Nick Oldham - Psycho Alley

‘And there’s more … it just gets better and better. Allowing a member of the public, ie your friend Karl Donaldson, to be an unauthorized part of a police operation and — and! — to allow him to use a taser. Fuck me, Henry. Hanging offence. You are well and truly stuffed. Try and wriggle out of that one. Any comment now?’

‘Nope.’

‘However, you’re not suspended, but you’ll be working in the Best Value department of Corporate Development, just for the time being.’ Anger smiled nastily. ‘I knew that if you had enough rope, you’d eventually throttle yourself and give me a legitimate reason to bin you.’

‘It’s a pleasure.’

‘Jane Roscoe’ll be taking over your investigation. She’ll be given temporary DCI and you’ll be returned to your actual rank of inspector.’

‘What a surprise.’

‘Professional Standards will be getting my report first thing Monday morning.’ He tapped the file he had been working on. ‘Expect an early visit from them.’

‘I’ll look forward to it.’

‘You can’t believe what this means to me, Henry,’ he gloated.

‘Huh, don’t bank on it.’ Henry inspected his nails, raised his head and looked levelly at Anger. ‘When are you going to tell me what this is all about? I think I’ve a right to know, because it’s not really about my lack of professionalism, is it?’ His eyes roved the desk and he clocked that the Anger wedding photograph was no longer there. The Bruche passing-out parade was still on the shelf behind him.

‘Believe what you want. I think you are a crap detective, not fit to be on FMIT; you’re a loose canon, and certainly not chief inspector material, and as long as I’ve got a hole where the sun don’t shine, you’ll never achieve that rank if I have anything to do with it. Then again, there’s every chance you won’t be a cop any longer when PSD have finished with you, so that won’t be an issue anyway. And I don’t like you, you’re right — but my report will be purely objective, based on fact.’

‘That’s nice to know.’ He paused, took a breath. ‘Any chance of you reconsidering?’

Anger almost bayed with laughter. ‘When the devil’s home freezes.’

‘Is there anything I could do to make you change your mind?’

‘Don’t be pathetic,’ Anger spat derisively. ‘Now get the hell out of here, take the weekend off — enjoy it — and come back into the big house on Monday morning and tootle up to Corporate Development.’

Henry made to stand up, then sat back. ‘There are a couple of things, actually. I won’t beat about the bush.’ He had practised this in his mind a few times, but he knew this was one of those occasions when he’d just have to wing it. ‘I’ve been receiving text messages over the last week, threatening and taunting ones, from two different numbers. I don’t suppose you have any ideas about them, do you?’

‘Why the hell would I?’

‘I’ve tried to ring the numbers back, but haven’t got any replies. I’ve sent texts to each one, too.’

Anger shrugged.

‘I tried this morning, too — but still got no reply, though the phones did ring out.’

‘What are you getting at, Henry?’

‘Thing is, sir, as you know, it’s possible to get cell-siting approved to trace the location of mobile phones, which is accurate to a matter of metres. And, so long as the phone is switched on, it doesn’t matter whether the phone is being used or not; the phone companies have the technology to pinpoint them from the pulses they emit. Amazing stuff. But you know all that.’

Anger remained motionless, his facial expression revealing zero.

‘The chief has authorized us to get Orange to do a cell-siting for the two numbers this morning. They’re both pay-as-you-go numbers, you see, so there’s no contract address or anything for either of them.’ Henry forced a smile and took a breath. ‘I phoned both numbers this morning from a withheld number and hung up when they went to ansaphone,’ he said. ‘Other thing is, my car got damaged a few times over the last week, which was a real pain, so I did something about that, too. Called in a favour from a guy in tech support. Like I said, technology is amazing, innit? I got him to fix up a couple of them mini cameras inside my motor, so that if anyone damaged it, they’d get filmed. And then, would you believe it?’

‘Believe what?’ Anger’s face had gone slightly green.

‘My car gets smashed up in a pub car park and we get some fantastic pics of the offender in full flight.’ Henry took the envelope and pushed it across Anger’s desk. ‘Want to look? They’re very clear.’

‘I don’t think so.’ His mouth had turned down at the corners. He looked as though he was going to puke.

‘The cell-siting pinpointed the offending mobile phones to this building. I know it’s expensive and only usually used for life and death situations, but the chief made an exception in this case. He believed it money well spent to catch a high-ranking officer harassing and threatening lower-ranking officers. That and the damage thing.’

He and Anger stared at each other across the expanse of the desk. Henry’s face remained impassive, even when he said, ‘Touche.’ Anger’s face tensed continually at the jaw line, but something in his eyes said, ‘Beaten.’

‘I’m having marital problems,’ Anger said simply. ‘After over twenty-five years of marriage, she’s left me … it all started going horribly wrong just about the time I transferred here from Merseyside.’ He wiped his face with his hand. ‘Then when she found out you were on my staff, she started taunting me about … about, well, you can guess.’

‘We had a one-night fling at Bruche,’ Henry said. ‘I’ve never seen hide nor hair of her since. I didn’t even know you then.’ He didn’t mention he’d been into Anger’s office on two occasions recently inspecting his treasured photos. Nor did he mention that she was a one-night fling that had ended up with him on top of her on the bonnet of the Commandant’s car.

‘You’d think you two were still at it, the way she talks,’ Anger said sullenly. ‘I hate you, Henry. It feels like you’re responsible for my marriage collapsing.’

Henry did not go into counselling mode. He simply said, ‘Are the phones in your desk?’

Anger opened the top drawer and took out two mobile phones, which he dropped on to the desk with a clatter. They were old handsets, bulky, but still serviceable. He pushed them away from him.

‘Did you organize my beatings, too?’

He sneered. ‘Henry, if anyone’s going to have the pleasure of kicking the shit out of you, it’s me. I wouldn’t sub-contract that to anyone.’

‘Fair do’s.’

‘Can we do a deal?’

It was Henry’s turn to stifle a laugh. ‘I’ll take my chances in Corporate Development and with PSD. And anyway, it’s not up to me.’ He stood up and opened the office door to reveal Chief Constable Fanshaw-Bayley standing in the corridor. Behind him was John Walker, the tech support detective. ‘Did you get all that?’ Henry asked.

Walker said, ‘Yep — it’s all on tape.’

Henry opened his jacket and slowly removed the wire he had been wearing, which he bundled up and gave to Walker. ‘Thanks for your time,’ he said. Then to FB, he said, ‘I’ll leave it with you, boss.’

He walked out without looking back at Dave Anger. FB stepped into the office and closed the door softly.

At Blackpool Vic, Rik Dean was awaiting one last visit from the consultant. He was expecting to be discharged later that afternoon. Henry had been with him about half an hour, bringing him up to speed with the investigation he had missed out on.

‘… Looks like Callum Rourke has been abusing little Kerry right under Tina’s nose, or maybe she knew, I don’t know. Something we’ll have to delve into. Seems Kerry wanted it to stop, Callum continued the abuse, so she threatened to tell the police, which panicked him, which is why he flipped, abducted her and then tried to kill himself and her. He spun us a pack of lies on the night she disappeared, but I got lucky,’ Henry admitted, not mentioning Troy Costain. ‘I mean, I’d definitely got tunnel vision, and though I hadn’t really liked young Callum, I was convinced Trent had snatched her, even though it didn’t totally fit the pattern. But he doesn’t abduct all the girls in the world, does he?’