Nick Oldham - Facing Justice

‘You OK, bud?’ Henry asked, feeling it was a question he had posed many times that morning.

Donaldson still looked ill and Henry felt a little bit guilty, but, he reasoned, he had given Donaldson the opportunity to withdraw from the walk a couple of times and he’d refused.

‘Yeah, yeah.’

‘Fit to go on?’

‘Yes,’ he said firmly.

‘Thing is, once we reach the stones, that’s about halfway, then it’s as broad as it is long.’

‘I get you.’ Donaldson took a mouthful from a bottle of water and wiped his lips. Henry watched him. Donaldson winced.

‘Sure you’re OK?’

‘Yeah, just a bit of wind, I guess. I’ll fart it out.’

‘Let’s push on.’ It was 8.45 a.m., and the day had only just started.

The last time Flynn had taken Craig to school was over five years before, when the lad had been nine or ten and at junior school. He had always enjoyed the experience, watching Craig run through the school gates. Now, though, Craig was no longer a kid and when Flynn dropped him off, there was just a fleeting wave as he went to stand with a group of his pals at the school gates. Flynn watched him for a few moments, bursting with pride, before pulling away into the four-wheel-drive traffic outside the school. At least his union with Faye had produced one good thing.

He drove back to Faye’s house. She had gone to work and had told him he could use the place if he needed a shower, which he did. He wandered slowly through the rooms, seeing how little had actually changed in the years he’d been excluded from the place. The dining room was still how he had decorated it, and so was the master bedroom. Craig’s room had been repainted and the main bathroom completely refitted. Flynn recalled that was an insurance job after a leak had caused a lot of damage when Faye had been away.

He undressed, showered and shaved in the en suite shower room off the main bedroom. He sat on the edge of the unmade bed after, drying himself off, when a surge of tiredness pulsed through him. He lay back and closed his eyes, thinking he would rest for a few minutes.

Half an hour later he jumped awake, cursing. He dressed quickly, using the underwear he had brought along in the flight bag, keeping on the jeans and shirt he’d worn the day before. Then he called Cathy on her mobile. It went directly to answerphone, frustratingly, as did the landline number she had given him.

He stood by the kitchen window overlooking the compact, overgrown back garden, a mug of tea in his hand. His mouth crimped in thought. He looked down at his mobile phone, weighing it all up, then decided to make another call, just on the off chance. He tabbed through the contacts menu, found the name he was after, pressed the green dial button with his thumb and put the phone to his ear.

‘Can I help you?’

‘I take it you don’t introduce yourself and your department for the sake of secrecy?’ Flynn said.

‘As I said, can I help you?’

‘Jerry, my old cocker, how the hell’ve you been, matey?’

For a moment it was as if the line had gone dead. Then, ‘What the hell do you want?’

‘You sound cautious, maybe not even pleased to hear from me,’ Flynn chuckled.

‘Last time I spoke to you, I ended up telling you things I shouldn’t have. Got me in the shit with my boss,’ DC Jerry Tope whined.

‘Ahh, Henry Christie? How is the twat?’

There was another pause. ‘What do you want, Steve?’

‘First of all, for you not to worry. What I need to know won’t compromise you this time.’ Flynn smiled to himself. ‘Unless of course you don’t tell me, in which case I’ll have to make a very delicate phone call… if you get my drift? How is the lovely Marina, by the way?’

‘Flynn, you’re the twat.’

Flynn cackled wickedly. He had known Jerry Tope for a very long time and they had been good friends when Flynn had been a cop in Lancashire Constabulary. So good that Flynn had done Tope a great favour once, lying to save Tope’s marriage. Ever since, Tope had been in Flynn’s debt. Flynn had never expected to become a debt collector but he had tapped into Tope’s role as an intelligence analyst the previous year when he was after some details of a couple of very bad men who were out to get him. Their friendship had not survived Flynn’s ignominious departure from the cops, but Flynn had found it useful to have someone on the inside who could search databases.

‘It’s different this time,’ Flynn said.

‘I seriously doubt it.’

‘Honest — Cathy James? You remember her. Cathy Turnbull as was?’

‘Yeah, we were all at training school together. Everybody wanted to get into her panties. Rumour had it that someone did…’

‘Yeah, lucky sod, whoever it was.’

‘You did, didn’t you!’ Tope exclaimed. ‘Jeez, you did. Now it all fits into place. Christ, if I’d known that,’ he said wistfully.

‘I didn’t, actually,’ Flynn lied. ‘But, yeah, Cathy James, nee Turnbull.’

‘Mm, haven’t come across her for years. Do know she’s working a rural beat up in Northern Division. She married a jack from Lancaster. Tom James, good lad.’

‘Know much about him?’

‘No, just of him. Good thief-taker by all accounts. Used to be a traffic cop, of all things, but seems to have found his niche. I think Henry’s used him a few times on murders. And he recently got a chief cons commendation for busting a prostitution racket. Probably go far… Look, why?’

‘Oh, nothing. It’s just that I’m here on a flying visit and thought I’d drop in on Cathy.’

‘You’re back in Lancashire?’ Tope said it as though Flynn’s presence was something akin to a deadly virus.

‘Affirmative.’

‘Ugh. Why don’t you just call her up?’

‘Done — no reply.’

Jerry Tope sighed. ‘Hold on, I’ll check the duty states.’ Flynn heard the tap of his fingers on a keyboard, Tope accessing the computerized system that recorded the working hours of every officer on duty within Lancashire. ‘You back for good?’ Tope asked.

‘As I said, flying visit.’

‘Good… here we are… she’s down as being on a rest day today. Maybe she’s gone out for the day.’

‘What about Tom?’

More key-tapping. ‘Nine-five,’ which Flynn knew meant nothing as far as detectives were concerned. They tended to be loose about what hours they actually worked and the official system was often wrong. ‘Oh, what about yesterday?’

‘Yesterday? Um, Cathy, rest day, Tom, nine-five.’

‘Thanks, Jerry.’

‘That it?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Thank God for small mercies.’

Flynn hung up feeling ever so slightly guilty, but not so much that he wouldn’t use Tope’s knowledge and position again if necessary. Because there was no statute of limitations on adultery, Flynn’s knowledge of Tope’s one and only infidelity was something he would hold over him for the rest of his life.

He scribbled a note to Faye, thanking her for letting him crash out and use her facilities, left twenty pounds he could ill afford for Craig, collected his gear and locked the house, then jumped into his hire car. He hoped that he would be done with whatever problem was ailing Cathy by tomorrow and was already looking forward to going home to Gran Canaria, even if he was going to be sued for assault by the jumped-up Hugo. He was missing the feel of the boat under his feet and even though Faye 2 was going to be in dry dock for a couple of months, he wanted to be there, tending her, carrying out any necessary repairs and in general looking after his baby. Survival money would come from somewhere.

‘This is the centre of the known world,’ Henry Christie said grandly as he swung his rucksack off his shoulder and sat down on the ugly rocky boulders busting out of the heathland that were known as Whitendale Hanging Stones. ‘Well,’ he said, amending the claim as he delved into the rucksack for his steel flask and sandwiches, ‘the middle of Britain, anyway.’