Nick Oldham - Bad Tidings

‘You need to talk it through properly with a consultant, not a nurse. It’s all about quality of life. . what are the chances of her ever going home and living any sort of a normal existence? If it’s a good chance, then OK. If not. .’

‘Yuk,’ Henry said.

‘But there is one thing I do know, Henry Christie.’ Her left hand slid down his forearm and covered his hand. He glanced down at it and his eyes widened with shock. He looked sharply up at her. ‘Let’s get through this, however it pans out, and then when the time is right you can whisk me away for a dirty, sorry — romantic — weekend, and then you can ask me to marry you again. Obviously you’ll know the answer already’ — she held up her hand and wriggled the third finger, the triple diamonds twinkling in the ring he had given her — ‘but I still want it done properly. . down on one knee. . ah-ahh — I know you’ve got bad knees, so I’ll help you back up — without anything else for us to worry about but us.’

‘Uh. . I take it that’s a yes, then?’ he said thickly.

Henry dashed back to the hospital to find no change in his mother’s condition. Leanne had settled herself in for the duration, saying she would be fine when he explained he had some work to do, but would stay local, maybe fifteen minutes away tops, if needed.

He drove through the still quiet streets of Blackpool, down to the promenade, and found a place to park near the motel at which David Peters had last been seen. Henry had considered going straight to visit the dead man’s wife, but decided to start his own investigation from the point at which Peters was last seen alive. Then he would visit the scene where his body had been discovered, on the edge of a farm in Poulton-le-Fylde.

Henry paid his parking fee — nothing was free in Blackpool, even on a public holiday — and walked the short distance to the motel on Talbot Road. He entered and approached the reception desk, not knowing if this was even worth a revisit, a year down the line. But Henry liked to get the feel of a crime, this was the last place Peters had been seen breathing and he wanted to do a mini recreation of events.

He knew from the file that Peters had been in a room with the ‘other woman’, the lady who managed one of his shops for him. Henry, Rik and DC Tope had had a quick look at the CCTV footage seized from the motel that had captured Peters arriving and leaving the establishment that fateful night. The disk had been in the murder file.

Peters had arrived alone, paid in cash, given a false name and gone up to the room. This had all been videoed, as had the arrival of the shop manageress twenty minutes later. The two had then indulged in their carnal desires for each other — although, having read the witness statement taken unwillingly from the woman, her recollection had been a bit muted. Peters had departed, about an hour and a half after he’d arrived, and the CCTV showed him skulking out of the motel. The woman stayed for the night, and the camera caught her leaving the following morning.

So Peters had left and then not been seen until his charred body was discovered a week later in the remains of the chicken coop.

Henry mulled all this through his mind as he stood at the reception desk waiting for someone to notice him. He flashed his warrant card enticingly.

A clerk, a young man of mid-European origin, blinked at him with an air of boredom, unconcerned that a cop was at the desk. He was obviously confident that his immigration papers were in order, Henry thought. Henry tried to explain why he was here, but it was either too complicated for the man, whose grasp of English was tenuous at best, or he wasn’t terribly interested. A bit of both, Henry guessed.

He did, however, understand the words ‘manager’ and ‘I want to see’.

This turned out to be a smart young lady who was English, and Henry’s explanation to her was received and understood. Henry also recognized her from the CCTV footage as the receptionist who had booked Peters in. And she remembered him, but only because the police had been to see her previously and had taken a statement. Henry had read through it while in his temporary office at the hospital. It was an unremarkable piece of writing, confirming what the CCTV showed and nothing more.

He asked her if she recalled anything further that might be of use, but she said no.

The room Peters had used for his little liaison was unoccupied, so Henry asked for the key and went to visit it, even though he realized it wouldn’t be of much use to him, other than to get a sense of a victim’s final hours.

There was nothing special about it. Just a basic, reasonably comfortable motel room, clear, functional.

Henry sighed as he looked around.

The room where Peters had fucked his mistress, then left alive, and never been seen breathing again — although someone would have seen him, not just the killer, because Peters had stepped out of the motel into a bustling Christmas Eve town. But no witnesses had been found, despite a flurry of press activity following the discovery of the body.

Henry left the room, handed the key back in and exited the motel onto Talbot Road, standing outside the front doors, trying to work out which direction Peters had taken. He had spun a line to his wife that he was out having a pint with a friend that night — a friend who had been tracked down and who denied having had any contact with Peters for over three months and had made no arrangements to meet him that night.

So, having had a shag, Peters left the hotel and was probably killing time before his return home. It was likely, Henry thought, that he would have headed to a town centre pub to have the said drink and ensure his breath reeked of beer.

Henry shivered as a blast of cold wind swept in from the very grey-looking Irish Sea, and seemed to wrap him in a shroud. He wondered if it was the ghost of the dead man, the one who had probably stood in this spot a year before, imploring Henry to catch his killer.

He also wondered if what he was doing was a complete waste of time.

Still, he went through the motions. He turned right and walked slowly towards the town centre, realizing the futility of his actions. Put simply, Peters could have gone in any direction and found a pub. He could have spent hours in one, or going from one to the next, to the next. There were a lot of hours to play with and no sightings to help pinpoint Peters’ movements.

Henry walked disconsolately through the streets, shivered again, then made his way back to his car, realizing a couple of things that should have been followed up at the time. First, it was unlikely that the killer was operating alone. From what Henry had seen of Peters in the footage and from post-mortem photographs, he was a biggish guy and for one person to have lifted him from the street was stretching it. He was already convinced that two or more offenders were involved — which gave Henry a bit of heart. Lone killers were notoriously difficult to catch, but more than one equalled weakness. The other thing that Henry wondered about was the name that Peters had used at the motel. Was there any significance in it, or was it just randomly plucked out of nowhere?

His mind swirled with all these thoughts, but he was enjoying the process. Back in the car, he called Jerry Tope.

‘This is one of the best Christmas Days I’ve ever had,’ Tope whinged.

‘I’m having a doody, too,’ Henry assured him.

‘Yeah, yeah. . sorry to hear about your mum, by the way. Rik told me.’

‘Thanks. You got anywhere yet?’

‘No. . so far the overnight mispers aren’t likely victims. I’m just piecing together what we know about the actual victims. Nothing’s really jumping out yet.’