Nick Oldham - Psycho Alley

‘Yeah, I know.’

‘Sure it’s him?’

‘More or less.’

‘OK — no problems, only solutions. Have you got anything on now?’ Fawcett shook his head. ‘Got a car?’ He nodded. ‘Let’s go the MIR first and see what we’ve got on the other residents in the block of flats.’ Henry rolled out of his chair. ‘Onwards and upwards,’ he said, none too energetically.

Henry checked the records detailing what had been done at the block of flats in which Uren’s body had been discovered. The occupants of all but one flat had been accounted for and spoken to. A flat on the top floor was found to be apparently unoccupied, although it was rented out.

‘What enquiries have been made with the landlord?’ Henry asked Jane, whose job it was to keep up to date with everything that was going on.

She looked over his shoulder. ‘Why?’

‘Not sure yet.’

‘The landlord has been spoken to,’ she told him, ‘but mainly about Uren’s occupancy, nothing else. Uren rented the flat and lived there alone, by all accounts.’

‘There’s an unoccupied flat on the top floor — have we done anything about that? Found who was in it most recently? Have we asked the landlord who was in it?’

‘I don’t think so,’ she said cautiously.

‘OK,’ said Henry, tight-lipped. ‘Who’s the landlord?’

Jane flicked through some sheets of paper on her desk and handed one to Henry. ‘That’s him.’

‘Ugh,’ Henry said, reading the name, and wishing someone had told him who it was. ‘Why was I not told this?’ he demanded of Jane. She half-shrugged. ‘Right.’ He turned to Fawcett, who was standing behind him. ‘Got those car keys?’ Fawcett nodded.

‘What’s going on?’ Jane asked.

Henry tapped his nose and pointed a finger at her. He did not want her to know he had probably made one of the biggest policing cock-ups in history. Nor did he trust her not to run to Anger and tell tales. He turned to Karl Donaldson, who was sitting at Jane’s desk. ‘Fancy a jaunt out to see some of Blackpool’s scum?’

‘Sure,’ he said, rising. ‘What is it?’

‘That kinda scummy stuff you find floating in stagnant water,’ Henry said as a joke, which no one got. Donaldson just looked perplexed. ‘Come on,’ Henry said.

In the lift going down, Henry said, ‘We missed Trent,’ to his good-looking friend, using the royal ‘we’. Not that he was ducking blame, but it was always good practice to spread it about where possible. He had always been contemptuous of bosses who were known to have Teflon-coated shoulders — meaning that no shit ever stuck. Now he wished he was one of them. He had clicked on to self-survival mode, and unless he could somehow pull this one back, questions would be asked in the corridors of power at HQ and he would be found wanting. He explained the situation to Donaldson.

‘Shit happens,’ the American said understandingly. ‘Admittedly more often to you than anyone else, but it does. The secret is to hide it without causing a bad smell.’

The lift jarred as it reached ground level, the doors opening. Fawcett led them into the garage and to his car, an unmarked Vectra, which was still quite blatantly a police car. The missing hubcap was always a bit of a give-away. Fawcett jumped in behind the wheel, Henry next to him, Donaldson in the back.

‘This is Karl Donaldson, by the way’ he said to Fawcett. ‘He’s an FBI agent.’

‘Ho hum,’ the laconic cop said, unimpressed.

Blackpool had its full share of sleazeball landlords, and Larry Cork was no exception. Unkempt, unshaven, unwashed and whiffy, he was the stereotypical snivelling landlord, money-grabbing, back-stabbing, penny-pinching and priceless. Henry knew Cork of old. In his younger days the man had been a pretender to the crime throne of Blackpool, but hadn’t really had the physical toughness to make good his threats. He had gradually disappeared from the mainstream crime scene, emerging as a landlord and buying up property left, right and centre around the resort. He and his sons — amazingly called Barry and Harry, who muscled for him — had made a killing in the 1980s on the back of DSS lodgers. That bubble burst, but Cork had made his dough. Now he ticked over nicely, owning a string of ramshackle flats, including the block containing Uren’s, plus houses and a two amusement arcades in South Shore.

Henry had once locked him up for gross indecency in some public toilets on the prom, which added to Cork’s sleaze. He enjoyed the company of other men and the excitement of meeting in public toilets. Henry held Cork in very low regard.

Detectives had interviewed Cork quite thoroughly about Uren, but he had not offered the police anything more than they asked. He told them that he did not know Uren well, that he was a good paying tenant, and he wasn’t interested in his comings and goings. The perfect landlord. He wasn’t asked any questions about the unoccupied, but rented, room on the top floor of the block of flats. Time to change that, Henry thought as he waited for Cork to answer the door of his flat on the ground floor of another block in North Shore.

Barry, Cork’s eldest son, came to the door. He was a wide, strapping guy in his early thirties. He was as hard as nails, and as gay as his dad.

‘Hello, Barry,’ Henry said, holding out his warrant card. Fawcett and Donaldson were at his shoulder. ‘Need to see Larry, please. Name’s DCI Christie, but you know that already, don’t you?’

Barry opened the door fully, revealing himself to be dressed in a tight-fitting vest and leather jeans, body hair sprouting from all round the vest. Henry tried not to show his disgust. ‘Dad’s not in and anyway, he’s already talked to the filth.’

‘Need to talk more. Where is he, then?’

On the last word, Henry heard a toilet being flushed, a door opening and a growl of, ‘Fuckin’ piles playing me up again,’ coming from the brown-toothed mouth of Barry Cork.

Henry gave Barry a blank stare.

Barry shrugged, eyed Henry’s two companions — his gaze fluttering over Donaldson — and conceded defeat. ‘OK, he’s in.’ He turned. ‘Dad! Cops!’

Larry Cork came into view, zipping up and tucking his shirt into his loose pants. A cigarette dangled from his lips as though it had been stapled there.

‘Can I help you guys?’ he smiled. Then the smile fell and he scowled at Henry. ‘You, you bastard!’

‘Yep — how’s it hangin’ Larry?’

There was fire and caution in Cork’s bloodshot eyes. His treatment at Henry’s hands all those years ago had stayed with him. ‘What do you want?’

‘Just a chat about your tenants.’

‘Don’t like you, never have.’

‘Feeling’s mutual, Larry, but maybe it’s time to move on. Let’s not let the past colour the future, eh? There’s been a murder on premises owned by you and by virtue of that you can’t expect us not to be round to see you regularly, can you?’

‘What do you want? I’ve already given a statement.’

‘More depth … can we come in?’

Ten minutes later Larry Cork drove round with them to the block of flats where Uren’s dead body had been found. Cork had identified Trent as one of his tenants, but said he didn’t know of any connection between Trent and Uren. They had come as separate tenants, and Trent didn’t use the name Trent anyway. He used the surname Stoke. He said he saw very little of him, and had certainly not seen him since Uren’s body had been found.

Cork led them up from the front door, pausing at the floor on which Uren’s flat was situated. The flat was still sealed as a crime scene.

‘When the hell’s that comin’ off?’ Cork asked, pointing at the tape stretched across the door. ‘Money going to waste there.’