Nick Oldham - Critical Threat

Making Rashid a cold, calculating and very dangerous man to know.

A surge of excitement made Henry’s arse twitch and brought a smile to his face as he thought, When some great detectives have their epiphany, they get a moody, all-knowing look about them, a certain smugness. I, on the other hand, get a contraction of the arse. And therein lies the difference between a great detective and a jack like me — a ring piece.

His amusing contemplation was disturbed by the ringing of his mobile phone. He automatically checked his watch before answering: 8.30 a.m.

‘Henry, what the hell’s going on? This is the deputy chief constable here, by the way, in case you hadn’t worked it out!’

‘Morning ma’am,’ he almost genuflected. ‘I was about to call,’ he said truthfully, ‘but the signal on the train comes and goes.’

‘On the bloody train? What’re you doing on the train? You should’ve been back by now — last night in fact. Your staff are all waiting for you upstairs like a bunch of stuffed dummies … what’s going on? What’s happening?’

‘Didn’t get finished until late last night,’ he explained, ‘and I was going to ring on the way back. You beat me to it … and I did expect to be back in Preston by ten-ish, but the train’s delayed.’

The words seemed to pacify her. ‘Right,’ she said, climbing down from the walls, ‘any joy?’

‘A lot of joy, actually — a lot of things to tell you.’ Henry spent quite a few minutes doing exactly that.

‘Where do we go from here then?’ Angela asked. ‘Your team are bouncing. They need something to do.’

‘Well, we need to check out Mansur Rashid PDQ.’

‘Shouldn’t that be passed to Dave Anger?’

Henry made a long creaking noise down the phone. ‘I suppose he needs to be brought into the loop, but if we go at it from the angle of Eddie’s death, then we could get away with it — at least until Rashid has been questioned about his murder. Just a suggestion.’

‘I’ll buy that … and it’s not as though Dave will be wanting any distractions today, anyway.’

‘Why not … oh, Condoleezza Rice is in town today, isn’t she?’

‘Yeah, and just about the whole of the force is tied up doing security for the visit.’

‘In that case,’ Henry ruminated, checking his watch again and then seeing the signs for Rugby railway station whiz by, ‘why don’t you see if you can get Rashid’s address from somewhere — it’s one of the things I don’t have — and get, say, Graeme Walling and someone else from Special Projects to go and grab him? Lock him up on sus of killing Eddie Daley and he can be arrested later for Sabera’s murder …’

The line went dead as the train picked up speed, leaving Rugby behind, and plunged into a deep cutting, severing all links with the civilized world. Henry looked accusingly at the phone, seeing no signal bars on it.

He sat back and gave up on the phone, opened the Daily Express he’d bought on his dash through Euston and tried to do the Sudoku on the inner page, which quickly left him floundering.

As the train approached Crewe, its first scheduled stop of the journey, he received a text message: ‘Have found Rashid’s address in B/burn. Will arrest this morning. He’ll be waiting 4U when U get bak — so will I. Ang.’

An uneasy feeling made Henry reply: ‘Bcareful.’

And then there was the next agonizing delay between Leyland and Preston when a points failure halted the train perhaps two miles short of his destination for almost thirty minutes, making Henry want to scream. He could almost see Preston railway station and it felt like it would have been quicker to jump off and walk.

When it eventually slid into platform 3, Henry was ready and waiting at the door with his luggage gripped under his arms, leaping out on to the platform and racing to the car park pay station, which also seemed intent on delaying him as he attempted to feed it a?20 note.

Frustration boiling over, he found his car on the car park, threw his gear on to the back seat and dropped behind the wheel. Before setting off he rang Angela’s mobile from his. The phone went straight on to answerphone, which he found peculiar. Shrugging his shoulders, he headed the four miles south to police headquarters at Hutton.

The Special Projects office was empty apart from one person, Jenny ‘Attitude’ Fisher. He nodded at her, went into his own office and picked up his PR, then came back into the open plan area. ‘Can you give me an update?’

Jenny was on the phone, but put her hand over the mouthpiece. ‘The dep and Graeme have gone to look for Mansur Rashid.’

‘I know that!’ he almost squeaked. ‘What time did they go?’

‘About nine.’

Henry’s eyes rose to the wall clock, doing a few quick calculations. Half an hour to Blackburn, ten to fifteen minutes finding the address, say … if Rashid was there, arrest him, then down to the cells by 10.30 a.m., he guesstimated. If things went according to plan.

‘Have you heard from them since?’

Jenny shook her head and pouted, then concentrated on what was being said to her down the phone and said, ‘Thanks for that.’ She scribbled something on a notepad and hung up.

‘Boss … just been on to Orange — oh, you won’t know, will you?’ she said, seeing Henry’s puzzled expression. She stood up and crossed to him. ‘During a search of Jackie Kippax’s flat, we found phone bills relating to Eddie Daley’s Orange mobile account.’ Henry was suddenly interested. ‘The latest bill wasn’t there, but I’ve been on to Orange today and they’re going to fax it to me … but in the meantime — voila!’ She showed Henry her pad. ‘This is the last number he phoned from his mobile — at 10.05 p.m. on the night he was murdered. It was to an O 2number and I’m going to try to get the name of the subscriber without all the bureaucracy if I can.’

‘Well done, Jenny,’ he said. ‘Keep at it.’ He ducked back into his office where he dialled the extension for Blackburn custody office. It rang … rang … and rang … and was then answered by a harassed sounding gaoler. ‘Custody.’

‘DCI Christie here … is the deputy chief constable there? Or has she been there?’

‘No to both.’

‘Is there a guy called Mansur Rashid in custody?’

No hesitation. ‘Nope.’

‘You’ve been exceedingly helpful.’

‘Ta.’ The phone slammed down, leaving Henry holding a dead handset. He dialled Angela Cranlow’s mobile again. But got the same response as previously, the answerphone. ‘Jenny?’ he yelled through his door. ‘Have you got Graeme’s mobile number?’

‘No.’

‘Has anyone?’

‘Don’t think so.’

Henry replaced his phone, which he’d been holding in readiness to use. He hurried out of the door, down one flight of stairs and along the corridor. He didn’t knock, but just turned into the anteroom that housed the bag carriers and secretaries. Only the deputy’s secretary was at her desk, no one else in.

‘I need to make contact with the dep,’ Henry told her breathlessly.

‘You and me both. I can’t get hold of her.’

‘Has she got her PR?’

‘Yeah — no reply on that, either.’

‘Did she say where she was going?’

‘To make an arrest in Blackburn,’ the secretary said sourly. ‘DCCs should not be doing things like that.’

‘Any address?’ The secretary shook her head. Henry said, ‘Thanks,’ and scurried back to Special Projects, a scary feeling in the pit of his stomach. He did not like it when cops could not be contacted. He went to Jenny’s desk. ‘Did they tell you Rashid’s address?’

‘No … something wrong?’