Judgement Call (15 page)

There was nothing majorly complicated that needed attention. Henry was good at paperwork but every so often queries were generated from the prosecution solicitors or barristers who would be taking the files to court, and all he really needed to do that morning was make a few phone calls to chase up a witness and rewrite a section of one of the summaries. He got on with it, whilst at the same time wondering how to track down the little shit who'd escaped from his custody, kick Vladimir Kaminski's shins and nail a gang of armed robbers – all before dinner.

WPC Jo Wade loved being a young single female cop – at least for the time being. It was a great existence, being part of a shift of officers where camaraderie was great, the work was fun and serious at the same time, and being part of a social scene that was exciting and carefree. At first she thought she had been posted to the end of the earth when she was told she was going to the valley, but in a matter of weeks she had settled into the lifestyle.

The work was wonderful. She treated it professionally and compassionately. She loved helping people, solving problems and also arresting a few miscreants along the way. She had been seriously gutted about the escaping prisoner and she felt guilt – but immense relief – that Henry was taking the blame for the debacle. She was not yet out of the two-year probationary period that all constables had to go through and something like that could have cost her her job. Her services could be terminated without any reason given.

Which is one of the reasons why she had been extra nice to Henry for the second time, but for the life of her, she could not recall how the night before last had ended. She recalled staggering back to Henry's house from the night club, getting naked and screwing, but beyond that – nothing.

Next thing she was waking up alone with no sign of Henry anywhere and no idea when he had disappeared. She thought he'd gone to work but only later found out that he'd reported in sick.

She knew Henry was back on duty and at some stage she intended to hook up with him for a chat. One thing she was certain of was that she liked what she'd had and wanted more of him, girlfriend or otherwise.

So far that morning she hadn't managed to bump into him. She'd heard his deployments to various burglaries over the radio but she too had been busy with other things; somehow she intended to track him down before she finished at two. She knew he finished at four, so what could be better, she pondered, than him coming round to her flat after he'd finished for some more intimacy and a takeaway?

The prospect put a big smile on her face as she drove her patrol car around Rawtenstall that morning and decided to pop into a Spar convenience store on Burnley Road for a chat with the Asian owner. He was always having racial problems and the shop had become one of Jo's regular brew stops.

She parked behind the shop, out of sight, walked around to the front entrance.

Her mind was full of the prospect of Henry Christie and she paid little heed to the Ford Granada parked on the tiny run-on car park outside the shop, one dark figure on board. She had no inkling whatsoever that she was stepping into the middle of a fully-fledged armed robbery in progress.

The telephone on the writing table rang. For a second Henry considered ignoring it but he was waiting for a witness to call him back and had told her to ask for this extension. He scooped up the phone.

‘Henry … Dave in comms,' came the voice of the station duty PC.

‘Hi.'

‘Just had a call from Dom Tighe at Fat Jack's,' the PC began, and even as he was saying these words Henry was rising to his feet, grabbing his PR and jacket and hat, the phone still clasped to his ear. ‘Said you'd been in this morning re some stolen property … apparently some guy's just been in and tried to sell him a silver photo frame …'

Juggling clothes and phone, Henry said, ‘Did he say who?'

‘No – didn't know the guy.'

‘Likely story … How long ago?'

‘Last ten minutes.'

‘On my way,' Henry said and slammed the phone down and thought, ‘Shit!' He didn't have a car. He rushed through the corridors to the sergeant's office where all the patrol car keys were hung. The morning patrol sergeant was sitting at his desk, delving into his sandwich box whilst scanning a newspaper. He lifted his head and watched open-mouthed as Henry barged in and snaffled the only set of keys on the rack.

‘Oi!' the sergeant yelled, revealing a mouthful of beef-paste sandwich.

‘Needs must,' Henry said, disappearing with the keys, which were for the sergeant's car. He ran along the main corridor and crashed out through the double doors into the rear yard.

He ran to one of the covered parking bays and climbed into the liveried Austin Metro which he skidded out of the yard and then hurled through the streets, heading towards Fat Jack's, screeching to a halt outside the shop on the double-yellows where he took a second to arrange his clothing and appointments a little more comfortably.

As he opened the door, the cool voice of the station duty PC, underpinned by a tone of urgency, came over the PR.

‘Patrols to attend Anwar's Spar shop, Burnley Road. Report of armed robbery and officer down, repeat –
officer down
– having been shot.'

Without hesitation, Henry responded.

There were three of them in the shop when Jo Wade stepped through the front door. Her pleasant thoughts were smashed to smithereens as she crossed the threshold and saw the scene in front of her.

Three armed men, their faces ski-masked.

One of them was behind the counter, emptying the contents of the cigarette shelves and till into a small hessian sack. The shop owner stood terrified to one side, arms raised.

Two other robbers armed with shotguns were aiming them at the two customers who had been backed up against the bread shelves.

As Jo stepped in, she froze.

And it was over in an instant.

The gang were high on speed, operating like wild men. The one closest to Jo as she came into the shop whirled towards her, saw the uniform, fired.

The blast from the double barrels slammed into her lower stomach, doubling her over, driving her against the wall. She slithered slowly down onto her backside, total shock and disbelief on her face as she looked down at the huge hole that had been punched in her guts. No words came out of her twisted mouth.

Within seconds, the gang had gone, all three of them leaping across Jo's outstretched legs, one of them actually stepping on her thigh and almost tripping over.

Henry gunned the Metro – in as much as a 998cc engine could be gunned – swerving along the streets, honking the pathetic little horn (there was no two-tone on a bog-standard section patrol car) but at least it had a blue light fitted and screwed to the roof that didn't slide off as the car's speed increased.

He was at the scene in two minutes, first cop to arrive.

It puzzled him slightly he couldn't see Jo's police car, but guessed it was parked out back. Henry mounted the kerb and leapt out of the car, bursting through the shop door, finding Jo on the floor, surrounded by four scared people.

He pushed through and squatted next to her, fighting his own rising panic.

Her terror-filled eyes looked pleadingly at him.

‘Henry,' she whispered, ‘I was just thinking about you.'

He called comms to chase up the ambulance and further assistance, giving a cool situation report in spite of the feelings boiling within him. Then, holding a clean tea towel over the horrendous gaping wound in her stomach, Henry slid beside her and eased his left arm around her shoulder, gently moving up against her, aware she was trembling and shaking and going into deep shock.

‘Henry, I'm really cold and it hurts so much.'

‘I'll warm you up, sweetie. And it's not as bad as it looks. You'll be OK.' He moved a lock of her hair away from her face.

She exhaled long and with difficulty, wincing dreadfully as a searing pain creased her body. She grabbed Henry's hand, the one holding the cloth over the wound, digging her nails in deep.

‘It's OK, it's OK,' he whispered into her ear. ‘Just hold on as tight as you need to. The ambulance is coming.'

He was aware of the onlookers, the people who had been caught up in the robbery, standing around, probably feeling useless. But suddenly he felt as though he was in a disconnected, distorted bubble of unreality.

‘Henry, it really hurts.'

‘I know … just hold onto me, hold on … the ambulance is almost here … they'll get you sorted.'

She convulsed with pain. ‘Oh God.'

Henry held her slightly tighter, aware of a wetness underneath him: the spreading pool of Jo's blood.

‘It's OK, OK, love.'

‘Henry … is that you?'

‘Yeah, yeah … it's me.'

‘I was just thinking about you.'

‘I know, I was just thinking about you, too.'

In the distance he heard the ambulance sirens for the first time.

‘Not long now, not long.'

Jo coughed and bubbles of blood spittled out of her mouth.

Henry groaned inwardly. That was bad.

The sirens were close now.

She died in his arms as the first ambulance man ran into the shop.

T
he pounding on the front door eventually penetrated through the hiss of the shower and the hum of the electric motor, beating through the force field that seemed to be encasing Henry Christie's head in a grey haze.

Henry's ears came on stream as the knocking persisted, wouldn't go away.

‘Just get lost,' he said, and lifted his face into the burning hot, but fairly weak jets, wishing they would wash away his all-pervading bleakness.

But the knocking continued. Whoever it was knew Henry was in and would not be deterred by a no-response. It was a cop's knock. Reluctantly he turned off the water and stepped out of the bath in which the shower was located and began to dry himself. He put on tracksuit bottoms and T-shirt and padded down the tight steps to the front door, still rubbing his short-cropped hair with a hand towel as he opened up.

‘Thought you'd drowned.' It was DI Fanshaw-Bayley, FB. Henry's nostrils dilated as he regarded his DI. ‘Can I come in?'

Henry sighed, stepped aside and allowed FB's chubby form to roll past him into the narrow hallway to the kitchen at the back of the rented house.

‘You making a brew?' FB said, easing himself onto a chair next to the fold-leaf kitchen table.

Henry said nothing, but filled the kettle and dropped two tea bags into two mugs. The kettle started to heat up noisily. Henry leaned against the sink.

‘How are you feeling?'

‘Guess.'

‘You did well, Henry … The people in the shop who saw you said you were there for her.'

Henry shook his head and looked away sharply, his lips tight lines as he fought to control anger and grief.

‘The chief constable's out and about – although we did have to give him directions to get to the valley. He's been to see Jo's parents in Lancaster. He wants to see you at some stage today.'

‘I'll give that a miss.'

‘Don't think so.'

‘Tell him I'm not fit and I'm likely to rip his face off.'

The kettle boiled. Henry made the tea and handed one to FB. Henry took a sip of his. It burned his lips. He had his back to FB now, staring out of the kitchen window into the back yard. ‘I couldn't stop her dying,' he said bitterly.

‘No one could have, not even if she'd been in hospital one minute after being shot.'

Henry exhaled with fury, raging at himself. He rounded on FB like a tiger. ‘This,' he stammered, ‘this needn't have happened.'

‘It couldn't have been prevented,' FB said defensively.

Henry's face set. ‘You know what I was thinking this morning in the lecture room? When I was looking at the pathetic police operation to catch these bastards?'

‘They might not even be the same crew,' FB cut in.

‘What?' Henry's voice rose incredulously. ‘Getaway car torched not a million miles away from the one the other day? Another stolen car ready and waiting for them to jump into and then that one torched in Manchester? Pull the other one, boss. It's the same team and you know it. And what the hell have we done about it? Just let 'em get more and more violent and then – surprise! This happens. An innocent girl gets gunned down like vermin. It should never have come to this. We should've been onto these bastards from the first job, not let it build up. We are to blame for this.'

‘We don't get into the blame game here.'

‘Unless it suits,' Henry blasted. He could see FB's chins wobbling and his face glowing with anger.

‘The only people to blame are the ones with guns, PC Christie.' A formal, defensive statement. ‘Stop carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders.'

Henry didn't seem to have heard. ‘I'll tell you what I was thinking …'

FB stood up. ‘I don't want to know what you were thinking, Henry, understood?' His head tilted back challengingly. ‘And I don't want you to even think about blabbing anything to anyone about your not required thoughts on the matter.'

‘You mean the chief constable? You don't want me to tell him what a half-arsed response the CID were making to apprehend a brutal gang of armed robbers that should have had a team of twelve detectives on their tail from the word go? Is that why you're here? To warn me off?' Henry was painfully aware he was treading a very thin line by addressing a senior officer in this manner, particularly one who had a dangerous streak a mile wide in him and was known to bear grudges. But at least Henry knew that if it came to explanations he could claim being out of his mind at the grief of witnessing the death of a colleague. He was actually grieving, but he wasn't out of his mind.

He was simply furious, wanted to lash out.