Nick Oldham - Dead Heat

‘You must have called in some big favours to get me this one,’ he said sarcastically.

‘Someone found it rotting in the police garage at Accrington, so don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. At least it’s not local and won’t be recognized.’

Henry looked round the inside of it. There was a gaping hole in the dash where the force radio set had once fitted. There was a pull-ring dangling from the roof by the door which had once connected to the now-missing police stop sign on the back parcel shelf. The sign might have been missing, but the hinges which held it in place were still there. If he had inspected the outside of the car he would have seen where the word ‘POLICE’ had once been stuck on the doors. It would not require anyone of any great intellect to put two and two together.

‘There’s no spare tyre, by the way.’

‘Nice,’ he said, driving away.

Jane sniffed and murmured something he did not make out.

‘You seem to have the bit between your teeth,’ he commented.

‘Henry — I am a scorned woman. I’m over you, but I’m still going to get some enjoyment out of it.’

He raised his eyebrows.

‘So you’re not over me?’

‘Oh, yes, I am,’ she said forcefully. ‘But I didn’t expect to be bumping into you so soon and it’s thrown me a bit, OK?’

‘Sorry.’

Jane expelled all the air from her lungs and started again. ‘I know you want to give it your best with Kate, so don’t worry. I won’t do or say anything to jeopardize that — unless you really piss me off.’

‘Thanks. I won’t.’

‘Want to know how the investigation’s going?’

‘No.’

‘Didn’t think you would.’

‘I have good reason not to,’ he explained. ‘If I know too much, I might give something away, then my position’s up the creek.’

The rest of the journey continued in a strained silence. Henry considered whether or not to tell Jane about the phone call from Verner, but decided not to. It probably wouldn’t achieve much and would make Jane worry.

Jane was the first to break silence, when Henry stopped on Hornby Road, about a quarter of a mile from the station.

‘What’s this?’

‘Where you get out.’

‘Here? Why?’

‘I don’t really want to be seen with any active cops if I can help it. Wouldn’t do my image any good, would it?’

‘It’ll take me bloody ages to walk in.’

Henry closed and opened his eyes very slowly in a way that said he would not be swayed.

‘I’m going to go home, have some breakfast. Then I might just have a trip into Manchester.’

‘Why? What’re you going to do?’

‘Shopping,’ he lied, just to wind her up, although he knew it wasn’t a good idea. ‘Day out with Kate. Pre-planned. Trafford Centre.’

Jane shot out of the car and slammed the door closed. She stomped off towards the cop shop without a backwards glance, something Henry was getting used to. He manoeuvred into traffic and sailed past her. Neither gave the other a second glance.

Henry had worked as an undercover police officer in the past. He was one of the sixty or so fully trained u/c detectives in the country. As such he had some fairly close links with surveillance branches in forces across the north-west, and knew where each one of them was based.

He used this knowledge to make his way to Greater Manchester’s surveillance branch located discreetly on a business estate in Prestwich on the west side of the city.

It had changed little since he was last there. He drove past the entrance of the high-walled compound and pulled in around the corner, wondering how best to handle the situation.

He dialled Al Major’s mobile.

‘Hullo.’ These people were very tight with greetings because they could never be one hundred per cent sure who was calling them. Criminals spend lots of money trying to track down locations of surveillance units as well as the phone numbers and addresses of surveillance cops.

Henry introduced himself and kept his reason for calling brief. He said that he’d had authorization from DCI Brindle, his friend he had called the day before. He did not let on that he was suspended or that this was a purely personal enquiry, because it might not have gone down well. He also knew that people like Al Major were very canny people — it came with the territory — so Henry encouraged him to call Brindle just to double-check. He asked him to do it now.

Reluctantly, Major agreed.

Literally, whilst he waited for the return call, if there was going to be one, Henry sat and twiddled his thumbs, made a cat’s cradle, did a bit of nose picking and let him mind do some stream-of-consciousness rambling.

He began to think about coincidences. He truly believed that coincidence was the catalyst to fate. Life was all about coincidences and they, in turn, led to consequences. Such as the reason for him being here today because he had bumped into a missing girl’s mother, a girl he had influenced into joining the cops, setting her off on a journey that may well have resulted in her death. If it had been another officer on the stand at that careers convention, she might still be alive.

How spooky that was, he thought. Then: not so spooky, actually. He had met people in the strangest circumstances in the past, sometimes without any great consequence. At a Rolling Stones concert in 1982 he had met an old friend he had not seen since junior school in a crowd of 80,000 people. Once on holiday in Portugal, many years before, he had been with Kate in their pre-child days when they were accosted by a bar tout, trying to drum up business for some back-street dive or other in Albufeira. Now that had been a coincidence with consequences, because Henry recognized the lad as being wanted for murder in Blackburn. Henry did not know him personally, but had seen his photo circulated. Much to Kate’s annoyance Henry had let the guy lead them into a bar for cut-price drinks; he then engaged him in conversation and the lad was northern buffoon enough to tell them he came from Blackburn and people called him Norky, two facts that confirmed Henry’s belief. The Portuguese cops visited him two days later. Coincidence to consequence to fate, fate being life imprisonment in this case.

Yeah, life was just a series of coincidences, some of which had greater ramifications than others.

His phone rang.

‘Hi, Al.’

‘You can come round and see me. Want to make an appointment?’

‘How about in two minutes?’

‘Er, well. . er,’ Major stalled, stunned.

‘I’m in the vicinity. Strike while the iron’s hot?’

‘You know where I work?’

‘I do. Be there in two shakes of a lamb’s tail,’ he said brightly and ended the call.

He parked outside the perimeter wall, walked to the gate and pressed the intercom buzzer.

‘Hello?’

‘I have an appointment to see Al Major. DI Henry Christie from Lancashire.’

‘Someone’ll be with you in a mo.’

Henry saw a young guy saunter out of the building.

‘Can I help you?’

Tricky. No badge, no warrant card, no ID. ‘I’m here to see Al Major. DI Christie from Lancs. It’s a while since I was last here,’ he went on quickly, going for the friendly bullshit approach. ‘Last time was when I was working on the Jacky Lee job.’ Henry dropped a name he knew everyone would react to. Lee had been a gangster, a big one, but had met his end gruesomely in Henry’s presence a few years before. ‘I was u/c on that,’ he said, knowing he was pushing it because undercover cops never tell anyone about their work, especially people they’ve never met before. This officer looked young and impressionable. Maybe he could get away with it.

His eyes lit up.

‘Come in then.’ He opened the side gate and let Henry step through. It was pretty much procedure these days that all non-uniformed staff wore their ID cards visible all the time whilst on police premises. He knew he would have to keep this officer’s attention away from the fact that he wasn’t wearing his.