Dead Heat

Nine

Henry sat in his conservatory, slouched down in one of the comfortable wicker chairs, a stubby bottle of Stella Artois resting on his stomach, balanced there in the grip of his right hand. His mind churned through the day, trying to put things in order, to make sense of what he had learned. He shifted painfully, grimacing. The knife slash down his side was hurting, though it had not done so all day.

The visit to Manchester had been fruitless, if tantalizing. There was something not quite right about Jo Coniston’s disappearance and nothing right at all about Sgt Al Major, her caring, sharing supervisor. Henry struggled to see a way forward with it, other than to do some desktop research into the news stories of the time and some of his own ‘on the streets’ research.

Next, his visit to the happy home of the Wickson family. It struck him that they were a deeply troubled trio of characters. John Lloyd Wickson was clearly up to no good in more ways than one. If she was to be believed, Tara did not know what he was up to, although even to Henry, some of his misdemeanours were blatantly obvious. Charlotte had her problems, too, probably caused by the relationship between her mum and dad. She was the only one of the three Henry felt anything like sorry for. The kids always get it, he thought bitterly. They may be amazingly adaptable, but it was always the parents who forced that adaptability on them.

He thought about Tara trying to do something to help her wayward daughter. Horses were obviously Charlotte’s big love and someone was hurting them. Tara wanted her daughter’s pain to stop. Henry wondered if that would ever be possible.

He sipped his reassuringly expensive drink. It was the only one he was planning to have that evening because he had decided to go out and do some schmoozling, as he called it. A bit of dancing with wolves. Put himself in amongst the people who could help him, maybe. That was if he could get out. Tea time with Kate had been fraught, and when he hesitantly revealed his plans for the evening, frostiness descended like a winter’s morning. She completely disapproved of his involvement in anything like this and it was straining her, despite his reassurances.

A deep sigh engulfed him. He adjusted his position on the chair. Looking round, he watched Leanne approach him from the dining room.

‘Hi, kid,’ he said, touching her arm. She kissed the top of his head and sat down on his knee. She wanted something. ‘What is it, honey?’

‘Dad,’ she began, ‘there’s a disco on tonight down at the youth club in town and I’d like to go. It finishes at eleven. I’ve done my homework.’

Henry kind of shrugged his whole body. ‘Yeah. . and. .?’

‘Mum says I can go, but I have to be back here and in bed for half-eleven.’

‘And. .?’ Henry waited for the punchline.

‘Can you pick me up? Mum says she’s too tired. Otherwise. . otherwise I won’t be able to go. . and all me mates’re going. . Jackie, Lorraine, Kylie. .’ She started counting them off on her fingers. ‘Louise. . Charlotte. . John. . Debs. .’

‘OK, OK,’ he said, defeated. ‘I’ll pick you up. But it’s eleven on the dot. . got that?’ She nodded eagerly. ‘Is that Charlotte Wickson, by the way?’

‘Yeah. . Ooh, Dad, you’re an angel.’ She kissed him.

‘And who the hell is John?’ His eyebrows rose.

Leanne stood up abruptly. Red embarrassment shot up her neck and attacked her face like nettle rash. ‘Nobody,’ she said petulantly.

‘OK,’ he backed off, holding out his hand. She slid hers into his and they squeezed each other’s fingers. ‘I’ll pick you up, no probs. I’ll take you, if your mum doesn’t want to.’

‘Thanks, Dad, that’d be brill. Love you.’ She bounded off happily.

Henry settled back reflectively. In the distance he heard the front doorbell chime. Voices grew gradually louder until Kate appeared in front of Karl Donaldson, the big American from the FBI in London.

‘Henry, Karl’s come to see you,’ she said coldly. She stepped aside and forced a smile on to her face. ‘Tea, coffee, beer?’ she asked Donaldson.

‘Do you have water?’

‘Flavoured? Fizzy? Still? Or from the tap?’

‘Flavoured and still would be nice.’

‘I’ll get it.’ She rounded the big man, glancing ever so quickly at her husband. The two men watched her go. Donaldson looked at Henry. ‘Everything OK?’

Henry cleared his throat nervously. ‘Yeah. . Take a pew.’ Donaldson sat on the two-seater sofa, almost filling it with his size, which was all muscle. He placed a black briefcase on his knees.

‘I see,’ said Donaldson.

‘Yes, icy,’ Henry confirmed.

Donaldson chuckled, but stopped abruptly and put his face straight when Kate reappeared with his tumbler of water, then went with a cob on.

‘Anyway — how are you?’

‘OK.’ Henry winced to get some sympathy. ‘Got a pain in the side, but it’ll be reet,’ he said, adopting a broad Lancashire accent. ‘Am pissed off with you in some way for putting me into bat with FB, though.’

Donaldson looked contrite for a moment, then said, ‘Business is business.’

‘Yeah, I know. So why are you here?’

Donaldson flicked open the catches of his briefcase and lifted the lid. ‘Got some information for you. Haven’t told anyone else yet. Hot off the press.’

Henry almost said, ‘Whoa, not a good idea,’ but his natural inquisitiveness got in the way.

Donaldson extracted a brown manila file and opened it. There was nothing written on the front of it to indicate its content. ‘Fast-track ballistics, remember?’ He leafed through a few pages. ‘Confirmed for sure that the STAR pistol the guy held to your head is the same weapon that killed Zeke and Marty Cragg. Also the weapon that killed my first undercover operative in Mendoza’s gang. The same weapon was also used in four other killings across Europe. All four are individuals who either crossed or were rivals of Mendoza.’

‘OK — same gun, but how do you know that Mendoza put the contracts out?’

‘You know I’ve been working more or less full time on Mendoza ever since Zeke was murdered. I now have an informant quite high up Mendoza’s chain of command who keeps feeding me tit-bits. I’m nurturing him slowly, but he may be of limited value because of his position. He only knows so much, even though he’s quite an important player.’

‘Why is he giving you stuff?’

‘Ah-hah, good question. His motives are not yet clear to me and I don’t trust the bastard. . Anyway, no one else knows about him, got that Henry? I’m only telling you because I trust you.’

Henry nodded. It would go no further.

‘That means Mendoza’s hit man has taken out at least nine people?’

‘More probably, but we just haven’t made the links — yet.’

‘And I had him — and he got away,’ Henry said, punishing himself.

‘Don’t feel too bad, pal, we’ll get him somehow. . I’ve got some more information.’ He fished out another sheet from the file, then looked at Henry. ‘Your CSI’s dusted your car, the car the hit man was using, and the weapons and anything else they thought this guy had touched and lifted some very useful fingerprints, together with some low-copy DNA samples, which I fed into our system.’ He paused for a moment for effect. It worked. Henry sat bolt upright. ‘We’ve identified the bastard.’

‘Yes!’ blurted Henry as though Blackpool FC had just won the FA cup.

‘He has about fifty aliases but was born Paul Verner in 1960 in Nottingham, England.’

‘Nottingham?’

‘Yep. He had a string of juvenile cautions here, then his family moved to New York where his father was in engineering. But young Paul continued his wayward ways and fell into gangland pretty easily by all accounts. He got his first murder charge when he was seventeen. He was acquitted and never appeared at court since, but we know he went to work as a Mob-enforcer, graduating to full-scale hit man.’

‘From bloody Nottingham?’

‘Yep — full of outlaws, Nottingham.’

‘Ah, Robin Hood, nice one. But Nottingham? I can’t believe that.’

‘He’s been arrested several times on murder counts, but always walked before trial. Intimidated witnesses, usual story. He disappeared from view about three years ago, which pretty much ties in with the first dead body in Europe. France, actually.’

‘Gone working for Mendoza?’

‘On contract, to coin a phrase. We think things were getting too hot for him Stateside. . he was under intense investigation following the murder of a loan shark in Brooklyn, then went to ground. Not been seen since — until this.’

‘Interesting.’

‘The family he worked for in the US have strong links with their Sicilian clan, who have strong trading links with Mendoza. We think his services were offered to Mendoza and being a Brit, with a British accent, he fitted in pretty well with the European scene.’

‘The circle completes,’ said Henry.

‘And now he’s here involved in some business for Mendoza and the American mob — and you interrupted him.’

‘Yeah, it makes sense. Let me get this: Wickson gets involved in drug importation on behalf of the Yanks. He upsets them in some way. So Mendoza sends in Verner to do the business for his American criminal colleagues.’

‘That could be it.’

Henry sank in his chair. ‘He left a phone message for me.’

Donaldson’s mouth opened. ‘He what?’

Henry fetched the cordless house phone and replayed the message for Donaldson’s ears. The tanned American went pale as he handed the phone back to Henry. ‘You need protection.’

Henry shook his head. ‘I think he’ll be too busy to be worried about me. I’ve just pissed him off, that’s all. He’ll get over me.’

Donaldson did not look convinced.

‘Any photos of him?’

‘A few.’ He reached in the case and handed Henry a stack which he skimmed through. One was a police mugshot from years ago, the others mainly grainy black and white surveillance shots taken from a distance. A couple could have been used for press release, maybe.

His eyes narrowed. ‘You said you haven’t shown these to anyone else yet, or told anyone this info. Do you have your own agenda here?’ Henry was thinking that the American might want to play his own game with this. It would not have surprised him. That was often how it worked, even within the same police force, never mind across other agencies which sometimes had conflicting objectives.

‘No. I want the guy as much as your lot.’

‘I take it you’ll be immediately handing this stuff over to FB, then?’ Henry smirked.

‘All I’m saying is that I have no agenda that conflicts with your force. I want him brought to justice.’

Henry nodded acquiescence, knowing that the information would not be passed straight away to Lancashire officers, even though he did not know why not.

‘So why tell me?’

‘I wanted you to know what you’ve been up against. But, yeah, I’d appreciate it if you let me tell FB what he needs to know, when he needs to know it.’

Henry nodded and thought: Knowledge is power.

Leanne’s youth club was located in a building in the centre of town, close to the Winter Gardens complex, which held unpleasant memories for Henry. He drove her in the firm’s Astra, determined to get as much use from it as possible whilst his own was still being repaired. When she realized he intended to convey her in it as opposed to her mother’s spic ’n’ span Renault Clio, she threw a wobbler.

‘I am not going in that heap of dirt.’

‘It’s the only way you’ll get down to town, unless you want to go by public transport.’

‘I will not be seen dead in it.’

‘Have you got your bus fare?’

‘In that case you must drop me off around the corner because I’ll die of embarrassment if any of my friends see me climbing out of this.’ Her face and screwed-up mouth said it all.

‘Get in and stop whining.’

The car set off in a cloud of dark-blue smoke. Leanne shrank into her seat and hid her face behind her hands. ‘Oh my God,’ she said like one of the actors in Friends, ‘this is so uncool.’

‘It’s a bloody car,’ Henry said, enjoying himself perversely, ‘and it almost works.’

He drove her into town and dropped her off as requested, around the corner from the youth club. As he pulled into the side of the road, and just before Leanne alighted, Henry checked his rear-view mirror and saw Tara Wickson’s Mercedes. The car swished past with Tara at the wheel, giving Henry no sideways glance at all, not seeming to notice him.

Leanne leapt out of the offensive Astra, slammed the door and stalked away without a thank you. Henry could not believe how short her skirt was and how she dared show so much midriff. He almost dragged her back home to get her redressed in a sack, but said to himself, No, no, it’s OK, don’t get wound up. . she’s growing up. It’s fine, but if that John lays a finger on her, he’s dead meat.

He set off, slotting in a couple of cars behind Tara’s Merc. To head to Poulton, she should have gone left at the next junction. She turned right.

Henry could do nothing else but follow her.

It was in his blood, the instinct of a cop.

Henry knew for a fact that the general public did not expect to be followed. People like himself, who had, for some part of their lives, led a clandestine existence, did expect to be tailed and knew what to look for. This is why he found it slightly amusing on one hand and worrying on the other that Tara Wickson had no idea who was behind her. He could have attached his car to her rear bumper with a tow rope and she would have been none the wiser. The worrying thing was that he found out that someone was following him.

He had not been sure at first. He thought it was just coincidence, but his entrails tightened up when it went beyond coincidence and, as James Bond would say, into enemy action.

Which put him in a predicament.

He wanted to know where Tara was going, which meant he would lose her if he took action to shake his tail.

Unless the follower was after her and not him.

For the moment he decided to stick with Tara.

She drove across the one-way system near to the Winter Gardens and weaved through various roads down on to the promenade. Once on the seafront she turned right and headed north, moving quite quickly and racing through lights on amber. Henry managed to stay with her, as did the vehicle three cars behind him. He saw it was a plain Vauxhall Cavalier, grey coloured, the sort of car that blended into the background. There was one man in it, just a dark shape hunched at the wheel.

Henry held his breath and gritted his teeth.

Could this be Verner?

Tara carried on up to North Shore, then turned right into the car park of the Hilton Hotel, a red-brick monstrosity overlooking the promenade.

Henry, several cars behind, sailed past and glimpsed her screeching into a parking space and jumping out of the car. Henry drove on to the roundabout at Gynn Square and kept left to stay on the prom.

Three cars behind him was the Cavalier — staying with him.

He needed to be sure. He drove on, the tram tracks on his left running parallel with the road. The remnants of last year’s illuminations were still strung from lamppost to lamppost. He was heading towards Bispham. So what better place in the world was there, he thought, to see if he really was being followed?

At the next set of traffic lights, he turned into Red Bank, Bispham’s main shopping street. Further down the road was a Sainsbury’s supermarket. He checked his mirror. The Cavalier had made it through the lights.

Henry swung a right into Sainsbury’s car park. He hurtled round it and slotted into a space at the far side, jumping out of the car and running at a crouch, using other parked cars for cover, back towards the main road.

If his tail was of any standard, he would not come in behind him, but would find somewhere to hole up with a view of the exit and pick up the follow when Henry re-emerged on to the road.

Henry ducked low and watched the Cavalier glide slowly past down Red Bank. He kept hidden behind a Transit van. The driver of the Cavalier strained to look across the car park and Henry saw his face quite clearly. Some relief flooded into him. It was not Verner. That was reassuring, but nothing else was. He thought he recognized the driver, but was not sure. He wondered if it had anything to do with John Lloyd Wickson.

The Cavalier went out of sight. Henry stayed where he was, the Transit keeping him out of sight of the road.

A couple of minutes later, it reappeared, cruising slowly. It went past the car park and pulled in fifty metres up the road.

Henry wiped a nervous hand across his face.

Decision made.

He vaulted the low wall separating the supermarket car park from the footpath and walked smartly up Red Bank towards the prom.

Straight in, he thought. He did not have time to mess about.

Within seconds he was at the rear nearside of the Cavalier. Two more strides and he was at the passenger door. He tried the handle — locked — and contented himself by squatting down on his haunches and tapping on the window with his knuckles and giving the driver one of his best, nastiest smiles.

Henry could not have had a better reaction if he had cattle-prodded the occupant. He literally leapt in his seat, then pulled himself together and tried to brave it out. His face seemed familiar to Henry. He was sure he had seen the young man quite recently.

‘Can I have a word?’ Henry said through the glass.

The window descended electronically a couple of inches.

‘What’s up?’

‘Why are you following me?’

‘Whaddya mean?’

‘I mean, why are you following me?’

The man bit his lip, his head flipped back and hit the head rest. ‘Shit,’ he said, cracking suddenly.

Henry then recognized him. He was the cop at the GMP surveillance unit who had let him in to see Al Major that morning.

‘Bit off your patch, aren’t you? And not that good at following people, either, not for a surveillance cop, that is.’

‘If I’d wanted to follow you without being seen, I would’ve,’ he defended himself proudly, realizing he had been well and truly blown out.

‘Fine. Now tell me why you’re following me and let’s talk other than through a glass partition, shall we?’

The officer reached across and unlocked the door. Henry dropped in beside him.

‘Is there just you?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Are you doing a favour for Al Major?’

‘No, am I fuck!’

‘What then? I’ll tell you now, I don’t like being followed. Makes me nervous and prone to rash acts of violence.’

‘OK, OK.’ He placed both hands on the wheel and gripped tightly. ‘I needed to talk to you. I found out where you lived, waited for you and was trying to pick up courage, OK?’

Henry nodded. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Ken Sloane.’

‘OK, Ken Sloane, what’s this all about?’

‘You came to see Al Major this morning, yeah?’

‘You let me in.’

‘About Jo and Dale?’ Henry said yeah again. ‘I’m not proud of this, but I earwigged your conversation.’

‘Ahh. . and?’

‘I’m not happy about it.’

‘What, our conversation?’

‘No.’ He shook his head, bowed his chin on to his chest. ‘The cover-up. I’m not happy about the cover-up. It’s been nagging and gnawing away at me like a rat.’ He sighed and raised his head. ‘I was on duty the night they went missing.’ He stopped, unsure how to continue.

Henry prompted him with a gesture.

‘None of us should’ve gone out that night. Some of the team were off sick, others on leave, the motorcyclist crashed on the way out and the radios didn’t fucking work.’

‘I presume the investigation team have inquired about all these things?’

‘Oh, yeah.’

‘Where’s the cover-up, then?’

‘Al Major, the bastard.’ Sloane scratched the back of his neck as though he was trying to get through to his brain. ‘He told us to say nothing about the radios not working. He couldn’t cover up the lack of numbers or the biker coming off his machine, but he covered up the radio bit. He threatened some of us and said we’d lose our jobs if that came to light. And you know what, like tarts we all went along with it. What a shower of shit we are. He’s a shit sergeant now and harasses and slags off all the women who come on to the branch if they don’t let him sleep with them. But there’s others like him too, his mates on the branch. It’s obscene. They all stuck together for him and no one got any blame for Jo and Dale. I’m not saying he had anything to do with ’em disappearing, but it wouldn’t have happened if we’d had a full team and proper equipment.’

‘Was he having an affair with Jo?’

‘Yeah — but she saw through him quick style and dumped him. He couldn’t let it go and had to keep on at her, the bastard.’

Henry looked at Ken, who was now allowing years of resentment to burst out.

‘He sent us out poorly staffed and with no fucking radios to find one of the city’s most dangerous crims.’

‘Andy Turner.’

‘Yeah — and Jo spotted him, trailed him, and then we lost contact, sort of.’

‘Major says she lost him, then he told her to come back in.’

‘I think she found him again. She didn’t let go, that one. I’ll bet she found him again, couldn’t get through to us and I think Turner murdered them.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘Turner went to ground, didn’t he? Hasn’t been seen for years, now, no intell, no info, nothing. I bet they stumbled on him and he whacked them. Has to be.’

‘What if they didn’t stumble on him? What if they decided to do a bunk together? Quit the rat race, go live on a beach somewhere? It has happened.’

‘And leave everything behind? Their cars, their pads? Money in their bank accounts?’ Sloane said in disbelief. ‘No way. They were murdered, Turner did it and he did a runner after covering his tracks.’

‘Interesting hypothesis,’ said Henry. ‘Never been proven, though. Even the police car they were using that night’s never been found. Where the hell did that go?’

Sloane shrugged. ‘You know as well as I do that it’s easy to dispose of a car. It’s either been crushed and recycled, or it’s in a flooded quarry somewhere. But there is one thing I do know — Al Major should never have sent us out that night, knowing the radios weren’t working. They’re our lifeline.’

‘The fact remains he did, though, Ken.’

‘Well, I want something doing about it. I’ve sat on this for far too long and it’s fucking me up.’ He turned and looked pleadingly at Henry, his face distorted with distress. ‘Help,’ he said pitifully.

‘Maybe the time’s come to make a stand, Ken.’

‘Jeez,’ said Henry to himself, walking back to his car. ‘Jeez,’ he said again, trying to work out the implications, if any, of what Ken Sloane had told him. The same Ken Sloane who thought he was talking to an officer of a higher rank who wasn’t suspended from duty. ‘Jeez,’ he said once more for good luck and got into the Astra.

He had sent Sloane off with the promise he would take the matter forward. The only way he knew that would happen would be for him to tell somebody in GMP, but Sloane did not want that to happen. He did not trust his organization. He wanted an outsider to look into it and at that time there was no one more on the outside than Henry. He was so far outside, he was out of bounds. But Sloane did not know that.

He drove back to the Hilton Hotel on North Promenade, glad to see that Tara Wickson’s car was still there. She was probably killing time with friends in the bar, he guessed, until it was time to pick Charlotte up from the disco. Henry wondered if there was any value in hanging around to see her. He drove around the hotel car park and decided not to stay. He was going to go and do what he intended to do that evening, when Tara emerged from the front door of the Hilton, hand in hand with a man Henry did not recognize. He swerved into a parking bay and adjusted his rear-view mirror to watch the couple walk across to Tara’s Mercedes.

Suddenly she broke away from the man.

They spoke a few words.

Seconds later they were in her car, kissing, silhouettes from Henry’s viewpoint. Then her reversing lights came on and the Merc reversed quickly out of the bay. She drove north along the prom.

Henry followed. She went through Bispham, continuing north through Cleveleys and up into Fleetwood, working through the streets of the old fishing town before stopping outside the North Euston Hotel on the front. Tara and her man went arm in arm into the hotel and Henry let it go at that. He did not have the time or inclination to stay with her, as interesting as it was, though not, he thought, all that surprising. Tara had a lover. Whoopee-do, fancy that.

In a puff of black smoke he shot past the North Euston and headed back to his happy hunting ground of Blackpool and, in particular, to the drug-infested South Shore.

He felt comfortable here. It was like putting on an old pair of slippers. He had done much of his police work on the streets of South Shore. He had dealt with dozens of people around here, arrested lots of them, protected many of them. When he got out of his car it struck him he wasn’t actually far from being one of them. As a cop he had been part of the fabric of life here, a denizen of the jungle.

The thought made his stomach churn. At least he was one of the predators, though.

It was 8.45 p.m. He had wasted an hour and a half already. He would have to leave the area by 10.45 p.m. at the latest to be in time to pick up Leanne from the youth club. Two hours. Not much time to mooch around, show his face, ask a few questions, ruffle a few feathers.

The evening had gone chilly. That good old Blackpool wind was starting to whip in from the Irish Sea as the tide came in; spats of rain were dripping in from a cloudy sky. He hunched down into his denim jacket, hands thrust deep into his chinos.

He started to wander.

The streets were as cold as the night, the dark skyline dominated by the structure that was the Big One on the Pleasure Beach, one of the world’s most terrifying roller-coaster rides. A light at the top of the framework blinked its warning to planes wishing to land at nearby Blackpool airport: ‘Don’t hit me, it’ll hurt.’

Henry sauntered along a few terraced streets. Much of the housing was now given over to customers of the DSS. There was a high level of unemployment in the area, which was one of the country’s most deprived.

Near a corner shop, Henry paused in shadow. A group of teenage kids, some on mountain bikes, hung around outside the door, harassing customers who looked like easy targets, and generally behaving badly. Henry thanked his lucky stars his two girls hadn’t gone down this route. He had been fortunate with his kids, despite his neglect of them over the years. Kate had done a fine job with them.

He watched the group. He would have liked to go and remonstrate with them, but it would have been useless and possibly dangerous. Good people had been killed making a point.

A scruffy-looking cop car — obviously from the same stable as his borrowed Astra — crawled past, two officers on board. The youngsters stopped and watched and when it had gone, behaved even more outrageously than before, dancing around as though on the grave of law and order. Why hadn’t the cops stopped and spoken to them? Henry wanted to know. His mouth turned down with distaste. Were they afraid?

Another pedal cyclist appeared from around the corner. This was an older youth, maybe eighteen or nineteen. He cycled towards the group by the shop. One member detached himself from them and met the newcomer.

It happened quickly. The handover. The payoff. A drug deal completed in less than the blink of an eye. Then the older boy — the street dealer — was away on his bike whilst the younger lad — the buyer — sauntered calmly back to the main gang, smirking as though he’d won the lottery.

Street life, Henry thought.

The dealer had disappeared from the scene. Henry knew who he was and maybe what he had witnessed would come in useful at some later date — if he ever got reinstated.

He did not know the name of the buyer, but watched as he now became a street dealer, handing out tiny packages to several outstretched hands. Henry doubted it would go any further than this. These guys would be the end users. The consumers of a product which could well have originated on the other side of the world. Passed through countless hands, making huge amounts of money along the way for the suppliers, middle men and deal makers. But not the users. These were the ones who ultimately provided the money on which the whole business was based. And where did that money come from, Henry thought cynically. High-volume crime: auto theft, burglary, street robbery. Crime that had spiralled out of control and there was nothing the police could do to stem its relentless progress.

Truth was, as Henry knew, that the government had missed the opportunity through a very short-sighted approach. Performance targets were easy in terms of crimes such as stealing from vehicles, and police forces had been bullied into dealing with this type of crime by the Home Office. The reality was that, on the whole, crimes like these were purely driven by one thing: drugs.

Now it had hit home that drug abuse was the actual cause of the problem, it was to late too do anything meaningful about it. The drug trade was so sophisticated that when a dealer or supplier was taken out, a replacement was operating in a matter of hours, or less.

Because the boat had been missed by not disrupting the trade twenty years ago, it was now impossible to claw anything back. Society was stuck with it.

Henry shrugged. Not his problem. He stepped out of the shadow and walked purposely through the cluster of youths outside the shop. They watched him with suspicion and their loud chatter ceased. They did not hassle him, stepped aside and let him pass.

He walked on and turned into the first pub he came to, the King’s Cross. Not long ago a gangland killing had taken place here when three drug dealers lost their lives. The place had closed down for a short time after that, reopening with the fanfare of high expectation. Within weeks it had reverted to what it always had been: a hang-out for losers, druggies, prostitutes and gays.

Henry eased his way to the bar. Heavy-metal rock music pounded out from speakers hung from the ceiling. The smoke-filled atmosphere reeked of cannabis and human sweat. Henry had a bottle of Bud, ignoring the grubby glass proffered by the barman, choosing to sip from the bottle. It tasted sweet and light. He leaned on the bar. He recognized about a dozen people. Some he’d arrested. Others he’d dealt with under different circumstances.

Some eyeballed him.

He smiled at one man in particular, raising his bottle to him. The man single-fingered Henry and turned away in disgust. A cop in the place!

Henry didn’t give a fuck. The guy he was actually looking for was not in. He necked the Bud and continued the trawl.

The next pub was smaller, but catered for a similar clientele. Except for gay people. It was a venue notorious for queer-bashing and some homosexuals had been severely beaten in the pub’s car park. One had been raped by four heterosexual men. Nice folk, Henry thought as he recalled the incident. He had caught all the men responsible. Their prison sentences had been derisory.

There was just a smattering of people inside. A big screen had been pulled down and a live football match was being televised.

At the bar he had a Coke this time — again in the bottle. He distrusted the glasses in these places, liked to see bottle tops being removed if possible. This time he gravitated to a table in one corner from which he could see all entrances and exits. It was 9.30 p.m. He thought he could either sit tight and hope for the best, or continue on what could be a fruitless tour. Sitting and waiting now suited him. At least he could watch the football. This was a watering hole and sooner or later both predator and prey came to drink. If he was lucky, in the next hour or so, his prey would show and he would pounce.

He sipped the Coke. Finished it, got another, sat and sipped. He was reminded of a Rolling Stones’ song, ‘The Spider and the Fly’: ‘Sitting, thinking, sinking, drinking. . Jump right ahead in my web.’ It worried him slightly that he could relate many situations in which he found himself to the lyrics of songs.

‘Come on, fly. I’ve got a daughter to pick up,’ he mumbled.

9.50 p.m.

The door opened and a gaggle of half-drunk, half-stoned girls stumbled through. Short skirts, micro tops, tons of smeared make-up. His guts lurched. Did his eldest daughter Jenny do this sort of thing? They looked and behaved awfully.

Then a young man walked in, closely followed by another.

The first one interested Henry. He was dressed slickly. Designer gear, making Henry raise his eyebrows.

This was his prey. Troy Costain.

The man walked straight up to the girls. They were ecstatic to see him. Two of them draped themselves around his neck, kissing him as his hands felt them up without any complaint from them.

Henry smirked. ‘You’ve come up in the world, Troy my laddie,’ he said to himself.

Costain bought a round of drinks. The young man who had come in with him smooched with one of the girls. The drinks came. Alcopops.

One of the girls sidled up to the main man and whispered something in his ear. Her hand cupped his genitals, giving them a playful squeeze which almost made his eyes shoot out of their sockets.

Costain and the girl discussed something, then both turned and walked hand in hand towards the toilets. Costain touched his friend on the shoulder and mouthed a few words in his ear, causing him to leave the girl he had been getting intimate with to follow the couple out.

Henry waited a minute and then downed his Coke thinking, I’m going to end up in some grotty bogs again here. He followed the trio down towards the toilets.

Above the door marked ‘Toilets’ was also an exit sign. Henry knew that beyond the door was a corridor off which were male and female loos and at the end was the doorway out on to the car park.

He pushed the door open. The corridor was empty. The first on the right was the ladies. He entered without hesitation. Inside it smelled awful, a concoction of urine, shit, stale dope and cheap perfume. The walls were scrawled with obscene graffiti, the likes of which he had never seen in a men’s toilet. His nose turned. He reluctantly stepped fully inside and did a quick recce. They were empty.

Back out and down the corridor, he twisted next right into the gents. It had all the smells of the female toilets minus the perfume, plus an overflowing toilet bowl which had flooded the tiled floor. Again it was empty.

They had gone out on to the car park to conduct whatever their business was.

Henry approached the exit door, which opened outward. He pushed and found it would not move. Slightly puzzled, he applied more pressure, but it still refused to open. He realized it had been wedged, a favourite trick of a dealer to prevent or at least telegraph unwanted interruptions.

Henry reared back and flat-footed the door. It gave an inch. He repeated the size 11 method of opening doors. It rocked open and he was through, out on to the concrete slope leading down to the car park, noticing the wooden wedge on the floor.

The two men and the girl were like rabbits caught in headlights.

The younger of the two men bristled and stood upright. The other two stepped back guiltily.

‘Troy,’ Henry called, ‘need a word, pal.’

The younger man was obviously the minder. He glanced nervously over his shoulder, then back at Henry. ‘What do you want me to do, Troy?’

‘Knife the fucker,’ came the response Henry did not really want to hear.

‘Who is he?’ the minder asked, not realizing that minders should ask questions later.

‘A cop. Knife him, you cunt.’

There was the flash of a blade under fluorescent light. Henry saw it glint. A long, thin knife. Blood pounded in his ears. The side of his chest called out, reminding him how much a knife can hurt, even if it doesn’t go right in.

‘Put it down, son,’ he said coolly, ‘or I’ll put you down.’ Henry knew what sort of a character he was dealing with. This was no Verner. This was just a street kid. He took a step towards the knife-wielding minder, who, more scared than he was, stepped a pace back. ‘Drop it, or you’re fucked. I mean it.’

‘Do him,’ Troy called bravely from behind the girl. ‘Fuckin’ do him, Ashey.’

Henry opened his hands, exposing his unprotected torso.

‘C’mon Ashey,’ he dared him, ‘come on lad. You either drop it or you go for me. No half measures, sonny. This is a big boy’s game you’re playing. Got the bottle?’ he taunted.

‘T. . Troy?’ he uttered nervously. The knife shook in his hands.

Behind him, the girl broke cover and did a runner. Henry did not care about her. It was Troy he wanted.

‘Is this your first test, Ashey?’ Henry asked him, taking another threatening step. ‘Bottle? You need it, y’know?’

‘You come any nearer me and I’ll fuckin’ gut you,’ he warned Henry, taking a firmer grip on the knife.

‘You sound like a fishwife.’ Henry took that fateful step.

Ashey, minder to a major drug dealer, shrieked with fear. His hands flew up into the air, the knife disappeared into the darkness somewhere and never clattered down. Ashey turned tail and legged it.

‘Ashey, you fuckin’ twat, get back here, get back here!’ Troy howled, but Ashey, his protection, had gone into the night. Troy looked nervously at Henry.

‘Not much cop, was he?’

‘Fuck you, Henry.’

‘You gonna leg it too?’

‘Might.’

‘Go on then. I fancy chasing you.’

Troy took up the offer, spun quickly and went for it. Before he had gone five metres, Henry’s big hands slapped down on his shoulders, followed by Henry’s bulk. Troy staggered to his knees with Henry on top, forcing him face down into the tarmac which covered the car park. Henry placed his right knee at the mid-point between Troy’s shoulder blades and dropped all his weight on to that point, almost crushing his lungs and heart. An agonized gasp escaped from Troy.

‘You’re hurting me.’

‘Good,’ said Henry. ‘You’re a little twat and I don’t like you and now, to cap it all, you’re dealing, Troy, and I don’t like that very much.’

‘Just a few Es is all,’ he pleaded defensively.

‘Oh, is that all?’ Henry increased the pressure on his knee. ‘That’s OK then.’

‘Aaargh!’ The breath went out of Troy. ‘Jesus!’

Henry eased off, stood up and dragged the doll-like figure up to his feet with both hands, frog-marched him to a car and deposited him face down on the bonnet. ‘Now let’s see. Empty your pockets.’

‘I can’t, not from here,’ he whined, his cheek rammed down on the cold metal, his hands trapped underneath himself. He had a point, but Henry was unrelenting. His own face came down to within an inch of Troy’s.

‘Do your best,’ he breathed into his nostrils. Henry did ease back slightly to allow him access to his pockets. ‘Put it all on the car.’ A selection of items slowly appeared.

‘That’s it,’ Costain said. ‘That’s everything.’

Henry yanked him off the bonnet and drove him towards the high wall at the back of the car park and pinned him against it while he ran his hands over Troy’s clothing, including a good root around the crotch area where good things often get concealed and cops are just too nicey-nice to search people properly. All Henry found was meat and two veg.

He spun Troy around and said, ‘Let’s have a look at you.’

Troy Costain was a member of the wide-ranging Costain clan that inhabited the Shoreside Estate in Blackpool, a notorious, run-down area, almost a no-go area for the cops, but not quite. The Costains pretty much ruled the roost by burglary, theft, cheat and general intimidation. They were feared by many people and often held at arms’ length by the police. Troy, however, had fallen into Henry’s grubby hands over ten years earlier when, as a spotty teenager, Henry had arrested him for some minor offence. Once in custody, thrown into a cell, Troy had crumbled. He was severely claustrophobic and had pleaded desperately with Henry for release and that he would do anything, admit anything, just to get out. Henry remembered smiling like a devil at Troy’s pathetic whimpering. The upshot was that since then Troy had become one of Henry’s best local informants ever. He had provided Henry with information which had tripled his arrest and conviction numbers. The pay-off was that Troy had been allowed to get away with some things he shouldn’t, but that was the price of a good-class source.

Over the years Troy had become more reluctant to part with information and Henry had sometimes resorted to using brutal methods to obtain it. If necessary.

A return to the cells was probably long overdue, Henry thought.

‘Well, well, well, my little informant, Troy Costain,’ Henry beamed cruelly. His hand continued to search inside and under Troy’s jacket. His fingers touched something cold tucked into his waistband. Their eyes met. Henry glared ferociously at him and extracted a two-inch-barrelled revolver. ‘Troy, you carry a piece,’ said Henry in disbelief, holding the offending weapon between finger and thumb.

Troy was caught and desperate. ‘Just a frightener, Henry, I wouldn’t fuckin’ use it, you know that.’

‘Is it loaded?’

Troy nodded.

‘You stupid, stupid bastard.’ Henry grabbed hold of Troy’s shirt with his left hand and dragged him across the car park back to the car on which his possessions were displayed. ‘What’s here?’ He kept hold of Troy whilst using the gun to sift through the items. A fat wallet, packed with money. ‘How much in here?’

‘Dunno. . fifteen hundred?’

A bag of tablets. ‘E?’

Troy nodded.

‘How much do you make a week?’

‘Two grand-ish. . enough.’

Henry wanted to hit him very hard indeed. ‘Got a motor nearby?’

‘This one.’ Troy nodded at the car he had been almost plastered all over. It was a BMW, white, tinted windows, alloys, spoilers, ‘G’ registered.

Henry chuckled despite himself. ‘You fuckin’ stereotype. Let’s go for a little ride.’

‘You are in very big trouble, Troy: carrying, dealing, fuck me. This is very big shit indeed. The way the courts are backing us up now, I’d say this is worth six to eight. . years, that is.’

Troy was driving, keeping his face firmly forward. Henry saw Troy’s Adam’s apple rise and fall. He knew he was sitting next to a very frightened man.

The gun and the drugs were in the footwell at Henry’s feet.

‘Eight years in a cell. . OK, let’s be generous — five years for good behaviour and all that. . five years being buggered daily whilst performing oral sex at the other end. That would be you, wouldn’t it, because you’d have no clout at all in the nick. You’d be bottom of the ladder, pal. And your fear of confined spaces. Banged up every night in a cell with a couple of other guys, all of whom will fuck you in turns. Way to go, Troy!’ Henry was remorseless. ‘Why the hell are you carrying a gun, Troy? Why?’

‘Protection.’

‘Oh, good one. Always goes down well in court, that one. Not.’

‘I’m in a dangerous business.’

‘You’re in an illegal business,’ Henry corrected him. ‘Pull in here and let’s have a one-to-one, a bit of a cuddle.’

Henry had directed him up along the promenade and then on to the public car park next to the Blackpool central police station.

‘Take a look at the nick, Troy. With this gun and those drugs you wouldn’t walk out of there again. In fact, the next time you stepped out of a door would be when they release you from Wymott Prison in, say, 2010, give or take a year or two.’

Troy looked ill.

‘I would ensure that all bail applications are refused,’ said Henry, really rubbing it in. He smiled at Troy. ‘So while you were waiting to go to court you’d be in custody all the way.’

‘Bastard.’

‘That’s me. Love it to bits.’

‘OK, you’ve made your point. What do I have to do? That’s obviously what all this is about. You come looking for me, threaten me and I give you some gen. . which is?’

‘The deal is this: you do what I want to my complete and utter satisfaction and I’ll consider giving you a verbal warning for the gun and the drugs. Obviously they’ll have to be destroyed, but that’s a small price to pay for getting some information to me and staying a free man, wouldn’t you say?’

Troy shrugged like he could take it or leave it. The hard man.

‘Ever heard of Andy Turner?’ Troy nodded. ‘I want to know where he is. I want to know within twenty-four hours.’

Troy shook his head sadly. ‘That might be difficult.’

‘Why, because he’s legged it?’

‘No — because he’s dead.’

Henry fell silent as his brain chewed that over. ‘Dead?’

‘Word is he got whacked a couple of years back.’

‘Who by?’

‘No idea.’

‘Find out.’

A guffaw shook Troy. ‘Easier said than done.’

Henry pointed down between his knees. ‘This is easier done than said. Eight years in the slammer. Very easy for me, love. . Now find out the truth, OK? I also want a list of addresses for Turner and his friends and associates, business partners.’

‘All in a day? You’re nuts.’

Henry looked at his watch. ‘Less than a day now.’

‘Twat.’

‘Am I! Let’s drive back down south.’

‘I don’t know where to start, man,’ Troy whined.

Henry knew the Costain family had a string of nefarious contacts right across Lancashire and down into Greater Manchester. He therefore knew Troy was lying.

‘Fibber,’ he said.