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  The vehicles belonging to the unit were parked up behind the house: two personnel carriers and two plain cars, one of which was allocated to the inspector, who had also sneaked home early.

  Henry had ambled through the empty house, now converted into offices (which was to be the ultimate fate of all the police houses on the campus) and entered the inspector’s office to see the keys for his car tantalizingly splayed out on the desk blotter, just waiting to be snaffled.

  He took them, shrugged his bomber on, slid his handcuffs into his belt, his staff down the inner trouser pocket, strapped a radio around his neck, and took the car.

  Just for a look around.

  Thomas James Benemy.

  By now, the lad’s name, date of birth, address and previous convictions were seared into Henry’s mind – the personal details of the shoplifter – and he was going to pop round, see if he was at home and if he fancied coming for a ride with him to Blackpool nick. With mummy, obviously, because young Tommy was only thirteen years old, old enough to beat a cop senseless, but a juvenile in the eyes of the law, required to be accompanied by an appropriate adult.

  If Benemy was at home, and Henry managed to collar him, he hadn’t quite decided how he would explain the arrest (and the unofficial use of his car) to his boss, but he would cross that bridge if and when he came to it.

  Henry had also taken time out to learn about Shoreside estate and its denizens.

  Even when he had been stationed over in Rossendale on the opposite side of the county, he’d heard of Shoreside, just as he’d heard of several infamous council estates in other towns across Lancashire. Each town had one or more, and there were other troubled estates in Blackpool, but Shoreside was the one with the real bad reputation. It was a product of misplaced 1960s ideals about social housing and what people wanted, and in the 1970s and 1980s it had become rundown and lawless.

  Although Henry’s posting to Blackpool had not materialized as he’d envisaged – he’d been hoping to negotiate a swap with a bobby who wanted to come across to East Lancashire, but the move had fallen apart at the last moment – the sideways step on to the Support Unit was good and he was enjoying travelling around the county’s hotspots. He was still determined he would eventually end up as a uniformed cop, then a detective, in Blackpool where a superintendent had once wearily and philosophically explained to him, ‘There’s only one thing you can be sure of in Blackpool, lad: the tide comes in and goes out twice a day.’

  On the basis that he would eventually engineer a posting there, in the meantime he had taken it upon himself to learn about the resort and its trouble spots, about the people and, in particular, the criminals. So whenever he had the chance – and the Support Unit was a regular visitor there – he took his refreshments while perusing photograph albums or mooching in the collator’s office, reading intelligence files, or in CID, learning about bad people.

  Who were the biggest criminals? Who ran the arcades? Who ran the drug trade? Who fenced stolen goods? Who were the best armed robbers? Who was Top Dog?

  He intended to hit the ground running when he got there on a permanent basis.

  So he already knew more about Shoreside than just its reputation.

  He had been part of a couple of police operations on the estate already and was getting a feel for the place.

  What he did not know at the time, though, was how deeply he would become involved with the estate and, in particular, the Costain family – all he was interested in then was anticipating the pleasure of locking up Thomas Benemy, who, with at least one more yet-to-be-identified youth, had almost killed him.

  He drove slowly past other kids hanging around, all of whom clocked him as quickly as the first pair he’d encountered, and he began to wonder if something out of the ordinary was brewing that afternoon. Maybe he was imagining it, he thought, trying to brush off the sense of unease, but his continually developing cop instinct, which would serve him well in years to come, told him different. It also told him he would perhaps be wise to make his enquiry about Benemy as quickly as possible, then get off the estate unscathed, report his feelings to the on-duty inspector and hope he wouldn’t get mocked too harshly.

  He drove into Clement Close, a cul-de-sac with a turning circle at the far end. Just a normal street, mainly semi-detached council houses, sturdy but decrepit, with front gardens littered with old furniture and appliances and smashed-down fences. It had an air of defeat about it, and Henry could sense how much the good people on the estate – and there were many – had been browbeaten by thuggery.

  As he drove to the end, he felt a touch of despair for these decent, non-violent folk who seemed to have no voice.

  In those moments, he decided that if he did end up posted to Blackpool, he would do his bit to help the downtrodden. Not that he saw himself as a social reformer, but he was canny enough to realize that by doing his job well, he could play some small part in the regeneration of this place.

  He swung the car around and drew up outside number seven, which was no different on the outside from any of the other houses. He took a moment to check it out while reminding himself about Thomas James Benemy, thirteen-year-old thief and wild child.

  By the age of twelve, Benemy had four arrests for shoplifting under his belt, all dealt with by severe bollockings or cautions, but never a prosecution. He had also been arrested for two assaults while with a gang, but there had never been enough evidence even to caution him. One interesting arrest, which also didn’t go further than a few hours in a cell, was for allegedly kidnapping a young girl, holding her in his bedroom and, again allegedly, sexually assaulting her. No further action was taken when the girl, via her parents, refused to lodge a complaint.

  ‘Quite a mosaic,’ Henry murmured to himself, wondering where Benemy would end up in life. Nowhere nice, he guessed as he opened the car door with his little finger and climbed out, walking around the car and pausing at the foot of the path leading to the front door. Glancing up the cul-de-sac, he caught sight of two youths sprinting across the entrance, some fifty yards from where he stood.

  He frowned, then decided it might be wise to inform someone of his whereabouts.

  Just in case.

  He called it in – that he was a lone SU officer on a short enquiry on Shoreside and didn’t expect to be long. He didn’t bother to voice his inner disquiet about the atmosphere on the estate.

  The call was acknowledged by the comms room operator, but almost as soon as the short conversation was over, another voice came over the radio.

  ‘PC Christie, what exactly is the nature of your enquiry, please?’ It was FB, who obviously had a radio on his desk so he could earwig what was going on out on the streets, and his tone was highly suspicious, confirmed when he added, ‘Or can I guess?’

  Henry frowned again.

  ‘You wouldn’t have had some miracle memory recall, would you?’ FB said snarkily.

  ‘Um … sorry, boss, your transmission is breaking …’ Henry didn’t finish his own transmission to emphasize the point he was making, then set off up the path to the front door of the Benemy household.

  ‘Don’t try to kid a kidder,’ FB warned him. Then, ‘Whatever, be careful up there; it’s a tinderbox.’

  Henry saw a movement at one of the upstairs windows, just a shadow, but then the window itself opened a few inches and the barrel of a small-calibre rifle was pushed out between net curtains, aimed at him.

  From where he was standing, about halfway up the path, Henry was vulnerable and exposed. In his mind, he suspected the weapon was probably an air rifle, but could not take the chance. It could have been a proper .22 with proper bullets. Being hit by an air pellet was obviously the more favourable option, even though he had dealt with a young girl who’d had an eye shot out by one. Being hit by a pellet could still be potentially very dangerous, whereas a .22 bullet could kill.

  Henry heard the ‘phht’.

  It was an air rifle and the pellet hit him on his chest, pinging o
ff his personal radio with some force.

  Henry staggered back a couple of feet and weighed up his options. He could either leg it back to the safety of the inspector’s car or – and it was equidistant – run to the front door and flatten himself under the cover provided by a canopy designed to give callers some protection from the weather. Given the very tight angle down from the window, it would be impossible to get a second good shot without leaning a long way out.

  At that stage in his life as a cop, Henry Christie would never have chosen the retreat option. He was hardwired to go in, hard if necessary, and he would never back down or show weakness.

  That did not mean he was unkind or unfair. He was neither, but even in his relatively short career, he had encountered many people who equated kindness and fairness with weakness and tried to take advantage.

  However, that day, under fire, albeit from an air rifle, he didn’t feel inclined to be at all kind.

  Keeping his head tucked in, he sprinted to the door, flattened himself up against it, tried the handle – locked – and kicked it hard with his heel.

  At the same time, he sneaked a quick look around the canopy up to the window and had to snap back out of sight as the person holding the rifle was actually leaning out and trying to get into a shooting position.

  It was Thomas James Benemy.

  Henry felt the whoosh of a pellet zing diagonally across him, centimetres away.

  He twisted his head, cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, ‘Come on down, Thomas. We need to talk.’

  ‘Fuck off!’ the lad screamed back.

  ‘Not gonna happen.’ Henry continued to back-heel the door – which opened suddenly to reveal a ferocious woman – Benemy’s mother, Trish.

  She shrieked, ‘What the fuck’s going on here?’

  Henry spun to her. ‘Mrs Benemy, I’m PC Christie from Blackpool nick,’ he said hastily, keeping things simple. ‘I need to talk to Thomas.’

  Trish Benemy glared at him. ‘Why? Fuck’s he done this time?’

  She was almost the stereotypical female council house dweller: badly dyed hair scraped back from her forehead, very pale skin, many studs in her ear lobes and attired in cheap, shimmering shell-suit leggings and a too-big T-shirt cut down to display her large boobs. She took a deep drag of the cigarette dangling in her nicotine-stained fingers and blew the lungful of smoke at Henry, engulfing him in the cloud. That said, she looked no older than Henry, which made him fleetingly wonder how old she must have been when she’d had her son, currently ensconced in the front bedroom, shooting at a cop. And behind the rough edges, she was quite pretty to Henry’s eyes, although her own eyes were challenging and intimidating, probably brassed off with having cops knocking on her door.

  ‘Him and his mates set about me about a month ago and gave me a good hiding after he’d stolen stuff from a shop.’

  Mrs Benemy gave Henry a critical once-over. She seemed to quite like what she saw. ‘He beat you up?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am, he did. Being whacked on the head from behind didn’t help.’ Henry could tell she wasn’t quite believing her son could have pulled this off – Henry, all six foot two of him, slim but athletic – and comparing him to her son’s very slight physique.

  Still with her appraisal of Henry going on, the corner of her mouth opened and she shouted, ‘Tommy, you get the fuck down here, laddo!’

  She looked at Henry. He looked at her and smiled. ‘He’s got a gun, by the way. Been pinging shots at me.’

  ‘Tommy,’ she bawled again. ‘Down here, lad.’ Then to Henry she said a slightly sheepish, ‘Sorry.’

  ‘We’ll work it out,’ Henry promised, suddenly quite liking her from that single-word apology. ‘Even though he nearly killed me.’

  There was a pause.

  Henry heard something from upstairs. He looked over Trish’s shoulder from where he could see part of the way up the steps and saw a pair of feet in trainers coming slowly down, then the crouching form of Tommy still clutching the air rifle which, as he came fully into view, he brought up to his right shoulder, wrapping his forefinger around the trigger.

  ‘Watch out!’

  Henry shoved Trish to one side while he sidestepped niftily the opposite way, taking cover provided by the front of the house just as Tommy pulled the trigger. The pellet whizzed through the gap between Henry and Trish, missing them both.

  Henry dinked back into view, cowering slightly just in case there was another tiny missile in the breach, but Tommy swarmed down the stairs, hurled the empty rifle at Henry, turned and fled towards the rear of the house.

  Henry raised his forearm to deflect the rifle as it cartwheeled at him; unfortunately, it bounced off into Trish, clattering her head. Henry did not hesitate. Using the door frame to propel himself into the hallway, he went after Tommy, who had, by this time, reached the kitchen, shoved the door closed behind him and exited through the side door, slamming it shut.

  Henry powered down the hallway, yanked open the kitchen door, almost pulling it off its hinges, then half skidded on the linoleum floor, righted himself and went out through the side door after Tommy, who had turned left and hared across the back garden, vaulted the low fence into the garden beyond and ran through the deep grass of that unkempt garden.

  He was moving fast.

  Henry recalled just how fast the lad could move, so he changed up a gear, his arms pumping as he followed Tommy’s trail, taking the back fence without breaking his stride.

  In a parallel train of thought, Henry realized this bit of exercise would be a good test of how well he had recovered from the assault. He’d done that day’s training workout at headquarters at his own pace, but he would have to put everything into this foot pursuit or risk losing the chance of dragging Tommy into the cells.

  And that was something he didn’t want to miss.

  His pace increased. He was feeling good.

  Tommy ran down the side of the house. By the time Henry reached the back corner of that property, he was out of sight.

  Henry dug deep and put on an extra sprint, and as he emerged, he saw Tommy running hard and fast down the avenue, a good fifty yards ahead of him.

  Henry gritted his teeth, gave chase, completely focusing on the capture, his vision seeming to close down as though he was looking through a telescope, and he started to quickly reduce the distance between himself and Tommy second by second. It became obvious that the young lad, whose initial turn of speed was incredible, didn’t have the stamina to outrun Henry this time, not in a straight race. He was constantly looking back over his shoulder and Henry could tell he was flagging, whereas Henry hadn’t really broken sweat.

  Finally, after much swerving and journeys through several more gardens and alleyways, Tommy gave up, sagged to his knees, gasping for air. When he caught him, Henry was breathing heavily but was nowhere near out of breath.

  ‘Face down, hands behind your back,’ he said to the gasping boy. ‘You’re under arrest for assaulting me, among other things. Say nowt,’ Henry advised him, by way of a caution.

  Slowly, Tommy went from all fours on to his chest and complied with the instructions. Henry snapped on the cuffs, then manoeuvred Tommy to his feet, spinning him around so they were face to face.

  ‘Got ya!’

  ‘No idea what you mean.’

  ‘Let’s chat about that down the nick, eh?’ Henry gave him a shove and they began to walk back to Tommy’s house with Henry gripping the lad’s upper arm. ‘We’ve got a lot to chat about.’

  ‘Don’t think so.’

  They’d gone about thirty yards when Henry heard a shout from behind.

  ‘Oi, what you think you’re doing, cop?’

  Henry glanced over his shoulder. Four youths were standing across the avenue. Two were the ones Henry had spoken to on his arrival on the estate, the other two those he’d seen dash across the mouth of Clement Close.

  Their appearance gave Henry a bad feeling.

  ‘Come on,’ he urged Tommy,
‘get a move on.’ He upped the walking pace just a touch.

  ‘I said, what’re you doing?’ another of the little gang shouted.

  A couple of yards to Henry’s left, half a house brick crashed to the ground, bits splintering. Then another hit the ground to his right. Henry glanced back and saw another arcing through the air, this time on target. He jerked Tommy to one side out of the path of its trajectory and it landed harmlessly.

  Two more youths filtered in from somewhere.

  Six in total now and they took up a ‘Uh! Uh! Uh!’ war chant.

  ‘Move faster,’ Henry said, dragging Tommy along. ‘What’s the name of this avenue?’ he asked him.

  ‘Eh?’ Tommy said dimly.

  ‘Fuck’s the name of this avenue?’

  ‘Uh, Tennyson, I think.’

  Still bustling Tommy along, Henry spoke into his PR. ‘PC Christie, Support Unit, to Blackpool.’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘I’ve made an arrest after a short foot chase and I’m currently on Tennyson Avenue making my way back to Clement Close with my prisoner … Argh!’

  One of the half-bricks launched by the gang landed squarely into the centre of Henry’s back, right between the shoulder blades, and it hurt.

  ‘PC Christie, are you OK?’

  ‘Yep – just being stoned by a mob.’ Henry turned and counted. ‘Now about a dozen strong. I require some assistance.’

  Rather like a volley of arrows fired by a medieval army, a hail of bricks and large stones then rained down around Henry and his prisoner, both of whom ducked and cowered but somehow were not struck. Henry took a vice-like grip of Tommy’s arm and ran him back to his house on Clement Close, crossing through several gardens until they were almost at the back of Tommy’s house.

  All the while, the gang had increased in size but didn’t seem to be significantly gaining on them, so Henry kept pushing and kept comms up to date with the evolving situation. Henry knew he had to reach his car and get off the estate fast, except that when he and Tommy ran through the garden that backed on to the lad’s house, he saw smoke spiralling up from the front of the house, and even before he knew for certain what was on fire, he was sure that his inspector would be very displeased with him indeed.