The Nothing Job Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Recent Titles by Nick Oldham from Severn House

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Recent Titles by Nick Oldham from Severn House

  BACKLASH

  SUBSTANTIAL THREAT

  DEAD HEAT

  BIG CITY JACKS

  PSYCHO ALLEY

  CRITICAL THREAT

  CRUNCH TIME

  THE NOTHING JOB

  THE NOTHING JOB

  Nick Oldham

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First published in Great Britain and the USA 2009 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  19 Cedar Road, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM2 5DA.

  eBook edition first published in 2014 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Copyright © 2009 by Nick Oldham

  The right of Nick Oldham to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Oldham, Nick, 1956-

  The Nothing Job

  1. Christie, Henry (Fictitious character) - Fiction

  2. Police - England - Blackpool - Fiction 3. Detective and

  mystery stories

  I. Title

  823.9'14[F]

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-6768-1 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-566-6 (ePub)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This eBook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland

  To the memory of my father

  ONE

  She had been chased through the streets half-naked, screaming in terror, her clothing having been ripped from her puny olive-skinned body. Ultimately she had made the mistake of running into a dead-end alley at the back of the shopping centre where her attacker had cornered her. Then in a murderous frenzy the knife had been driven twenty-two times into her chest, neck and face, puncturing an eye, slicing the carotid artery and skewering the heart. She had bled quickly to death in a reeking alleyway in the newest city in north-west England, two thousand miles from her home.

  As DCI Henry Christie stared down at the body, at 3.23 on a balmy early summer morning with the dawn light not too far away, he did not know her identity, nor exactly how many times she had been stabbed. In fact, all he knew was that there was the murdered body of a frail young woman in front of him, splayed brokenly and pathetically between two giant metal rubbish bins, that she had died a brutal, horrifying death – and it was his job to get a murder investigation underway.

  An hour and a half earlier, unable to sleep properly for yet another night, Henry Christie had been sitting in the living room of his recently renovated and redecorated house, which only months before had been virtually destroyed by a deranged arsonist bent on murder and retribution. His eyes were closed but his mind was focused on an image that was over twenty-five years old. It was as clear as a photograph … in fact it was almost exactly the same as the photograph he was holding in his fingers. He opened his gritty eyes and looked at it and saw that there was one minor, critical difference between what his mind recalled and the actual photograph itself.

  Henry sighed and sank back in the armchair, his fingertips holding the edge of the photograph which he knew had been taken with a Pentax K1000, the standard issue of Lancashire Constabulary’s Scenes of Crime Department (as it was then called; now it was CSI) in the early 1980s. He knew this because he’d done a short secondment on SOCO as part of his initial in-force training at the start of his police career. At that time in his life he’d been going through a phase of being interested in photography, hence the memory recall. And he too had also owned a Pentax way back then and remembered the K1000 as being a solid, reliable, if unspectacular camera. Just right for the knocks and bangs of life on SOCO. It was certainly a good enough camera to record the scene of a murder in vivid detail.

  Henry leaned forward, put the photograph down on the smoked-glass coffee table and picked up another from the stack. This one showed a different angle of the same murder scene.

  Then, one by one, he went through the whole set, shuffling and arranging them into a logical order, which made sense to him.

  Firstly there were the shots of the general approach to the scene: from the main road, in through the car-park entrance, then yard by yard (oh, how Henry missed that Imperial measure) up the path which led to the moors; then through another narrow winding path in the pine trees and the point where the body had been discovered.

  There were the tantalizing glimpses of something lying between the trees as the SOCO got closer. Then the body became more distinct and identifiable.

  A ten-year-old girl: abducted, raped, murdered.

  Jenny Colville. The year 1982.

  Henry Christie had been a PC in uniform then. He’d been a tenacious thief-taker working on Task Force on the days just before it was disbanded and the world of policing had moved on when Lord Scarman published his reports into the riots which had stunned Britain and shaken up the cosy ‘old-world’ culture of the cops who thought they could do anything and get away with it.

  Henry, now a chief inspector, fast approaching the time when he could retire if he chose to do so, exhaled another long, deep sigh. His mind was firmly on that day when Jenny’s body had been found.

  His mouth curved into a half-smile, realizing that was the day he’d met Kate Marsden for the first time, later to become his wife, then ex-wife and, full circle, his wife again. She had been out walking her golden retriever – a dog Henry professed to adore – on the moors above Haslingden in the east of Lancashire. She had stumbled across the girl’s body. And that was how he’d met her – over a dead body. Henry, along with the local DI, had been one of the first officers on the scene and he’d been instantly mesmerized by Kate.

  Unable to believe his good luck when the DI tasked him to take a witness statement from this gorgeous young woman, Henry didn’t linger at the scene. But before leaving, he did see the dead girl in situ and like every other dead body he had ever seen, before or after – and there were many – it was a vision that was indelibly imprinted in his brain, like a brand in cowhide. It was filed away for easy reference and consultation when necessary.

  But at that time, Henry did not give the dead girl and the physical evidence surrounding her too much thought. He was busy concentrating on Kate and, to coin a phrase, his
head was a long way up his own arse, being in love and lust at the same time. A fearful combination designed to dull the senses of any man, but particularly one in his early twenties with hormones a-raging. It had taken him this long – a lifetime, a whole career almost – to realize what a naive idiot he’d been to take things for granted, go along with it all, accept his orders and not to question what he innately knew to be false.

  But that is how things were in the good old days – underlings blindly doing what they were told and if they didn’t like it, tough, fuck off.

  Plus there had been no time for Henry to sit back and chew things over. Everything moved at top speed in those days: work, play, work, all in a relentless, unbroken cycle.

  Now, though, as he moved through his silent house into the conservatory, Henry did have time for uncomfortable reflection, brought about by a series of events that had made him do a double-take in 1982 and catch his breath. Because in his hands and in his brain he knew he possessed something which could have a massive effect on the organization that was called Lancashire Constabulary.

  ‘Shit,’ he said quietly and sat down on the cane sofa. He liked the conservatory, probably the only family member who did. However, tonight it was chilly and made him shiver.

  He placed the SOCO photographs on the glass-topped coffee table and squared them into a neat pile. They were all 8 by 6s and still as sharp and as clear as on the day they’d been taken. He wrapped an elastic band around them, slid them back into the envelope, which he tied with string, then placed that into his briefcase. And locked it.

  No wonder I was dumped from that investigation, he thought bitterly, especially after I’d been manipulated to do the dirty deed for the DI. If I’d stayed on it, I would’ve been a possible threat. I might have realized what had happened. I might’ve blabbed.

  Henry stretched his whole body. It was still painful as the cracked ribs and other cuts and bruises he’d received following his last foray into the world of operational policing were slow to heal, even months later. That little jaunt had been the one during which he had discovered the felony that was now troubling him. He needed to stand up and move around again because sitting induced stiffness and soreness. Moving kept the first of these at bay and reduced the latter.

  He rose from the sofa, both he and it creaking, then walked back through the house, eyeing the drinks cabinet set in the new sideboard. A strong whiskey would have been a delight just at that moment, a pleasant accompaniment to the Cuprofen he’d swallowed ten minutes earlier. He paused and touched the handle of the cabinet, trying to resist the temptation. He weakened after a quick check of the wall clock. Surely it would be safe now, he thought. He opened the cabinet and inspected the row of bottles, none full. He picked a Jack Daniel’s and a heavy whiskey glass, pouring just enough of the golden-brown liquid to cover the base. That’s all I need, he thought. 40 per cent proof. Fast, powerful pain relief, plus the tablets, then I’ll be able to ease my aches and pains, get the photos out of my mind and get some sleep.

  ‘Surely no one’s going to get murdered at this time of night,’ he mumbled as he returned to the living room and sank on to the settee, placing the drink on the coffee table, untouched.

  Was it worth the hassle, he thought. To rake up the past, to bring something to light that didn’t matter any more?

  Thing was, he knew that he himself had often been less than one hundred per cent straight down the line, honest and ethical when it came to putting villains behind bars. But there was one line he had never crossed to secure a conviction, even in the days of yore, when such things were rife.

  He had never planted evidence.

  Not like that detective inspector had done all those years before.

  He picked up the glass and held it to his nose, inhaling and savouring the smoky aroma of the spirit. ‘This is tempting fate,’ he said. It was the early hours of Tuesday morning, the first of a seven-night run of being the on-call DCI for the county. Even though he knew he was merely, and gladly, helping out because other DCIs were either on leave, at court or off sick, Henry knew drinking was a no-no. If something happened that required his presence, even the faintest whiff of alcohol would see it being his last night ever. The people further up the chain of command who disliked him would see to that and he didn’t want to give them any ammunition to use against him.

  But drink had been sustaining him recently. Not a lot of it, but regular, small amounts. It had become a habit.

  Please, he thought, no one get killed.

  The glass moved to his bottom lip.

  And the phone rang.

  Sod’s law.

  Instinctively he checked the clock and mentally logged the time, then with relief put the glass down and reached for the phone.

  ‘Henry Christie.’

  He immediately recognized the voice at the other end as that of Chief Inspector Andy Laker.

  ‘You must still be a desperate man,’ Laker said gloating, ‘putting your name down on every call-out rota on the off-chance you might get something.’ Laker’s voice was cynical, mocking.

  Henry held back. Until recently Laker had been the chief constable’s staff officer (or brown-nosed bag-carrier as the role was known colloquially) and during his tenure in that post he and Henry had rubbed each other up the wrong way. There was no love lost between the two men. Laker thought Henry was a long-in-the-tooth dinosaur and Henry thought Laker was a jumped-up twat. However, Laker had been sidelined by the chief and found himself in the role of the control-room chief inspector because, rumour had it, the chief ‘couldn’t stand the smarmy git’. Henry could easily have dropped into a verbal tussle with Laker but did not have the time or inclination.

  ‘I’m assuming there’s a job,’ he said, ‘or have you just called to insult me?’

  ‘I’d like to say just to insult you,’ Laker chuckled, ‘but sadly there is a job. Can you cover it?’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Body of a female discovered by an armed-response unit in Preston. Looks as if she’s been stabbed.’

  Henry felt a surge of adrenaline rush into his system.

  TWO

  ‘Two questions: what the hell are you doing on duty and out in division at this time of night and why even drive down the back street?’

  Henry had directed his queries at the bulky but fit figure of PC Bill Robbins, a headquarters firearms trainer, but for that night only he was the armed-response patrol referred to by Andy Laker. He had been the one who had made the gruesome discovery.

  Robbins blew out his cheeks in an exaggerated, pissed-off way. ‘Effin’ silly idea from the dream factory,’ he moaned, talking about the initiative from headquarters, a place often referred to as the dream factory by cops out at the sharp end. ‘Working shifts out in division, as well as training … I’m back in the firing range teaching an initial firearms course at ten this morning, knackered.’

  Now Henry remembered. Last time he’d bumped into Bill, he’d been doing the same but in another division.

  ‘Might as well apply for a transfer out of training to a division. At least I’d only be doing one job. All I need is a brush up my arse,’ he continued.

  Henry patted him on the shoulder. The two men went back a long way, having worked together briefly as uniformed constables in the early eighties. ‘Never mind, mate.’

  ‘As for the other question – I was bored and nosy.’

  ‘Not a good combination.’

  ‘So I was just moochin’, seein’ how far I could get the car up various alleyways … as you do. Found her purely by chance.’

  Henry looked closely into Bill’s eyes. ‘And are you OK? It’s a pretty horrible thing to find.’

  ‘Oh, aye. Seen worse.’

  Henry had asked the question because last time he and Robbins had been flung together it had ended up with two of their colleagues being brutally murdered and Henry and the firearms officer coming face-to-face with a deranged suicide-bomber. He knew Robbins was made of ste
rn stuff, though – but as a boss, it was something he had to ask.

  ‘Don’t really affect me,’ Robbins added. ‘How about you, pal?’

  ‘Bearing up,’ Henry said.

  Robbins nodded sagely.

  The two officers were standing in Friargate, one of Preston’s main shopping streets. They were at the junction with Anchor Court, which was the name of the alley in which the dead girl had been discovered. A police crime-scene tape had been drawn across the entrance, and down the alley emergency lighting had been brought in and switched on to enable a proper investigation of the death scene.

  The man now bending over the body stood upright and began to peel off his latex gloves as he walked back towards Henry, who was standing on the public side of the crime-scene tape. The man was back-lit by the mobile lighting, making him a silhouette and accentuating the fact that his big ears stuck out at right angles from the side of his head like handles of a football trophy. He was a thin man and the baggy white paper suit he wore for forensic purposes billowed loosely on his frame.

  ‘I’ll get my statement done, if that’s OK,’ Robbins said to Henry.

  Henry turned to the firearms officer. ‘Yeah, Bill, that’d be good.’

  Robbins headed to his car and Henry rotated back to the figure in the alley, who had just reached the tape. Henry folded his arms. ‘What’s the verdict, Prof?’

  The man was Dr Baines, the Home Office pathologist, someone Henry had known for many years and had discussed many a brutal murder and post-mortem with over a pint or two. Henry hadn’t seen much of him of late as the murders he had recently investigated had been covered by a much prettier female pathologist who’d stood in for Baines whilst he’d been attending various conferences and seminars on dental forensics, which was his specialism.

  ‘Well,’ Baines declared, snapping off the second glove, ‘you probably know as much as I do at this moment in time.’

  ‘Professor,’ Henry said, ‘you are paid an absolute mint for your incisive knowledge and vast experience and it’s not really good enough to say I know as much as you do; you are supposed to know more than me.’ The words were spoken in jest.