Critical Threat hc-10 Read online

  The staff officer, whose name was Laker, had obviously expected Henry to be in his office in Blackpool. He was actually at the headquarters training centre on a two-day Race and Diversity course for middle managers, having a mid-morning coffee break in the main dining room. He swigged down his bitter, machine-brewed latte and rose from the circle of other course participants gathered glumly around the table and strutted out to the student resource room next to the training centre reception. He sat down at a free computer and logged in to the system. He opened a word document and bashed out a short, pithy request, hammering the keyboard with his bitten fingertips, hoping that his frustration would pass itself from key to letter. He then printed it off, signed it, logged out.

  As he left reception, he passed his shell-shocked classmates trooping back for the next session about transsexuals in the workplace and how to manage them. He could not even be bothered to ask one of them to apologize to the trainer on his behalf for his non-appearance.

  He wended his way across the grounds, through the leafy trees and down by the side of the former student accommodation block which had been converted into offices to house the headquarters section of FMIT some years before.

  He knew that Detective Chief Superintendent Anger was still sitting pretty in his first-floor office, and it made him shiver, propelling him into a short power-walk across the path that dissected the sports pitches outside headquarters and led directly to its front door. The automatic sliding doors opened and he passed through something resembling an air lock on a space ship into the foyer where he haughtily ignored the receptionist and bore left to the stairs, which doglegged up to the first floor. A man on a mission. He swiped his cardkey through the machine and he was granted access on to the corridor off which all the chief officers had their hidey-holes.

  It was the only wide corridor in the building, the only one in which it was possible to pass shoulder to shoulder with someone without having to stand aside and let them pass. The only carpeted one that did not creak. Even those thoughts drew a snarl of contempt on Henry’s face. As much as he despised it in himself, he could not stop himself from growing more bitter all the time.

  He did not even bother to knock on the door which led into the office housing the chief constable’s and the deputy chief constable’s bag carriers, as the staff officers were mockingly known, and admin support. He just opened it, breezed in, and without acknowledging anyone else in the room, focused on his target and strode across to Chief Inspector Andy Laker. New to both job and rank he looked a little shocked into Henry’s glaring eyes as though he was just a probationer faced with one of the many dinosaurs in the force.

  ‘Henry,’ Laker said with a shaky swallow and a rise and fall of the Adam’s apple. He quickly pulled himself together. ‘I thought you were in-’

  ‘Blackpool? Nah.’ Henry smiled falsely. He handed his hastily concocted report to Laker, suddenly aware that two lines of text — one and a half lines to be exact — seemed woefully inadequate.

  Laker glanced at it with an expression of resignation, then looked wickedly up at Henry. ‘I didn’t know your surname was Christ.’ There was a degree of malicious pleasure in his tone.

  ‘What?’ Henry heard a muffled guffaw from the staff behind him. He snatched the report back. He had indeed written ‘Christ’ instead of ‘Christie’ in his angry eagerness to get it done. Typing was not one of his strong points at the best of times, being a two-fingered thumper. He stole a quick glance at the others in the office — two secretaries and an inspector who was the deputy chief’s staff officer. They had been watching Henry’s antics, but their eyes dropped with alacrity as he looked round at them with madman eyes. They were all suddenly glued to the work on their desks, not a sign of a snigger on any of their faces.

  Henry’s attention returned to his report. ‘Typo,’ he said, sniffing, found a pen on Laker’s desk and added the missing letters of his name as neatly as possible.

  ‘Thought you might be getting ideas above your station,’ Laker commented as he took the amended report back between his finger and thumb and dropped it into his in-tray. ‘See what I can do.’

  ‘Sooner rather than later.’

  ‘It’ll be processed,’ Laker said with a shrug and Henry knew he had to back off. Pursuing the pen-pushing idiot too far would result in the request finding its way to the bottom of the pile — again and again.

  ‘Thanks.’ Henry swallowed and turned to leave just as the door to the chief constable’s office opened and the man himself appeared with one of the divisional commanders, the chief superintendent in charge of Blackburn division, their meeting having ended. They were having a bit of a chuckle at something, then shook hands. The divisional commander bade the office a grand goodbye, then left.

  ‘Right, good,’ said the chief. He turned, saw Henry — but looked right through him — and without saying a further word retreated into his cosy office, closing the door.

  Henry’s nostrils flared. It was almost as though the guy didn’t know him. Twisting to Laker, he said, ‘Can I see him now?’

  Laker shook his head, his supercilious eyes half shut, a slight grin on his lips. ‘Appointments.’

  Suddenly the chief’s door reopened and the tubby incumbent poked his head out, bellowing across at Laker, who winced, ‘What’s next? Completely forgotten.’

  ‘Erm …’ Laker consulted his computer, tapping on the keyboard to bring up the chief’s electronic diary. Henry’s eyes zoomed in on the screen and even before Laker had seen it, Henry said, ‘It says “office”, sir,’ over his shoulder. ‘Next appointment half an hour.’

  ‘Right, ta.’

  ‘Henry,’ Laker growled warningly under his breath, sensing the next move.

  ‘So could I possibly bob in and have a quick word? Sir? If that’s not too presumptuous?’

  He was unimpressed.

  ‘Downright bloody cheeky, not presumptuous,’ the chief constable corrected Henry, pointing him to the low leather sofa in his office with a flick of the finger. ‘This’d better be quick. I don’t do unannounced visits. Sit.’

  The sofa was just comfortable enough. Not too soft so as to let someone sink into it, but just enough to lull them into a false sense of security. Henry sat, but didn’t lean back. Instead, his elbows were dug into his knees, his fingers loosely interlocked in front of him.

  The chief sat on the arm of the leather chair opposite: management body language for ‘You’re not staying long, mate.’ A large, beech-framed, glass-topped coffee table divided the two men.

  ‘Well?’

  There was a slight hesitation as Henry gathered together his thoughts, staring at the carpet. He hadn’t actually expected to be sitting across from the chief constable so PDQ and he didn’t want to blow it through lack of preparation. He pursed his lips and looked up.

  Robert Fanshaw-Bayley — known as FB — was the chief constable of Lancashire Constabulary. FB was an affectionate term used by the people he hadn’t yet wronged. ‘That ’effin’ bastard’ was a phrase often bandied about by those leaving his company less than pleased with the result, ensuring that FB also stood for something not very nice. He had been a career detective who had risen surely through the ranks within Lancashire, clinching the helm of the organization following a short stint out of force.

  He and Henry went back a long way and they had always maintained a less than healthy relationship, biased in favour of FB, who used Henry’s skills, often ruthlessly, to achieve results, then discarded him when it suited. Henry had once believed that FB quite liked him and he definitely had some good things to thank him for, but that belief had just been another example of Henry’s naivety. Since the incident with Dave Anger, when Henry had expected FB to be ruthless, the chief constable had actually dropped Henry like a handful of hot cat shit.

  FB waited.

  ‘I just want to know what’s happening, that’s all.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘With me and Anger, of course,�
� he said irritably. ‘I’m still holed up as a temp DCI in FMIT and he’s still the department head. He’s still running the show like nothing’s happened and I’m sat there with my thumb up my ring piece. My life is a bloody misery and I’ve done nowt to deserve it, except stand up to a bully. The only thing that’s kept me sane is the Trent trial.’

  ‘Well, you know’ — the chief twisted his head as though his neck was hurting, but Henry recognized it as a monstrous nervous tic — ‘these things move slowly.’

  ‘Boss — I’m the victim in all this and I’m the one on the ropes here. The guy who harassed me, damaged my car, is still my boss and now I’m starting to pick up the vibes that I’m the baddie in all this and that no one wants to know me.’

  ‘Henry — I feel like flicking your fat, blubbering bottom lip and making you go, blub, blub, blub like a babykins.’ FB’s face hardened. ‘You’ve got a whiney voice and you feel sorry for yourself — snap out of it!’

  Henry bridled. Heat ran up his spine. He sat bolt upright. ‘I have the right to know what’s happening. No one has been in contact with me, no one at all. You and me go back one hell of a long way and I deserve something from you at least.’ Henry’s mouth tightened. ‘Have the divvy commanders rallied round him, the other chief supers? Am I screwed career-wise?’

  FB shuffled uncomfortably, pulling at his collar, which was tight fitting around his plump neck. ‘The divisional commanders are a pretty influential lobby.’

  Henry shook his head in disgust. He sat back, unable to conceal his cynicism. ‘And is it true about the footage I got of him trashing my car?’

  FB’s body language began to leak like a drain, reinforcing Henry’s position even more. ‘Is what true?’ he croaked.

  ‘Unexplainably gone AWOL.’

  FB looked away.

  ‘It bloody has, hasn’t it?’ Henry had only ear-wagged a rumour that the film he’d managed to obtain of Dave Anger merrily smashing his Mondeo to pieces had gone walkabout. There had been nothing confirmed about it — until now.

  ‘I’m afraid it has.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ Henry sighed.

  ‘These things happen.’

  Henry slumped back on to the sofa, his face angled towards the ceiling. ‘Was anybody going to tell me officially?’

  ‘At an appropriate moment, of course, yes.’

  ‘I take it the mobile phone records are still intact?’ He was now referring to the phone company records of the text messages that Anger had sent him, mostly of a threatening nature.

  ‘They are.’

  ‘Well, that’s something.’ Henry chewed the inside of his cheek noisily for a while as though chewing the cud. ‘This ain’t going anywhere, is it?’

  ‘Probably not,’ FB said, pouting.

  ‘And what’s happened to my extra pip?’ He touched his shoulder. Now he was talking about the promotion to the substantive rank of chief inspector FB had promised him, which had never materialized. At the moment Henry was still temporary in the rank, which meant it could be taken away from him in the blink of an eye.

  FB remained silent, cogitating, doing what chief constables do best — as little as possible. He stood up and thoughtfully paced the large office, pausing at the window to gaze blankly across the sports pitches that Henry had hurried across a few minutes earlier. He turned.

  ‘What exactly do you want out of this?’

  ‘It’s not about wanting something. It’s about principles. About seeing justice done,’ he spouted grandly. ‘A bit of belief that the organization actually does what it says in all those highfalutin policies about equal opportunities and fairness and all that — y’know, the drivel that’s being rammed down my throat across at the training centre right now. How can I be expected to “walk the talk”’ — Henry twitched the first two fingers of both hands to represent speech marks — ‘when I don’t have any faith in the firm itself?’

  FB blinked theatrically, then looked at Henry as if he were dumb. ‘Fine words, noted … now what do you want out of all this?’

  ‘Anger to be dealt with. Him to suffer, not me.’

  ‘And in the real world?’

  The words permeated into Henry’s noggin. He held up his hands in submission. ‘It’s quite obvious you don’t want the stink this would cause, making the organization look bad.’

  ‘Thing is,’ FB explained, ‘other than his minor problems with you, Dave Anger is the best head of FMIT yet. He’s respected and liked by the divvy commanders and his clear-up rate is excellent. Everyone who works for him likes him … but then again, not every one of them has screwed his wife.’

  ‘It was a drunken one-night stand over twenty-five years ago and she wasn’t even his wife then,’ Henry bleated. ‘They weren’t even going out with each other.’

  ‘I know, I know … I just didn’t expect the kind of backlash that came with all this, OK?’

  ‘All right,’ Henry said, taking in the reality of the situation and the invertebrate in front of him, ‘what do I want? Substantive DCI … somewhere other than FMIT, say Major Crime … otherwise I’ll be knocking on the doors of the federation’s solicitors with my tale of woe and I’ll drag this whole thing through an employment tribunal, the press and maybe the court. The local rag loves dishing the dirt on us.’

  ‘Henry,’ the chief declared, ‘I always knew you were a cunt.’

  ‘And I always knew you were one, too. Sir.’

  They came out of the office, all smiles and handshakes for the benefit of the chief’s entourage.

  ‘How’s the trial progressing?’ FB asked. ‘I know it constantly makes the papers, but I only get a chance to glance.’

  ‘They’ve had a break this week … the final summing-up begins next Monday. Hopefully verdicts by the end of the week. Looks good, though.’

  The trial at Preston Crown Court of Louis Vernon Trent had been going on for six weeks and Henry had been present every single day. Trent stood charged with the murder of several young children and a police officer, amongst many other serious matters. The trial had attracted massive media attention across the world. Henry had been involved in Trent’s arrest and had spent the bulk of his time leading up to the trial ensuring that the complex case was watertight — and the proof was now in the pudding. As difficult and challenging as it had been putting the case together, Henry was convinced Trent would be spending the rest of his misery-causing life behind bars, unless he escaped, something he had a knack for.

  ‘Good stuff, but he really deserves to be hung,’ FB said, patting Henry on the shoulder and opening the door which led out into the corridor, ushering him out with an ‘I’ll let you know about things, but don’t harass me for a while, OK?’ Just before he closed the door, Henry caught sight of the new deputy chief constable, Angela Cranlow, emerging from her office. It was the first time he had ever seen her in the flesh and he was quite taken aback, but didn’t get much chance for a lengthy appraisal as FB’s hand in the middle of his back propelled him out like a drunk being ejected from a bar into an alley.

  He exhaled and rubbed his face, turned and walked towards the stairs as his mind tumbled over what had just taken place in FB’s office. He was only vaguely aware of the door reopening behind him and the quick approach of footsteps — then a hand on the shoulder.

  It was Chief Inspector Andy Laker — bag carrier extraordinaire.

  ‘Henry,’ he growled low, ‘don’t you ever do anything like that to me again. I can see why you’re a pariah. You are a loose cannon and you need putting out to grass.’

  With disdain, Henry peeled Laker’s fingers off his shoulder and flicked them away. ‘Fuck off,’ he said, proud of his well thought out retort. ‘And another thing’ — Henry turned and stepped menacingly towards Laker, making the smaller man step nervously back — ‘don’t mix your metaphors. It doesn’t suit you.’

  With that, he spun away, leaving the staff officer speechless in the corridor, his mouth popping like a grounded fish.

  He
nry could not quite face going back to the classroom and being bombarded with race and diversity, particularly as the theme of the day was gender issues, including transsexuals, transvestites … trans-everything, most of which just made him angry. The race stuff had been quite interesting, all about Islam and religion, but men becoming women, or wearing women’s clothing other than in a pantomime? It made his blood boil. It was like most things these days. He felt like he had become an angry old man and it didn’t feel good.

  Instead he meandered down to the HQ canteen and was just in time to rescue two sausages and wrap them in bread before breakfast time ended. Then, with a strong coffee he found a table in the corner of the room, and sat, observed and pondered as the food and drink calmed his soul.

  With the dubious expectation that he was about to meet and be treated to the tale of woe of a man who had undergone a sex change operation and been discriminated against as a result — boohoo, Henry thought — he made his way back to the training centre with a heavy heart, wondering in a very un-PC way where they managed to unearth such people who were happy to be wheeled out in front of a class of cynical cops to face a barrage of nooky questions. He guessed a nice, fat daily rate helped to grease the wheels.

  The footpath across the sports pitch carried on through the pleasantly wooded grounds of the centre, past the FMIT block, which he had no intention of visiting. Even his training course had more allure than that.

  As he rounded the corner of the block, he ran into Dave Anger emerging from the front door, pulling on his jacket. They almost collided face to face, but managed to stop a foot apart.

  Henry’s heartbeat moved up a pace.

  ‘Henry,’ Anger said. At least the guy looked as rough as a dead badger, with dark circles under his eyes, his skin a deathly pallor, his lips drawn and scrawny.

  ‘Dave.’ Henry didn’t bother with a ‘sir’ or anything approaching respect. ‘I’ve just been to see the chief.’

  ‘I know — that’s where I’m going now.’

  ‘To discuss yours truly?’