Bad Tidings (16 page)

They drove in silence, up through Guide, across the motorway junction, then right towards Belthorn.

At the top of the hill Henry turned onto Tower View and stopped the van outside the Cromer residence. All the lights were on at the house.

Henry and Janine alighted, and he went to the back of the van, opened the back doors, then the inner cage, and let Freddy out.

Janine took Freddy's arm and steered him to the gate, saying nothing to Henry, who turned and looked at the car that had followed him. It pulled up and Rik Dean got out. The two detectives watched the pair paused at the gates as Janine entered a key code, then pushed through and walked up to the house.

‘Beauty and the Beast,' Rik commented.

Henry said nothing; he felt shattered. He was always amazed at his ability to keep going through exhaustion. Years of practice is what he put it down to, but lately he was starting to get more tired more quickly. He needed a real coffee boost. Either that or speed.

At the front door, Janine glanced over her shoulder before she entered, then was gone.

‘Have you ever thought how dangerous it would be to shag her?' Rik pondered out loud. ‘Dangerous but exciting.'

Henry narrowed his eyes but didn't want to admit his thoughts on that subject. He found it remarkable that, even at times of great stress or life-changing moments, where the most serious things were happening or being discussed, the indomitable spirit of cops meant that there was always time to think about humping – and not to be sexist, he was pretty sure that applied to female officers, too. Henry couldn't actually remember being implanted with this chip when he joined the job, but it was definitely still functioning in him. He wondered if it would deactivate when he retired. He hoped not. It was one of life's great comforts, just to know that when all about you was crumbling and going to rat shit, your thoughts gravitated to your penis. He grinned.

‘Think he'll walk out and surrender?' Rik asked.

‘Nope,' Henry said absently. ‘Not in his nature.'

The two detectives stood side by side at the wrought-iron gates and waited.

The front door opened.

‘Here we go,' Henry said.

It wasn't Terry Cromer who emerged, hands held high. It was Janine – alone. She ran towards them and Henry could read from the body language that things weren't great. She ran up to the gates and clung to the vertical ironwork.

‘He's not here,' she gasped.

‘Where, then?'

Her mouth constricted. ‘He's heading to Blackpool.'

Henry understood at once. ‘Tooled up? Costains?'

She nodded.

‘How many?'

‘Don't know.'

‘Vehicles?'

‘Don't know, either.'

Henry closed his eyes. ‘Shit.' All he needed to ice the cake that was the best Christmas Day he'd ever spent was a shoot-out between rival gangs.

‘And I haven't told you,' Janine said, spinning away and striding quickly back to the house.

E
ven allowing for the time taken to swap the police van for his own Audi, Henry still managed to get to Blackpool within twenty-five minutes – some going, even on roads virtually devoid of traffic. He seemed to be making a habit of breaking all world land speed records across the county.

He exited the M55 at Marton Circle and headed into Blackpool along the A583. His house was on an estate over to his right; more importantly, the council estate that was his destination was on his left.

He turned, slowed right down, his heart still pounding at the memory of the 140 mph he had managed to coax out of his car. Both he and the Audi had loved it – until he lost his nerve and slowed to a more respectable ninety. He entered the estate and slowed to a crawl as a police patrol car came slowly towards him. He flashed it and the cars stopped alongside each other, the drivers opening their windows for a chat. Henry had already asked for an immediate high-visibility presence on the estate to discourage anything that might happen, but Blackpool section was as strapped for staff as everywhere else in the county, especially now – in the early hours of Boxing Day. One car was as much as could be mustered: one cop, one car, police sign illuminated. Still, better than nothing.

The PC driving the car knew Henry. ‘Boss.'

‘Pete – happy Christmas . . . anything doing?'

‘You too, boss . . . not so far, all quiet on the western front.'

‘Anything happening at the Costains'?'

‘Party time. Banging music. Youngsters hanging out the door and windows, flashing Vs at me, usual shite. But not the only party on the estate. Whole place is heaving.'

‘Let's loop around and have a drive past.'

Shoreside: an estate Henry knew well. It had a terrible reputation for public disorder, criminality and unemployment. Some figures claimed that seventy-five per cent of adults on the estate were out of work and that a benefits culture was endemic. Despite many initiatives, most of which involved throwing truckloads of cash at the place, nothing seemed to change.

The only row of shops on the estate had been systematically destroyed and was now a memory. A community centre was first firebombed, then resurrected only to be completely flattened by kids using a stolen bulldozer, driven two miles onto the estate from a building site.

It was as if the estate was cursed by a death wish.

And lording over it all by means of terror and intimidation was the infamous Costain family. Claiming, spuriously, descent from Romany gypsies, they had landed in Blackpool almost fifty years earlier and settled into a life of crime which grew from almost honourable thieving and burglary through to drug dealing and armed robbery.

Henry had dealt with them for more years than he cared to remember. Perhaps his greatest victory over them was that one of their number – Troy, now sadly deceased – had been Henry's informant for a good number of years prior to his demise. Henry had also dealt with the deaths of other members of the family, including old man Costain who had died in a drive-by shooting completely unconnected with his position as the family godfather. But they survived and prospered. To the best of Henry's knowledge, old man Costain's younger brother – Runcie Costain – had taken over at the helm and piloted them to new levels of criminality. This obviously included expanding their empire across the county.

Henry drove slowly past the Costain home, two semi-detached council houses knocked into a single huge one. It was alive with festive cheer. A group of alcohol-fuelled teenagers in the front garden jeered at Henry and the police car behind. One of them threw a bottle of WKD at them, which landed and shattered between the two cars with a pop. Henry dipped his accelerator automatically and the police car behind swerved to miss the broken glass.

They drove out of sight and pulled up for a chat, leaning against the police car.

‘Heard you've had a busy night, boss,' the PC said.

‘Understatement,' Henry said.

‘Reckon there could be repercussions over here?'

‘Every chance. But where, I'm not certain . . . if there are a few higher level Costains here, this could be a target.' He bit his bottom lip. ‘I think I need to go and knock on the front door.'

‘I'll come with you.'

‘No, you just hang on here and watch the cars. I don't want to wind them up unnecessarily . . . but come like the wind if I yell, obviously.'

‘Obviously.'

He strolled around the corner, wondering if he should have kept his stab vest on. That would have been like a red rag to a bull and someone would have had to try it out.

He walked confidently to the house, passing the group of teens – or were they kidults these days? – who'd lobbed the bottle. They watched him with snake-suspicious eyes. Henry wished them the season's greetings, and was told to fuck off in reply.

The front door was wide open, but Henry was canny enough to stay outside. He knocked. Youngsters pushed past him rudely in both directions.

A couple on the stairs in front of him were locked in an embrace. The lad's hand was down the girl's panties, hers down the front of his jeans. Some very frantic rubbing was going on, more likely to ignite a real flame than produce unforgettable orgasms.

Henry knocked again, the sound lost in the thump-thump of the music and sounds of revelry emanating from the house. The second time in only a few hours that he had turned up unannounced on the doorstep of a criminal family, both for good, honest reasons. Mostly.

First time because he suspected one of them might be a victim of a serial killer. This time to warn of the possibility of some very nasty reprisals. He then had a thought: the news that two of their family had been taken out in Blackburn might fire an uncontrollable reaction from the Costains, either against him as the messenger or in retaliation against the Cromers.

Suddenly his impulsiveness in knocking at the door sent a shimmer of uncertainty through him. This was not the time to be delivering such news to the family, even if they already knew that Stuart and Benji had gone out tooled up to cause mayhem thirty-odd miles to the east.

The thought that he might just be stepping into a cow-pat of conspiracy to murder now struck him.

It was highly likely that Runcie Costain had sent them on their task. They wouldn't have done it off their own bat.

And – again, Henry thought – had Freddy been used as a lure to draw Terry Cromer out into the open and kill him? Had that been their strategy: kidnap and lure?

Too many questions, not enough answers.

Henry now wanted to reverse out of this situation and reappraise things. He had been acting on impulse, which was often his downfall.

But he also didn't want anyone else to lose their lives.

The words ‘rock' and ‘hard place' sprang to mind.

The Costains needed to know about the deaths in the family (if they didn't already know), and it was Henry's responsibility to tell them. But at the same time, Runcie might well have been the person who effectively sent them on the mission that led to their deaths.

Question was – should he now execute a flawless, unobserved exit, or finish what he'd started?

In his mind he sifted through this dilemma in milliseconds, signals surging through the dendrites in his head like a mini electrical storm.

His decision was to get out, regroup, then return with backup so that he would be in control of the situation, not be one cop versus a bunch of drunks likely to kick off just for fun.

He needed to establish a very visible police presence on Shoreside to dissuade Terry Cromer from attempting anything. He also had to get a few detectives together and come up very quickly with a well-structured plan. And he needed resources. He needed a lot of things.

So he backed away, stepped over a drunken body that had slumped down behind him and retreated down the driveway.

As he guessed, no one moaned and begged him to stay. One kid told him to fuck off again. Another spat at him, though most of the spittle dribbled down the kid's chin.

He started to walk back to his car, pulling out his PR and calling Blackpool comms.

‘Any uniformed officer on any non-urgent call needs to be immediately redeployed to Shoreside,' he instructed. ‘Tell them to meet me where the shops used to be on Fairview Road for a quick briefing. I need a hi-viz presence here as of now, not just one lone patrol, everyone in yellow jackets, please.' He waited for the patrol inspector to pipe up and whine, which he did. Henry listened to him, stopping in mid-stride as he explained firmly what he needed.

He stopped on the corner of the road close to where he'd left his car and the uniformed officer. He gave the PC a wave as he talked to the inspector, and as he turned, he looked back towards the Costain house.

‘I know it's an imposition,' Henry was saying, trying to schmooze the guy, who was rightfully miffed about someone else deciding how his officers should be deployed. ‘But one cop won't be enough.' As he said the last word, a feeling of dread coursed through him. In disbelief, he pulled the PR away from his mouth as he saw a car turn into the road about two hundred metres away, its headlights doused as it did so. ‘Shit,' Henry said. He was unable to see the occupants clearly, though there were two of them; they were just black shapes.

The car stopped momentarily.

Transfixed and slack-jawed, Henry watched the car. It was nothing special. A normal, mid-range saloon. Henry thought it was probably Japanese.

Then he saw something poke out of the front passenger window.

Something like a pipe, or a broomstick handle.

Something like the barrel of a gun
.

Henry started to move, a roar on his lips. Reprisal time's here, he thought.

The car suddenly surged forward from a standstill.

Henry ran into the centre of the road, screaming at the people outside the house to get down, waving his arms desperately. No one took any notice of him.

The car's speed increased.

The second salvo in a drugs war, the first one having been fired in Blackburn.

Henry was fifty metres short of the house when the car, hurtling in his direction, drew level with the house.

Over the scream of the engine, Henry heard gunfire. He counted. Six shots, quick succession, as the car shot past the house and then bore down on him.

Part of him was aware of the screams from the partygoers. The images of some of them simply watching the car drive by, mouths open, uncomprehending. Others throwing themselves to the ground, at least one person in his view catching a bullet and spinning backwards like a corkscrew.

And the car coming towards him.

Only metres away. Two seconds at most before impact.

He knew it would strike him about knee level. He half imagined the joints being snapped backwards and the rest of his body smashing onto and splaying across the bonnet, maybe his face hitting the windscreen and then the whole of his body being flipped up and cartwheeled over the car.