no-go areas. Recognizing the problems, the police were constantly badgering the council to get their finger out, but lack of money and willpower were big issues.
‘Looks like he was crossing from the chippy to the alley,’ Bent was saying as the three of them stepped out of the light and walked towards the scene, heads tipped against the rain. ‘Chips everywhere, apparently. Haven’t seen myself, yet. Obviously met whoever killed him just short of the alley and was shot in the head… apparently.’
Two marked police cars and a police van were parked at skew-whiff angles on the car park, as though they’d just been abandoned. Uniformed cops milled around. An ambulance was parked further away.
Henry said, ‘Who was the first officer on the scene?’
‘Her.’ Bent pointed to one of the constables. Henry stopped and beckoned to the lady, recognizing her but not really knowing her.
‘You were first to arrive, I’m told. What happened?’
The officer was as completely soaked as anyone. Even her hat had lost its shape, the brim now corrugated. ‘Er, comms got a call on the treble nine saying someone’d been shot here. Caller refused to give details. I took the job.’ She shrugged. ‘Found the lad there… that’s about it, really. Drew back, cordoned it off, called the jacks in.’
Henry nodded. ‘Do we know the deceased?’
The PC said, ‘I’m not a hundred per cent. I haven’t been through his pockets or anything, didn’t want to spoil any evidence.’
‘When you say you’re not a hundred per cent, what do you mean?’
‘Looks like one of the Costain’s.’
The name hit Henry. ‘Let’s have a see.’
The scene had been cordoned off with tape strung from two broken lampposts, really nothing more than jagged stumps, a stack of bricks and a wheelie bin. A crude but effective first barrier for the time being. Henry, Bent and O’Connell ducked under the tape. The police cars had actually been parked at an angle to each other so their headlights bathed the scene until the arrival of something actually designed for the job of lighting up a murder scene. The lighting wasn’t too effective, therefore, but it was better than nothing for the moment and would have to suffice until the circus rolled in.
The boy was lying on his side, facing away from them as they approached him. He looked for the entire world as though he’d just got down on the ground for a sleep. Henry pulled out his mini-Maglite torch and screwed the lens to switch it on. Bent was holding a much sturdier version that he also turned on. O’Connell had stopped and taken a torch out of her bag, one of those wind-up ones.
Despite all the lighting, it was only when they were much closer to the boy that they could see the horrific injury to the head.
Bent whistled appreciatively.
Henry bounced down on to his haunches, his ageing knees cracking loudly, and shone his torch into the boy’s twisted face.
‘Two shootings on one night,’ he muttered. It might have been something everyone was thinking, but still had to be said out loud, although the additional question, ‘Are they connected?’ remained implicit.
O’Connell was at his right shoulder, seeing the boy from his viewpoint. There was a gaping exit hole on the right side of his head that had removed his ear and upper jaw. The whole face was distorted.
‘Do you know him?’ O’Connell asked.
The thin beam of Henry’s torch worked slowly across the remaining features, open, staring but blank eyes, the mouth contorted horribly, blood oozing out of it.
Henry nodded. ‘I know him.’ He stood up, knees cracking again, and spoke to Bent. ‘He wasn’t alone, either.’
He flicked his torch beam around the ground, seeing the scattered and disintegrating chips and other food, and noting the two sets of wrapping paper.
All the lights seemed to be burning in the house, in spite of the late hour. Henry looked up through the rain- streaked driver’s door window of the Mondeo, his heart sinking.
It was two hours later, two hours spent at the scene of the boy’s murder, ensuring all that could be done was done to secure and preserve evidence. Henry’s second murder scene of the night. The second shooting of the night. Blackpool had its fair share of violence, but two brutal acts of gun crime in one night took the biscuit, and even before Henry knew for certain there was a connection between the two, his gut feelings told him there was. He just knew that post-mortems, forensic and ballistic analyses would confirm his suspicion.
O’Connell was in the passenger seat alongside him. She had done all she could at the scene, which was now covered and protected, and would later be combed by CSI and Scientific Support teams.
Henry hadn’t wanted her to come with him, had said he would arrange for her to be driven back to the mortuary, but she insisted. She was coming with him.
‘You know this family?’ she asked.
Henry nodded. ‘Oh aye,’ he said sourly. He slid his fingers around the door handle.
‘You don’t want me to come with you?’
‘Nothing personal, but not especially.’
‘I may be able to help, be able to offer comfort from a female perspective — maybe.’
‘That,’ he said pointedly, ‘is highly unlikely, but suit yourself, you’ll be in for a treat.’
He opened the door and climbed out of the car, now hearing the dull thud of music coming from a downstairs room. The rain had abated — slightly — and he steeled himself, getting into the right frame of mind. In terms of murder investigations, the buck stopped well and truly with the SIO in almost every respect. That included the delivery of the initial death message to relatives. It was very much his job, one he would not shirk. The flip side of the coin was that, although he had to tread carefully, be sympathetic, empathetic, firm, caring, supportive and everything else that went with telling someone a loved one had died tragically, he also had to bear in mind that the person he informed, or maybe someone else in the house, could well be the killer. It wasn’t exactly unknown for an SIO to tell the actual murderer about the deed they had just done — which was why the SIO needed to do the task. The reaction from the family could be a vital clue to the whole investigation.
It was a tricky balancing act.
Particularly with the Costain family.
O’Connell joined him and they went to the front door.
The house was actually two semi’s knocked into one, previously council owned, but now private. They had been big houses to start with — four bedrooms, semi-detached — and now the house was effectively a mini- mansion on a council estate. Henry knew it had been bought for a knock-down price because no one else wanted to buy houses on this estate, one of the most deprived in the country.
Henry paused at the door and rubbed his eyelids.
‘I sense hesitation,’ O’Connell chirped from behind.
‘You always hesitate before knocking on this door.’ The sound of laughter came from within. The music pounded away, an incessant, never changing beat. Henry raised his knuckles and rapped loudly. No one answered, so he turned his fist sideways and beat the door again, competing with the bass drum. Briefly the music turned down, then reverted to its original volume. Henry then kicked the door, which was flung open moments later by a teenage girl holding a bottle of WKD. She looked wild and unkempt, and was wearing a mini-nightie, had black hair that looked as though it had exploded in ringlets, mascara that made her look like a nocturnal bird and nothing on under the nightwear, leaving nothing to Henry’s imagination.
‘Fuck d’you want?’
Henry had no idea from which section of the family this girl belonged, but she was definitely a Costain. She had the looks and attitude.
‘I need to speak to a grown-up.’ He said, flashed his warrant card and said, ‘Police.’
She was an achingly pretty girl and reminded Henry of an actress from a film adaptation of a D.H. Lawrence novel he’d seen years ago and almost forgotten. That said, she
sneered contemptibly at Henry’s ID.
‘Like I said, fuck you want?’ She started to close the door, but Henry stepped up like an old-fashioned door- to-door salesman, jammed his foot in the way, and surprised her.
‘I want to speak to an adult,’ he reiterated, now standing only inches away from her scantily clad body. She
