and all sorts of other non-essential rubbish.
‘ This is where our team hang out,’ Siobhan explained. ‘The other team are downstairs.’
‘ You’ve got two teams?’ Henry asked, surprised. She nodded. ‘Why’s that? I thought it was all one big happy family.’
‘ Oh, we’re all happy enough, there’s just two teams,’ she shrugged.
Henry accepted the fact with a nod. He wasn’t about to question it. At least he was on the same team as Siobhan Robson.
‘ This is where Geoff Driffield sat.’ She pointed to the only desk devoid of paper. ‘I… er, suppose it’ll be yours when you get on the squad.’
Henry gave a short laugh at the assumption. The phrase ‘Dead men’s Doc Martens’ sprang to mind. However, it looked a nice desk. Dead man’s desk. And it hadn’t taken them long to clear it. What a damned ruthless organisation the police is, he thought.
‘ That’s the radio cupboard.’ She waved in the direction of a large steel cabinet in one corner of the office. ‘Here’s the key. I’ll just go and get you a bulletproof vest. They’re kept in the store over the garage. Book yourself a radio and a couple of charged batteries out.’
She swished away. Henry heard her footsteps fading down the corridor, then the stairs, the front door slamming. He walked to the office window which overlooked the car park and watched her cross to the garage.
He unlocked the radio cupboard, assembled a PR and grabbed a couple — of extra batteries. He knew what it was like to be unable to transmit because of dud batteries, and he had promised himself he would never be caught out again.
As with all police equipment, there was a book to record Issue and Return; he opened it and signed out the radio.
His eyes could not fail to notice the entries for the previous Saturday and the fact that, according to the sheet, Geoff Driffield had signed a radio out at 1700 hours. As had four other officers — Tony Morton, DS Tattersall, DJ Gallagher and DC Robson. All at 1700 hrs — 5.00 p.m.
Henry considered this.
Siobhan had said Driffield was a loner who had gone out alone, presumably armed with details of where and when a robbery was going to take place, with the intention of arresting the culprits himself and claiming the glory. Yet the sheet suggested a different story. Driffield appeared to have been on duty at 5.00 p.m. that afternoon — two and a half hours before the robbery — and he’d signed out a PR with four others. They surely would have noticed him sneaking off alone, wouldn’t they? Maybe asked him where he was going? Shown a bit of interest?
Henry glanced out of the office window. The lights were on over the garage. He could see her moving about.
He looked down at the radio book again and frowned. Something very fucking strange was going on, Henry concluded. The entry in the radio book posed an awful lot of nooky questions for the squad. He ran a hand over his face, trying to rub some intelligence into his brain. The activity did not seem to work. Again he was tired beyond belief, definitely operating on one amp.
He closed the radio book and locked the cupboard.
On the table next to the door was an A3-sized book with the words Duty States imprinted on the brown cover. This was where officers booked on- and off-duty. Most officers in Lancashire now recorded their duties on a computer, but some specialist departments, not on the mainframe, were still obliged to use good old pen and paper. The fact that NWOCS used written Duty States did not surprise Henry. He opened the book and had a quick look at last Saturday’s entry. Same story: Geoff Driffield and four others had booked on at 5.00 p.m.
With his tongue making a thoughtful clicking noise at the back of his throat, he closed the book, feeling uncomfortable.
A glance across the car park. Siobhan was still moving around over the garage.
Henry stepped out of the office, twisted into the corridor and tried Tony Morton’s office door. It opened.
There is a term in policing circles for what he did next. It is called ‘Dusting’. ‘Dusting’ is where, out of normal office hours, you sneak into a boss’s office and search the place from top to bottom in the hope of finding anything of interest. ‘Dusting’ is a pastime in which many officers on night duty indulge, flitting through offices like burglars, hoping to uncover some dirt on anyone except themselves.
Henry was restricted by being unable to switch the lights on; however the car-park lighting cast sufficient for him to be able to conduct a cursory search.
He found nothing.
Then he looked at the walls. One was covered in an array of photographs and framed certificates, all relating to Tony Morton, his career and his qualifications; it was sometimes known as an ego-wall. Tony Morton had a big one.
Henry peered closely at the photographs, many of which were of Morton’s classes in various police learning institutions throughout the years. One fairly recent one was of a Senior Command Course at Bramshill and Henry chuckled when he saw Karen Donaldson sat in the middle of the front row, named as Course Tutor.
One photograph showed Morton shaking hands with the Princess of Wales, another with Margaret Thatcher.
Two others particularly grabbed his attention. Actually grabbed it by the bollocks.
The first one was a large framed photograph of the front page of the Lancashire Evening Telegraph, bearing the headline: POLICE SQUAD FOUND NOT GUILTY. A story followed, which Henry vaguely remembered, about an investigation into the activities of the NWOCS six years ago, following allegations of corruption.
A team headed by an ACC (one from Lancashire called Roger Willocks, now retired) had been tasked to investigate the squad, some members of which were supposedly feeding information to criminals about police operations. Nothing was ever proved and a six-month enquiry produced zilch by way of evidence. A photo of the ACC showed a very frustrated, pissed-off-looking man. Underneath the photo was a quote from him about what a superbly run unit the NWOCS was, and how it should be held up as a model for all such similar units. There was some incongruity between the picture and the words. They didn’t seem to gel.
By counterbalance, there was another picture next to the ACC of a beaming Tony Morton; he was quoted as saying that the unit had been open, frank and helpful to the enquiry and was delighted to be completely exonerated of all allegations.
The next photograph, taken in 1993, Henry found both interesting and disquieting. It showed Morton shaking hands with the current Prime Minister and in the background lurked the bulky figure of Sir Harry McNamara. The caption, underneath was about the PM visiting the NWOCS which had been established for some seven years and had produced some sterling results in terms of arrests and convictions.
Sir Harry McNamara. Suspect in a murder case which Henry was no longer investigating.
He heard the outer door slam, then the sound of Siobhan’s footsteps running up the stairs. Shit!
Rider stretched out in the bath in his basement flat. The water was too hot, and could have been doing terrible things to his arteries. But it was bliss, laced as it was with Sainsbury’s bubble bath. Things happen after a Sainsbury’s bath, he thought languidly.
His body was a mass of bruises from the beating he had received. They were on the turn colour-wise, being a few days old, from livid purple to a manky sort of green which reminded him of cow-pats.
He had brought some reading material in with him. A novel he’d been intending to devour for some while and a couple of old evening newspapers. He went for a newspaper first, wanting to catch up on local news. The headline screamed about the shooting of a policewoman and the subsequent arrest and charge of a man called Dundaven, who was found to be in possession of a large number of firearms. An accompanying photograph showed the latter displayed on a table with the detective leading the hunt stood behind. Henry Christie.
Rider sneered at the face, but his mind was really on Dundaven, who he knew was one of Conroy’s men, very high up in the scheme of things. He had been in Blackpool on the same day as Conroy, when the latter had been trying to get a piece of Rider’s club — presumably as a means of selling drugs. Or did Conroy in fact want to stash firearms at the club?
There was a timid knock on the bathroom door. Rider knew it was Isa. Ever since returning from his jaunt with Jacko to sort out Munrow, she had been in a strange mood, like she wanted to say something but didn’t know
