Nick Oldham - Psycho Alley

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Henry smiled stupidly from one high-ranker to the other, raised his eyebrows and waited for the punchline.

‘Dave and I have been talking … about you,’ FB announced. ‘And as you’re now pretty hot in terms of your investigatory skills, what with this GMP thing under your belt, we want those honed skills to be put to good use for this force now.’

‘Oh, save me the rhetoric. Cut the crap and cut to the chase.’ The words hovered on Henry’s lips, but were left unsaid. His eyes narrowed with suspicion, realizing he was definitely being set up for a stinker. ‘Oh dear,’ he did say, looking sideways at Anger. Anger had been fairly recently transferred into Lancashire from Merseyside to run FMIT. Despite his best efforts, he could not dislodge Henry as much as he would have loved to. With close-cropped grey hair and tiny round glasses, making him look like a fully-paid-up member of a Gestapo hit squad, Anger smiled venomously. Despite Henry’s success in GMP, Anger still did not give him the benefit of the doubt. It was something Henry could not understand; just what did he have against him? Whatever it was, it was about to be unleashed. Anger’s next step in his master plan to oust Henry off FMIT.

‘We want you to take on the enquiry into the child rape and attempted murder in Blackpool and the associated abductions,’ Anger said without blinking.

‘I thought Tom Banner was heading that.’

‘Was. As of now, you are.’

‘Does Tom know this?’

‘He’s gone on the neighbourhood policing project.’ Anger gave a twitch of his nose. ‘Good for his CV.’

‘Why me?’

‘Fresh perspective and all that,’ FB intercut. He knew Henry and Anger did not see eye to eye, that there was a palpable tension there. Once FB had been bothered by the clash; now he wasn’t. He had more important things to do than get involved with the petty squabbles of his subordinates. Rather like Pilate, he seemed to have washed his hands of the affair. He was chief constable, for God’s sake. ‘The investigation seems to have stalled, so we want you to take it on, and,’ — for some reason FB inspected his watch — ‘get a result within a month.’ It was said in an offhand, almost unimportant way.

A chill of fear rippled through Henry’s lower intestine. ‘A month? It’s been going on six months already.’

‘All the more reason to wind it up quickly. A lot of people are getting extremely twitchy about it and we want to be seen to be doing something,’ Anger said.

‘Hence me,’ Henry said glumly.

‘There is a carrot,’ FB announced.

‘Shock me,’ Henry said.

‘Substantive chief inspector. I’ll fix it.’

Henry was a temporary chief inspector which always had the possibility of being taken away from him. ‘And if I don’t get a result in a month?’

FB pouted. Anger half-shrugged. Neither seemed to have an answer.

‘Do I have a choice?’

‘Nope,’ they said in unison.

And so Henry inherited a major investigation getting nowhere which he secretly named ‘Operation Wank’, because he was sometimes just plain childish.

Henry sniffed, nostrils flaring, and turned to look at Debbie Black’s profile. She was a pretty woman in her mid-thirties, with oval eyes and a thick, meaty mouth. Henry half-recalled that she had separated from her husband, but couldn’t remember the exact details. Since she had posed the question, Henry had been mulling it over for so long that they had reached the multi-storey car park next to Blackpool Central police station, one level of which was leased for police use only, secured appropriately.

‘Good question,’ he said finally. ‘Does it have any connection?’

‘Taken you long enough to reply,’ she smirked.

‘Deep thinker, me.’

‘So?’ she queried, negotiating the car around the tight corners and high kerbstones of the car park. ‘What do you think? Connection or not?’

His shoulders jerked, a non-committal gesture. ‘Who knows? I don’t think I’ll be able to say until later in the day, but my gut feeling is that it’s not connected with the investigation into the abductions … or then again, it could be. Uren could be our man for both … maybe … vague answer, but it’ll have to do. I really want to get the scientific side boxed off properly, get the body identified and find the unpleasant Mr Uren PDQ.’

The MIR from which Henry had been running his investigation was situated on the fourth floor of the station. Henry and Debbie made their way to it by way of the lift and found the room, unsurprisingly quiet, devoid of personnel. Or, at least that’s what Henry thought until he saw a dark, bulky figure lurking behind one of the computer terminals. A man rose slowly as he and Debbie entered the room. Henry’s boss. Dave Anger.

He should not have been astounded. Although he had not personally informed Anger of the latest developments because he had not yet had time (or inclination, if truth be known), it was something very near to the top of his mental ‘To Do’ list. Henry guessed that Jane Roscoe may well have done the deed already in her capacity as Anger’s snitch, though Henry did not know for sure. And even though he did not know if this was truly the case, his feelings towards her hardened anyway. It confirmed to his slightly paranoid mind that she and Anger were still in league, Roscoe because he had dumped her and it still smarted; Anger because of some unknown, unfathomable reason that completely eluded him.

The two men faced each other across the computer terminals. Henry could see Anger looking at his injured face. Debbie hovered back behind Henry.

Anger addressed Debbie, speaking across Henry’s shoulder.

‘Leave us. Close the door behind you.’

‘Sir.’ Meekly, head bowed, she withdrew, confused by the tableau, leaving Henry with a man he had grown to hate. But why? Henry knew Anger wanted his chosen few on FMIT and Henry did not come into that clique, but that surely did not really explain the utter dislike.

‘What’ve you got, Henry?’

‘Abandoned car, body of a young person in the boot. Car was being driven earlier by George Uren, someone we wanted to question.’

‘How do you know?’

‘He tried to run me down.’

‘You get hurt?’

‘A bit.’

Anger looked disappointed that Henry wasn’t lying on a mortuary slab. ‘Are you the SIO?’

Strange question, Henry thought. ‘Yeah,’ he said unsurely.

Anger’s head rocked. His lips drew back, revealing his teeth. ‘Your job is to tell me about it all, I believe.’ He sounded supercilious and Henry half-expected him to lick the tip of his finger and mark a ‘one up to me’ in the air. ‘I’ve had trouble with you before about this, haven’t I? Not keeping me informed.’

‘I was actually going to give you a ring now … and anyway, it seems you already know about it, otherwise why would you be here?’

‘Pure chance, pure coincidence, Henry. I only know because I came in early to have a mooch, as is my wont.’

The temptation to say, ‘Yeah, right, pull the other one — that cow Roscoe told you, didn’t she?’ was strong, but Henry refrained as he was also a little gobsmacked by the phrase ‘as is my wont’. Did people still say that? Henry, who enjoyed words and sayings from yesteryear, thought it sounded quaint, but coming from Anger it was more like a threat.

The pause lengthened uncomfortably, until Anger said, ‘So? What else have you got? Time’s ticking, Henry.’

Henry could easily have reeled off the course of action he was going to take by quoting the chapter headings of the Murder Investigation Manual. Instead, he said, ‘I know what I’m doing.’

‘OK,’ Anger conceded with a long sigh, but remained tight-lipped and lizard-eyed behind his round glasses. ‘But you keep me in the loop, Henry. That’s an order.’

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