Nick Oldham - Backlash

‘Oi,’ another woman cook yelled. ‘Fuckin’ watch it.’ She manoeuvred a huge pan of cabbage in water towards the gas stove.

The doors crashed open again. Henry and Donaldson burst through as Franklands reached the exit.

The cook — a big woman — with the cabbage pan in her hands immediately put two and two together. She knew Franklands was a hotel guest, but had never seen either of the two men who were chasing him. Without a second thought she heaved the pan up and hurled the contents at the chasers, then swung the pan at Donaldson’s head because he was the nearer of the two. He ducked the intended panning, but neither he nor Henry could avoid the dousing in water and uncooked cabbage.

Henry ran on, undeterred. Donaldson took a quick moment to jam the palm of his hand into the woman’s large round face and send her sprawling backwards against a rack of pans. Then he was past her.

The exit door led into a storeroom with an emergency fire door at the far end of it. Franklands threw himself at this door, slamming down the locking mechanism. He swung outside onto a metallic landing at the top of a set of fire stairs which dropped down into the back yard of the hotel. He flew down the steps, clattering into the yard which was full of junk.

Henry and Donaldson hit the metallic landing as Franklands got to the yard door and spun into the alleyway.

‘Fuck, he’s fast,’ Henry panted, grabbing the fire-escape rail and sailing down about a dozen steps, touching down and then taking off again for the next ten, hitting the ground running. As he turned into the alley, Franklands, as ever it seemed, was about to go out of sight, running towards the promenade.

Now that the two officers had a clear run, Donaldson, fitter and faster than Henry, powered into the lead, stretching out, totally confident of catching the man.

Franklands, without looking and without any thought for his own safety, or any tactics for avoiding his pursuers, ran straight across the road onto the inner promenade. Miraculously, not a single car came close to whacking him. It was only when he realised where he had run to did it dawn on him that he had made a bad tactical error. He was out in the open expanse of the promenade and it felt as big and wide and exposed as the Serengeti because it gave him nowhere to hide.

When the two cops emerged from the alleyway on the opposite side of the road, Franklands knew he was beaten. There was a hundred metres between himself and them but it was no advantage out here. He was trapped in the open and he knew it.

But there was a way out. It was trundling towards him at an aristocratic 10 mph from the north. Franklands headed towards the tram. This was his only means of escape and all his focus was on its approach.

If the cops caught him he was as good as dead anyway. He did not have the experience or resolve to hold out under questioning, he would blab everything because he was weak and pathetic. And if he did, Bellamy would ensure that somewhere along the line, he died. He had that power. Geri Peters was a case in point. She had been in police custody, yet Bellamy had been able to get to her. Not personally, but her death had been his doing.

The tram loomed larger. It was slow-moving but would provide a quick death, crushing his head with exceptional efficiency.

Franklands judged how best to do it. It would have to be a last-second thing. Make certain the driver did not suspect it was about to happen. He looked at the front of the tram. It was only ten metres away. Franklands gritted his teeth and did not think of the pain. His focus was now intense, like looking down a telescope backwards. A pulsing, throbbing noise seemed to surround him. Five metres. The metallic sound of the tram on its tracks grew louder.

Now! Throw yourself under, just behind the safety guard. Do it, you soft bastard, he yelled to himself.

The tram, only inches away, passed in front of him.

Franklands stood there, head bowed, crying.

Donaldson grabbed him and yanked him away from the track and shook him. ‘You idiot, you could’a killed yourself.’

‘That was the idea.’ Franklands sobbed. He rubbed his eyes. The tram had gone. The sound surrounding him receded and became background noise. ‘I wish I’d had the courage.’

‘Jesus, you scared the hell outta me,’ Donaldson confessed.

Franklands raised his chin. Henry came onto the scene, breathing heavily.

‘I’m sorry,’ Franklands bleated, ‘I’m sorry, but I didn’t kill him. I was there when it happened, but I didn’t kill him.’

Henry stood back an inch, not quite knowing what or who Franklands meant. However, he was canny enough not to ask which would have shown ignorance and given Franklands a get-out clause. ‘Who did kill him?’ Henry asked.

‘Higgins and Longton. Longton was the one who really kicked him, stomped on his head.’

‘Where exactly did it happen?’

‘There, down there.’ Franklands pointed along the promenade to beyond Central Pier. Now Henry knew. He gently placed a hand on Franklands’ drooping shoulders and said, ‘You’re under arrest on suspicion of murder.’ He cautioned him to the letter, then called up for some transport. While they waited for the van to come, they quickly searched Franklands — regular police procedure. While doing this, Henry said to Donaldson, ‘Wedge of thin end the — please arrange those words into a well-known phrase or saying.’

Andrea Makin hung up the phone as Henry and Donaldson entered the CID office. Henry had booked Franklands into the custody system and done all the necessary evidence gathering, such as seizing clothing and taking fingerprints before slamming him into his en-suite accommodation, leaving a constable on suicide watch outside the cell as per force instructions for persons arrested on murder raps.

Makin was red-eyed. She smiled sadly at the two men. ‘That was Jack’s wife — she lives in London. I’ve arranged transport for her to come up here as soon as possible to identify him, but with two kids to sort, and the time of day — ’ she checked her watch: 5 p.m. — ‘she won’t be up here before morning.’

‘How did she take it?’ Donaldson asked.

‘With resignation, almost as though she was expecting it.’ Makin rubbed her eyes, took a deep breath. ‘Like all families of undercover cops. Anyway,’ she tried to brighten up, ‘how has your afternoon been, guys?’

She noted their reaction to this question.

Henry gave a modest shrug. ‘I think we’re well on the way to catching Jack’s killers.’

‘Really?’

‘Yep.’ But now it was Henry’s turn to look depressed. ‘Having said that, I don’t know if we’re any closer to Jane Roscoe or Mark Evans.’

He sat down heavily on a spare chair. Donaldson perched on the corner of the desk. At the far end of the room a phone rang, picked up by one of the detectives on duty.

‘Or my bomber,’ Donaldson said despondently. ‘The president will not be pleased.’

‘Henry? What extension is that?’ the detective across the room called. Henry peered at the phone on the desk and gave him the number. ‘It’s for you,’ the DC said, transferring it across.

‘Henry Christie.’

‘DI Harrison from Cheshire.’

‘Oh, hi,’ Henry said, expecting nothing.

‘Got to hand it to you, Henry, I think you got the bastard!’

‘Sounds like you are in deep pooh-pooh,’ PC Standring, the constable on suicide watch, said to Franklands conversationally. Standring, the officer who had dealt with Kit Nevison, had now been given the task of baby-sitting the alleged murderer and was actually getting a little brassed off with getting the shitty jobs. However, this was a fairly interesting one and he had been listening to Franklands’ stream of consciousness ramblings, trying to pick out any useful gems for the investigating officers to use in interview. Franklands had moved on to wittering about the murder on the promenade, making Standring prick up his ears. Theoretically there should be no conversation between them, but it was a difficult situation to be in and not say something.