Nick Oldham - Dead Heat

‘Uh — sure.’ She took a seat without further invitation. ‘What can I do for you?’ His brow was deeply furrowed.

‘Six years ago, it was, maybe a little longer, I’m not sure. . yes, it would be a little longer. Time has lost its meaning for me. I’m just floating around now, treading water until I die.’

Henry’s warning signals blared out. Oh-oh, nutter. ‘Oh,’ he said.

‘I know what you’re thinking.’ The woman smiled a sad smile. Henry relaxed. He knew his first assessment had been correct: loss, bereavement, but not mad. She shook her head. ‘Sometimes I think I am going bonkers, but I’m not. Going mad would be a release from the hell I’m in.’

‘What can I do for you?’ he asked again.

‘Six years ago you were on a stand at a careers convention at the University of Central Lancashire.’

‘Yes, I was.’ Henry recalled it vividly. Two days of sheer hell, inundated with hundreds of rude students asking him about life as a plod. It was not something he had volunteered for, but FB — then a chief superintendent — had volunteered him. Two torrid days of smiling and pleasantries at students who were mostly shits, with the occasional one showing real interest.

‘You changed my daughter’s life,’ the woman said.

Henry began to feel uneasy.

‘She’d been drifting, really. Not a clue what she wanted to do. She was due to get her degree and she simply had no idea what to do with her life, so she went to the careers convention and dragged me along with her. The woman scratched her chin and gazed over Henry’s shoulder, seeing something. ‘You changed her life and I don’t even know your name.’

Henry told her.

‘I think you were a detective sergeant then. I remember that, too.’

There had been representatives from all walks of Constabulary life: uniform foot patrol, dogs, horses, support staff and many others including himself, the only detective on the stand, the only one foolish enough to get snared into it. Even in plain clothes he could find nowhere to hide.

‘My daughter was called Jo Coniston.’

Henry blinked. He knew no names from the convention, could hardly even recall any of the faces, was just glad to get away at the end of it.

‘She spoke to every one of the people on the police stand, and you know what? It just captured her imagination. You were the last one she spoke to and you told her all about being a detective, told her all about your career. .’

He continued to wrack his brains. One of the things he prided himself on was his memory. Names, faces, cars, houses. . usually related to crims.

The woman opened her handbag and took out a photograph. She showed it to Henry.

Then he recognized her. Tall and gawky, just on the verge of turning into a lovely young woman. Long brown hair constantly falling into her eyes, which were wide, blue, innocent, yet knowing. Yes, there had been something special about her.

‘I remember the face now,’ he said, frowning. He asked the next question with a sense of dread. ‘You said she was called Jo Coniston. What do you mean by that?’

The woman seemed not to hear him. ‘She joined the police six months later. . GMP. . always talking about the conversation she had with you.’ She fished out another photograph. It was one of Jo in uniform, probably on the day of her passing-out parade at Bruche, the police training centre down in Warrington. Hair now short, figure slightly fuller, a look of no-nonsense on her face but coupled with a wonderful smile filled with sunshine.

‘What happened?’ Henry asked.

‘I don’t know, I just don’t know what happened to my beautiful daughter.’ She caught back a sob, inhaled deeply to control herself and slid the photos back into her bag. ‘She got a job on the surveillance branch eventually. Loved it, just loved the job. One night she and another officer simply disappeared,’ she said flatly.

‘Disappeared?’

‘Disappeared.’

‘No bodies were found, were they?’ Henry said. It was really a statement rather than a question because now he remembered the job. It was one which made the news across the north quite extensively for a while. ‘About two years ago. Lots of speculation about it, even that she ran off with her partner, if I recall right.’

The woman snorted. ‘If she had done that, she would have told me. We spoke on the phone every day. I saw her twice a week. I would have known if something like that had been going on.’

‘Parents often say that,’ Henry said gently. ‘Often they’re wrong.’

‘Not with me and Jo,’ she said stubbornly.

‘Er. . sorry. . I don’t know your name.’

‘Brenda Coniston.’

Henry nodded. ‘OK, Brenda. .’ He shrugged, then squinted at her. ‘We’ve bumped into each other. . coincidences happen. . I’m really sorry about Jo, but I can only assume that everything was done at the time to trace her. The police just don’t let their staff disappear. They try to find them. Cops are actually very good at finding folk — unless your daughter didn’t want to be found. Could that be the case?’ It sounded highly unlikely, but he asked anyway.

Brenda did not look remotely convinced. ‘I’ve been thinking about this for the last two years, Mr Christie, and it’s been tearing me apart. If she had decided to elope with this guy, I know, I just know that sooner or later, she would have made contact with me. . at least in a little way. We were so close.’

Henry kept silent.

‘I’m sure she’s dead. The police think she’s dead. All right, there’s no bodies been found.’ Her lips began to tremble. ‘She’s been murdered, hasn’t she, Mr Christie?’

‘You’re my contact, you come and pick me up,’ Henry whined down the phone to Jane Roscoe.

‘I’m not your anything, officially, and besides which I’m running a triple murder, so I don’t have time to kow-tow to your every whim.’

‘But I’m one of your leading operatives.’

‘No, you’re not — not officially, so bog off and either walk home or get a taxi. FB offered you a lift and you declined, so tough!’

‘But I came out without any money,’ he lied.

‘Shanks’ pony, then, innit?’ said stiffly, ending the call abruptly.

Henry stared at his dead mobile and sighed.

Mrs Coniston had gone; accompanied by the woman friend she was with, leaving Henry feeling as though he had kicked off a chain of events, which had subsequently led to her daughter’s disappearance. That was all he needed, a guilt trip on top of all his other woes. That had been the reason he had phoned Jane to cadge a lift home. Guilt. Guilt about dumping her. He wanted to know how she was really getting on.

He stood up, feeling that he had imbibed too much caffeine now. His hands were shaking, as though with DTs.

All of a sudden he felt he could not win at anything.

He decided to clear his head by walking into St Anne’s town centre and hopping into a taxi from there.

The staff in the cafe waved him off, glad to see him go.

Outside, he trotted down the steps as Jane Roscoe drew up in her car. She lowered her window and forced a reluctant smile on to her lips. ‘Get in.’

‘I’ll make this perfectly clear to you, Henry. I am not going back down the road of our relationship. It’s over. Zip. Kaput. Done. OK? No post-mortems, no recriminations, no further involvement. Got that?’

Henry nodded numbly.

‘You did what you did and I got over you and let’s leave it at that. I miss you, OK, but that gets less each day.’

‘Fine,’ he said thinly.

They rode in silence.

‘Why come and pick me up then?’

‘Because FB has put me in charge of the investigation into the deaths of two police officers and a nurse. The trail leads firmly back to John Lloyd Wickson and if we — the police, that is — can’t open his can of worms, then I’m hoping that you — not the real police, that is — might at least prise the lid off. It’s a purely selfish thing. I’ve got a job to do, I need your help and you won’t help by sitting in a cafe all day drinking milky coffee. Although you couldn’t have paid for it because you didn’t come out with any money.’