‘And the camera, the phone, whatever — where is it?’ Henry asked.
‘That’s the problem. Rory dropped it somewhere.’
‘Somewhere?’
‘Somewhere between here and North Pier.’
Henry blinked. ‘So there isn’t a camera?’
‘It could still be around.’
‘Where did he drop it?’
‘Dunno.’
‘Did you search for it?’
‘Not really.’
Henry’s teeth ground grittily as he fought his disappointment and thought this through.
‘I got a decent look at the bloke,’ Mark volunteered.
‘Mm… walk the route with me, the way you went to North Pier.’
‘Now?’
‘No — next week. Yes, now,’ he said.
‘I might do a runner. I know I can run faster than you can.’
‘Like I said, if you do, I’ll have you shot in the leg — escaping felon.’ Henry beckoned to Bill in the Mondeo to get out and park up. Mark then took the men along his escape route. Back down the alley, left on to Albert Road with the south aspect of the Winter Gardens on their right, then on to Coronation Street, diagonally across into Birley Street — one of the main shopping streets — right into Corporation Street then on to Talbot Square. They had passed the exact spot where they’d robbed the Goth, done a left on to the Promenade and crossed over to the entrance to North Pier by the war memorial.
No sign of the mobile phone.
Henry’s frustration boiled over and he cursed. Mark looked contemptuously at him. ‘All you’re interested in is getting an arrest, isn’t it? You actually don’t give a monkey’s about me, do you? What I’ve been through, what I’m going through, how I feel?’
Henry picked up Mark by the lapel of his hoodie and slammed him hard against the war memorial. ‘Let me make something very clear to you, pal,’ he said. ‘The guys who killed the old man, Rory, Billy and your mum are still out there. They think you can ID them, Mark, and just at this moment I’m the only one who can keep you alive.’
Mark was not afraid of Henry. ‘Or get me dead,’ he rejoined.
Henry was back in his office off the major incident room. Bill Robbins had joined him, as had Jerry Tope, Alex Bent and Karl Donaldson. Mark Carter had been booked into custody and was now sweating it out in a juvenile detection room whilst Henry tried to work out the best way forward.
‘I suppose the humane thing to do would be to have a quick interview with Mark about the robberies — making sure he admitted them, of course, then bail him into the care of social services. The humane thing,’ he said again. ‘Then I want to get him with the e-fit people to get a face down on paper. In the meantime, I want a search team to work that route, turn over every rock and find that phone. It’s vital it turns up.’
The others nodded assent.
‘And then what?’ Bent asked.
‘Good question,’ Henry admitted.
‘Can I make a quick suggestion?’ Bill Robbins asked.
‘Go on.’
‘I know it’s a long shot, but — ’ he screwed up his face as though what he was about to propose was particularly stupid and that he would be stoned to death — ‘is it worth checking the found property register for the mobile phone? Sometimes people have been known to be honest and hand in property… it’d only take a minute.’
‘Not such a bad idea. Can you do that?’ Henry asked.
‘Now?’
‘Now.’
Robbins rose and left the room.
The remaining officers all shook their heads. ‘Not a chance in hell,’ Bent said cynically. ‘And if it had been handed in, it should have been cross-referenced to the crime report, so we should know if it had been.’
‘Mm,’ Henry said doubtfully. ‘Can you check the phone’s status, though?’ he asked Bent. ‘I’m presuming it was blocked after the robbery was reported. If it has, maybe it could be unblocked, and if it’s still transmitting a signal we could locate it that way?’
‘Will do.’
‘Have we heard anything from Rik yet?’
‘No he’s at the mortuary with Mandy,’ Bent said.
‘The pathologist will be wanting to do Rory’s PM. Ask Rik if he’ll cover that for me, will you? And then arrange to get Mark Carter sorted?’ Henry checked his watch. ‘Social services should be here soon, so they promised.’
It was almost four p.m. as Bill Robbins sauntered through the tight, badly decorated corridors of Blackpool police station. He was feeling quite serene, having been dragged away from the drudgery of some tedious lesson planning at the training centre to come and be Mark Carter’s bodyguard. Since coming to the station he had locked all his firearms in the safe in the ARV office.
He went down to the ground floor where the public enquiry desk was located and popped his head through the door behind the desk itself. As ever there was a stream of people at the desk being attended to by a harassed assistant. Bill saw the found property register on a shelf underneath the desk, reached through and took it, then stepped back out of sight lest a member of the public demanded to see a real cop as opposed to a public enquiry assistant, or PEA as they were known.
He retreated into the tiny PEA office and flicked through the book.
These days the police took less and less property from the public. When Bill had joined the job, the cops took everything. Now finders were encouraged to keep what they’d found and if they hadn’t heard anything within twenty-eight days, were told that the property became theirs. This even applied to fairly large sums of money.
There wasn’t much recorded in the book over the last two days. Bill would have expected that if a mobile phone had been handed in, it would have been retained by the police to cross-check with recorded crimes, pretty standard procedure for such items.
A female PEA came into the office, fitting her epaulettes. She was clearly just coming on duty, working the four-to-midnight shift, after which the police station would be closed. She was a bonny young thing, Bill thought patronizingly, glancing at her name tag: Ellen Thompson.
‘Can I help you?’ she asked.
‘Just checking to see if a mobile phone has been handed in over the last couple of days… doesn’t seem to be anything.’
‘Mm, I’ve certainly not taken one in,’ the PEA said quickly. ‘Don’t know about anyone else.’
‘It would have been recorded in here, wouldn’t it?’ Bill tapped the red-spined found property book. She nodded. ‘OK, no probs.’
The PEA held out her hand. ‘Shall I put it back for you?’
‘Thanks.’ Ah well, he thought, another bright idea that came to nought.
Henry and Donaldson stepped out of the lift on the top floor and entered the canteen. Henry was gagging for a drink and something to eat. Donaldson was coffee’d up to the eyeballs, so he bought a mineral water and both men picked a cherry-topped raisin swirl each to go with their drinks, and took their mini-feasts to a table giving them a view across the Irish Sea.
Henry sipped his coffee and waited for the hit before biting a chunk out of his pastry.
Jerry Tope entered the canteen, got himself a brew and went to sit alone. Henry was watching him, but not thinking about him.
Donaldson winced as he tasted his water. ‘Complex stuff,’ he said.
‘What, H2O? Hydrogen, oxygen isn’t it?’
‘If only things were that simple,’ he frowned.
‘You have a look of disquiet,’ Henry observed skilfully.
