Psycho Alley

Seventeen

The cops knew something had happened, something significant, otherwise they would not have been brought back into the briefing room, summoned in from their tasks out on the streets without explanation. They waited expectantly, with subdued, little conversation, maybe a muted chuckle here and there, a silent, deadly fart let off by one who would not admit it, but not much else.

Five o’clock came and went.

At five fifteen, Jane Roscoe came in, wafted away the disgusting smell now hanging in the air, and muttered a half-baked apology for the delay. She set up a laptop computer and data projector, then beat a hasty retreat after telling the assembled detectives to be patient.

Henry Christie entered the briefing room at five twenty-six p.m., a folder under his arm, and strode to the front. Jane, Debbie and Karl Donaldson (who was attracting much attention from Debbie) came in behind and stayed at the back of the room, leaning against the wall.

Henry placed his folder on the table, picked up the remote mouse for the laptop, then raised his eyes to the audience. He noticed Dave Anger sidle into the room and take up a position next to Jane, arms folded, talking to her out of the side of his mouth. Henry put the man out of his mind. He had far more important things to do now than worry about a guy who obviously had massive self-esteem problems. He took a breath.

‘Thanks for coming back in so quickly … I think everyone’s here who needs to be,’ he said, his voice steady. This was something he loved doing. ‘But I thought it only fair to bring everyone up to speed with the latest development in this investigation, a development which I believe links the death of Jodie Greaves, George Uren and the disappearance of Kerry Figgis.’ He pointed the mouse at the computer and right-clicked. The screen on the wall behind him came to life with the rich blue background of the constabulary, the force crest in the top right-hand corner. The corporate approach. ‘We’ve put this PowerPoint together quickly, so apologies for any errors, but I’m sure you’ll all get the gist of this.’ He paused. ‘As you know, our enquiries have been directed to try and find the man seen in the company of George Uren last Friday evening. The man we believe is jointly responsible for the kidnap and murder of Jodie Greaves from Harrogate, then the subsequent murder of George Uren and now the abduction — and possible murder — of Kerry.’

All eyes were fixed on him. The detectives were completely silent.

‘From enquiries today, certain information has been uncovered which leads us to believe this is the man we are after.’ This was the point at which technology usually cocked up. Henry gave a little prayer as he clicked the mouse. It worked. A name flew on to the screen: ‘Louis Vernon Trent’.

He spoke the name out loud and heard one or who ‘shits’ and a ‘Jeez’ from the detectives. Most of the people in the room would either know, or know of, Trent. The man was notorious, to say the least.

Clicking the mouse again brought the most recent photograph of Trent on to the screen underneath the name. It was the mugshot taken when Trent was last in custody at Blackpool before he escaped and never been seen since, despite a massive manhunt.

‘Trent,’ Henry said without exaggeration, ‘is one of the most dangerous men in the country.’ He caught Karl Donaldson’s eye across the heads of the seated detectives. ‘Nay,’ he corrected himself. ‘The world. He escaped from custody here having been charged with a series of murders, including that of a police officer, as you’ll all recall, and a catalogue of other violent crimes. Predominantly, though, Trent is a serial sex attacker who likes inflicting pain and suffering on his victims. He thinks nothing of murdering them, or murdering anyone who stands in his way. He’s obsessed with children and is dangerous and violent to the core.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Because of that, I order every one of you to wear your stab vests from now on, and ensure you are in possession of your ASPs, cuffs and CS until he is caught. There is no room for heroes in this room, no room for false machismo, and because any one of us could now stumble across him, we must ensure we are protected. I speak from experience. Trent once tried to stab me, and if I hadn’t been wearing a vest, I’d be dead now. Anyone found refusing this order will be off the investigation, OK?’

No one challenged him, even though detectives were notoriously lax when it came to self-protection because it didn’t fit in with their Jack-the-lad personas.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘Health and Safety briefing over … down to business.’ He clicked the mouse again and commenced a full chronological briefing on Trent, scaring everybody shit-less as he trailed through the man’s antecedents. It took twenty minutes to reach the suspected murder of a homicide detective in Miami three years earlier and the rape of a woman in Accrington eighteen months ago. ‘We believe he probably came back to England after the murder of the American detective and could, quite easily, have been living among us ever since. He is a home bird and seems to feel comfortable in this area, which is where he was born. We are looking into links with abductions of young girls from surrounding forces and the possibility that Trent and Uren have been making their living by way of bogus official-type burglaries. Trent also preys on the elderly, by the way. He has no favourites,’ Henry finished to a hushed silence. ‘Any questions? I know I’ve rambled on a bit, but I think it was necessary.’

He right-clicked the mouse again and the presentation changed to a full screen photograph of Trent. Henry looked at it, then back at the squad.

‘We now need to find him — and fast. After this briefing I’ll be doing a press briefing — can’t wait,’ he said glumly. ‘This will go out locally and nationally, I hope. We need to get the media and the public in on this, particularly if there is to be any hope of finding Kerry Figgis alive. We have to pull out all the stops. I believe Trent is still in the area. There are people out there who know where he is and there are people out there who you know can help us find him. I don’t have to spell it out. It’s time to call in all outstanding favours from the streets. Extra officers are being drafted in tonight, people being brought in on rest days … I intend to flood the town with nosy cops who won’t take “I don’t know” for an answer.’ He looked over to Jane, still next to Anger. ‘DI Roscoe has all the new task allocations, so form an orderly queue at her desk.’ People began rising before Henry had finished talking. ‘Hold on, hold on,’ he said, raising his voice, hands flattening everyone back down. ‘The body armour instruction is non-negotiable, so Jane will check you’re wearing before she gives you tasks.’

After the media had been wheeled in and out and the hunt for Trent revealed — a conference Henry was glad to get out of the way unscathed, after his previous mauling — he went back to his office, where he needed some peace and quiet to write up the policy book.

Peace and quiet were two things that did not exist in the world of Henry Christie.

He closed the office door, flicked the switch on his little kettle and, brew made, seated himself with an ‘Ahh’, sipping the tea whilst thinking about the events of the day and how he was going to translate them into police terms for the book. From the hungover trip to the Dunkenhalgh to see Jackie Harcourt with Karl, to the fingerprint idents and the discovery he was chasing Trent.

Trent would be forever linked with his memories of Danny Furness, and he cursed him for bringing those memories alive again. Henry had done some foolish things in the past where women were concerned, and while it could be argued that his relationship with Danny had been as ill-judged as any, he had deep feelings for her, and she was one of the women he believed he could have had a future with had her life not been so cruelly and tragically snuffed out.

He thought he had mentally buried her, but Trent had exhumed her, and Henry was having problems getting her off his mind.

‘Come on, get a grip,’ he told himself, opening the policy book with a sigh. ‘Eeh, um.’

He picked up his pen and read through the log, and was just about to start writing when the door opened, his mobile phone rang and a text message landed. Immediate multi-tasking required.

Dave Anger walked in.

Henry answered the phone. It was John Walker, the technical support detective.

‘Henry? You said you’d come and see me,’ he said reproachfully.

‘Oh, sugar,’ Henry said, eyeing Dave Anger, who stood over him, arms folded. ‘I forgot. Something came up, you might say. Sorry, pal.’

‘That’s OK, I know what’s happening. I take it you’re in Blackpool?’

‘Yep.’ He continued to look at Anger and mouthed, ‘One sec,’ to him.

‘I’ll come and see you.’

‘No need for that.’

‘No, I need to see you. I only live in Kirkham, so it’s not too far out of the way. Be about forty minutes.’

The call ended. Henry said, ‘Hello, boss.’

‘I know you’re busy right now,’ Anger said coldly. ‘Tomorrow, ten a.m., I want to see you in my office at Hutton, come hell or high water. There are things to discuss,’ he concluded ominously.

‘Such as?’

Anger considered the question with his bottom lip up over his upper one. ‘Wait and see. Be there.’

He spun on his heels and left.

Henry middle-fingered the door space, shaking his head angrily. He thought he’d got his mind set to scribe up the PB, but Anger had thrown him off kilter, and for what? Screwing his wife? Big effin’ deal, Henry thought. Some people just take everything too seriously. He shook his head and returned to the policy book, then remembered the phone text, which he thumbed to on his mobile phone with a slightly dithery thumb. Again the number of the person sending it was there, a number he did not know. The message read, no chnce ctchng me tosser.

He placed the phone down. Could this be Trent? He screwed up his face and thought about that one. Question was, how could Trent have got his mobile number? Not impossible to obtain, as he often handed it out, but somehow the scenario did not sit right.

He tabbed to the phone’s menu and got into the messages folder, looking at his inbox. He had kept all the messages he’d received over the last few days. He read them one at a time.

Eight in total.

He’d received the first three whilst in Harrogate with the drunken Debbie: Gess who?, UR DEAD and have u chkd ur brakes? He’d got a further one, Watch ur bak, just before he’d been assaulted on the mezzanine by the guy in the balaclava. All had come from the same number.

Then he’d received three which read: u n me again, H. ull nvr ctch me, Ull nvr ctch me. She ded and, finally in response to his own text, one that read, old frend. Lastly he’d received one just before Dave Anger appeared in his office. These came from a different mobile number than the first four texts.

Eight texts, two different numbers.

Some threatening, some taunting. With the exception of the last one, they had all been received before Trent had been identified to the world, so it seemed unlikely that Trent would have sent the ones which said, u n me again, H. ull never ctch me, and Ull nvr ctch me. She ded., which struck Henry as odd.

The context of the first four messages were different than the last four, as they seemed to be aimed at Henry as an individual, whilst the latter ones were having a go at him as a detective.

That made him think they had come from different people, but where did that get him?

He called one of the numbers, then the other, but both phones were switched off and the nice lady at Orange invited him to leave a message. He declined.

Henry almost believed that Dave Anger could be the one who’d sent the threatening texts, but he dismissed that. Doing something like that would seriously jeopardize his job. He wasn’t that stupid. Anger was more likely to screw Henry through the system.

That left Jane Roscoe’s embittered husband, but more likely some dreg from GMP.

And the man in black who’d attacked him on the mezzanine — who was he? And the guys who’d laid into him outside the Tram and Tower but hadn’t expected the American Express to smash them down, who the hell were they?

What a tangled fucking web I weave, he thought.

‘Right, policy book,’ he said resolutely, picking up his pen again to do what he had come into his office to do.

This time he managed to get a paragraph done. Not a quality piece of prose, admittedly, but one that hit the mark. He sipped his tea and looked up as another interruption came through the door in the form of Debbie Black. She plonked herself down on the chair opposite Henry. He placed his pen down and forced a smile.

‘Hi.’

Debbie crossed her legs, making Henry wonder if he was about to be treated to a ‘Sharon Stone’, a la Basic Instinct. Trouble was Debbie’s skirt was a bit too mid-length for such a display.

She leaned back, steepled her fingers under her chin and regarded him, a naughty smile playing on her highly kissable mouth.

‘Drink later?’ she ventured. ‘You owe me, dumping me in Harrogate like that.’ She pouted sexily.

‘See how it pans out, eh?’

‘No.’ Her voice was firm. ‘Later for definite.’

‘Look.’ He held out his hands, palms up. ‘I can’t really… I just can’t.’

She squinted angrily at him. A shimmer of panic ran down his spine.

‘Why not?’ she demanded.

Instead of telling her the painful truth, telling her he was not interested, that he valued his home life too much, that he actually loved Kate, he said the first thing that came into his head because it was more likely to pacify her.

‘It’s Rik Dean,’ he blurted. He saw her shoulders stiffen.

‘What about him?’

‘Well, he’s a mate.’

She shook her head, not comprehending.

‘He confided in me,’ he went on, ‘about you and him. You had a bit of a thing going, didn’t you?’

With a folding of her arms, she uttered a snort.

‘Basically, he hasn’t got over you,’ Henry said, ‘and there was no way I could, y’know?’ He shrugged. ‘I couldn’t get involved. He’s a good friend and it would have gutted him.’

Debbie tilted her head, still squinting, but a different sort of squint now. ‘He dumped me.’

‘And he regrets it,’ Henry said, shovelling like mad, the hole getting deeper by the second.

‘He still hasn’t got over me?’ she asked in disbelief.

‘No.’

‘But he dumped me,’ she insisted.

‘Doesn’t mean to say he did the right thing,’ Henry said. It suddenly dawned on him that he was in extremely dangerous territory now and that a line needed to be drawn under it. Quickly. ‘Yeah, look, so that’s the reason, OK,’ he said, attempting to draw that line, although it looked pretty vague and dotted to him at that moment. Inwardly he was cringing.

Fortunately, Debbie stood up, looking thoughtful. She wandered dreamily out of the office as though on a pink, fluffy cloud.

‘Dangerous beauty,’ Henry whispered to himself before banging his forehead on the desk and asking himself with each bang, ‘Why’ — bang — ‘am’ — bang — ‘I’ — bang — ‘so’ — bang — ‘crap’ — bang — ‘at’ — bang, bang, ‘relationships?’ He rubbed his reddening brow. He would rather be having a life-and-death struggle with a deranged serial killer than grappling with the emotions and complexities of the female of the species. ‘Plasma screen TV, plasma screen TV,’ he chanted in a sort of religious mantra.

The PB lay open in front of him, one paragraph completed, not a very good one at that. He picked up his pen and attacked the book with determination, finishing with a flourish of satisfaction about half an hour later, a mug of cold tea by his elbow.

Another intrusion.

It was John Walker, the detective from technical support.

Henry waved him in, told him to close the door, sat him down. ‘You got something?’

‘You need to see these.’ He handed Henry a big envelope. Henry looked closely at what had been presented to him, feeling his heart skip a beat or two.

‘Shit,’ he said at length, looking at the detective.

‘Yeah, shit,’ he agreed.

‘Anyone else know about this?’

‘Nope?’

‘Wife, girlfriend, boyfriend?’

‘Not even him.’

‘What are your plans for the morning?’ Henry asked.

The DC shrugged. ‘Day off, breakfast, newspaper, shopping, DIY, that sort of stuff.’

‘Cancel all those plans.’

‘OK,’ he said without a moment of question. ‘Why?’

‘I need to tell you a story, then I need to phone the chief constable.’

‘Whatever.’

Forty minutes later, the tech support DC emerged from Henry’s office, somewhat shell-shocked by what he’d heard, but at the same time thrilled by what he’d been tasked to do.

Henry, equally shocked and a bit dithery, came out of the office a few moments earlier and made his way to the MIR, which was abuzz with activity following the earlier briefing. He found Karl Donaldson with Jane Roscoe at the office manager’s desk. They had known each other a few years, having met through Henry. Donaldson was very much aware of Henry’s affair with Jane.

He sauntered over to the pair and got a progress update. Little had moved on, but a lot of people were beavering away on their allotted tasks on the streets. Blackpool was pretty much locked down as cops went out banging on doors, calling in favours and doing a lot of shaking down in an effort to trace Trent, whose face was now plastered over the MIR walls.

The activity was satisfying. Henry was sure that if Trent was in town, he’d be flushed out or cornered soon. He had to believe that.

His mobile roared like a jet as an incoming text landed. He looked at it: ctch me if u can.

Donaldson and Jane watched Henry’s expression alter.

‘Problem?’ the American asked.

‘No,’ Henry said, stern-faced. He walked out of the room.

Could it be that Trent was taunting him? He could not be sure, but from what he knew of the child molester, this was not something that fitted his behaviour pattern. Trent liked to assault and kill. That was his bag. It wasn’t a game for him. He didn’t like to leave clues, to play cat and mouse with cops. Cats usually caught mice, and he would not wish to jeopardize his freedom by playing silly buggers with mobile phones that could possibly be traced. He had been out and at liberty for a long time. Why would he want to lose that just for the sake of one-upmanship? He would not, Henry convinced himself. Trent wanted to stay free, not get caught. The more Henry thought about it, the less he believed Trent was the texter. But maybe the next twenty-four hours would reveal the culprit. Maybe.

In the corridor outside his office, he bumped into a constable coming out of the office. Henry did not know the officer’s name, but recognized him as a member of the Support Unit, the bish-bash-bosh squad, as they were known, because of their somewhat hard-edged approach to policing. He was clutching a photograph in his hand.

‘Help you?’ Henry said.

‘Yeah, boss … you got a mo?’

‘Come in.’ Henry led him into the salubrious interior of his office and plonked down at his desk, waiting for the officer to sit down opposite. ‘Sorry, I don’t know your name.’

‘PC Fawcett … John Fawcett,’ he said.

‘What can I do for you, John?’

‘I was at the briefing earlier,’ he began hesitantly. He showed Henry the photo he was holding — one of the many Henry had hurriedly produced of Trent. Fawcett did not go on immediately. Henry waited for him to fill the gap. ‘I’ve been looking long and hard at this photograph.’ He waved Trent’s face at Henry. ‘And, well, I don’t want to appear stupid or anything and I’m not a hundred per cent, but, do you remember when you busted into Uren’s flat?’

‘How could I forget?’

‘I was one of the Support Unit officers covering the stairs.’ Henry nodded, recalling him now. ‘Just as you went into Uren’s flat, a guy came down the stairs from the floor above.’ The officer shrugged helplessly. ‘I mean, it obviously wasn’t Uren, so when he asked if it was all right to go past, I just said no probs. Took his name, let him go.’

Henry saw Fawcett’s Adam’s apple rise and fall.

‘I think it was this guy.’ He held up Trent’s photograph.

It was a statement greeted by stony silence. For a moment, tumbleweed could have blown through the office on a whistling wind.

‘You think?’

‘A bit different-looking … but the eyes … yeah. I mean, we weren’t actually given instructions about what we should do, so I let him pass, boss.’

On such simple things are suspects allowed to go free, and investigations are completely fucked up.

‘How certain are you?’

Fawcett ummed and ahhed, then said, ‘As I said, not a hundred per cent, but as certain as I can be in the short time I saw him in the crap lighting in the building. And,’ he went on, dropping the bombshell, ‘he told me his name was John Stoke, the name you said Trent uses as an alias.’

There was an extra long moment of dreadful silence as Henry digested this, then said, ‘He came from the upper floor, you say?’ trying to keep hysteria out of his voice.

Fawcett nodded.

‘He could’ve been in one of the flats above?’

‘Could have.’

Henry held back from standing up, towering over the PC and shouting him into a quivering mess because ultimately, it was he, Henry, who was to blame. Going gung-ho into the block of flats, not properly resourced, with only an ‘on-the-hoof’ plan put together, had meant he’d missed a simple thing: don’t let anyone out until I’m happy as to who they are. It was one of those things the public would never believe the police would make a mistake on, but they did, often. The easy bits were the bits the cops got wrong, made themselves look stupid over. The building should have been tighter than a duck’s buttocks and anyone should have been stopped, checked and verified. All the outer-perimeter people were looking for was someone doing a runner, not someone strolling out, having walked through police lines, passing the time of day along the way.

Sitting back in his creaky chair, Henry glanced out through the narrow window at the shark. Dave Anger would love to get hold of this one. Henry Christie, the incompetent bastard, had allowed one of the country’s most wanted men to slip through his fingers. Literally. He could see the look of triumph on Anger’s ‘fizzog’, as his dear mum would say, corrupting the French word ‘visage’ into a Lancashire speciality. Most definitely, Dave Anger had a ‘fizzog’. Bile rose in his throat. Jane Roscoe’s words, which summed Henry up, came to haunt him. ‘Henry “Wing” Christie’. He looked at Fawcett, said, ‘Shit.’

‘Yeah, I know.’

‘Sure it’s him?’

‘More or less.’

‘OK — no problems, only solutions. Have you got anything on now?’ Fawcett shook his head. ‘Got a car?’ He nodded. ‘Let’s go the MIR first and see what we’ve got on the other residents in the block of flats.’ Henry rolled out of his chair. ‘Onwards and upwards,’ he said, none too energetically.

Henry checked the records detailing what had been done at the block of flats in which Uren’s body had been discovered. The occupants of all but one flat had been accounted for and spoken to. A flat on the top floor was found to be apparently unoccupied, although it was rented out.

‘What enquiries have been made with the landlord?’ Henry asked Jane, whose job it was to keep up to date with everything that was going on.

She looked over his shoulder. ‘Why?’

‘Not sure yet.’

‘The landlord has been spoken to,’ she told him, ‘but mainly about Uren’s occupancy, nothing else. Uren rented the flat and lived there alone, by all accounts.’

‘There’s an unoccupied flat on the top floor — have we done anything about that? Found who was in it most recently? Have we asked the landlord who was in it?’

‘I don’t think so,’ she said cautiously.

‘OK,’ said Henry, tight-lipped. ‘Who’s the landlord?’

Jane flicked through some sheets of paper on her desk and handed one to Henry. ‘That’s him.’

‘Ugh,’ Henry said, reading the name, and wishing someone had told him who it was. ‘Why was I not told this?’ he demanded of Jane. She half-shrugged. ‘Right.’ He turned to Fawcett, who was standing behind him. ‘Got those car keys?’ Fawcett nodded.

‘What’s going on?’ Jane asked.

Henry tapped his nose and pointed a finger at her. He did not want her to know he had probably made one of the biggest policing cock-ups in history. Nor did he trust her not to run to Anger and tell tales. He turned to Karl Donaldson, who was sitting at Jane’s desk. ‘Fancy a jaunt out to see some of Blackpool’s scum?’

‘Sure,’ he said, rising. ‘What is it?’

‘That kinda scummy stuff you find floating in stagnant water,’ Henry said as a joke, which no one got. Donaldson just looked perplexed. ‘Come on,’ Henry said.

In the lift going down, Henry said, ‘We missed Trent,’ to his good-looking friend, using the royal ‘we’. Not that he was ducking blame, but it was always good practice to spread it about where possible. He had always been contemptuous of bosses who were known to have Teflon-coated shoulders — meaning that no shit ever stuck. Now he wished he was one of them. He had clicked on to self-survival mode, and unless he could somehow pull this one back, questions would be asked in the corridors of power at HQ and he would be found wanting. He explained the situation to Donaldson.

‘Shit happens,’ the American said understandingly. ‘Admittedly more often to you than anyone else, but it does. The secret is to hide it without causing a bad smell.’

The lift jarred as it reached ground level, the doors opening. Fawcett led them into the garage and to his car, an unmarked Vectra, which was still quite blatantly a police car. The missing hubcap was always a bit of a give-away. Fawcett jumped in behind the wheel, Henry next to him, Donaldson in the back.

‘This is Karl Donaldson, by the way’ he said to Fawcett. ‘He’s an FBI agent.’

‘Ho hum,’ the laconic cop said, unimpressed.