He bumped straight away into Jerry Tope, who, he suspected, had been lurking and waiting to pounce.
‘Boss, can I have another quick word before we all get back together?’
Henry opened the door to the meeting room he’d been using and graciously wafted Tope in, then closed the door behind them both.
Tope’s face was lined with worry. ‘I’ve, uh, been digging again
… found some more stuff, unpleasant stuff.’
Henry managed to corral his helpers back into his office, with the exception of Steve Flynn, who had felt obliged to get back to Glasson Dock and open up the shop. He wasn’t a cop any more and Henry was probably pushing it to have him aboard anyway.
Strangely, Henry was disappointed not to see him, a feeling that made him slightly uneasy. Was he getting to like the guy? Perhaps the life-threatening incidents they’d been involved with in the last couple of days had given Henry a fresh perspective on him.
Henry looked at his assembled crew, although it was not quite true to say that FB was really a crew member. He was just an interested party.
Then he revealed his flip-chart jottings and began to piece together what he knew for certain and what he surmised, and hoped he hadn’t missed anything.
‘What’s going on, Henry?’
‘Ralph, thanks for calling. Just been a bit delayed at headquarters, all crap stuff mainly,’ Henry said. He was talking to DI Barlow, the Lancaster jack, on his mobile phone.
‘No probs… just need to know what’s happening is all. You can’t have had much sleep.’
‘None, actually.’
‘Er, there’s couple of guys landed here,’ Barlow said. ‘I’m not one hundred per cent sure as to why, but they say you told them to get their arses up here.’
‘Yeah… I’m trying to pull one or two people in to kick-start an investigation.’
‘So you’re not doing as I suggested?’ Barlow said frostily.
‘No… thanks for the advice, though.’
‘Well, so be it,’ Barlow sighed, which really sounded to Henry like, ‘Be it on your own head, mate.’ Barlow was in his office at Lancaster nick and a DI from Blackpool CID was sitting opposite him, lounging indolently in a chair, trying to look bored and pissed off. Barlow made a circle with his thumb and forefinger and jerked his hand up and
down and pointed to the phone at his ear for the benefit of the DI.
The gesture meant Henry Christie: wanker.
The other DI nodded agreement.
‘Who else has arrived?’ Henry asked innocently.
‘Some bloody PC from training school. Christ knows what his skills are!’
‘That’ll be the firearms guy. I wanted him to have a look at the weapon that was used, you know, the machine-pistol. Get his take on it.’
‘Oh, right, whatever,’ Barlow said rather crossly. ‘What’s your plan, then?’
‘To be honest, Ralph, I haven’t completely got my head around things… but I think my first port of call is Harry Sunderland.’
‘Eh? Why? What’s he got to do with you being shot at?’ Barlow blustered.
‘I know it’s a bit lame, but I need to question him about his wife and the circumstances of her disappearance, just to find out how she really did end up in the river. I’m not completely convinced by his story.’
‘And what has that to do with last night? Completely unrelated,’ Barlow insisted.
‘Also I’d like to know why the two heavies wanted to find what was in the wife’s property… that’s really bothering me,’ Henry bullshitted. ‘So I think I’m going to lock him up for murder and take it from there. A bit thin, maybe, but I want to lean on him.’
Barlow hissed an unimpressed breath.
‘Shall I meet you at Lancaster nick in about half an hour?’ Henry asked. ‘We can go and see him together.’
‘Yeah, good idea.’
Barlow ended the call and shook his head despondently at the visiting DI. ‘Henry bloody Christie,’ he said by way of explanation.
Rik Dean nodded agreement. ‘Don’t I know it.’
‘Look, I hope you don’t think I’m being rude here, but I need to make a personal call.’ Barlow waggled his phone at Rik, who stood up with a wave of understanding and said, ‘Sure, no worries. Brew after?’
‘See you up in the canteen.’
Rik left the office, closing the door behind him.
In the corridor outside he leaned on the wall, took his own mobile phone out and made sure it was receiving a signal. It was: full strength.
Bill Robbins poked his head out of the CID office door further down the corridor and arched his eyebrows at Rik.
The wait seemed interminable.
But then Rik’s phone vibrated in his hand.
He answered it quickly, listened for a moment, said, ‘Right,’ tersely, and finished the call.
He glanced at Bill Robbins and nodded.
Henry Christie’s mobile phone rang five seconds after Rik Dean had slid his own back into his pocket.
Henry had it ready in his hand and answered it instantly, listened for a few moments, said, ‘OK, thanks,’ and ended the call.
He glanced sideways at FB and nodded.
As Rik Dean pushed himself upright off the corridor wall and spun towards Ralph Barlow’s office door, with Bill Robbins right behind him, the door actually opened before Rik could reach the handle.
Barlow emerged, stunned to almost barge straight into Rik.
‘Oh, sorry mate,’ Barlow said. ‘Need to get going. Something’s come up.’
Rik stood immobile in front of him, his eyes stone hard, face deadly serious. ‘I don’t think so, Ralph.’
‘What?’ Barlow snorted and tried to ease his way past Rik. ‘Excuse me.’
‘Can we just go back into your office?’ Rik said pleasantly.
‘For why?’
‘I think you know…’
‘I know fuck all, except you’re in my way.’ He tried to move past, but Rik held up a hand — almost the police number one stop signal.
‘I’ll do it here if you want,’ he said, the tone of his voice becoming brittle. ‘In the corridor.’
‘Do what?’
Two female civilian members of staff walked down the corridor, past the three men at the DI’s office door, sensing something very amiss.
Rik sighed. Underneath the surface, he was quite nervous, but did not betray any of this in his outward demeanour. He’d been in tougher situations, but had never had to arrest a fellow officer before. ‘I’ll do it in front of everyone, if you like,’ he said impatiently.
‘I don’t know what the hell you’re on about, but I’d guess you’re about to make one big fucking mistake — so let me pass before this gets ugly.’
‘It’s already ugly… back into the office, last time of asking.’
‘Go to fuck, Rik,’ Barlow snapped and tried to barge past. Rik laid a restraining hand on his chest that stopped him going any further. Barlow froze and looked down at the hand, palm on his sternum, fingers splayed out, then along Rik’s arm and into his face. ‘You’d better take that away.’
At which point, Rik had had enough pussyfooting about.
‘I’m arresting you on suspicion of corruption. You don’t have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if-’ Rik began to caution him, but wasn’t allowed to complete the little speech as Barlow slammed his right fist in a wide-arcing blow into Rik’s face, knocking him sideways into Bill Robbins, who had been watching the verbal transaction with trepidation, realizing it was all going very sour.
