saw she was about to lose him.
‘ Sir, sir… what about Henry?’
‘ Right, right,’ he shouted back over his shoulder. ‘You sort it out with him.’
Danny bunched a fist in joy.
‘ I like this very much indeed,’ Drozdov nodded approvingly. ‘It is a very good plan.’ He raised his black eyebrows at his two business partners, Thompson and Elphick. Their faces acknowledged that it sounded good, too. ‘I particularly like these additional aspects,’ Drozdov concluded with an evil smile. ‘Very cunning.’
‘ Thanks. It’s the kind of thing I’ve done before. It works well — and on today’s scale, it should mean we won’t be troubled.’
Drozdov sat back pensively. He pointed at Crane. ‘You have gone to a great deal of time and trouble for a quarter of a million pounds.’
Crane felt his ears begin to turn red, even though he had been ready for this. ‘Better safe than sorry, and the additional labour is cheap. Look, it’s coming out of my whack, so don’t worry.’
Drozdov eyed him uncertainly, was about to say something else when Smith called, ‘They’re here,’ from the window where he was stationed.
As before, everyone bar him filed back into the office, out of sight. Smith dragged open the roller doors which gave access to the warehouse. Two Audi sports cars were driven in and parked behind Thompson’s BMW Both were stolen, but bore clean number plates, new engine numbers and perfect tax discs (stolen two days before in a Post Office burglary in Swindon); the engines were perfectly tuned and serviced. Only the most rigorous physical check by a nosy cop would start to reveal any defects — and that would never be allowed to happen.
Smith went across to the loading bay and opened that door too. A blue Leyland Sherpa van, 3.5 litres, reversed into the empty space. Again stolen, all details accordingly altered or obliterated.
The drivers of these vehicles knew their jobs. They did not hang around, simply left the keys in the ignition and trotted out of the warehouse, looking neither left nor right, and got into a car waiting for them in the yard. By the time they drove out, the warehouse doors were half-closed.
Smith wandered into the office where the others were downing their umpteenth coffee. ‘That’s everything,’ he announced. ‘One phone call’ — he tapped the mobile on his belt — ‘then we can roll.’
Frustratingly for Danny it was almost 1 p.m. before the Murder Squad review workshop finished. Four hours since she had bumped into Henry that morning. As a Healthline check lasts only about forty minutes, he would be long gone.
Annoyed by that and slightly depressed because the workshop did not seem to have taken the investigation any further, she meandered back to her beloved new car. When she sat down in it, she immediately began to feel better. She turned the engine on and revved it; then she spent a few minutes selecting the musical accompaniment for the return to Blackpool. Stars, by Simply Red. She slid the CD into the slot and as Mick Hucknall’s sex-filled voice grooved in, she drove off the car park and down Hutton Hall Avenue… to be very surprised to see Henry Christie’s car still parked outside Occupational Health.
Danny stopped and reversed into the narrow track by the tennis courts, more or less opposite the OHWU, and waited for him to appear.
Twenty minutes later, the front door opened and Henry emerged. He seemed to have no more energy than earlier.
Danny’s mind revolved. Four hours and twenty minutes. What the hell had he been doing in there for so long?
She quickly got out of her car and strode towards him. He did not notice her, or look up, until they almost collided next to his car.
‘ Danny!’ he said in astonishment, as though she was a being from another planet.
‘ Hello, Henry.’ She held back the desire to say, ‘Bloody long Healthline check, wasn’t it?’ Instead, she said, ‘I need to speak to you.’
‘ Ahhh… what about? Work’?
‘ Yes.’
He shook his head and curled his lip. ‘Tell you the truth, I’m off sick, Danny. I… er…’ he said absently, unable to complete the sentence.
‘ I know you’re off sick, but I’d really like your help.’ She laid a fingertip on the back of his hand, and despite herself and despite Henry’s wretched appearance, a thrill ran through her. She caught her breath. ‘It’s this job in Blackpool, the triple murder.’
‘ I don’t know the first thing about it,’ he said quickly. ‘I have been away, you know.’
‘ I’d still like some advice.’ She took her finger away.
For the first time Henry looked squarely at her. ‘I don’t know.’
Then he looked away, fumbling for his car keys.
‘ Please, let’s go and have something to eat at Headquarters canteen. I really would appreciate it,’ she said coaxingly, but actually against her better judgment because Henry looked very, very ill.
‘ OK.’ He swallowed.
They walked up to the main Headquarters building, past the rugby pitch on which the Force helicopter now squatted like a huge insect. It had arrived mid-morning from its operating base at Warton aerodrome, and barring any call on its services, would be there until mid-afternoon for display to some police authority members and other visiting dignitaries.
The HQ canteen was quiet, most people having dined by that time. They bought sandwiches and a cup of tea each and sat down near to a window.
Hawker and Price had earlier been dispatched to buy fish and chips and cold drinks for everyone. The greasy wrappings were spread around the office. They had all finished eating when the call came into Smith’s mobile. It was a short conversation. ‘Yeah… yeah… thanks.’ Smith looked around from Crane, to Thompson, to Drozdov, Elphick, Hawker and Price. ‘Here we go,’ he said.
Normally Danny found it very easy to talk to Henry. They were on the same wavelength, had the same sense of humour and above all, fancied each other like mad. Her efforts to engage him in conversation that afternoon failed miserably. He was vague, distant… troubled. She started to think this whole idea of hers was a waste of effort and time, and in the end she simply wittered on about the investigation whilst munching her way through her sandwich, trying to think of a withdrawal strategy without causing him offence because he wasn’t giving her anything here at all.
He gazed past her shoulder into the middle distance as she talked. She could tell he was only quarter- listening, but then he turned to her and it was as if the old Henry had come home and switched the lights on.
‘ Repeat that name,’ he said.
‘ Cheryl Jones?’
‘ No, no, no… the other one; did I mishear it?’
‘ Malcolm Fitch?’
‘ Yes, Malcolm Fitch.’
‘ You know him?’ Danny chewed her sandwich quickly, becoming animated.
Henry pursed his lips. ‘Not personally, but I do know that he was an RCS snout before I went on the squad. In fact,’ Henry leaned forwards, bright-eyed if not bushy-tailed, ‘do you remember that night Terry Briggs got shot and Billy Crane turned up at BRI? Nineteen eighty… six?’
The image dazzled Danny’s mind immediately. ‘How could I forget?’
Henry tapped his temple to make himself concentrate. Danny felt the cheeks of her bum squeeze together with excitement. This was exactly why Henry, or someone like him, should have been on the enquiry from the word go, instead of a bunch of inexperienced jacks who had no history to them — not their fault, of course — and who probably hadn’t even been in the police in 1986. But Henry was one of those detectives who had ‘it’ — that certain something which sets them apart from the pack. Yeah, all those things like knowledge, experience, a prodigious memory, but also the ability to piece things together, to give attention to detail and above all, be there for others to
