Nick Oldham - Psycho Alley

The DC looked forlorn.

‘In that case, I want everything that we do know to be turned into an action. I want all known associates visited, all previous addresses visited, all known haunts visited, however out of date any of them might seem to be. I also want all known sex offenders in the area visited and spoken to …’ Henry squinted thoughtfully, marshalling his dendrites. ‘Anything back on the burned-out car yet?’

‘No … sorry, yes … no current keeper.’

‘We have the name of the previous keepers?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Get that actioned, too,’ he snapped. ‘And … find out who he was in prison with, who he was at the hostel in Accrington with — inmates and staff — OK?’

The Intel cell nodded.

Henry said, even though it sounded rather corny, ‘No stone unturned, because I’ve got a very bad feeling about this, the more I think about it.’

What he did not share with Tope were his thoughts on what exactly gave him such a bad feeling, something he was keeping to himself at the moment … not that it was rocket science, but something that had occurred to him after Debbie Black’s heartfelt remark about fish and chips; if Henry had interrupted Uren and his friend before they had a chance to do whatever they were going to do to the unfortunate girl, then it was always possible they might still be angry, believing they hadn’t achieved their goal. They might just be in the frame of mind to continue where they’d left off — and abduct another.

One thing was certain: Henry was now heading a hot, fast-moving investigation and at that precise moment, feeling tired and jaded, hurt and injured, just wanting eight hours uninterrupted sleep, he did not feel confident of pulling it off.

Henry raised his eyebrows at DC Tope, who was regarding him unsurely.

‘So what you waiting for?’ he demanded.

Tope’s head dropped and his fingers moved to the keyboard of the computer in front of him. Henry spun and strutted across the MIR — as much as he could strut with a gammy leg — and as he exited through the door he was pretty sure he heard the word ‘git’ waft from Tope’s mouth. He stopped at the door and, in the fashion of all good TV drama, turned to look, about to say something profound and life changing. However, words failed him, so he just left and made his way back to the office he had been allocated on his redeployment with FMIT.

It wasn’t such a bad office really. It was out of the way, which was always a plus point. It was small, with a long narrow window running from floor to ceiling, overlooking Bonny Street and not much else. Daily he was now faced with a massive model of a shark stuck on the wall at the rear of Sea World. It had blood on its fangs and small piggy eyes and looked ferocious. He had named it Dave, after Dave Anger, his boss, and greeted it every day with a nod and a wave. The office was desperately cold, though — always — and he had acquired a plug-in electric radiator from someone else’s office, which did the job up to a point. He often felt that his front half was red hot, but his back was frozen, even on the best of days. He had a desk, a computer with a will of its own, a swivelling chair and just enough room for two plastic chairs opposite the desk, for those cosy chats that chief inspectors often found themselves having, usually with themselves.

He sat behind the desk and tilted the chair back until it whacked the wall, then raised his sore leg on to the desk, giving it some relief.

Yes, the office was just about functional, but nowhere near as comfy and spacious as the one he’d been evicted from at HQ. The one with the view of the tennis courts, rugby field, trees and grass. Now all he had was a Blackpool back street to admire. And a shark.

It was eight thirty p.m. A debrief was planned for nine p.m., then there would be another briefing in the morning at eight a.m. Sunday would be a good day for working, getting progress made.

He wondered if he would be able to pull this one off quickly and if he couldn’t, what would his future look like.

Dave Anger, who he had now renamed Sharky, would see to it that it would be bleak and tragic … Henry was visualizing feeding his boss into the mouth of a Great White shark when the office door opened, clattering against the plastic chairs. Debbie Black came in, a terrible expression on her face.

‘I’ve just had a horrendous thought,’ she blurted.

‘I know,’ Henry said, reading her.

‘They’re going to do it again, and they’re going to do it soon, and if we don’t catch them, another young girl is going to die.’

‘I know,’ Henry said again. ‘I know, I know, I know.’

In a nutshell, nothing was achieved that day apart from on the scientific front. Uren had gone to ground and could not be found and all other leads were dead ends — for the moment. But then again, unless someone struck lucky in those first few hours, there weren’t even enough detectives to spin a drum. It was clear to Henry that the murder squad would have to be seriously enlarged by Monday at the latest.

His tired detectives made their reports at the debrief in the MIR, including Jane Roscoe, and he thanked all of them genuinely. As knackered as they were, they remained keen and eager.

He sent them home at ten p.m. They were all parched and Henry overheard some mutterings about going across the road for a pint, a thought that tempted him. He gathered up his papers, aware that the room had not completely emptied. Jane Roscoe lounged by the door, looking across at him.

A heart sinking in a chest can be a sickening thing.

‘Hi Jane.’ He walked towards her. ‘Thanks for the work you did at the scene.’

She shrugged an acceptance of the remark. ‘You going home?’

He nodded. ‘I need a good, long kip.’ He paused by her so they were almost shoulder-to-shoulder at the doorway. ‘You OK being the crime scene manager for the time being?’

‘Whatever.’ She sounded like a grumpy teenager.

A beat passed. Henry gave her a sad smile, then walked on by, heading back to his office. Even though he wondered how deep she was into Dave Anger’s pockets, his heart was still thumping and a quick sluice of adrenalin had done a rush into his blood as he had passed close to her. He was past knowing how to deal with the situation he and Jane were caught up in. An affair over, feelings still running strong on her part, the work situation.

At the door to his cubby-hole he said, ‘Oh fuck, what a mess,’ then tried to put her out of his mind, or at least partition her away for the time being, and thought, Bring on the plasma screen TV .

A weak man versus a public house. Every time, hands down, the pub wins, as it did that Saturday night as Henry left the police station. Despite his weariness and resolve to go home, his head was still spinning and the lure of a cold beer from a well-cared-for tap was too much to resist. Just the one, he promised himself whilst crossing Bonny Street to the Pump and Truncheon less than thirty feet away from the building. One long, chilled pint of Stella Artois would be the thing he needed to get that all-important eight hours sleep.

Ten thirty p.m., and the place was full to bursting, with good rock music blaring out, unlike the junk he’d been subjected to the night before. With his injured leg making progress twice as hard, Henry eased his way through the throng, nodding at one or two people and edging his way to the bar. On his journey he noticed a gaggle of his jacks huddled in one corner of the bar, engrossed in a real debrief.

It took a while to get served, but his persistence in the face of adversity paid off when the barmaid pushed his golden drink toward him and he crossed her palm with the appropriate amount of brass and silver. He took the pint, turned, intending to lean on the bar, but came face to face with Debbie Black, who was standing right behind him, half a pint in one hand, cigarette dangling from the fingers of her other. He hadn’t clocked her on entry.