Nightmare City (26 page)

‘
Exactly - and funnily enough, we have a vacancy for a
Detective Sergeant right now. The last one died on the
job.’

Chapter Twelve

Henry Christie’s ears were not burning. He was far too busy to
even contemplate that others could be talking about him, as once
again his sleep pattern had been very much interrupted. It was past
midnight when he finally got into bed, having spent much of the
evening cruising the streets, seedier pubs and guest-houses in
Blackburn with Lucy Crane to try and find some of Marie Cullen’s
colleagues who might be able to add a bit of background to the dead
girl. It was a fruitless and frustrating night.

A uniformed cop knocking on his front door at 6.30 a.m. had
been the precursor to another horrendous day in
Blackpool.

Henry, in a deep, dreamless sleep, had been the only member of
his family to hear the knocking, or at least the only one to
respond to it. He dragged himself downstairs, feeling like the man
in the toothpaste advert with halitosis-laden germs dancing a jig
on his furred tongue.

When he opened the door his heart dropped. He thought he was
about to be given bad news concerning Nina. He had phoned the
hospital from home before going to bed and was told she had taken a
turn for the worse: critical-likely to prove. Henry assumed the
Police Constable was here to tell him the news personally. He
steeled himself for the punch.

He expected an upper cut from the right.

The head-butt to the bridge of his nose caught him completely
by surprise and toppled him over, figuratively speaking.

He had to make the PC repeat it three times because his brain
refused to take it in.

Derek Luton dead? Found shot to death on his front doorstep?
Looks like his brains have been blown out? Wife almost catatonic?
Derek Luton?

Dead?

Henry couldn’t get his head round the enormity of it. Not
enough sleep. Head’s a shed. Too much going on in too short a space
of time.

Degsy Luton dead?

Henry finally raced upstairs, threw on yesterday’s gear,
underwear included, then got into his car and drove directly to the
scene, Luton’s house in Blackpool north shore, which had not yet
been touched by scenes of crime.

Yep, Henry could confirm it. He had had his brains blown out.
What a fucking mess. Henry had to steady himself as a flash of
memory snapped into his mind’s eye - another world away, but still
vivid and recurring - of a man who had had his brains shot out
right in front of him.

He took a deep breath, pulled himself together and got to work
- directing, delegating, informing those who had to be told, going
into automatic crime-scene management. He was aware, again, that
his acting rank meant that everyone was waiting for him and that as
senior detective on the scene, he was in charge. It gave him a
slight feeling of excitement and, if he’d been questioned about it,
he would have admitted enjoying it. The role, that is. Not this
particular situation.

Once everything was underway, he went next door to where Annie
was being comforted by a policewoman and a neighbour. A GP had
administered some calming drugs to her, with a prescription for
more. The doctor was just leaving when Henry arrived.

He sat down next to Annie on the edge of the settee. Luton’s
widow stared blankly ahead, her fingers twisted into tight fists. A
mug of tea, untouched, was on the coffee table.

‘
Annie,’ he said softly. He placed an arm around her shoulder.
She jumped as if she’d been pinched, looked at Henry and realised
who he was. She turned into him, gripping him, burying her head
into his chest. She released a wail-cum-scream which shook her
whole being from head to toe and held on tighter to Henry as the
tears began to pour out. Henry held on, too, making reassuring
noises, stroking her hair and trying not to cry himself.

He spent much of the morning with her, not wishing to delegate
this particular unenviable task to anyone else. Not that he was a
great one for dealing with grief. Actually he was very poor at
it.

In over six hours’ gentle coaxing, Annie did not say anything
which was of any use to Henry. She was a bubbling wreck, unable to
string two words together without bursting into tears. Henry did
not push. That would have been counter-productive. By the same
token it meant the police were getting nowhere at a fast rate of
knots. And Annie was the only witness they had at that moment in
time.

Whilst Henry was grappling with the problem of having to draw
information out from a distressed witness, another problem which he
had wrongly assumed might have gone away reared its head in the
form of an ugly skinhead called Shane Mulcahy.

Since his discharge from hospital, Shane had spent the last
remnants of his and his girlfriend’s dole money on a concoction of
drink, drugs and a Chinese takeaway - this despite her
protestations that they needed the money to buy food for them and
the baby. He’d simply smacked her open-handed across the face, then
given her a kick up the arse when she hit the floor. ‘Don’t fuckin’
tell me how to spend our money.’

For fourteen hours he had been in a state of inebriation
coupled with the combined whizz-bang effect of amphets and the
monosodium glutamate in the sweet-and-sour chicken. ‘Near total
bliss’ would have been Shane’s poetic attempt to describe his
condition; however, there was little that was poetic about Shane
and he chose to describe it as, ‘Great, been outta my fuckin’
‘ead.’

He awoke face down on the bare floorboards of
the bedsit he shared with Jodie Flew and their
offspring. His nose was pressed against the hard wood with dribble
having collected in a pool around his cheeks. He wiped his face as
he pushed himself into a sitting position. He felt rougher than a
bear’s arse - a comparison he often used because it suited his
sense of
humour - and in his mouth there
was a taste he could not quite place: somewhere between vomit and
sugar. A pain bolted across his head behind his eyes, like a surge
of
electricity between two electrodes. He
swore.

It did not occur to him to wonder why he was on the floor. It
was a position he often awoke to.

Jodie was asleep on the mattress.

The baby gurgled happily in a cot in the corner of
the room. Shane heard it fart.

He tried to stand up. When he moved he winced. His lower
abdomen felt as though a scalpel had been left in by the surgeon.
But in comparison to the previous day, the pain was
ebbing.

He dressed himself in the jeans he’d worn for the last two
months – he was proud of
their unwashed
state - found a crumpled T-shirt underneath the TV set and put his
denim jacket and stolen Doc Marten boots on. Ready for the day
ahead. He left the meagre living accommodation without bothering to
disturb Jodie or the baby. He didn’t really want to have anything
to do with either of
them.

Next stop was his solicitor.

The stop after that was Blackpool Central police
station.

It was busy at the enquiry desk. Lots of
press and TV people seemed to have camped out there, covering
the spectacular crime wave which was coursing through Blackpool
that week.

Shane and his legal representative were kept waiting for
twenty minutes. The skinhead became increasingly agitated. When at
last the Civilian Public Enquiry assistant beckoned to him, he
stalked across, leaned on the counter and put his aggressive face
right up to hers. His red-raw eyes were wide and menacing, his
features distorted into a snarl, examples of
which had been captured by media photographs of
skinheads many, many times over the years. ‘I
want to make a complaint of
assault
against the police, luv,’ he said.

She recoiled in disgust from his pungent breath and body odour
and the threat of violence. ‘I’ll get the Duty Inspector,’ she
said. Her nose was screwed up because there was a bad smell under
it.

‘
So that leaves Munrow,’ Conroy said. ‘I mean, what’s the
fucking judicial system coming to these days? That bastard got
nineteen years, f’fuck’s sake. Shouldn’t nineteen
mean
nineteen? The guy
is a menace to society - and that’s a quote direct from the judge
himself.’

‘
That’s what you paid him to say,’ interjected McNamara with a
laugh. He was feeling better now that some action was going to be
taken on his problem.

‘
Yeah, he did a good job, God rest his soul. Pity we didn’t
have any influence on the prison board,’ whined Conroy. ‘So,’ he
said, turning to Morton, ‘come on, Mister Problem-solver
Extraordinaire - put your mind to this one.’

‘
He either needs to be brought into the fold, rather like
Henry Christie, or possibly paid off - or eliminated,’ Morton
responded, counting his fingers as he ticked off the
choices.

‘
Well, I can’t talk to the man. He makes me wanna stick an
iron bar around his head as soon as I see him, so the first one’s
out of the question,’ Conroy replied, using his own fingers.
‘Secondly I don’t want to pay him one single chuffin’ cent, so you
can forget that one.’ He held up three fingers. ‘I like the sound
of the third option - kill the cunt.’

‘
But you’ve already said you haven’t got anyone capable of
going up against him,’ McNamara pointed out.

‘
Doesn’t mean I don’t want the bastard rotting in hell,’
Conroy said sullenly.

Silence descended on the room and the three men watched each
other thinking.

‘
He does need to be sorted,’ Morton said. ‘One way or the
other, for the sake of credibility. No one’s going to do business
with us if we can’t keep our house in order.’

They fell silent again.

McNamara lit another cigar. Morton poured a coffee. Conroy bit
his nails and played with his pony tail.

‘
How about a professional?’ suggested McNamara.

‘
Be just my luck to hire an undercover cop. To be honest with
you, boys, I don’t actually know any professionals, believe it or
not. I know people you can pay as little as five hundred dabs to.
They’re ten a penny in Salford, and any nigger in Moss Side’ll have
a crack - but they’re all so fuckin’ unreliable. Munrow would
probably drop them first. The only person I know who could do it
properly, if he was wound up enough, would be John Rider. But he
doesn’t want to get involved. He’s gone completely cuckoo. In his
day I would’ve put him on a par with Munrow, maybe above for being
a violent sod. Now he’s a bit of a wreck, really.’

‘
He saved your life,’ McNamara said.

‘
True, true.’

‘
If he had a reason to kill Munrow, do you think he would?’
Morton asked.

‘
What d’you mean?’ Conroy looked puzzled.

‘
What I’m saying is - give him a reason and he might just do
the job for you. But give him a reason. Quick.’

‘
This is getting to be Nightmare City,’ said Detective Chief
Superintendent Fanshaw-Bayley. He and Henry were walking down the
rear yard at Blackpool police station. ‘I appreciate you’ve got a
lot on your plate at the moment, Henry, but you need to pull out
the stops and solve this one PDQ. The Chief Constable is going
berserk. Seems to be an open season on cops in this town this week
and she wants results, like yesterday. And she’s ordered two more
ARVs into town to go high profile. I’m gonna bring Ronnie Veevers
in to head this one.’

‘
You’d better throw resources at it,’ Henry said. He’d once
been the victim of FB’s penny-pinching ways (or so he thought) and
this time he didn’t want to start out at a disadvantage. ‘That’s
the only way you’ll make progress on this one.’

‘
Is there any reason to think all these shootings are
connected?’ asked FB. They entered the ground floor of the station
and walked towards the lift.

‘
It shouldn’t be ruled out,’ Henry ruminated, ‘but so far I
can’t see a link.’ The lift arrived eventually and they stepped
into the small space. ‘The DS in the newsagents; I don’t know a
great deal about it, but I’m pretty uncomfortable with what I know,
but it’s not my pigeon, thank God. Then Nina getting shot by
Dundaven . . . now Derek. What could be the link? The only one I
can think of is the North-West Organised Crime Squad. The DS was on
it, Nina was shot by someone who was one of their targets and Derek
was working along with them. And let’s not forget the gorilla in
the zoo which has generated more media interest than all three of
those put together. Poor old Boris. Shot out of his
tree.’

‘
Is the NWOCS linked to that one in some way?’ asked a
mystified FB.

Henry gave a short laugh. ‘Not unless Boris was working
undercover for them, too.’

‘
But other than Tony Morton’s crew, there’s really no
connection – so far.’

‘
So far, no. Even the NWOCS’s connection is clutching at
straws. There’s nothing to say that all three got shot because of
their dealings with it. It just happens to be there, that’s
all.’