Judgement Call (11 page)

FB spoke at last. ‘So let me get this right … You allowed …
allowed
… a prisoner to escape from your lawful custody? Somehow, this prisoner, who you had handcuffed to a car door, managed to get his hand out of the cuff, open a window – which you said he could do, PC Christie – reach through and open the door and escape across a busy motorway. Hm. And on top of that, neither one of you even bothered to chase him. Is that about the long and short of it?'

‘It would have been too dangerous to chase …' Henry began, but was stopped by FB's instantly raised hand.

‘Don't want to hear crap … Is that the long and short of it, is what I asked?'

‘Pretty much, sir,' Henry mumbled, demoralized.

A clacking sound came from FB's mouth as his tongue moved around, like he tasted something bitter in there.

More silence then. Just the sound of FB's breathing.

‘So how did it happen?' he asked.

Neither offender had an answer to that.

But FB did. ‘Gross negligence is how.' Henry opened his mouth to protest. FB held up a warning finger. ‘Gross negligence,' he restated, twisting the skewer. ‘A complete disregard for procedure. How, tell me, how come you were both sitting in the front of the car? Did you think this was a fucking day trip to Blackpool? Some bloody social outing?'

FB's rising rage was visible in the way his large body was starting to tremble and audible in the intensifying tone of his voice.

‘Surely to God, one of you should have been sitting alongside the prisoner to ensure something like this didn't happen? Would that not have been the sensible thing to do?'

‘Yes, boss,' Henry said. FB's eyes glowered chillingly at him.

‘Judgement,' FB said, almost whimsically. ‘Severe lack of judgement and professionalism.' His head sagged despairingly, then rose again, his eyes once more locking onto Henry. ‘And you, being the senior officer, shall shoulder all of the blame – do I make myself clear? You' – he snapped, his head jerking towards Jo, who visibly jumped, ‘get out.'

‘Sorry, sir?' She was unable to believe her ears.

‘Get out,' he said slowly. ‘One very big lesson learned, missy.'

‘Yes sir, sorry sir,' she squeaked, glanced compassionately at Henry, then turned and fled from the DI's office.

Leaving Henry and FB together.

FB leaned back in his chair, exhaled long and slow, his eyes constantly playing over Henry contemptuously.

‘A lot of people of very high rank are going to be queuing up to shout very loudly at you, PC Christie.'

‘I know. It's already started.'

‘How does it feel?'

‘Horrible.'

‘Good – it should. This is fucking basic stuff. You should've been on the ball with this lad … I mean, Christ … he was trying to get out of the country. Stands to reason he didn't want to come back here, doesn't it? If he got a chance he was going to do a runner, wasn't he? Did you need that spelling out? Prisoners run away if they can.'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘So how did it happen?'

‘I mustn't have fastened the cuff tight enough and he managed to squeeze his left hand out of it … left some skin on the metal … must have done it when he knew we weren't looking.'

‘Or were snoozing.'

‘No one snoozed, sir. I just got complacent. Nobody's fault but mine.'

‘Very bold, PC Christie.'

‘Like you said, sir, down to me. WPC Wade doesn't know anything better … She's still new in the job. I should've made her sit alongside him, but I didn't and now …'

‘You will be disciplined.'

‘Fair enough.'

‘Now go, before I really lose my rag.'

Ten minutes later Henry was standing in front of a bar in a pub. That was the length of time it had taken him to throw his clip-on tie, epaulettes, handcuffs, staff and tunic into his locker, leave the police station – avoiding the sniggers of everyone else, because everyone knew it had been necessary to recirculate Bowman as wanted – trudge to his car and get to the pub near his house on Bacup Road.

It irked him intensely that two other people were ahead of him to be served … but only a short time later it was his turn.

The lady behind the bar was the one he had seen emerging naked from his housemate's bedroom the day before, but even that image did not brighten up his thoughts.

‘Usual, Henry?' she asked. A smile played on her lips as she, too, undoubtedly, relived the brief incident.

‘Please.'

He watched the golden liquid fill the glass, then the fizzy head overflow as it was handed to him.

‘Are you all right, lovey?' she asked, concerned by the look on his face.

He smiled thinly and nodded. ‘Yeah, thanks.' He took the beer and headed for a seat at the back. It was still quite early, the place had only just opened for the evening trade after the mid-afternoon break, and although Henry had been in a queue to be served, only a handful of customers were in. In an hour the pub would be packed, but for the moment he was pretty much alone, just himself, his drink and his bleak thoughts.

Losing a prisoner from the back of a car was almost the ultimate sin and Henry knew it should not have happened. He'd been careless and it had come around to slap him on the backside and now he was going to get punished. The discipline would be inconsequential. He could hack being paraded in front of a few grizzled senior officers and bawled out, an entry made into his personal file and maybe a small fine. He would take that on the chin. It was what he deserved.

What was far worse in his mind was the dent to his reputation and the knock-on effect it would have, not just from colleagues (he'd already been sniggered at), but in career advancement. You didn't let a prisoner go one week, then the week after expect to get on CID. They had longer memories than that and Henry expected that FB would have his cards marked now for cocking up such a simple job. Henry seemed to be single-handedly screwing up his own chances.

His lager tasted good. It sent a chill all the way across his chest. He took a long draught, then another, and then it was gone. And then he was back at the bar, ordering another.

‘Well?' the landlady demanded, placing down his new pint on the bar top. She was called Steph.

Not understanding, Henry said dimly, ‘Well what?'

She sighed as if he was beyond help. ‘Did you like what you saw?' She raised her finely plucked eyebrows.

‘Oh yes,' he replied, now understanding: did he like seeing her naked? Taking hold of his pint he returned to his seat, his mood for some reason darkening even more and a sensation of recklessness coming over him. He sat down and looked back towards the bar. Steph was still watching him, her arms folded and her head tilted approvingly, a smile quivering on her lipsticked lips.

Henry knew she was no stranger to the beds of police officers but had so far managed to evade his. A tightening of his stomach muscles made him wonder if that omission would be rectified tonight. He sipped his beer thoughtfully, knowing that this pint – the second – would be his tipping point. Two was always the magic number, beer-wise. Any more and he knew that whatever resolve he had would completely evaporate and he would probably leap into the abyss.

With just two down him he could drive safely, make clear judgements and control his reactions to everything. One more and he lost his senses. For a big young man, he did not hold his liquor well.

He sipped his pint. Carefully. It didn't help that he was drinking on an empty stomach and the alcohol entered his bloodstream quickly so that after the third pint, his evening began to unravel.

It was pretty much a blur from that point on.

The pub filled up gradually. Amongst the customers were people he knew from work as well as some locals. The third pint morphed into a fourth at which point he knew he had to get some food down him. This was provided by the landlady who gave him a chicken curry, half rice/half chips, on the house. He wolfed it down and suddenly felt completely sober again, thinking that the alcohol had been soaked up by the naan bread.

It hadn't.

He checked the time and was surprised to see it had already reached nine-thirty.

There was something on his mind, something important, but he couldn't quite work out what it was, even though he was sure his brain was now clear.

He looked at his empty dish which was suddenly whisked away from him by the landlady and his empty pint glass replenished by the fifth pint of the night and a whisky chaser, neither of which he had ordered. He lifted the golden spirit and sank it in one, then took hold of his beer which he stared at quizzically. He tried to work out what number it was, but he'd lost count and didn't care, really. He took a long pull of it and realized how well it mixed with the whisky. A perfect combination – lager, curry and Scotch.

The evening chugged on in a series of images and unremembered conversations.

Jo Wade appeared around about ten o'clock and sat beside him. He seemed to think he had a deep and meaningful conversation with her but later could not remember one word of it, other than it seemed to be dour and full of recrimination. He did recall pushing a wisp of her hair back from her face and next thing he was kissing her … really snogging, tongues in mouths and some serious, but hidden, groping.

Again, he wasn't certain how long this went on for.

He recalled seeing her at the bar, talking to the landlady, both of them staring across at him, obviously discussing him. Jo returned with another pint and chaser.

A few more people from work drifted in. He had a laugh with them, a couple of them patted his shoulder but he couldn't work out why. His mind started a slow spin.

The next thing he remembered was pounding music, cigarette smoke, disco lights and the fact that he was dancing with Jo, although dancing was not the best description of Henry's uncoordinated dance-floor moves. It took a while for him to work out where he was, although he did not know how he got there. He was in the nightclub, the Royale, in the basement of the Royal Hotel in the centre of Waterfoot, the tiny town situated between Rawtenstall and Bacup. It was another regular haunt of cops on the prowl, somewhere Henry had spent too much time in the last few years.

Jo was dancing up close to him. Her moves, in stark contrast to his, were slinky, sexy and in time to the music.

Henry tried a few of his Mick Jagger moves to a Bee Gees song and incorporated one or two John Travolta touches and was pleased to see Jo laughing at him. They lurched off the tiny, crowded dance floor and found a murky alcove where the kissing and groping restarted. This did not last too long as Jo dragged Henry out of the club, surfacing into the cool night air and falling into a taxi. A couple of minutes later it pulled up at the bottom of Henry's street. Jo paid the driver and the two of them stumbled arm in arm up the cobbled street to Henry's house, crashing through the door and scrambling up the stairs to his bedroom. They fell across his bed in a heap, a tangle of limbs and desperately started to rip each other's clothes off, Henry suddenly aware he was still in half uniform under his civvie jacket: blue shirt, trousers and black shoes. He had a sudden vision of a drunken dancing cop in the night club and what a complete tool he must have looked.

Within moments Jo was straddling him, bouncing up and down, whilst Henry, still as ungraceful as he had been at dancing, tried his very best to keep time for a while until he realized that he was not enjoying himself.

With amazing clarity he stopped mid-thrust and looked up at this lovely young woman who was screwing him, someone he'd only known in passing really, hadn't even had a proper conversation with because the drunken ones didn't count.

For a beat, Jo wasn't aware that Henry had stopped moving, so engrossed in the activity was she, with her head thrown back, biting her lips.

Then she did – and stopped in mid-air before sliding down the length of Henry's penis, picking up the wrong message, believing that his expression was one of affection, not horror.

‘Hi, babe,' she whispered, kissed him on the mouth, around his face and neck and chest, taking a nipple between her perfectly white teeth and biting hard whilst moving very slowly now.

‘No,' he said. ‘No.'

She glanced up from his chest, dragging the nipple up in her teeth as though she was going to rip it from his chest. Then she let it go with a wet ‘plop' and said, ‘You no like?'

‘No.' He eased himself out of her and pushed her gently to one side.

‘What's the matter?'

‘Not right,' he said thickly. ‘Got to go.'

‘Go where?'

‘Go … just go,' he said and fell off the bed into the pile of discarded clothes. He picked himself up stupidly and staggered out of the bedroom into the bathroom where he sank to his knees in front of the toilet and threw up copiously as his world looped unsteadily around him. He lifted his head and stared at the door handle, watching it rise mysteriously, then fall back into place as he attempted to focus.

He was sick once more, emptying his stomach of all its contents, then he pushed himself up using the toilet bowl as leverage, only to lose his grip. One hand slithered down and splashed into the mix of vomit and water in the bowl.

He kept his hand in there and flushed the toilet, rinsing his fingers in the gushing water before rising and staggering to the sink. He turned on the hot tap and waited for the water to heat up, then washed his hands and splashed his face, swaying slightly off balance all the time, occasionally having to grab the edge of the basin to keep upright.

Taking a deep breath he propelled himself away from the sink, out through the bathroom door, across the hall and back into his bedroom.

Jo was out of it. She was curled up in a tight, naked ball, breathing heavily as she slept under a thin sheet.

Henry stood unsteadily and regarded her, the room rotating slowly. Then he sat on the edge of the bed and held his head in his hands for a while before crawling across the floor to a chair over the back of which he'd left a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. He knew he couldn't stand up to get dressed. It was beyond his present capabilities, so he pulled on the clothes whilst sitting on the floor. This was not the easiest of tasks but, eventually fully dressed, he clambered to his feet, using the corner of the bed as purchase, not realizing his T-shirt was not only on back to front, but also inside-out.