Nick Oldham - Dead Heat

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.