Nick Oldham - Hidden Witness

Henry knew it was a very complex social scenario, a build-up of issues over many years and although he couldn’t actually blame the Costains for the downfall of society on Shoreside, it was families like them — feral, ruthless and without conscience — that played their part and thrived, whilst other, decent, law abiding ones suffered greatly.

And the master of all the Costain strategies and tactics was now sitting opposite Henry in one of the two living rooms in the interconnected home they owned. Billy Costain was head of the family, although describing him as an old man was not really accurate. He was about sixty-two, but still big and strong, a physical force to be reckoned with. He had a fearsome reputation as a pub brawler that age hadn’t diminished.

The family’s claim to be descended from gypsies could have had a grain of truth to it. Certainly they had the looks of stereotypical gypsies and no doubt there was some of those genes in their bloodline. In fact their main ancestors were Irish, having come across to the north of England in the nineteenth century to make a living as navvies, digging canals and laying railways.

Henry could not be sure when they came to Blackpool, but he knew they’d been here for at least thirty years and in that time had caused the police a mega headache from generation to generation.

What none of the family knew was that Billy’s oldest son, Troy, had been an informant for Henry for many years. Henry had used him mercilessly after he had once arrested him and found that he suffered from severe claustrophobia and could not bear being in a cell. It drove him completely mad, terrified him, and Henry used this knowledge and the threat of incarceration in order to get Troy to pass him information. Unfortunately, Henry had used Troy once too often and the lad had ended up being murdered by a top-line crim Henry was investigating — and the Costains were still seeking answers about how and why Troy had met his untimely end.

Henry glanced around the room. It was plush and well-fitted to the extreme, with a huge L-shaped sofa, a massive TV on the wall with surround sound, a state of the art hi-fi and many expensive looking pieces of garish pottery. He took in all the opulence, juxtaposed against the lack of employment and visible means of support.

‘You, pal,’ Costain said, jabbing a finger at Henry, ‘are the kiss of death to my family.’ His jowls wobbled. He looked at Keira O’Connell. ‘But you’re a bonny thing, lass. You a cop, too?’

‘Home Office Pathologist,’ she said.

Costain’s eyes darkened. He looked accusingly at Henry. ‘Fuck d’you want?’

Henry had been to the house on two occasions previously to deliver death messages, not including Troy’s. One had been for Troy’s brother, who had been murdered, and another time for a cousin who had been killed in a road accident in a car driven by another cousin who’d survived and gone on the run. Though Henry had nothing to do with these deaths, the family was quite happy to blame him.

And now, here he was, about to deliver another blow, and as much as Henry knew Rory was a wild, villainous boy — a chip off the old block — he felt extremely sorry for the family.

He and Billy were still standing, facing each other with hostility, on the living room carpet.

‘Mr Costain,’ he said softly, using calming hand gestures, ‘Like I said, I need to speak to you and what I have to say is very important.’

‘Do I need my brief?’

‘No.’ Henry shook his head, but avoided an impatient tut.

‘Please. Mr Costain,’ Keira O’Connell intercut with a soothing feminine voice, stepping between the men. ‘Please take a seat, and if we may, could we sit too?’

Costain eyed Henry, then nodded begrudgingly and edged back into a leather armchair, slightly pacified by her words.

O’Connell looked at the couple hovering in the hallway, keen to be part of this scenario. ‘We need a little privacy,’ she said and tried to close the living room door. The nightie-clad girl said, ‘Oi,’ to her, then, ‘Gramps?’ to Costain.

‘Bugger off,’ he told her, ‘both of you.’

O’Connell closed the door, the girl eyeing her malevolently as the gap closed, mouthing the word, ‘Bitch.’ O’Connell merely smiled and arched her eyebrows, then she sat next to Henry on the sofa.

‘This better be good,’ Costain said.

‘Mr Costain, I’ll just cut to the chase… the thing is, Professor O’Connell and myself have just come from the scene of a murder on the car park behind the chippy just off Preston New Road. You know where I mean?’

‘Yuh.’

‘A young lad has been shot…’

‘Oh, aye, and you think one o’ my lads had something to do with it, don’t you?’ Costain concluded instantly, his blue touchpaper being lit. He leaned forwards. ‘Well I can vouch for all of my family, you vindictive bastard.’

Henry simply stared at him, then said evenly, ‘Mr Costain, I’m pretty sure the victim is Rory, your youngest lad.’

The words stopped Costain in his tracks.

‘Say that again.’

‘I’m genuinely sorry, but I think the dead boy is Rory.’

From the hallway came a scream of anguish and suddenly Old Man Billy Costain seemed to age ten years.

As stunned as he was by Henry’s revelation, Old Man Costain’s mistrust of the police, ingrained and inflexible after fifty years of living on the wrong side of the law, made extracting any information from him a tortuous process. In spite of the reassurance that, for once, the forces of law and order were on his side, blood didn’t come easily from the stone that was William Patrick Costain.

Eventually, Henry had had enough. Even getting Costain to tell him what clothes Rory had worn the previous evening had been hard work, but he was ninety-nine per cent certain now that the corpse of the car park was the aforementioned Rory. One hundred per cent would only come with a formal family identification, or a photographic and/or dental comparison, which Henry would have preferred. As much as Henry had ‘issues’ with the Costains, even he didn’t want to have to put Billy through the trauma of having to identify Rory’s body. The lad’s head was a disfigured mess and not something he would have wanted any family to see.

But Costain insisted. ‘He’s my boy, I have a right.’ And despite the less than subtle warning from Henry, Billy was going to have his way.

The ID took place at the public mortuary in Blackpool Victoria Hospital at six thirty that morning.

Costain drove to the hospital in his huge old Mercedes, accompanied by his wife of many years, the adorable Monica. She was quite a bit younger than him at fifty and had once been a real stunner, a raven-haired, green-eyed beauty. But the carriage and birth of seven children (plus two stillbirths), heavy drinking, smoking and the long exposure to the sunshine of the Costa del Sol, had ravaged her looks and body.

It had been a rush to get Rory’s body in a fit state to be gazed upon, an undertaking that entailed cleaning up the face without compromising any evidence, and then wrapping his head in a muslin towel to hide the horrific wounds on both sides, the entry and exit. All that remained to be seen were his distorted features. The creepy mortuary technician, who Henry noticed had a lazy eye, making him even scarier, carried out this prep. A hump would have completed the tableau wonderfully. He did the job under the supervision of O’Connell. The rest of the body was covered with a sheet and was then wheeled on a trolley into the viewing room, and positioned underneath the curtained window on the other side of which was an anteroom for relatives to gather in.

Henry stepped into this room from the mortuary, O’Connell behind him. The Costains waited, muted and afraid.