Nick Oldham - Substantial Threat

There was a particular combination of words that gave Henry Christie a very special thrill and sent a shimmer of unadulterated pleasure all the way down his spine. They were words Henry had been privileged to read out loud to about forty people in the course of his career as a police officer. Henry did not care what sort of person it was who had to listen to what he said, they could be the hardest, toughest, meanest bastard in the world — and some of the recipients of his words had been pretty near to that description. No, Henry did not care who they were because he was certain that the words would, inwardly at least, make anybody brick themselves.

Henry ran the words through his head once more. They were clear and recent in his memory. He had only spoken them two hours before.

‘You are charged that between the sixteenth and seventeenth of March this year you did murder Jennifer Walkden, contrary to common law.’

The murder charge.

Yes! Henry thumped his steering wheel with glee. He did not care a damn who the person was because no matter who the hell they were or what they purported to be, those words meant they were going to prison for a life sentence. . all things being equal. That is if Henry did his job right, if the prosecution brokered no deals, if the jury believed the evidence. . yeah, okay, all those things, but even that uncertainty did not detract from the feeling of utter triumph he felt when slowly reading out the charge.

Henry yawned and shook his head as he drove his car into the Lancashire police headquarters at Hutton, just to the south of Preston.

It had been a long day, but one which had been deeply satisfying. It was 9 p.m. by the time he parked in the car park near his office, fourteen hours after first coming on duty. It did not matter that he was physically and mentally exhausted, that the day had stretched his skills, abilities and personal resolve to their ultimate. None of that was important. What was crucial was that the suspect had been charged with the gravest offence, bail had been refused and he would be appearing at court in the morning.

Temporary Detective Chief Inspector Henry Christie had nailed the bastard and the feeling of elation that fact gave him over-rode anything else.

It had been touch and go. It could so easily have gone the other way and the suspect, by the name of Sherridan, could have walked. Henry knew the evidence against him was paper thin, but as he was totally convinced in his own mind that the guy was guilty of sticking a ten-inch kitchen knife into his girlfriend’s heart and skewering her to a kitchen table, Henry had been grimly determined to take it to the wire.

The whole thing had hinged on the interview: on clear, persistent, incisive and clever questioning. The suspect had to be made to admit the job because there was nothing else to tie him to the murder: no witnesses, no forensic, no weapon. Maybe a little circumstantial evidence and a pretty creaky alibi. . and, of course, Henry Christie’s cold-blooded gut-wrenching belief that Sherridan was a killer. The man needed to be pushed and pushed to the limit, but not intimidated or frightened; there was a fine and dangerous line between the two. A line Henry was very good at treading.

Henry had been up at three that morning, planning his interview strategy. He went on duty at 7 a.m. and talked the whole thing through with the local detective sergeant who was to be ‘second-jockey’ in the interview. At nine he put the plan into effect, talking to Sherridan, who had been in custody since the previous evening.

Eight hours later, after many furious, fractious and heated verbal exchanges (but with plenty of rest and refreshment breaks to keep suspect and solicitor happy), Henry truly thought he was on the verge of losing it. The clock on the wall behind Sherridan seemed to be ticking double time. Twenty-four hours was almost up, only sixty minutes to go, and Henry already knew that he would have major problems convincing the very cynical and pedantic on-call superintendent to grant an extension to the period of custody. Sherridan would either have to be charged or set free. And at that point — 5 p.m. — charging him was not even a remote option.

Then it came.

The chink of light. The opening. The lie that Sherridan had forgotten he had told. . or maybe not forgotten, so much as forgotten in which context he had told it.

Excitement surged through Henry as his adrenaline sluices opened. Moments like these made life worth living. Henry even felt the detective sergeant next to him tense because he, too, had spotted the opening. The trick was not to let on to the suspect because he could have wriggled free, even at that point. He had to be manoeuvred into an ambush. It was all Henry could do to refrain from smiling, to prevent himself from fidgeting, to stop himself clenching the cheeks of his bottom and rising ever so slightly in his seat. It took every last ounce of restraint not to let on that he was in and that the whole fabricated story that had been spun was about to be shredded word by word, lie by lie.

Henry felt like a chess grand master who had just seen the last six moves to certain victory. He was cold, ruthless and precise. His voice, however, remained calm and polite.

At first Sherridan did not see it coming. He prattled on blithely, smugly, digging his hole, well aware of the time passing in his favour, believing he would soon be walking free. Then, like a spectre, it materialized in front of him. Suddenly he clammed up tight and locked eyes with Henry for one chilling instant, the colour draining from his face.

His solicitor sat bolt upright and emitted a tiny gasp of despair.

Checkmate, you murdering bastard! Henry blinked innocently, face impassive.

‘Shit,’ mouthed Sherridan and dropped his head into his hands.

And from that moment on it was plain sailing. Despite his desperate back-pedalling and frenzied denials, he was like a fish caught on a hook. Henry revelled as he reeled the slippery son of a bitch in. After a fifteen-minute spirited, but ultimately useless fight, Sherridan cracked and caved in. Tears welled up as he finally unburdened himself and admitted committing murder.

Henry charged him with the offence five minutes before the twenty-four-hour deadline, milking each syllable of every word.

After this Henry and the local DS congratulated each other with a flurry of high fives and a few slightly hysterical, ‘Hey, yo de mans’ and an Irish jig around the CID office. After the brief celebration they quickly cobbled together the court file for the morning, then Henry left it with the local man to do the admin side of things — fingerprints, descriptives and a DNA swab of the prisoner.

Henry walked out of Blackburn police station feeling emotionally elated yet mentally drained from having concentrated so hard and so long. His temples were throbbing like pistons.

Before setting off back to his office at HQ, he gave his ex-wife Kate a call on the mobile. He let her know where he was and when he was likely to be home. They were taking things on a day by day footing, trying to get back together again, and regular communication had been part of the deal Kate had thrashed out with him. Henry told her he needed to get back to his office and clear up a few things before heading home.

Henry Christie was now a member of the Senior Investigating Officer team based at Lancashire police HQ. His temporary rank of Detective Chief Inspector and the move to what was in essence the murder squad had been the parting gift to him of an ACC who had gone to pastures new. The SIO team was based in offices in a building that had once been a residential block for students attending the training centre at HQ. It had been gutted and refurbished for the sole purpose of housing the team. Henry’s office was on the middle floor of the three-storey block and had a view through the trees to the rugby pitch in front of the main HQ building beyond. A nice, fairly peaceful location at the dream factory, — as headquarters was often referred to by cynical front-line coppers.