first cops on the scene had acted swiftly and professionally to protect and preserve evidence.
The local DS, Alex Bent, the one Henry had received the phone call from on this murky night, hurried towards him, head down against the rain that was now a torrent. Henry looked past him to see a lighting rig and a crime scene tent being erected. Good, he thought. DS Bent briefed Henry quickly, then led him up to the body.
The younger of the two boys had noticed Henry Christie’s arrival and slid into the shadow, not wishing to be spotted. Rory backed off too. Both boys knew Henry, but for different reasons, and neither wanted to come face to face with him.
‘There’s nowt to see now,’ Rory said.
‘We saw it all anyway,’ Mark said.
‘Pity we couldn’t find that phone,’ Rory said. ‘Anyway, let’s bog off… down to the arcades, eh?’
Mark screwed up his face. He wanted to go home, although there wasn’t anything to go home for. His mother would be out and there was no one else. He just wanted to get back to his room, curl up in bed and rid his mind of the image of the murder.
Rory took his arm. ‘Come on, or we’ll get pissed wet through.’
‘I don’t know,’ Mark whined.
‘Stop being arsey… let’s check out what’s happening in town and if there’s nowt, we’ll hike it home. The chippy’ll be open — and hey — we can afford the full hit. You could take it home from there.’
The prospect of taking home fish, chips and mushy peas was mouth-watering.
‘OK then.’
It was an old adage: you don’t get a second chance at a crime scene. So Henry quickly ensured that everything was done to protect it, particularly when its seriousness became apparent when he saw the poor mangled body of the old man, crushed under the wheels of a car, and the bullet wounds to the head that had left horrendous exit wounds. Standing underneath the hastily erected tent against which the rain pounded incessantly, Henry took it all in, his hands thrust deep into his pockets, letting his brain start to work on hypotheses.
He inhaled, asked Bent, ‘Any ideas who he is?’
‘Not as yet. I haven’t allowed anyone to go through his pockets. Didn’t want to spoil anything.’
Henry nodded. ‘We’ll save that for the mortuary. Witnesses?’
‘Uniform are knocking on doors, but nothing yet.’
He nodded again, trying to piece it all together. His instinct was to go through the pockets for an ID, but there was a lot of stuff to do before that stage was reached. He needed the CSIs and a forensic team to do their job; he wanted the Home Office pathologist on scene, too. He didn’t mind speculating, but didn’t want to be drawn to any firm conclusions that could lead him down a blind alley. The man had been run over and shot, and though he was pretty certain in which order that had happened, he didn’t want to get it wrong, as the sequence of events would have a fundamental bearing on the investigation.
Then the tent flap was drawn back and a rain-drenched constable said, ‘Can I have a quick word, boss?’ to Henry. He went to him, but stayed under cover.
‘Fire away.’
‘Might be nothing, but I’ve been having a look down this alley.’ The PC turned and pointed to the alley that ran at right angles to the road. Henry poked his head out of the tent and squinted through the rain into the passageway.
‘And?’
‘Dog shit — right up by that wall.’
‘Dog shit,’ Henry said.
‘There’s a footprint in it, but it’s sort of tight up against the wall and not generally in a place where someone would step in it. Just wondered if it was worth preserving…’ His voice trailed off uncertainly, as if preserving a mound of canine excrement was as ridiculous as it sounded. ‘Y’know, before it gets washed away.’
That’ll be a popular one to get a cast from, Henry thought, already visualizing the CSIs tossing a coin over who drew the shit end of the stick. He nodded. ‘Cover it up. You never know.’
‘OK, boss — I already got a seed tray from a resident,’ the officer said triumphantly.
‘Good man,’ Henry said. ‘I’ll leave it with you.’
The boys ran down to the promenade through the rain and into one of the amusement arcades they frequented, where they mingled with a few of their mates for a while. Rory’s head injury caused a stir of interest. He kept it vague as to how he got it, making up a cock and bull story about a cop whacking him with a baton that no one believed, until all interest dwindled and the two lads stood at a one-armed bandit, feeding it change from a fiver they’d cashed.
Finally, they lost it all and decided to call it a night, emerging into the rain and heading back up to the estate they lived on, which was about a twenty-minute walk away.
‘We should nick a car,’ Rory suggested.
‘That would be pushing our luck,’ Mark said. ‘We’ve robbed three people, not been caught, and watched an old bloke get murdered… nuff’s enough,’ he went on, clearly uncomfortable with the whole evening. Rory picked up on his friend’s tone of voice.
‘You can’t go to the cops, you know that, don’t you?’
‘Yeah, course.’
‘More friggin’ trouble than they’re worth. Do not get involved. They hate my family as it is, especially that Henry Christie.’
Mark looked quizzically at him. ‘Christie?’
‘Yeah, that detective who turned up.’
‘I know the one you mean. You know him, do you?’
‘Bastard — always mixing our family a bottle. You know him too?’
‘He dealt with my sister’s death.’
‘Ahh,’ Rory said sagely, knowing a touchy subject when he came across one. ‘What are you having from the chip-hole?’
‘Going for pie, chips and peas, me,’ Mark said, having reviewed his options, ‘covered in that stodgy gravy they do.’
‘Sounds good… come on.’ Rory plucked Mark’s sleeve and they ran on in the rain, deliberately crashing through puddles so they couldn’t get any more wet if they tried, reverting in many ways to the adolescent carefree kids they really should have been.
They arrived at the fish and chip shop about ten minutes later, soaked and breathless, and bought their food. The shop was on a small row of retail outlets in a block on the edge of their estate. Behind the row was an unlit, underused car park, strewn with debris and the burnt-out shell of a car. The lads had to walk across this piece of land, then cut into a high-walled alley that dog-legged and came out on to the estate proper.
Crossing the car park and going into the alley was the quickest way on to the estate, but as Mark came out of the chip shop, his food wrapped in paper and placed in a thin plastic bag, and walked to the end of the shops, he paused and looked across the dark car park. An unpleasant sensation flitted down his spine. A bad memory came back to him. He shivered.
Rory barged into him purposely. ‘Hey, watch it,’ he said, elbowing Mark out of the way. Then he stopped and looked into his friend’s face. ‘You OK?’
Mark snapped out of it. ‘Fine.’
Rory scrunched up his face and shook his head. ‘You’re too much in touch with your girlie side,’ he taunted and punched Mark’s upper arm. ‘Gay boy.’
‘I’m not, I’m fucking not,’ Mark protested, rising to the bait as only a sensitive teenager can. But his moment of reverie had gone. They set off across the car park, leaving the well-lighted place behind them, plunging into darkness.
Locally, the alleyway they were walking towards was known as Psycho Alley, so named because of the high number of criminal incidents that had taken place there over the years, from rapes to robberies. The council were always promising to demolish it and put some lighting in, but never seemed to manage to do either. It had become a no-go area for law abiding people at all times of day and night, being easier and safer to take the long way around rather than risk becoming a crime statistic.
For two streetwise mid-teens, though, it was a place that held no fear.
