Judgement Call (19 page)

‘Oh my God!' she uttered, recoiling and bringing her hands up to her face to cover her mirth. ‘They really are the colour of plums.'

‘If you think it's funny, I'm off,' Henry said, affronted and a little offended.

‘No, no, no,' she gasped breathlessly, trying to contain hysterics. ‘Do you want me to massage them?'

Henry haughtily, but carefully, pulled his underpants and jeans back up. ‘No,' he said. ‘I don't want you to do anything. Just be careful around them and, y'know, a bit of sympathy wouldn't come amiss.'

‘You're right,' she said, gaining some self-control. ‘Your face is a proper mess too.' He allowed her to touch him gently on his cheek, but it was very painful and he drew quickly away with a sharp hiss. ‘Sorry,' she said. She went onto tiptoe and kissed him on the lips. ‘Tea's nearly ready.'

It was an amiable meal. She was a good cook. Afterwards they retired to the living room in which a huge TV and VCR were located. They watched some early evening TV, including an episode of
Tales of the Gold Monkey
, which was Henry's favourite. Then, beer and wine in hand, they started to watch the video footage from the shops.

It was very tiresome viewing, even though it was pleasant for Henry to sit on a large settee with Kate snuggled up close and his arm around her shoulders. Something he could get accustomed to.

‘What're you looking for?'

‘Don't know,' he admitted. ‘Just a hunch.'

‘From the master detective,' Kate laughed.

‘One day,' he promised.

He worked through a couple of tapes from one shop and saw nothing, skimming through six hours' worth in about one hour using the fast-forward facility.

He was beginning to think it was a waste of time and he would be better watching TV instead.

It was only on the fifth tape that he saw something of interest.

This was a tape from the second shop that had been robbed, a convenience store near Rawtenstall town centre, run by an Asian man.

Henry had inserted the tape into the player without checking how far forward it was, thinking he was at the start and, of course, the tape counter reset itself to zero as he started to watch. His legs were outstretched over an upholstered pouf and Kate, similarly stretched, was tucked in beside him, becoming sleepy. Henry was now completely bored by the task, a state of mind not assisted by the location of Kate's left hand which lay on his jeans, just slightly above the danger/injury zone and despite his injury, he was responding to the proximity of her hand and warm body.

He groaned as she squeezed him delicately through his jeans.

He hurried the tape on, not really paying as much attention to it as he should have done. He moved it on even faster, but was then slightly puzzled when he heard the VCR click and whirr, the noise it made when a tape ended – and the tape started to rewind automatically.

‘That was a short one,' he observed.

‘Good. Can we go to bed? Early night?'

‘It'd be rude not to,' Henry assented. He was eagerly looking forward to a full night with Kate, something that had happened only occasionally and only ever at his house which wasn't the most comfortable of places, because it was usually quite chilly and had little in the way of creature comforts. His only disappointment was the state of his balls. ‘You sure Mummy and Daddy won't be back tonight?'

‘I assure you.'

The tape finished rewinding and stopped with a click.

‘Let's go for it then. I'll just put the tape back into its box.'

Kate rolled away. Henry sat up, gasping as a pulse of pain shot up through him. He paused a moment then dropped forward onto his hands and knees and crawled over to the TV, peering at the controls of the VCR for the tape eject button but then noticing that the tape counter was showing a minus figure of forty-four minutes, not the zero, or thereabouts, he would have expected to see.

He hummed.

‘What's the matter?'

‘This tape didn't go in at the beginning. I'd best just skim through it.'

‘OK, love.'

‘I'll be up in a moment or two if you want to go,' he said, thinking he sounded just like a married man.

‘OK, I will.' She rolled up onto her feet and left the room.

Henry zeroed the tape counter then pressed play on the VCR itself then went backwards onto the settee and settled back to use the remote control to skim through the images of what, he realized, was a bloody boring shop.

The camera was positioned behind the counter, high up and to one side, giving a great view of what was going on behind the counter and a half-decent shot of customers actually at the counter. It was quite limited in its scope, but it served its purpose, he thought.

He fast-forwarded the tape. A few customers came, bought goods, chatted to the owner, and left.

Then one in particular caught his eye. Henry thumbed the stop button and rewound the tape slightly. He stopped it and pressed play.

A customer at the counter, speaking to the shop owner. Points to cigarettes stacked on the shelves on the back wall. The owner turns and selects what the customer has asked for, and his back is turned to the customer. Who leans across the counter.

Henry could see that if the customer is quick enough, there are some items on the counter – chocolate bars and sweets – that could easily be stolen and pocketed before the store owner turns back. Henry expected this to happen. But it doesn't.

The customer simply leans over and looks both ways behind the counter and for a second or two his eyes focus on the till. Then, as the shopkeeper turns back from the shelves, the customer acts all innocent and leans on the counter with his elbows as he is handed a packet of cigarettes which he pays for and stays as his money is put into the till. He says a few more words to the shop owner and just before he actually leaves the store he does the thing that makes Henry's heart leap and makes him forget the pain in his head and balls.

The customer glances up at the lens of the security camera.

And Henry's hand curls into a fist of triumph.

He rewound the tape, found the point where the customer steps into view, and then watched the transaction twice more, once at normal speed, once slowed right down. Frame by frame. He paused it when the man looked up at the lens.

The picture wavered, lines skittered across it.

But Henry smiled – and then he frowned as something else about this man struck him and his pleasure turned back to searing pain.

H
enry was up at six the following morning after a night of cuddling only, then a big, long sleep. He took his time in ‘Dad's' shower, used ‘Dad's' shampoo and soap liberally, but washed his private parts carefully as they were still extremely tender. He nipped home first to get a change of clothing, and was in work for about seven.

The station was quiet and the early shift had all come in for the 7am brew in the parade room – an unofficial policing tradition practised, pretty much, across the force.

Henry nodded to them but didn't stay to take their questions. This was Jo's scale, as shifts were called, and he could sense their overwhelming sadness. He didn't want to get drawn into it today because he needed to get moving with all the stuff that was flipping around in his battered head.

But he did help himself to a mug of tea from the stainless-steel teapot, brewed from loose tea and poured out through a sieve into a mug. It tasted wonderful at that time in the morning. Something energizing about an early morning cuppa in a cop shop. Henry loved it.

He took the brew through to the sergeant's office and collected Jack Bowman's wanted file, then walked up to the Collator's office on the first floor. Charlie Martin wasn't in yet so Henry had the office to himself for a while. As a matter of course the office was accessible twenty-four hours a day because most Intel was collected by hand and stored in files and there wasn't a great deal on the Police National Computer and it was often needed in the middle of the night when the station duty officer might find himself searching for something to help out a bobby on the beat who had stop/checked someone and needed more detail. Henry spent a lot of his time sifting through stuff in the Collator's office, building up his knowledge of local crims, their families and associates.

He placed his brew down, rifled through a cabinet and hauled out Vladimir Kaminski's file. It was actually fairly thin, but it gave Henry some pointers. Kaminski had only ever been prosecuted in Lancashire twice and only for a public order offence and a minor assault, even though the Intel suggested he was suspected of some more serious assaults for which he was never charged. Even impaling some poor lad's hand to a spear-like railing didn't get him into court.

These were referred to in the file and Henry now knew why he had never faced a bench of magistrates. He was FB's informant and as such got preferential treatment and freedom he didn't really deserve. FB probably thought he was playing Kaminski, but Henry now half-suspected it was actually the other way around. It was just that FB didn't know he was the one being duped.

When offenders were arrested for certain offences that were classified as crimes, the arresting officer was obliged to record certain details relating to the offender. Fingerprints were taken, descriptive and antecedent forms were completed and it was usual that copies of these forms were kept on local files for intelligence purposes. The originals were submitted to LANCRO – the Lancashire Criminal Record Office – at headquarters.

Which was the case for Kaminski.

It was a slim file – and again, Henry suspected that FB edited it regularly – but because he had been convicted of assault, it contained copies of his mug shot, descriptives and antecedents.

Henry sat down at the Collator's desk, tea in hand. He began to read and sip.

The descriptive forms recorded the height, weight and, obviously, a detailed description of the subject, including any distinguishing marks or features, such as tattoos or scars. Henry's lips quivered whilst reading about Kaminski's tattoos. If the officer recording the details was professional and patient enough, he or she sometimes included an additional sheet of paper on which the tattoos that were sometimes difficult to describe would be sketched out. ‘LOVE' and ‘HATE' on the knuckles was easy enough to comprehend, as was ‘ACAB' on a forearm – ‘All Coppers Are Bastards' – or the name of a loved one on a bicep. Henry himself had drawn many a complicated tattoo and submitted the drawings with the forms. And the officer who had completed the descriptive forms for Kaminski had drawn several of his tattoos, one of which interested Henry greatly.

He sketched his own copy of it.

Next Henry read Kaminski's antecedent history. This basically skimmed through his upbringing, jobs he'd had (none) and his family details, parents and siblings.

Once again the officer completing them had been very detailed and Henry noted Kaminski's family origin (actually Polish/Russian) and where they now lived. He wrote out the name of one family member in particular.

After this he replaced the file and picked up the telephone and dialled an internal number for the PNC bureau at HQ and spoke to one of the operators, who happened to be someone he knew well. Then he sat back and pondered for a few moments – and suddenly remembered what had been nagging away at his brain.

‘Shit!' he said and slapped his forehead.

By this time it was eight o'clock.

Henry knew the murder squad was due in for an 8.30am briefing and the station had started to get busy, detectives drifting in, a lot of milling about going on, kettles being boiled, the aroma of bought-in bacon sandwiches and toast wafting through the corridors. He also knew that he and FB were scheduled to interview John Longridge at nine, so he was a bit torn.

There were things he wanted to do but he also did not want to miss the chance of getting up-close to a villain as big as Longridge, a rare treat for any cop. He wanted to know what the guy had to say, but doubted he was directly involved in any of the robberies as such, or Jo's murder. But Henry wasn't going to be fooled into taking that as read. He would keep an open mind.

The lecture room was full of bodies and Henry took up a position right at the back, behind everyone, and waited for the briefing which was going to be conducted by a detective superintendent from headquarters who Henry had only vaguely heard of. This puzzled him slightly, as he was expecting FB to be running the show.

The superintendent came in. FB, trailing behind, looked annoyed and grim-faced. Not happy.

The superintendent stepped up to the lectern, which he rapped sharply with his knuckles, bringing everyone to attention. He then proceeded to reveal to Henry just why FB looked like a gorilla had just crapped in his car.

FB had been replaced as head of the investigation.

It was now being run by the detective super from HQ.

Henry watched FB's face as the interloper announced he was now in charge of things. FB was standing just behind the man's left shoulder, scuffing his toe caps miserably on the floor, looking very, very miffed, twirling a pen continuously. Mostly he looked at the floor, but at one point he glanced up and locked eyes briefly with Henry, then broke visual contact, a moment that said a lot to Henry.

Henry allowed himself a flicker of a smirk, but at the same time wondered why FB had been dumped. Henry thought he had been doing a decent enough job. At least there was a prisoner in the cells and even if it was a speculative arrest, there was something to work with.

This was the first time in his police service that Henry had come face to face with such a supposedly high-ranking criminal. His usual prisoners were juveniles, because that demographic – young males between the ages of twelve and seventeen – were responsible for the bulk of crime committed. He had purposely targeted them and over the past year had arrested over one hundred kids and cleared up about four hundred burglaries and other thefts. It was a considered choice because he had seen that although kids committed most of the crime, they were often avoided because they were a pain to deal with, but he believed that his approach was also a good apprenticeship for a detective.