Bad Tidings (5 page)

‘Henry,' she began firmly.

‘Fine, fine.' He held up his hands, palms outward, surrendering.

‘I'll be there when you get back, whenever that is,' she stated.

Henry blew out his cheeks and looked at the murder files with annoyance, thinking,
Best laid plans and all that crap
.

But he was mostly annoyed with himself for having said yes to FB. If he'd said no, at least all he would have had to contend with was his mother. It would have been hard, but he could have handled that – to-ing and fro-ing to Kendleton and back without having to think about work as well. But two murders on top was pushing it.

And it wasn't as though he could shelve the murders until New Year, as he'd cheekily suggested to FB.

And that sneaky bastard FB knew that.

Henry opened the second file.

Murder number two: David Peters.

A fairly dull middle-aged man who had led, by all accounts, a fairly uneventful life. What made him interesting was that he had been having an affair with one of his employees, and had vanished – on Christmas Eve again, after an assignation with this woman at a motel in the middle of Blackpool – exactly one year after Christine Blackshaw had disappeared off the streets of Blackburn.

He had been reported missing by his fairly indifferent wife on Christmas Day, not having returned after a drink with his mate, but the police did not treat the matter with much urgency. He was a grown man, it was
that
time of year, and she didn't seem to care very much. She had reported him missing simply because she felt she had to and the turkey was in the oven. At the time of the initial report there was no mention of Peters having an extra-marital relationship.

Only when he hadn't turned up four days later did anyone become concerned.

The missing from home (MFH) file landed in the lap of a keen young PC who would rather have binned it, but decided to do some digging. This is how he, without too much difficulty, discovered Peters' affair and exactly what the man had been doing on the evening he went missing: fucking. Not boozing with an old friend, as he had led his wife to believe.

Even so, this new information led the police to believe merely that maybe he had decided to vanish for a while and contemplate his life, as men of his age often stupidly did.

When his body turned up on New Year's Day, the cops swung into action. Sort of.

The case should have been allocated to Henry because the body had been found in his area of geographic responsibility, but because he was otherwise engaged it was given to Speakman instead.

At the time it obviously wasn't known that Speakman had become embroiled in a whole bunch of criminality that emanated from his purchase of a villa in Cyprus and his association with a crooked local businessman in the north of the county. This meant he didn't concentrate as much as he should have done on David Peters' death. But Speakman did make the connection with the murder of Christine Blackshaw, something he could hardly miss.

Henry read through the pathologist's report on Peters' post-mortem.

The body had been discovered on farmland on the outskirts of Poulton-le-Fylde, near Blackpool. Two bullets to the brain had been what had killed him.

But his body had also been badly burned, set alight having been doused in petrol. The difference between the discovery of his body and that of Christine Blackshaw was that Peters had been found in an unused chicken coop in a secluded copse on the edge of a farmer's field. It was a wooden building that hadn't been used for years, but had been well constructed. It looked as though Peters had been held in this location – in the space underneath the floor – since his disappearance and had spent a week of terror at the hands of the perpetrator before being killed. The coop was then razed to the ground, Peters' body being found in the ashes.

Initially the death was treated as another standalone, but as the forensics, ballistics and scientific teams got together, the links to Blackshaw became clear.

First there was the tie-up with the bullets. The same gun had been used to murder both victims, a .22 calibre which shot bullets into the brain that rattled around the skull like the Tasmanian Devil, but did not exit. Good news for the cops, bad for the offender.

Next link was the general MO. Both victims kidnapped on the same day, a year apart, Christmas Eve. Both held for a week and their bodies found on New Year's Day.

Blackshaw, the female, had been dumped and set alight in a wheelie bin, but Peters was burned where, it was believed, he had been held captive all week. It had never been discovered where Blackshaw had been held.

Both victims were approximately the same age, mid forties.

Both had been born in the borough of Hyndburn . . . but that may just have been coincidental, because thousands of people were born there – though Henry always liked to see coincidences in murder hunts, as they often led to clues. As far as he was concerned a clue in a murder hunt always meant that the killer had made a mistake.

The icing on the cake, though, discovered on the post-mortem slab by the pathologist as he inspected every crevice and orifice, was that the mouths of both victims had been stuffed with chicken feathers.

Henry closed the murder books. He stared vacantly at the wall in front of him, then shook his head and looked at the time. Almost 11 p.m. . . . Christmas Eve, and he hadn't even had a drink.

‘Shit,' he said, his mind turning all this information over and coming back to the feathers. Because not only had there been feathers in the victims' mouths, an examination of their stomach contents revealed that they had been forced to eat the feathers, too.

Henry felt unwell at the thought as he worked through this pivotal piece of information. He was spitting feathers at that moment, desperate for a drink.

Force fed chicken feathers, he thought. He shuffled out his mobile phone and despite the hour dialled a number, which went through to answerphone. He left a curt message, then called another number, also not answered, and left a message on that one too.

Then he stood up and stretched. He walked back towards the cardiac unit, but was almost hurled out of the way as a white-coated doctor shot past him. Henry's insides did a back-flip.

He found a team of doctors and nurses working with urgent efficiency on his mother, one of them desperately pumping her frail chest, inside of which her heart had stopped.

Another nurse stepped forward brandishing the defibrillator paddles which had been powered up.

Incredibly she survived the pounding, then the defib – which jarred her meagre body terribly – and the infusion of drugs, the doctors and nurses doing wonderful work whilst Henry watched wordlessly, an empty feeling inside him.

After they had all gone, Henry sat by her bed and clasped her hand again, stroking it gently, knowing this time she wouldn't be leaving hospital alive.

At 2 a.m., after doing a nodding dog impersonation for several minutes, he knew he had to get to his own bed.

He texted Lisa and his daughters to bring them up to speed with the latest news and noticed that he had also received two texts. Having responded to both, he collected the murder files from his newly acquired office, returned the key to the nurse with grateful thanks and headed home.

It was strange to see the lights on as he drove down the avenue towards it. But it was also good to know that the woman he loved was waiting there for his arrival.

He was up by eight on Christmas Day, having had five hours of dead-black sleep. Alison was already up and making breakfast for them from the paltry resources available. Since being with Alison he had spent less and less time at the house and as a result, fresh food and drink was almost non-existent. Alison managed to find a frozen loaf of bread and a pack of bacon in the freezer, and some ground coffee in a sealed container which still smelled fresh. The tasty Christmas Day breakfast she fashioned from the ingredients was waiting for Henry when he appeared downstairs after a long, invigorating shower.

‘Merry Christmas,' Alison declared. They hugged, a move that still sent a shiver of pleasure through both of them.

‘And you,' he said.

They stepped apart and suddenly there was a small box in Alison's hand, wrapped in golden Xmas paper. ‘Merry Christmas,' she said again and urged Henry to take the present.

‘Shit,' he said guility.

‘Go on – open it.'

He did so under her gaze. It was a Breitling watch, which made Henry gasp with admiration. ‘You shouldn't have . . . I mean, really you shouldn't.' He slid it onto his wrist after removing the battered Casio digital one he wore for work and admired it. ‘It must have cost—'

‘Don't go there,' she warned him.

Their eyes locked. Henry said, ‘Thanks,' swallowing.

She gave a petite shrug.

‘Look . . . I . . . er . . .' he stuttered.

‘It doesn't matter.'

‘It does, actually.' He held up a finger and dashed into the living room, returning a moment later, a crooked grin on his face and a present of his own in the palm of his hand, his hand clasped tight around the package.

He spoke hesitantly, feeling awkward. ‘I didn't quite envisage Christmas Day being like this – two murders and Mum almost in her grave . . . but what is, is,' he shrugged philosophically. He held out his right hand, palm up . . .

T
wo pairs of eyes glowered at Henry Christie. They belonged to police officers of much lower rank than he – a detective inspector, a detective constable – but this disparity in position did not prevent either man staring malevolently and insubordinately at him. Because at that moment in time, both hated him with a vengeance.

‘Whaaat?' Henry said innocently as he entered his office and slid behind his desk, slapping down the two murder files on his ink blotter.

At 9.30 a.m. on Christmas Day, Henry already knew the answer to his somewhat rhetorical question.

He had left a text message for both men the night before, outlining his requirements – that both of them parade for duty the following morning in his office and brace themselves for a tough week ahead.

Christmas Day. A public holiday.

Henry knew that no one else was on duty in FMIT, or covering the Intelligence Unit at headquarters, the departments to which these men were attached. Obviously some staff were on standby call-out rotas, but there wasn't a soul to be seen in either department.

The DI was Rik Dean, his old friend and colleague, and possibly his future brother-in-law, although the recent conversations he'd had with his sister Lisa made him think that union might not be happening – but to be honest, he'd lost track of where they were up to. Henry had fought to get Rik onto FMIT and been successful in his manoeuvrings.

The other was Jerry Tope, a DC from the Intel Unit. Tope, a curmudgeon of a man, grumpy to the extreme right of the dwarf of the same name, had worked for Henry on several occasions over the past few years.

Henry could forgive them their expressions of hatred. He knew how good both were at their jobs – and he knew, of course, he had seriously interrupted their Christmas celebrations.

Neither man responded to his ‘What?' question, because they also knew the answer. Both should have been off work that day and the next, and they were none too chuffed about the summons. Financially it wasn't too bad for Tope, because as a DC he could claim double time for the public holiday. But that didn't hold for Rik. Inspectors and above didn't get paid extra for overtime or public holidays, though he would be entitled to time off in lieu, as would Henry. Reality was, though, that neither man would ever find the time to take it off.

‘Henry, I'm not being funny, but this better be good,' Rik grumbled. ‘I checked the pads this morning for the last twenty-four hours and nothing's happened to interest FMIT.'

‘Yuh, I checked too,' Tope flared up. ‘Bugger all's happened – just run-of-the-mill crap. Certainly nothing for a desk jockey like me.'

Henry laid his hands flat on the two files and pushed them forward in much the same way that FB had done the night before. ‘No,' he said. ‘You're right. Nothing has come in overnight – not yet, anyway. But that doesn't mean we don't have murders to solve, or prevent.'

The four surly eyes opposite dropped to the thick files, both men now with puzzled expressions on their faces.

‘Two, to be precise,' Henry went on. He looked at Rik, whose expression changed to one of understanding. Rik had been one of the team working with Henry on Joe Speakman's mess and obviously knew about the unsolved murders still on file. The expression then became one of horror and Henry said, answering the look, ‘Foisted on me just before I could sneak out last night. FB's Christmas present – the wonderfully christened Twixtmas Killings.'

‘And how come we're involved?' Tope enquired, pointing to himself, then Rik.

‘Because . . . because I say so,' Henry returned petulantly, thinking,
I'm a fucking superintendent, that's why!
He could have got narky at that point but instead he softened, not wanting to lose these two guys. ‘Look – you're two cops I trust to do a brilliant job . . . I know it's inconvenient . . . Christ, I'm supposed to be off this week,' he said, looking into their eyes, expecting and getting no sympathy. ‘The problem is, we – the cops – picked up on it too late that there's a connection between these two murders and, I know it's shit, but I want to be in a position to run instantly with anything that comes in this week . . .'

‘Disappeared Christmas Eve, turned up dead on New Year's Day,' Jerry Tope said. He knew the cases, too.

Henry nodded. ‘Both of them. Hence the name.'

‘Yeah, I know,' Tope said resignedly.

‘You didn't work either murder for Joe, though, did you, Jerry?'

‘No. Speakman always used the same crew . . . Jenny Goodwin was his usual Intel cell leader.'