Hidden Witness

FIVE

As stunned as he was by Henry’s revelation, Old Man Costain’s mistrust of the police, ingrained and inflexible after fifty years of living on the wrong side of the law, made extracting any information from him a tortuous process. In spite of the reassurance that, for once, the forces of law and order were on his side, blood didn’t come easily from the stone that was William Patrick Costain.

Eventually, Henry had had enough. Even getting Costain to tell him what clothes Rory had worn the previous evening had been hard work, but he was ninety-nine per cent certain now that the corpse of the car park was the aforementioned Rory. One hundred per cent would only come with a formal family identification, or a photographic and/or dental comparison, which Henry would have preferred. As much as Henry had ‘issues’ with the Costains, even he didn’t want to have to put Billy through the trauma of having to identify Rory’s body. The lad’s head was a disfigured mess and not something he would have wanted any family to see.

But Costain insisted. ‘He’s my boy, I have a right.’ And despite the less than subtle warning from Henry, Billy was going to have his way.

The ID took place at the public mortuary in Blackpool Victoria Hospital at six thirty that morning.

Costain drove to the hospital in his huge old Mercedes, accompanied by his wife of many years, the adorable Monica. She was quite a bit younger than him at fifty and had once been a real stunner, a raven-haired, green-eyed beauty. But the carriage and birth of seven children (plus two stillbirths), heavy drinking, smoking and the long exposure to the sunshine of the Costa del Sol, had ravaged her looks and body.

It had been a rush to get Rory’s body in a fit state to be gazed upon, an undertaking that entailed cleaning up the face without compromising any evidence, and then wrapping his head in a muslin towel to hide the horrific wounds on both sides, the entry and exit. All that remained to be seen were his distorted features. The creepy mortuary technician, who Henry noticed had a lazy eye, making him even scarier, carried out this prep. A hump would have completed the tableau wonderfully. He did the job under the supervision of O’Connell. The rest of the body was covered with a sheet and was then wheeled on a trolley into the viewing room, and positioned underneath the curtained window on the other side of which was an anteroom for relatives to gather in.

Henry stepped into this room from the mortuary, O’Connell behind him. The Costains waited, muted and afraid.

Old man Costain rubbed his face continually, stretching his features. Monica stood there numb.

Henry took a deep breath. ‘Look, you don’t have to do this. I’ve got enough in terms of identification. The coroner will be happy with that.’

‘We want to see him,’ Costain said firmly.

‘OK, OK, but I need to reiterate…’

‘Reiterate nothing, Henry,’ Costain cut in. ‘We’re ready, so just do it.’

Henry tapped on the glass and the mortuary technician drew back the curtain.

‘I expect you’re pleased.’

Henry was outside in the mortuary car park, standing next to Costain at the Mercedes. Mrs Costain was already in the passenger seat, still as shell-shocked as she’d been in the viewing room, the death of her son probably not yet having hit her properly. She was shrouded in grey cigarette smoke.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You’ll be pleased, eh? Three Costains down…’

‘No, I’m not,’ Henry said.

‘Less trouble for you and the rest of the cops, though.’

‘Mr Costain, I’m truly sorry you’ve lost another son.’

‘Hey — not to mention my niece from the car crash. I don’t suppose you’ll be putting much effort into this, will you?’

‘I’ll tell you what pleases me: catching killers. I’ll put as much effort into this as I would any other murder — which means I’ll work around the clock until I get a result — OK?’

Costain shrugged, disbelief written all over his face. ‘You say he was with someone?’

‘It looks that way… two lots of chips, looks like he was walking across the car park with a mate, yes. But like you said already, you don’t know who he was out with. It’s vital we find this person, y’know? It could even be his killer, who knows?’

‘Have you been to the chippy? That might be a good start.’

‘Yes we have, but the chip shop owners are new and they don’t live over the shop like the last ones did, and they haven’t seen fit to give their name and address to the police as yet, so we can’t contact them.’

Costain considered the information, then said, ‘I’ll see what I can do — I honestly don’t know who Rory was with, but I’ll find out.’ He climbed into the Merc and the big car rolled smoothly away. Henry watched it go wondering which poor soul would end up with the unenviable task of being the family liaison officer. The role would have to be given to a seasoned detective, one who had the bottle to brave things out with the Costains, if they would even allow an FLO into their lives. Henry guessed there would be a huge firewall of reluctance from the family at having a cop assigned to them full-time.

Henry walked back to the mortuary where he found O’Connell inspecting Rory’s naked body. She was speaking into a hand-held tape recorder and stopped when she saw Henry.

‘What d’you think?’ she asked.

‘I think we’ve got the preliminaries out of the way in terms of the bodies and we should schedule the post-mortems for this afternoon. That way we can both get a few hours sleep. On top of that, I need to get a pre-briefing meeting together at eleven this morning, followed by a full murder squad briefing at noon.’

‘Not much sleep for you, then?’

‘Doubt if I’ll be going to bed at all.’

‘I’m not remotely sleepy, myself, so I don’t see bed as an option just yet… could you handle a coffee with me?’

Henry checked his watch, then looked at the dead boy. He was standing at his head at an angle of about forty-five degrees and his eyes caught something on the scalp. His brow furrowed and he stooped for a closer inspection.

‘Have you seen this?’ he asked. Without touching, he indicated what he was looking at. O’Connell came around to see.

‘Admittedly. I haven’t.’

They were looking at a recent cut on Rory’s head, just on the scalp line above his left eye, a thin red mark where it looked like something had struck him, or his head had struck something.

‘Could he have done that when he fell after being shot?’ Henry asked.

She pulled a face. ‘Not sure about that. Looks like he might’ve caught his head on something, a door maybe, possibly the sort of injury you get when you crack your head on a car bonnet, or something. Know what I mean?’

Henry’s mind stirred. ‘Unconnected with the murder?’

‘That’s an assumption I won’t make. I’ll present you with the facts as I see them after the PM.’

‘Fair enough.’ Henry said, unable to think it through, his mind just a mush now. ‘How about that coffee?’

‘Sorry about that.’ Henry slipped his mobile phone into his jacket pocket after having dropped a text to Kate telling her he would not be home for some hours yet, and could she sort out the last bits ’n’ bobs for the holiday. He added, ‘SOZ’, and put a whole bunch of kiss crosses, hoping to appease her a little.

‘Wife?’ O’Connell said.

He nodded. ‘Supposed to be off on a romantic break tomorrow. I said I’d be a bit of a Teflon pan and pass all this on to someone else, and I will,’ he said, meaning it, ‘but I’d like to get as much done as possible before I hand anything over. And I only turned out for one murder, not two.’

‘You’re just a man who can’t say no, aren’t you?’

He glanced at her, wondering just what he was doing here. They’d driven across town in their own cars to the twenty-four-hour McDonald’s on Preston New Road, both collected a McMuffin breakfast, hash brown and coffee at the drive-thru, then headed down to the seafront at Blackpool south where the prom meets Squires Gate Lane. They were on the car park adjacent to the go-kart track at Starr Gate, which was also the southernmost terminal of the famous Blackpool tram system that plied up and down the prom.

They’d eaten their breakfasts together in O’Connell’s Mazda RX8.

He tried to tell himself this was just a business chat in an unusual location to discuss unusual business — murder. But he was only half convinced by that argument.

It seemed all too easy in the cops — if you wanted it to be.

Throughout his entire career, now spanning thirty years plus, Henry had been amazed at just how easy it was to get laid. The situations, often dealing with vulnerable people, or those who just could not turn down a man in uniform or a smooth detective — and the relationships with colleagues, working strange hours, being involved in stressful situations — brought you close to people in an extraordinary, often sexual way. And since his early days as a rookie, right up until very recently, he had been an avid follower of his penis, and that relatively small piece of equipment had dragged him into hot water on too many occasions. It had taken him to a divorce, an often penniless existence in grubby flats, and now that he had fairly recently remarried Kate he had sworn he would never go down the route of weak flesh again.

Yet here he was — and nobody but a fool would say there was any other reason for him to be there sitting in O’Connell’s fancy sports car, other than to get his hands on her tits, which he had to admit were just about right.

‘Oh, I can say no if I want to,’ he said weakly, turning to her and going short of breath.

‘I’m not sure I can.’ She wound towards him and slid her right hand along his inner thigh, a movement that sent a shimmer up inside him, made him groan as a rush of blood left his head and coursed south. The hand moved further up, then even further and grabbed him through his jeans.

Henry pulled her to him and they kissed savagely, a moan escaping from O’Connell’s throat as her hand tightened on him. Henry’s left hand slid over her blouse. She fumbled for his zip. He could feel himself straining against his underwear, trapped at a wonky angle, desperate to be freed. As he heard the first unzipping noise, something came into his head that counteracted the testosterone, like oil on water.

He drew sharply away. ‘Bloody hell,’ he gasped.

‘What is it?’ she asked unsurely. ‘Did I hurt you?’

‘No — it’s tight, but no… I’ve just thought of something.’ He opened the car door and rolled out, remembering why he wasn’t keen on sports cars. He wasn’t built for them. ‘Follow me back to the morgue,’ he said, leaning inside briefly, then he walked over to his own car with a slight crab-walk motion and tried to adjust himself discreetly.

O’Connell watched him open-mouthed, blew out a long breath, readjusted herself and muttered, ‘Follow me back to the morgue. Just what a woman wants to hear.’

‘Two things,’ Henry said, opening the body-chiller and withdrawing the sliding tray on which the very dead Rory Costain lay, wrapped in white.

O’Connell watched impatiently, hands on hips. ‘This better be hellish good.’ Her foot tapped.

Henry shot her a glance, then turned his attention back to Rory and pointed to the injury he’d noticed earlier on the boy’s head.

‘And?’ O’Connell said, her hands flipping out with impatience.

‘Wait.’ Henry gave her the double-handed gesture that meant, ‘Stay right there.’ He went to the far end of the room where the bank of steel property lockers was fixed up against the wall. He found the key he’d taken for the one containing the property belonging to the old man and opened it. He rooted out what he wanted and returned to Rory’s body — brandishing the old man’s walking stick. He showed her what he had seen on the cane shaft when he’d been recording the old man’s belongings, pointed at it, rotating the stick carefully to reflect the artificial light.

‘Hair and blood,’ O’Connell said. Henry handed her the stick and she held it up for a close inspection. ‘Hair and blood,’ she confirmed.

Henry pointed to the injury on Rory’s hairline. ‘Could that have been caused by the cane?’

O’Connell held the cane a couple of inches above the wound, careful not to let it come into contact with the flesh. Immediately she said, ‘Yes, and it’ll be easily confirmed.’

Henry gave her a triumphant smirk. ‘Two shootings on the same night in the same town… even for somewhere as lawless as Blackpool, that’s some going.’ His head began to spin a little, but he managed to level it as a wall of exhaustion rushed through him. Suddenly he was very tired, but he pointed at O’Connell and said, ‘Something else, too.’

This time he went to the locker containing Rory’s clothing and pulled out a brown paper bag in which the boy’s trainers had been placed. He broke the seal, knelt down on the floor and carefully extracted the footwear, looking at the soles of the trainers. O’Connell joined him, peering curiously over his shoulder. He tilted the left one.

‘Excuse the lingo — but there might be dog shit on here.’

‘Eh?’

‘I can’t quite see any, and it might have all come off in the rain, but deeply ingrained in the ridges, I’ll bet some lucky scientist will find doggy-doo.’ He sniffed gingerly.

‘I’m perplexed.’

Henry explained. ‘When I was at the scene of the old man’s death, a bobby said there was some dog muck in the alley that had been stood in. He asked if he should protect it, just in case there was some sort of connection to the murder. I told him to do it. Let’s hope he did — because even if there isn’t any pooh left on the sole — ’ he shook the trainer — ‘if there is an imprint of a shoe in the shit, we can make a match.’

‘So Rory was at the scene of the old man’s murder? Is that what you’re saying?’

‘I’m not leaping to conclusions yet — but if we get tie-ins to the cane and the head wound, and the footwear pattern in the dog muck, there’s every chance he was there. And if he was, did he see it happen? And if he saw it happen, did he get killed because of that?’ Henry shrugged. ‘Just tossing stuff up in the air, here. It makes it vital to find out who was with him…’ The detective and pathologist blinked at each other. ‘I don’t completely believe in coincidence… old man run over and shot, young lad shot… what I do believe in, as James Bond once said, is enemy action. I’ve got a little feeling in the pit of my guts that whatever remains of bullets we find will be the same in both heads. And if Rory did see the old man get killed, then got murdered himself, that other person needs tracking down, because if we don’t get to him first, he’s going to get a bullet in the skull just like Rory…’

‘Sounds a bit melodramatic.’

‘That’s me, Mr Melodrama.’

‘I wouldn’t care if you were dealing with the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre… we go on holiday tomorrow, the taxi’s booked, etcetera, etcetera… nuff said?’

‘I have no intention of doing anything more than ensuring the investigation is up and running properly.’ Henry emerged from the en-suite shower room, towelling his close-cropped hair dry, into the bedroom and into the tiny walk-in dressing room. He was completely naked and Kate watched him, her eyes sparkling at the sight, even though she was laying down the law with him.

‘Besides which you must be completely exhausted.’

‘I’ll be OK,’ Henry said, bending down to his sock and underwear drawer, revealing a view that Kate would rather not have seen. She winced.

However, it did not stop her from standing up and sidling in behind him, wrapping her arms around him and pushing her nose into his back. ‘You smell great,’ she murmured, throatily, one hand sliding across his stomach.

‘The heady fragrance of pure soap,’ he said.

Henry had dashed home for a revitalizing shower and a change of clothing with a view to getting through the day. His head had been thumping and he’d taken a couple of Nurofen to ward off the worst effects of a tiredness headache. His intention had been to be in and out of the house within a few minutes, but the stand-up ‘discussion’ with Kate about the holiday had delayed him somewhat.

She’d backed off a little and now Henry felt guilty on two fronts. Firstly, today was actually a leave day — and he was working. It was a day on which they’d planned to do all the last minute holiday prep, a bit of shopping, a lingering coffee at Starbucks, stuff like that. Kate had been looking forward to it. He also felt terrible about the encounter he’d had with Keira O’Connell and berated himself for being so weak in the flesh — still. He had almost returned to his bad old ways. Could so easily have done. He thought he was better now.

With those thoughts in mind, he turned into Kate, pushed himself against her, kissed her face, lips and neck, and felt himself harden, legally this time.

‘If you’re interested,’ he said — as she squeezed his testicles gently — ‘I might have time for a quick one.’

One thing was certain, he thought, the old Henry knew how to appease a woman. But even as he pushed Kate back on to the bed and peeled off her tight jeans, he was thinking how dearly he would love to run this double murder that had all the hallmarks of a professional hit. So juicy.

The everyday sounds of the morning had not woken Mark Carter. The estate coming to life. The whirring and clattering of, possibly, one of the last milk floats in existence trundling by. Cars passing, kids yelling, bin men shouting to each other as they made their way by with their noisy truck.

None of that woke him.

The sound that jerked Mark Carter awake was that of footsteps creeping past the door, someone sneaking about.

He came to, suddenly and sickeningly, cursing himself for having fallen asleep in the first place — into a slumber of shadows, flashes, bangs and death.

And now, in real darkness, he was sure he had heard footfalls.

Although his heart was slamming against his chest wall, he tried not to move, to remain immobile, hardly breathing, watching the line of light around the ill-fitting door to see if anyone walked past. Then he heard a knock on the door.

Mark shivered.

After having locked himself in his bedroom on arriving home, there was no way he could get to sleep. He didn’t even try, but kept a vigil at the window, watching the avenue apprehensively.

Alone in the house he began to feel even more vulnerable. So much so that just after two a.m., still wide awake, but exhausted, he collected up his quilt and pillow and went downstairs, where he let himself out the back door and went to the side of the house. Out here were two outbuildings with a lean-to roof connected to the house, making a tight passageway up the side. One of the buildings had once been a utility room and even though there was still an old sink in it, it was no longer used. Now it was basically a rubbish tip for things Mark’s mother couldn’t be bothered to take to the dump. Adjoining that was another ‘room’, a space where, in days gone by, coal was delivered to and stored. With the advent of gas central heating, this was also somewhere no longer used and because it was still full of coal dust, it wasn’t even used as a dumping ground for rubbish. It was into this ‘coal-hole’, as it was still referred to, that Mark sneaked, thinking he would be safer here than in the house. He wrapped himself in the quilt and fitted his pillow between his head and shoulder.

The door, poorly fitting, rotting at the bottom, still had an old mortise lock on it that worked and Mark was able to lock himself in.

His reasoning was that if the killers somehow managed to identify him and discover where he lived, he’d be better able to escape from the coal-hole than his bedroom because they wouldn’t be expecting him to be hiding there.

He made himself as comfortable as possible in the cold, brick-built, dusty space — then looked at the cordless phone he’d brought with him from inside the house, wondering if it still worked out here. There was a dial tone, so he entered 141 and then dialled treble nine and asked for the police. When the connection went through, he said, ‘Have you found the body in the car park behind Preston Road shops?’

The operator seemed taken aback. ‘I’m sorry, could you repeat that?’

‘You heard — send a patrol to that car park.’ Then he hung up. He stared at the phone a while longer, fully expecting a call back, believing they had the technology to trace any call, even if it was a withheld number. No call came.

He rested his head on the pillow and tried to stay awake.

Then he heard the footsteps and realized he’d been asleep for hours. Someone knocked on the front door of the house and he heard a voice shout through the letter box, ‘Answer the door, Mark Carter, or you’re fuckin’ dead.’

‘I’ve had a CSI do a quick comparison of the impression in the dog pooh with the sole of Rory’s trainer and his assessment is that it’s a match — but we’ll need a footwear analyst to confirm it. Being sorted.’

Henry looked at Alex Bent, a man who’d had about the same amount of sleep as himself in the last thirty-six hours. None. ‘I think we’re on to a winner, then. So let’s assume Rory was at the scene of the old man’s murder.’

‘And got whacked for what he saw?’

‘It’s a hypothesis,’ Henry said, his mind churning. ‘But it doesn’t explain why the old man might have smacked Rory across the head with his cane — if that’s what happened — and we won’t actually make that connection scientifically until at least the end of business today, and only then if we’re lucky.’ The walking stick, samples of skin, hair and blood from Rory’s head had already been sent by police motorcyclist to the forensic science laboratory.

The two detectives were in an office just off the major incident room at Blackpool police station from where the investigation would be run. It was eight thirty a.m. Henry’s quickie had been unromantically but successfully executed to the satisfaction of both parties, and now he and Bent were in the process of pulling things together for later briefings, tasking and press releases. Henry wanted a chance to review everything beforehand so the murder squad, which was now being cobbled together, could hit the ground running. Henry had a feeling this would be a fast running investigation.

Already the dry-wipe board was full of lines of enquiry and several sheets of flip-chart paper were being filled up.

‘How are we doing with the chip shop owner?’

‘No joy yet, boss.’

Henry nodded, frustrated. He scanned the board, muttering and murmuring to himself as he read through the scribble that would later be translated into something more meaningful for others to understand.

‘Have we missed anything?’ he asked Bent, who was also checking the board.

‘Don’t think so.’

‘Good — let’s grab a brew, then head up to comms.’

‘You scared the crap out of me, sneaking around like that.’

‘What the hell are you doing in there?’

‘Long story,’ Mark said sheepishly. ‘Anyway, what’re you after?’

‘I was just taking the chance of asking if you were coming to school today, for a change. You know, school? That place you seem to be avoiding these days.’

‘I’m probably going to give it a miss.’

His friend Bradley sighed despairingly. ‘Mark, you’re really going to get yourself in deep crap.’

‘You don’t know the half of it.’

‘And what’re you so jumpy about?’

‘Nothing — just get lost, will you, Brad?’

Instantly, Mark regretted his snappy words as an expression of deep hurt came on to Bradley’s face. He and Brad had been mates since junior school, but they had seen less and less of each other since Mark’s sister had died of an overdose. At that time Mark had been a half-decent student with plans to get himself out of Blackpool and find a proper career. However, the subsequent conviction of his older brother for numerous drug trafficking offences, and the implication he could have supplied the drugs cocktail that killed their sister, had knocked Mark off balance. Without a mother to guide him either — she was too wrapped up in her own life, work, drink and a succession of men, to be bothered about Mark — he had almost lost the will to live. He’d certainly lost the will to keep trying. Nothing seemed important to him any more, and after missing school on several occasions and suffering no consequences, he started to drift aimlessly. It wasn’t long before he hooked up with known dead-leg Rory Costain.

It had been downhill from there.

Bradley hadn’t let him go easily, but the lure of a lifestyle with no authority figures beckoned Mark with a seductive crooked finger. Mark’s girlfriend, Katie, one of the brightest young lasses at school, also got to the end of her tether with him and cast him adrift, especially after spotting him in an amusement arcade snogging a well known slapper.

‘Thanks, mate,’ Bradley said indignantly. ‘But you’re not a mate any more, you’re just a self-centred, uncaring, selfish git.’

Mark squared up to him.

‘What’re you gonna do, beat me up? You’re getting a bit of a reputation as a hard nut, aren’t you?’

‘I will if you don’t go,’ Mark warned, tilting his face aggressively at Bradley.

The two lads stared at each other until Bradley finally shook his head sadly and said, ‘You’ve got no real friends any more. You just shit on everybody. I’m still here, but not for much longer.’

Bradley spun away and stalked off without a backward glance.

‘Have you found the body in the car park behind Preston Road shops?’

‘I’m sorry, could you repeat that?’

‘You heard — send a patrol to that car park.’

Henry, Alex Bent and the comms room inspector were listening, for the third time, to the recording of the telephone call alerting the police to Rory’s murder. It had been downloaded on to a disc and they were in the inspector’s office off the main communications room in the station. There was also a written transcript of the short call, including the time it was made and its duration.

Henry rubbed his eyes and the three officers listened again, all of them shaking their heads.

‘I don’t recognize the voice, but it’s obviously that of a young lad, maybe the one who’d been with Rory,’ Bent said.

Henry nodded. ‘I feel like I know the voice, or I might just be kidding myself.’ He sighed and looked at the comms inspector. ‘Thanks for this,’ he said, taking the CD from the player.

‘No probs.’

Henry handed him a sheet of paper on which he’d scribbled out a basic circulation regarding the shootings, which was for the information of the force, other forces and other agencies that might be interested. It was headed, ‘NOT FOR PRESS RELEASE.’ All it contained was the basic details of the two murders and little else. No speculation that they might be linked, even though this was implicit by virtue of the fact that both were referred to in the same message. Even though he was sure there was a connection, he wasn’t going to admit that just yet. SIO’s had to keep open minds otherwise they screwed up. The message also contained a description of the old man, including a reference to the old bullet wound in his side and asked for suggestions as to identity, giving a number to call.

‘Can you circulate that as normal?’ he asked the inspector, then stood to leave but stopped in his tracks, took the message back. He thought for a moment, then scribbled something else on the sheet and then handed it back to the inspector adding, ‘Can you also send this person a copy of the circulation by email — including a few actual photos of the dead man?’

‘Sure, boss.’

Henry looked at Bent. ‘Shall we go back and work the crime scenes?’

Scowling, Mark had jerked a middle finger up at Bradley’s retreating back, then retrieved his filthy quilt and pillow from the coal-hole, which he rolled up and dumped in the kitchen.

He was famished but could not be bothered making anything for himself, and the thought of a fast food breakfast was very appealing. He hadn’t eaten anything for over twelve hours — since his last burger, in fact — as his intended supper had been whacked into the face of last night’s attacker. He had some money left over from his little crime spree and the McDonald’s on Preston New Road was just about walkable.

He had a quick shower and shave — bum-fluff was sprouting all over his top lip and chin these days and annoyed him intensely — got changed and headed out across the estate, taking all the back routes to keep out of sight.

It would have been easy to avoid Psycho Alley and the car park, but morbid curiosity drew him in that direction. He needed to know if it hadn’t all been a sick dream, because that’s what it felt like.

The fact that the alley was cordoned off with crime scene tape was Mark’s first indication that it definitely wasn’t his imagination. The barrier meant he had to come at the car park from a different direction, and he emerged on to it from the main road to see a huge amount of police activity and public gawping going on. Cops were crawling everywhere, literally in some cases, as a team of overall-clad officers did a fingertip search in a line across the car park. The whole area had been cordoned off. A huge tent had been erected over the exact spot Rory had been shot. Mark wondered if the body was still there, or had it been removed? People in white forensic suits entered and left the tent, clasping samples.

Mark’s empty guts wound sickeningly. He closed his eyes momentarily and thought himself back to the town centre alley, seeing the old man get mown down, then seeing the face of the gunman as he turned to look at Mark and Rory, startled. It had been night-time and the face had only been illuminated by orange street lights, but Mark had seen him clearly with his young, sharp eyes and was certain that if he came face to face with him again, he would be able to ID him.

Good enough reason to do a runner, Mark thought. He spun away, almost stepping into the path of a car pulling up at the front of the shops.

‘Stupid kid,’ Alex Bent said, slamming on the brakes.

‘Eh — what?’ Henry glanced up from the paperwork he had been studying, only catching a fleeting glimpse of the back of the youth who’d nearly been flattened by Bent.

The moment was gone and forgotten as the two detectives got out of the battered ‘Danny’, the old slang term for a plain car used by detectives — in this case an ageing Ford Focus that looked as if it had never seen better days.

They walked to the front door of the chip shop and rattled the handle.

‘Need to find the owners,’ Henry said unnecessarily.

Next-but-one along was a newsagent owned by an Asian, Mr Aziz. He was lounging at the door of his shop. Henry and Bent asked him a few pertinent questions but he didn’t know anything about the incident or the chip shop owner, who was new. Aziz thought he lived somewhere in Preston.

Henry thanked him and went to the scene out back.

He intended to have half an hour here, then head across to the other murder scene in town and start to build up any connections between the two.

Suddenly, Mark was no longer hungry. Suddenly, he was as paranoid as hell as the thought hit him, the same one he’d had last night, that murderers always go back to the scenes of their wrongdoing. At least that’s what they said in TV cop dramas. They liked to gloat, enjoyed the power and Mark realized he was stupid to go anywhere near the scene again. If the murderer was there, milling about with the onlookers, keeping his head down, Mark was a sitting duck.

Hence his thoughtless step in front of a car, almost resulting in him getting flattened.

And then the glimpse of the driver, who he did not recognize, and the even quicker look at the passenger who he did recognize and never wanted to see again.

The horrible feeling was that if Henry Christie was running this case, then it would only be a matter of time before he and Mark came face to face.