Judgement Call (29 page)

Henry surged in, hardly able to contain himself. He took her in his arms and danced her around the kitchen as he kissed her passionately, lips, face, neck, pulling her dressing gown open, his hands finding her lovely breasts over the nightdress material.

And despite herself and the slightly scary situation, she responded and pulled at his clothes, returned the passion.

Within moments, Henry's jeans and underpants were around his ankles, Kate's dressing gown had been discarded, her nighty pulled up around her midriff. Henry backed her against the oven and she wrapped her legs around him and they made urgent, but quiet, love in the kitchen, Henry holding her up easily.

They twirled thus engaged around the kitchen bouncing off the appliances, rattling the contents of the fridge, like a ball in a bagatelle gathering points, until both of them reached a stage where they really had to let go. Sensing forthcoming screams and load moans, Henry clamped a hand over Kate's mouth, she clamped one over his, and so connected, they held each other's sparkling eyes as they came together in muted silence with Kate's bare bum perched on the edge of the sink.

‘
Kate!
'

Suddenly both tensed up at the sound of her father's voice hollering down from the top of the stairs.

‘Kate? Is that you?'

Passionate stares were replaced by horror tinged with amusement. She called back, ‘Yes, Dad, just getting a glass of water.'

‘Are you all right, my love?'

‘I'm fine … just needed a bit of something.'

‘I thought I heard a crash.'

‘It was nothing.'

‘OK, love.'

The lovers, still entwined, waited tensely and silently until they heard a bedroom door click shut. Then they giggled into each other's shoulders.

‘Oh God, Henry.'

‘Nothing like living dangerously.'

Slowly – unwillingly – they disengaged and Henry allowed Kate to stand on her own two feet. They rearranged their clothing and fell into a long, tender embrace before Henry stood back.

‘I'd better go,' he whispered. ‘Got to be back in work by nine … been in all night, too … long day ahead, I think. Things are moving fast.'

‘OK.'

‘But I'll see you tonight. Pick you up at seven? Let's go for an Italian at that place on Grane Road.'

‘Sounds good.'

They kissed one more time and Henry stole out of the back door and made his way back to his car, now facing the slight problem of starting it. Henry's motor was not a discreet car. The exhaust blew. The tappets needed adjusting. He thought that by turning the ignition slowly and bracing himself it would fire up quietly. It didn't.

He glanced at Kate's house.

She was framed in the downstairs lounge window.

Directly above her was her father's thunderous face at a gap in the bedroom curtains.

‘Shit,' Henry said, and with a forced smile and a nice wave, he gunned the Marina away.

He slept for two hours. Deep, solid, exhausted, dreamless sleep. He made certain he was up in time to shower and then have a decent breakfast, thinking that he would probably be eating rubbish food on the hoof for the rest of the day. He made scrambled eggs on thick toast and had fresh coffee and orange juice. Despite the lack of sleep he was buoyed up for what was to come – getting involved in a big police operation and hopefully catching some very bad men. The prospect thrilled him, not least because he'd had a major hand in generating what was to come.

It was a proud day for him, one which he hoped would be the first stepping stone on his faltering way to CID which had been blocked by his ignominious secondment in Blackburn.

He found a parking spot in the usual place and made his way on foot to the back of the nick. As he turned into the yard he had to back-pedal a few steps out of the way of a stream of police vehicles hurtling out. A personnel carrier, two plain cars and two liveried cars, all crammed with cops, one behind the other, clearly on a mission.

Henry watched them all whizz by, his forehead creased, an uncomfortable sensation in the pit of his stomach.

When the way was clear, he headed into the station.

Inside, it too was bursting with cops and even a couple of police dogs.

Something big was going down.

Increasing Henry's bad feeling.

He twisted up the back stairwell and made his way along the corridor to FB's office. It was empty, but the phone on his desk was ringing continuously.

Henry's lips pursed. He pushed himself off the door frame, feeling anger building inside him, and strode to the lecture room that had been converted into the incident room, easing through the door.

DI Fanshaw-Bayley was sitting at a desk at the far end of the room in his shirt sleeves, tie askew, surrounded by four detectives to whom he was giving instructions, nodding at queries, asking questions. Other detectives worked on the flip charts and a time-line that had been pinned to the wall behind FB. Another detective was working head down at another desk, surrounded by ‘in', ‘out' and ‘pending' trays stacked high with paperwork. Another pair were in deep discussion over some file or another.

The air had a palpable tingle of excitement to it, but it only served to rile Henry, who was coming to a very clear conclusion as to what was happening.

He walked slowly across the incident room until he stood behind the detectives milling around FB. He wasn't really listening to anything that was being said, it was just white noise, kept at bay by the pulse now beating in his ears.

The detectives, having apparently been briefed, peeled away one by one until just Henry stood in front of FB.

FB suddenly became engrossed in sifting very important paperwork, reckoning he hadn't seen Henry at all.

Henry went along with this psychological game for a few moments until he could stand it no longer.

‘What's going on?'

‘Uh?' FB still didn't bother to raise his eyes.

‘I said what's going on?'

Then he did look up, a pained expression on his face at the interruption to his thought process. ‘What do you mean?' he asked innocently.

‘All this.' Henry gestured.

‘All what?' FB continued to play dumb.

‘You told me to come in at nine.'

‘And you're here, aren't you?'

‘And you've kicked everything off without me, or so it seems.'

‘Yeah – I've kick-started a large police operation intended to round up some big villains,' FB said, matter-of-factly.

‘What about the info about the robbery at the building society?'

‘I decided to disrupt and arrest, rather than take the chance of getting an innocent bystander injured in the crossfire.'

Henry blinked and swallowed drily, his bubble bursting spectacularly. ‘And my part in this is …?'

FB held his gaze. ‘You don't have a part.' He collected up some papers and rose from the desk. ‘And now if you'll excuse me, I have an operation to coordinate.'

Lost for words, Henry watched him disappear through the door. But then something galvanized him. He caught up to FB as he entered his office. Henry framed himself in the doorway.

‘How can you do this?' he demanded.

FB sat at his desk and coolly gestured for Henry to come in, close the door.

‘Sit.'

Henry sat slowly.

‘You gotta learn some moves in this job, Henry. I'm now back running the investigation into Jo's murder, where I should be.'

‘How have you pulled that off?'

‘You know the sportsman who stays behind, practising when the rest of the team goes home, the one who wants to be the best? Or the swot who stays up till all hours because he wants the best grades? Well, that's me. I work hard. I stay at work longer. I lobby. I forge meaningful relationships, so that when all the others have tootled off home, I'm the one still at the grindstone. And that's what I did after you went this morning. You know – when you went to bed? I stayed here and picked up the phone and that's how you get on. And suddenly that completely useless detective super is binned and I'm back in charge.'

‘Why didn't you call me?' Henry whined. He knew it sounded pathetic.

‘On what? Do you carry a phone around with you, or something? No, because such things don't exist … and because …'

‘Because you want all the glory for yourself?'

‘Something like that,' FB admitted with a proud pout.

‘You used me. Everything I put together, you nicked. Just to feather your own nest.'

FB guffawed. ‘Team effort, Henry. No “I” in team and all that shite. Within half an hour of bending the ACC Crime's ear, I had it all sorted. GMP and us, hitting eight addresses as we speak, rounding up all the usual arseholes and preventing a robbery and probably arresting Jo's killer in the process, and hopefully Sally Lee's, too. And a high-profile operation around the valley to discourage any possible robbery – just in case.' He sounded smug. He gave Henry a half-smile and a wink. ‘Man up and look upon it as a learning process.'

‘Well, at least I've learned what FB really stands for.'

‘You be very careful about what you say, Henry.'

H
enry rejected the offer of getting changed into uniform, putting on his big hat and patrolling the town centre, the only role that FB could come up with for him. Instead he retreated into the shell that was paperwork. Deflated, he didn't even bother to book out a PR because he didn't even want to hear if anything was happening. He went to his tray and found that another Crown Court committal file had appeared and needed some attention, made a mug of tea then found a quiet corner in the report-writing room and sat down granite-faced at a desk and began leafing through the file. At the back of his mind he tried to work out what had just happened and how he could bounce back from it.

He was gutted.

He had worked hard, produced results, and then been sidelined.

He would not have minded so much if FB had simply called him in and made him an integral part of what he had decided would happen. But no. FB had used the information that they had unearthed together – with Henry having done most of the digging – and applied it to his own career.

Henry gave a short laugh, mainly at himself. A lesson well learned, he thought. The price of an education.

And although that lesson might be ‘screw others', Henry wasn't prepared to do that. It wasn't in his nature.

He began to work on the file.

At noon he had boxed off the paperwork. He leaned back and stretched. There was other stuff to do and he decided to do it after grabbing some lunch. He piled it all together and walked into the sergeant's office, where his tray was located.

Emerging and looking down the back corridor, he saw the rear doors of the nick burst spectacularly open. Three cops crashed through, wrestling with one prisoner that Henry instantly recognized: John Longridge, the second person to have escaped from his clutches recently.

He braced himself to step in and help if necessary.

The four of them tripped and rolled, but Longridge ended up pinned face down on the tiled floor, blood flecking out from a busted nose and split lip. He squirmed like a trapped leopard, kicking, spitting blood and saliva, and cursing vehemently. His hands had been cuffed behind his back, so the damage he could inflict was fairly minimal, but he fought all the way as he was carried and dragged straight through the charge office and heaved bodily into a cell where the officers, with the station sergeant – PS Ridgeson – barking instructions above them, immobilized and searched him. He was then left in the cell, still handcuffed, shouting, swearing and head butting the door. Not a happy person and completely different in demeanour to how he had been on his previous arrest, all cocksure, cool and arrogant. This made Henry wonder if he'd been caught in the act of doing something he shouldn't.

As soon as this was done, the next prisoner arrived, this one a bit more dignified in his lack of liberty. At first Henry thought it was Vladimir Kaminski, but as he was brought closer, he recognized Constantine, the slightly younger brother, who Henry had tackled in Manchester and come off worse. The sight of him made his balls ache. He was not exactly compliant, but not as violent as Longridge, just awkward. He was flanked by two officers and a third behind, gripping his jacket collar and holding his cuffed hands as he was manhandled firmly along the corridor. His eyes caught sight of Henry and he raised his chin with a smirk, giving Henry an unobstructed view of the tattoo across his throat – the serpent wound around a rifle. Henry smirked back … so Constantine was definitely the one who had scaled the walls and then assaulted him.

He was compliant enough, the sergeant decided, to be uncuffed, searched, booked in and then taken to a cell.

After this flurry of activity Henry stepped into the charge office where Ridgeson was completing the paperwork for the detainees.

‘How's it going?' Henry asked. He was unable to contain his curiosity, despite himself.

Ridgeson glanced up. ‘Oh, hi, Henry. Well, I think.' Then he frowned. ‘You not part of this?'

‘Don't ask.' Henry waved his hands and tried to keep his body language neutral, but a knowing look came over the sergeant's face. ‘Are these the only arrests?'

‘No, there are others but we're using Accrington and Blackburn cells, too. Keep them apart a bit.'

Henry nodded and stood aside when FB came into the room. ‘Hi, sarge,' he said breezily to Ridgeson, giving Henry a quick, guilty glance.

‘They're trapped up,' Ridgeson said, anticipating the question. ‘Longridge kicked off and hark' – he cupped a hand to his ear – ‘you can still hear him. He's on speed, I'd say.'

From the cells came the dull thud-thud-thud of Longridge's head as he beat it against the cell wall.

‘Great stuff,' FB said ‘Property searches are going on as we speak and when I know where we stand, I'll let you know, sarge. Good signs so far, I hear. Shotguns and ski masks … looks like we grabbed the bastards just in time – and we know the cash drop to the building society has been made without incident, so that's good news, eh? But whatever happens, neither of these two will be going anywhere. Longridge is an escapee and Kaminski assaulted our Henry here,' he said mock-affectionately and looked at Henry again who, for a moment, thought of saying he wasn't going to pursue a complaint – just to annoy FB. He didn't.