‘Babe, I’m really sorry…’
‘Just wanted to know you’re OK… I’ve seen the news. It looks awful, and you looked exhausted when you were talking to that TV reporter.’ She didn’t sound too furious.
‘I’m OK… I just got sidetracked… and there was a bit more to it than was on the news,’ he said. The police had held back the details concerning Henry and Flynn for the time being. ‘I’ll tell you when I get home.’
‘When will that be?’
‘Late, I expect… need to sort out staff and a room and stuff like that.’
‘Have you eaten?’
‘Er, no.’ Food was something else he’d forgotten about, too. Coffee — fully leaded, as he called it — was what had kept him on the go.
‘Get a snack and I’ll have something hot and ready for when you land,’ she ordered him.
Henry considered making a quip about the double-entendre but decided against it. ‘Thanks, darling.’
‘Darling! That’s a new one.’
‘Did I say that?’
‘Yes, you did.’
‘Meant it.’
After a further selection of lovey-dovey exchanges, Henry brought up the thorny subject of Steve Flynn. He asked if it would be possible to accommodate him for a few more nights at the Owl. With surprise in her voice, Alison said it would be fine but could not resist asking why he was even asking. After all, didn’t he despise Flynn?
‘Yes, course I do… but… I’ll explain it when I get there.’
The office door opened and DI Barlow poked his head around it. He mimicked a phone call, thumb to ear, little finger to mouth.
‘Got to go, sweetie… Yeah, you too… No I bloody won’t bloody say it!’ He hung up, aware of the redness creeping up past his collar.
Barlow gave him a knowing look.
‘And?’ Henry demanded.
‘Joe Speakman’s son is on the line.’
‘Can you put him through to this number?’ He pointed at the DCI’s phone.
Barlow retreated and Henry had to wait for the call, wondering how he was going to handle it. The Speakmans had two kids, son and daughter, both late twenties or early thirties. The son had moved to Cyprus and the daughter lived somewhere in the south of England. Steps had been taken to trace them and obviously the first to be contacted was the son.
The phone rang. Henry said, ‘Mr Speakman, I’m Detective Superintendent Henry Christie…’
‘I know who you are… we met once way back, when I was a lot younger. What’s happened?’
‘I’m truly sorry to tell you this,’ Henry began, the words not coming easily.
After dropping his blood-splattered clothes into the forensics bags, which were taken away, Flynn re-attired himself from head to foot from the clothing stock in the chandlery, then opened up for business, thinking this was the best thing to do for himself and Diane.
He was surprised by the number of customers and a good deal of money was taken in the first couple of hours from local yacht-people. He closed for lunch so he could buy a sandwich from the static caravan caff and also had a trot along the canal to have a look at the canal boat.
The sight made him shiver at the memory of his close call… the first of two close calls, as it happened.
Daylight revealed the true extent of the damage. The boat was beyond any sort of repair, blown apart beyond hope.
‘Please be insured,’ he said to himself.
Henry was frowning — not an uncommon facial expression for him — but this time there was a good reason for it as opposed to him just being a grumpy swine.
Another death message delivered. And once more a reaction to it he felt he could not criticize, but which did puzzle him slightly.
With much care, he reversed his Mercedes inch by inch out of the police garage, relieved it hadn’t been scratched in the tight space, then pulled onto the streets of Lancaster, intending to drive back to the mortuary where the bodies were piling up for the pathologist.
The frown stuck on his face all the way there.
Inside, the bodies of Mr and Mrs Speakman were on trolleys next to each other on the floor space by the refrigeration unit. The creepy mortuary technician was looking them over, scratching his slightly misaligned chin thoughtfully. He appeared to have fully recovered from his face-full of CS gas, or whatever had been sprayed at him. Henry asked him how he was doing and they had a short conversation about the attack.
Henry went into the office to find Baines sitting at the desk, working on his laptop, transcribing notes from his portable tape machine. He gave a little gesture with his finger for Henry to take a seat, then another which meant, ‘Just hang on, I need to do this.’
Henry sat. Frowning.
Because of something Joe Speakman’s son had said. Three little-ish words: ‘Probably deserved it.’
Three words — but three words too many because when Henry instantly queried them, ‘What do you mean by that?’ the line went dead and he could not get a reconnection.
Probably deserved it, he mulled, eyes narrowing, lips pursing, and as he stared dead ahead but unfocused at a diagram of the human body on the office wall, he didn’t realize that Baines had finished and was looking intently at him.
‘Face still looks a mess,’ the doctor observed.
Henry turned his head slowly. ‘As ever, your diagnosis is spot on.’
‘Cheers.’
‘Any news for me?’
Baines shook his head. ‘Only that I’ll be starting the post-mortems shortly.’
This caused Henry to check his watch. ‘Now?’
‘If I don’t, they’ll stack up and it’ll become impossible to catch up. And knowing you, if I don’t get them done, there’ll be a whole new batch tomorrow.’
Henry chuckled, then sighed.
‘Well, I’ll do one, anyway,’ Baines said. ‘I reckon four hours for each.’
Henry nodded.
‘But I do have some news — in between the crime-scene walk-through and now, I did Jennifer Sunderland’s PM — which is what I’m typing up.’ Henry waited for the bombshell. Baines said, ‘Drowned. Plenty of inhaled river debris. Lungs saturated.’
‘So she was alive when she went in the water?’
Baines cocked his head at Henry. ‘Didn’t I just say that?’
Henry smirked. ‘What about the head injuries?’
‘Inconclusive, but not especially serious and certainly not the cause of her death, and impossible to say whether she received the blows before or after immersion.’
‘So she could have been hit and fallen in?’
‘It’s a possibility.’
‘OK. Can I make a suggestion?’
Baines waited expectantly.
Henry checked his watch again. ‘Been a cruelly long day, so why don’t we start fresh tomorrow. There’s nothing spoiling — so long as there’s enough room for the bodies in the chiller… and, of course, there’s also the body to sort in Blackpool.’
Baines stretched wearily. ‘You’re probably right.’
‘Selfish, too… I need to spend some time getting my head around stuff and do some planning — not least how I’m going to deal with Harry Sunderland.’ There was a huge amount to do, including the things that were nagging at his brain.
He had started the ‘to do’ list in the DCI’s office, then got sidetracked by his own thoughts and calling Alison,
