Nick Oldham - Critical Threat

‘Whatever you do, don’t stand up and sing “It Shoulda Been Me”,’ Kate chided.

As the programme drew to a close, the cool presenter warmly told viewers not to worry too much about crime because statistics showed that most people never became victims.

‘Tell that to the bloody victims,’ Henry yelled at the box.

He could have necked a beer, but was not drinking that night because this was another on-call week, and he had to satisfy himself with flavoured water whilst Kate worked her way through the wine, muttering, ‘Someone has to do it,’ following one of Henry’s scathing glances.

As the show’s signature tune faded, Kate said bluntly, ‘Are we going to bed then, or what?’

Instinctively Henry’s eyes moved to the clock on the mantelpiece. ‘It’s only ten.’

‘So?’

Henry looked at her. The wine had flushed her cheeks, made them rosy, moistened her wide eyes, dilated her pupils. ‘OK,’ he said, not needing much persuasion. It wasn’t often they had the house to themselves, so the chance to indulge in a bout of noisy lovemaking was a rare treat, whether he was on-call or not. There was nothing in the rules about denying yourself sex, just alcohol. And Henry knew from past experience that it only took a drop of booze inside Kate to turn her from a sometimes hesitant lover into an unleashed tigress … something not to be missed. With that thought uppermost in his mind, Henry was upstairs with her moments later, tearing off clothing with abandon.

It was wonderful, tender, hard, loving, coming to a headboard-crashing finale half an hour later, both of them exhausted by the exertion. Kate rolled off him and quickly drifted into a gentle, purring slumber. He lay awake, deciding whether or not to go for a pee.

He was dreaming about Dave Anger and the reconstructed head of a murdered woman when the phone by the bed rang at one fifteen. The dream evaporated immediately as he fumbled to answer it, muttering a thick ‘Henry Christie’ without any enthusiasm.

‘Henry, it’s Angela Cranlow.’

He sat upright, quickly clearing his mussed brain. ‘Hello ma’am.’ It was more than a surprise to get a phone call from anyone of such rank at any time of day, let alone in the early hours. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘Said I’d look out for you, didn’t I?’ Before he could answer, she said, ‘Fancy dealing with a murder?’

‘Yeah, course.’ All vestiges of the shackles of sleep were shaken off. He swung his legs out of bed, turned on the touch light — three taps to the brightest setting — and reached for the pad and pen on the cabinet.

‘There’s a shooting just come in from Blackburn … details pretty sketchy at the moment … as I’m on county cover, I’ve asked to be informed of all serious crimes before anyone else, then I can decide who deals … and also because every detective and his sidekick are in London doing Crimewatch , I can wangle this one for you — if you’re interested, that is?’

‘Yeah, absolutely.’ Henry stood up, naked, and gave a salute to the new deputy chief constable. ‘Ma’am.’

‘Call the force incident manager for details.’ She hung up without another word.

Henry traipsed groggily along the M55, slicing across Lancashire, then cut down on to the M6 and on to the M65 towards the sprawling former mill town of Blackburn. He exited at junction 4 on to the A666 — the Devil’s Road — past Ewood Park, home of Blackburn Rovers. He was a couch-fan of the Rovers, watching their fortunes with interest, but it had been a long time since he had ever willingly gone to see them perform. Half a mile on the town centre side of the ground, he turned right, cutting his way up through a series of terraced streets past Blackburn Royal Infirmary towards the Fishmoor council estate, which clung precariously to the harsh moorland above Blackburn.

He was experienced and well travelled enough to have visited Fishmoor on many occasions during his career. It was a sprawling sixties/seventies monstrosity of an estate and like many of that era probably looked spiffing on the plans, but the reality of living in a place that was a haven for the wrongdoer was much less fun. It was an estate that had had a whole bunch of trouble, mainly based around drugs, ‘acquisitive’ crime and intimidation by gangs of wild youths who kept whole communities in lockdown with their ruthless tactics. It was a busy place for cops and since the advent of the Crime and Disorder Act, also for the local authority and other agencies now obliged by law to get involved in things they had previously avoided.

Henry found the address easily — a grotty office over a Spar shop on the edge of the estate. He remembered the row of shops from years ago when he had done a spell on Support Unit in the mid-eighties. As part of a mobile, go-anywhere, crack heads/kick shins team, he had spent many a head-banging weekend in the vicinity in the days when he’d thought it great sport to go around winding people up, then arresting them just for the hell of it with a bunch of like-minded knuckle-heads. The row of shops had been a magnet for badly behaved juveniles and there had been regular police operations to combat it and, Henry thought as he pulled up, probably still were.

His only surprise as he drew to a halt in the Rover 75 was that the shops were still standing, still trading. It was often the fate of such businesses to end up firstly trading behind steel bars and mesh, then for the owners to call it a day because they couldn’t stand the heat of the local kids making their lives hell. Only the strong survived.

He parked a good way down the road and spent a few moments savouring the police activity, which, despite the time of day, had already attracted a gaggle of onlookers, mostly kids. Mind you, he thought, four marked cars, one section van, an unmarked car — which he immediately categorized as that of the night duty detective — and a little white van marked ‘Scientific Support’ were bound to attract the public at any time of day.

The climb out of the car was a little stiff, but he stretched, adjusted his tie, then approached the mayhem, his mind already back in SIO mode, even though he was no longer one.

The zoot-suited night duty detective had obviously been keeping an eye out for Henry and strode up to him as though he wanted to cut him off at the pass.

‘Morning, boss,’ said the DC. His name was Hall.

‘Trevor,’ Henry said, a shiver making his spine judder when a blast of cold air from the moors swirled around him. Henry had known Hall for a long time. He was a career DC who kept his nose just above water, was competent, but hardly a Poirot. In fact he was a blueprint for many of the older detective constables in the county. Henry liked such people, in a way. They were reliable, knew their jobs, had a regular number of arrests, knew a lot of people, often had good informants, but didn’t break any pots. ‘What’ve we got?’

Hall shivered too. No doubt he had been dragged out of a warm CID office. But he smiled. ‘I was glad when I heard it was you turning out. A blast from the past, a rave from the grave, you might say … someone you know well — knew well, I should say.’

Henry’s paper suit was about two sizes too big for him, but at least the elasticated paper shoes fitted reasonably tightly over his shoes. He climbed the dingy, poorly lit steps behind Trevor Hall, and on the landing followed him down a short, uncarpeted hallway to an open door that led to the crime scene.

‘Unfortunately there’s only one way to get in and out of the scene,’ Hall said over his shoulder, ‘but so far there’s only been me, you, CSI and the PC who found the guy, plus the witness, who’ve been to the scene. It was pretty quickly secured.’