Nick Oldham - Psycho Alley

‘Great detective my arse,’ he mumbled at his reflection and necked a couple of the strong painkillers the hospital had doled out to him.

Behind him, the door to the gents’ opened and the Home Office pathologist entered, still in a bloodied-up apron from having just completed a gruelling three-hour post mortem examination on the body found in the back of the burned-out car. He was called Baines, a stick of a man with ears like a trophy. Henry had known him for longer than he cared to remember. He was a down-to-earth soul, and he and Henry had often retired to sleazy public houses after many a post mortem to ogle womenfolk and, occasionally, to discuss the findings of the examinations. Usually Baines was jovial, often ribbing Henry about his frequently disastrous love life; today, though, he was sombre. The nature of the PM he’d just performed had efficiently damped down all sense of fun.

‘Grim one, that,’ Baines said, fumbling underneath his apron and lining up on a urinal.

‘Yeah,’ agreed Henry, also affected. On the whole, PMs did not tend to bother him greatly. Today’s, however, had been deeply unpleasant. ‘So you’re sure?’ Henry ventured.

‘Oh yeah.’ Baines was now peeing.

‘She was dead before the car was set on fire?’

‘Stabbed repeatedly, then burned when the car was set alight.’ He finished, crossed to the sink, started to rinse his hands. ‘Murdered in situ, I would say. The angles of the wounds and the position she was found in corroborate that. I think we can get a good idea of the type of knife used, though. Probably a five- or six-inch bladed one, with a straight edge and a serrated edge. Kitchen knife.’

‘Bastards,’ Henry spat, vividly recalling the recently-completed PM. Henry believed that as SIO, he had a responsibility to attend post mortems of victims whenever possible. He had been present when the undertakers had carefully lifted the body out of the burned-out car in Fleetwood, placed it in a body bag, then driven all the way to the morgue at Lancaster. This was for reasons of jurisdiction, as the north Lancashire coroner covered Fleetwood, and therefore the PM had to take place in his area. It was a long journey and Henry had followed the undertaker’s van in his car, having picked it up from home. Professor Baines had spent some time at the scene in order to acquaint himself with the crime, and to offer advice, but he was ready and waiting at Lancaster when the van arrived and reversed up to the double access doors. The body was slid on to a gurney and wheeled into the well-lit examination room where, with little formality, the PM began.

Some details were quickly established: the body was that of a young girl, aged somewhere between eight and eleven years; she was naked and had been trussed up, hands bound behind her, feet tied at the ankles, another piece of what looked like clothes line tied between the feet and ankles. Henry could only begin to imagine the sheer terror she must have gone through. It wasn’t a great leap of the imagination to guess she had been abducted earlier the same day, Friday. But from where? No young girl had been reported missing in Lancashire, nor in any of the neighbouring forces in the northwest. A simple telephone call to each control room had quickly established that one. So it was a matter of waiting. Henry had already arranged for messages to be sent with urgency to all forces in the country, giving brief details of the facts, asking for immediate responses if any of their mispers possibly fitted the bill. He had arranged for that to happen whilst the PM was taking place, but so far, to the best of his knowledge, no one had yet got back.

In the meantime, his other priority had not changed: find George Uren. Something that was proving difficult.

‘God, I wish I wasn’t so knackered, beaten up and run down,’ Henry said to Baines as they left the toilets. ‘Literally run down.’

‘What is it? Too much playing away?’ the pathologist teased, his mood lightening a little. ‘Is the rather delicious DS Black your new piece of totty? Though I must say, she looks like she’s been round the block a time or two.’

‘You really need to get out more,’ Henry said with a shake of the head.

‘You provide me with all the entertainment I need,’ Baines laughed.

They walked through the room commonly called the kitchen, mainly because of the huge chiller cabinet set against one wall with dozens of doors in it, set at the perfect temperature to keep a dead body fresh and fragrant. Cards with names scribbled on, slotted into the holders on the doors, declared whether there was a body on the roller behind the door. The place looked pretty full to Henry.

They crossed the tiled floor to the double doors and stepped out of the rear of the mortuary into the cool Saturday evening. Debbie Black, who had driven up to Lancaster in a firm’s car, stood on the grass verge, smoking. Henry winced slightly at the sight.

Baines elbowed him and hissed in his ear, ‘Know what they say about a woman who smokes?’

Henry stopped. ‘No, go on, surprise me.’

‘Fellatio, your todger’s happiest pastime.’ Baines winked lewdly.

‘Just fuck off,’ Henry said tiredly, but not nastily. ‘I actually don’t shag every woman I work with, y’know, even though I’m regularly accused of it.’

‘Not what I’ve heard.’

They continued to walk towards Debbie, who blew smoke in languid rings into the atmosphere.

‘Jesus, smoke rings, too!’ Baines gasped. ‘You lucky bastard.’

Henry shook his head. ‘You’re incorrigible.’

‘Great word,’ said Baines. ‘Underused.’

‘Hi, guys,’ Debbie said, stamping out her cigarette whilst exhaling her last lungful and wafting away the smoke with distaste. ‘I only smoke after PMs … I can’t stand the smell of them. Keep a packet of fags on standby, just in case.’

Henry nodded understandingly, although he had never known the desire to resort to cancer sticks. His stress default had usually been booze in the form of Stella Artois and Jack Daniel’s.

Debbie looked distraught, as though it was more than the whiff of death that was troubling her.

‘You OK?’ Henry asked.

‘No, no, not really.’ She was shaking her head, eyes filling with moisture. ‘It’s just that …’ She looked up to the heavens, seeming annoyed with herself for showing emotion. ‘I know I shouldn’t let it bother me … it’s just what you said, Henry, when you described what happened when you clocked Uren.’ He looked puzzled. ‘You know,’ she prompted. ‘That poor girl was probably tied up in the back of his car, wasn’t she? And those two bastards had stopped for fish and chips. They had her tied up alive and they stopped for fuckin’ chips,’ she said angrily. ‘Sorry, sorry,’ she said, drawing her hands over her face. She composed herself, took a few deep breaths, then regarded Henry levelly. ‘I want to be on the murder team, Henry. I want to have a chance at collaring Uren and I won’t accept anything less.’

‘What’ve you got?’ Henry asked the question of the single person who formed the intelligence cell in the MIR. He didn’t particularly like the way the DC looked back at him, because he sensed the answer in his expression: nothing.

‘Er, not much,’ mumbled the detective constable. His name was Jerry Tope and his nickname was ‘Bung’, short for ‘bungalow’ because, as legend had it, he had nothing ‘up top’. He was the DC Henry had snaffled from the local Intel unit.

‘How much more than when I left?’

The DC blinked nervously.

‘That much, eh?’ Henry said, his mouth set.

‘Er, just really the stuff that’s already on the system.’ Tope held up a fairly heavy file. ‘Downloaded.’

‘Right,’ clicked Henry. ‘So basically, since Uren was released and then did a runner from the hostel, we’ve nothing on him, except a snippet from an interview?’