore; joined West Yorkshire Police at nineteen; did an OU degree in my spare time — and that was tough — then worked my way up through the ranks. Hard graft, but my parents were — are — brill and now it’s kind of worked out, with one exception. The guy I married, also a cop, couldn’t handle me. He upped and left, quite a while back now,’ she said wistfully. ‘No one of any note since.’

Henry sipped his lager, which, after the day he’d had, tasted amazing.

‘You still live over the Pennines?’

‘With Mum and Dad, yeah … but when I got this job, the constabulary paid for a rental house just around the corner. Twelve months, so I’ve still a bit of time to get sorted. Rent? Buy? Not sure yet, see how it pans out.’ She shrugged. ‘We’ll see, but I’m actually looking forward to being a gran, all things considered.’

‘Well, you get a wow from me.’ Henry held up his pint and she chinked her wine glass against it.

‘And I’m looking forward to the week ahead. Should be interesting.’

‘What do you see yourself doing?’

‘Helping you out. Going out, making some inquiries, maybe arresting someone? That’d be great. It’s a long time since I’ve been involved in anything like this and I’m going to play — especially as I don’t have anything to do with Condoleezza Rice’s visit to Blackburn this week. That’s the chief’s baby — and ACC Ops.’ The visit had nothing to do with Henry either, for which he was pleased. Such events were a pain and best avoided. He and his Special Projects team had quality assured the operational order for the event, but that was as far as his involvement went. ‘And if it wasn’t for her, you wouldn’t be investigating Eddie Daley.’

‘I realize that. I take it you approve of me just keeping a lid on the investigation — dot the i’s, cross the t’s?’

‘Well, yeah,’ she admitted with a twitch of her nose which Henry found quite appealing. ‘But an arrest would be a bonus.’

‘I shall do my best.’ He took another sip of his beer, aware it was going down on a very empty stomach. Angela watched him carefully.

‘FB really likes you, y’know?’

‘He’s got a funny way of showing it.’

‘I think his heart is in the right place. He’s got a lot of plates spinning.’

‘I didn’t know he had a heart.’

She watched him take another drink. She sipped her wine, then licked her lips. ‘How would you feel if an ACPO officer made a pass at you?’

Henry considered the question carefully. ‘I suppose it would depend on whether or not I fancied him.’

She giggled girlishly. Henry grinned. ‘What if it was a female ACPO officer, to be more precise? One living alone in a big rented house not two minutes’ drive from here?’ Henry’s pulse quickened. He took a longer swig of his drink. ‘One, say, on the verge of becoming a grandmother at the ripe old age of forty-four and one who would offer no strings attached, because she needed discretion and could not afford any sort of scandal?’

He drained his glass. ‘I need another. You?’ She swallowed the last mouthful of red wine and held out the glass.

‘A large one,’ she ordered. ‘Think about it while you go to the bar. I’m going to the loo.’

Henry’s weak legs just about managed to carry him as far as the bar, where with a husky voice he ordered and bought the drinks, returning to the seats in the conservatory to find Angela had also returned and let her hair down from her ponytail.

‘Er, lost for words, a bit. I mean, I know it’s all hypothetical and sounds a wonderful set of circumstances and my response would be that I would have to think about that sort of thing very carefully.’ He spoke as if he was responding to a business proposition. ‘In my experience, nothing ever comes without strings attached and I’ve got a very poor track record when dealing with females of the opposite sex. The older I get, the less I get them.’

‘This one’s simple, though. I might be an ACPO officer, but I still have pretty basic urges.’ She leaned forward. ‘This one is desperate for a fuck and nothing else. This one will use you and abuse you and toss you by the wayside after literally sucking you dry.’ She licked her lips and looked seductively at him. ‘And she wants to fuck you.’

Despite his good intentions towards Kate, there was a strong stirring in him which equated with weakness of the flesh.

‘I would have to enter such a’ — here, he shook his head, trying to find the right words — ‘relationship, I suppose, with eyes wide open and ground rules set.’

‘That would be acceptable.’

‘Although I do find it amazing that an officer of ACPO rank could even contemplate such a thing.’

‘Let me tell you, Henry, they’re at it like knives the country over.’

‘It’s a bit like imagining your parents having sex.’ He screwed up his face.

‘Even ACPO officers are flesh and blood.’ Then she added provocatively, ‘All I could think of during last week’s debrief was me and you, at it like knives.’

‘I won’t push it, Henry,’ Angela said, ‘and I won’t hold it against you if you’re not interested, but there is one thing I’d like you to think about …’

It was 8.30 p.m., way past Henry’s bedtime. He and Angela had finished their drinks and were on the car park to the side of the Anchor, standing by the open driver’s door of her Mercedes. She turned to him, standing only inches away, face turned up, and he didn’t have to be told that this was the point where they kissed.

‘Tonight probably isn’t appropriate,’ she said. ‘We’re both exhausted and we need clear heads for tomorrow, which’ll probably be an equally busy day, but …’ She didn’t need to say another word, because they instinctively came together and kissed. Their lips mashed together, their tongues sliding into each other’s mouths. Henry could feel her body through her T-shirt and his immediate hardness pressed against her. They broke apart, gasping for air, looking longingly at one another, Angela’s eyes moist with passion. ‘Just a taster,’ she said, ‘and believe me, I taste good.’

With that she pushed him gently away and slid into her car, closing the door and driving away, leaving him, as planned, wanting more.

He stood there until his manhood subsided, drawing a strange look from a couple walking towards the pub. The blood took for ever to drain away.

He sat in his car with the engine idling for a while. On the passenger seat was a slip of paper Angela had pushed into his hand which bore her address, mobile and home phone numbers. There was a big ‘X’ underneath. He picked it up and read it. He knew the road she lived on, just a matter of half a mile away. But he blew out his cheeks and dropped the paper on to the seat and set off down the dual carriageway towards Preston and, ultimately, home.

Henry knew his weakness and had major problems controlling it. And it was particularly tempting to be offered no strings attached sex by a woman who could not afford to get caught out because of her high-profile career.

God, why can’t I change my spots? he agonized internally. He was seriously working out whether he could juggle it when his brain suddenly cleared and remembered how recently it was that he and Kate had made fantastic love and he had said all those things to her and here he was, considering embarking on an affair, or at least a one-night stand, with another woman. Which then spun his thoughts into those dangerous areas of justification … Well, I’m not married, I’m not engaged, so technically I’m a free man; Angela’s free, too, so on the face of it I could screw her without any feelings of guilt … Except nothing was ever so easy … and he knew he had caused so much grief to Kate and the girls over the years and yet they still loved him … and what if Angela turned out to be a less stable character than she appeared?

He headed down Penwortham Hill and bore left over the flyover which spanned the River Ribble to the south of Preston. Then he drove down by the docks and picked up the Blackpool Road.

When his heartbeat settled back to normal, he slotted a Stones CD into the player, one he had burned himself, and relaxed as the opening chords of ‘Streets of Love’ filled the air and Jagger began to croon about unrequited love. The dual carriageway out of Preston continued past the docks and inclined upwards through Lea. Henry was not in a rush, his main aim being to stay awake and make it home in one piece. He stuck to the speed limit as he passed the Lea Gate pub on his right and approached the traffic lights at Three Nooks, intending to go straight on.

He attempted to erase the memory of the kiss, not entirely successfully, and thought fleetingly about the last woman he’d almost had a fling with. He recalled how he had got her so drunk that she wasn’t physically capable of sleeping with him. That action itself was a turn up for the books, a turning point in his life maybe. The ‘new’ and faithful Henry Christie. Or possibly the ‘old and getting past it’ Henry. The Henry who only wanted a plasma-screen TV and a quiet life. He had actually ordered the plasma and maybe the same was true of his life: it was on order, expected to be delivered at any time, but meanwhile he had to make do with what he had.

The lights were on red. He stretched, yawned and skipped the next two tracks on the CD and found, ‘Tell Me’, one of the first songs the Stones had ever written and recorded. He always thought it was a lovely song, written when Jagger and Richards were just testing their wings.

As the amber lights appeared, he moved off reasonably slowly, now thinking about Eddie Daley and the fact that Eddie’s mobile phone had not been found. He’d taken it out with him when he’d gone to the office, so it stood to reason that the killer had stolen it. And was there anything else missing that should have been there? Something continued to bang away at Henry’s brain.

His mobile phone rang. ‘Yeah?’

‘Henry, it’s me, Angela.’

‘Deputy Chief Constable Angela?’

‘How many Angelas do you know?’

‘You’d be surprised.’

He was driving with his mobile cradled to his ear by his right shoulder. Totally illegal, but still with both hands on the wheel.

‘The kiss was nice.’

Henry almost growled. ‘Yes, it was,’ he agreed reluctantly.

‘No pressure, honestly.’

‘Cheers, goodnight, boss … see you tomorrow.’

‘Yeah, bye,’ she said throatily.

Henry tossed the mobile phone on to the passenger seat and, not for the first time, cursed the device. How did life go on before they existed? Sometimes that more simple life was hard to bring back to mind.

A few minutes later he drew up on the drive outside his house in Blackpool. He climbed jadedly out of the car and walked to the front door and stepped inside to the warmth and welcome. He relaxed as Kate appeared in the hall, already in her dressing gown, looking ravishing and more beautiful than ever.

‘Long time, no see,’ she said with a grin. She gave him a tender hug, then pushed him away, screwing up her nose. ‘This is nothing personal, darling, but I think you need a bath.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Then some decent food, a bit of a chill and a good night’s sleep. Again, nothing personal, but you looked wrecked and uptight.’

‘Spot on.’

‘You do the bath side of things and I’ll put something together for you and bring up a glass of JD for the bath. How does that sound?’

‘Sounds good. Are the girls in?’

‘Yeah — in their rooms. Dying to see you.’

The tension drained from him as he exhaled. ‘It’s been a helluva day.’

He placed one foot on the first stair tread, the bath beckoning him with the prospect of hot water, Radox bubbles and wrinkly skin. He never got to the second step because the blight of his life intruded once more. The mobile phone which, even with its ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ ring tone, pissed him off severely, blaring from out of his jacket pocket.

He wished he’d left it in the car.

He fished it out, was relieved to see it wasn’t the deputy chief calling — unless she had withheld her number. He answered it.

‘Henry-’ he started to say, but before he could utter ‘Christie’, a woman’s voice cut in coolly.

‘It’s me, Jackie Kippax …’ He opened his mouth to say something, but she continued, ‘I’ve caught Eddie’s murderer for you.’

‘What?’

He heard her take a breath. ‘He’s right here in front of me …’

Henry heard a male voice say, ‘You got it wrong, lady.’

Jackie said, ‘Shut it, you fucker … Henry, I’m sat right opposite him now and I’m going to do exactly what he did to Eddie.’ She screamed out the last few words, ‘And blow his fuckin’ brains out!’

There was the sound of scuffling. Then a clatter, a scream and a loud gunshot — and suddenly the phone went dead in his hand.