Crunch Time (11 page)

Back inside he fixed two Glenfiddichs with lots of ice and was about to return with them when Kate came into the kitchen. He handed her a drink, which she sipped with a shiver.

‘What happened?'

‘I went to bed early. The kids are both out for the night again, so I had a long soak first, then a long read, but I just felt a bit thirsty, so I came down for a glass of orange from the fridge. As I was at the sink, I heard a tapping noise at the window. I don't know, I thought it was a bird or something, so without thinking I just pulled up the blind and a masked man had his face squashed to the glass. It was horrible.'

‘What sort of mask?'

‘Like a balaclava with holes for the eyes and mouth.' Henry nodded. Kate continued: ‘I screamed, but he just stayed there banging the glass, terrifying me.' She took a long drink of the whisky.

‘What then?'

‘I was petrified. I ran into the hall, grabbed the phone and dialled nine-nine-nine. Even when I was doing it, I could still hear him banging at the window.'

Henry was feeling cold, impotent and furious. Another example of why he should be around more.

‘Kate,' he said softly, ‘I'm sorry I wasn't at home.'

‘Not your fault, love.'

He raised his eyebrows in a way that indicated otherwise. ‘Was he wearing gloves?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Let's have a peek.' He put his drink down on a work surface and went into the back garden again. For the first time he noticed the security light was not working. He squinted at it, high on the wall just below one of the girls' bedrooms, and saw it had been smashed. ‘Looks as though a brick's been lobbed at it,' he said. Using the light cast from the open door and the kitchen window he poked around the patio and found two fist-sized stones near the back wall that he picked up. He knew they were not from the garden. ‘Culprits, I'd guess,' he said, bobbing one of them up and down in his hand. ‘Must've made a noise when they broke the light. Surprised you didn't hear a smash.'

‘I might've done, actually,' Kate said, thinking back. ‘I did hear a crack, or something, a few minutes before I came down. Didn't think anything of it. Just a bang.'

Henry shrugged and dropped the stones. ‘No worries.'

He inspected the kitchen window for smudges or prints but in the available light he could not see that the prowler had left anything.

Kate stood on the threshold of the door. ‘How long are you going to be away for, Henry? Is this thing going to take any longer than you promised?'

‘I hope not … undercover ops are always suck 'n' see things … I mean, if I get through to this guy sooner rather than later, I could have enough to quit within days.' Kate stepped back as Henry came back into the kitchen. ‘Who knows?' he said, closing and locking the door behind him, picking up his drink.

Kate sidled up to him. ‘I'm glad you came home.'

‘Me, too.' He stooped slightly, glass still in hand, and kissed her on the lips. As ever, her mouth tasted wonderful, her breath smelled great too, a combination of toothpaste and whisky, a great mix. She was holding her drink and slid one arm around his neck, pulling him tight to her lips. A tiny groan escaped from her throat. He bit her bottom lip, then drew slightly away.

‘You called me your husband to them cops.'

‘You are, aren't you?'

‘Not officially.'

‘Maybe that's something we need to—' Kate was going to say ‘change', but the word never came out. Instead a rock the size of a brick smashed against the kitchen window with a huge crack, not breaking the double glazing, but making Henry and Kate jerk apart and spill their drinks.

‘Jesus!' Henry uttered. He put down his glass and wrenched open the kitchen door to witness the black-clothed figure of a man vault the low fence into the field. ‘Call the cops!' he yelled over his shoulder and immediately sprinted after the figure, bawling, ‘C'mere, you bastard!'

‘Henry, be careful!' Kate screamed after him.

He raced across the garden and flung himself over the fence in pursuit of the prowler, who was already thirty metres ahead, running swiftly through the shin-high grass. Henry stumbled, feeling his left knee give way momentarily, then come back, and powered after him, arms pumping, sheer rage driving him. Who was this bastard invading his privacy, terrifying his family? He had no right to violate his home.

The figure ran fast and Henry knew he was getting away. He then leapt into another garden and disappeared from view. Henry vaulted across the same fence, but by the time he landed the prowler had run off down the side of the house. Henry ran on, bouncing off the wall, and reappearing at the front of a house about a hundred metres from his own.

No sign of the man.

Gasping, Henry scoured the dark places with his keen eyes, but saw no one lurking or moving. ‘Shit,' he said, shaking his head as he stood in the middle of the road.

An engine started behind him.

He spun and jogged towards the noise.

Was this just a coincidence at this time of night?

No way.

Henry headed up the avenue, through a tight ginnel and appeared in the next one as a car lurched out from the side of the road and accelerated at him. The main beam was on and for a moment he was blinded, shading his eyes with a forearm.

The car was coming right at him.

He sidestepped in front of another parked car as he watched his old Ford Mondeo scream past him in first. Henry aimed a useless kick at it.

So he hadn't dreamed it. Someone driving his old car was stalking him and his family.

He sniffed, got his breath and, very troubled, made his way home.

For the second time in a matter of days, and to his utter shame and embarrassment, he could not get an erection when he cuddled into Kate. His saving grace was that she was exhausted, didn't want sex, just the cuddle and reassurance. For once he was happy to oblige and when he heard her breathing become deep and regular, almost a minor snore, he extracted his arm and lay awake with his hands clasped behind his head, thinking about the day.

The cops had rushed back, searched the area, found no one, nor a car, then left Henry and Kate alone.

Henry thought about the car and the previous attempt to run him off the road.

Someone was definitely gunning for him. It couldn't be Ingram because the road rage incident had happened before Henry had gone undercover. And he was one hundred per cent sure he had not been followed back from Manchester.

So who was it?

Get in line, he thought. A lot of people bore grudges against him. Even his ex-boss, Dave Anger – just for sleeping with his wife, for goodness' sake. But Henry was pretty sure it wasn't Anger. In fact, one or two things had happened to him that he couldn't pin on Anger as much as he would have liked to: he'd been assaulted one night outside Blackpool Police Station a few months ago, also outside his local pub, the Tram and Tower. On that occasion Karl Donaldson had intervened to good effect. No one had been caught on either occasion and the attacks remained a puzzle. He wondered if they were connected to the recent incidents.

He pouted.

The prowler was very worrying, though. That brought Kate and the girls into the equation, something he did not like one bit. It meant a line had been crossed. Henry thought he was fair bait, but going for his family was a different matter.

The thought made him utter a deep, primeval growl, and grind his teeth.

He glanced at Kate in the dark.

‘My husband,' she had said. A slip of the tongue, no doubt, but maybe it was time to re-pop the question, get everything above board again … if only he could get an erection … he'd be a pretty useless hubby if he couldn't get a hard-on … what the hell was going on down there?

He rolled his eyes, feeling very inadequate, then closed them and visualized the naked Andrea Makin guiding him into the gates of heaven. He shuddered, glad he had not gone there, but appalled at the same time that he couldn't get hard, disgusted he'd even wanted to, scared that there'd been no response from the engine room. Crazy, mixed thoughts.

Had he become impotent? Was that how it happened? Without warning?

The bedside phone rang and made him jump.

‘Fuck,' he heard Kate say in her sleep. She rolled over and covered her head with the duvet.

Henry picked up the phone. It was 3.03 a.m. Never a good time to receive a phone call. ‘Hello,' he said guardedly.

‘Oh, man,' came a spaced-out American-accented voice Henry recognized straight away.

‘Karl?'

‘Yeah … were you asleep? … Sorry to wake you, man,' he said. Henry sat up and touched the base of the bedside lamp, bringing it on to its lowest setting. Kate stirred and pulled the duvet down, opening one eye.

‘What is it, Karl?'

‘Hey, don' be like that, man,' the American drawled, and Henry could tell, almost smell it down the line, that he had been drinking. The trouble with Karl was that ‘been drinking' didn't have to mean by the gallon or litre because it did not take very much alcohol to get him pissed, despite his size. He was a Yank who couldn't hold his liquor. He also had a tendency to revert to his East Coast accent when he drank, losing the mid-Atlantic hybrid he'd picked up from living in England for so long. Drink made him revert to type.

Henry sighed and glanced at Kate, puzzled why his ex-friend was calling at such a godless hour. Henry had had no contact with him since the Akbar shooting because their friendship had suffered a severe, if not fatal blow during the hunt for the terrorist. It would take more than a pissed-up phone call to repair the damage.

‘I'm shorry, pal, podna,' Donaldson slurred.

‘How much have you had?'

‘Full bottle bourbon.'

‘Jesus. It's a wonder you can still pick up the phone.'

‘Man, oh, man, don' be cruel …'

‘What do you want, Karl?'

‘She wants us to split … to leave me, man,' Donaldson sobbed.

‘Who? Karen?' Henry could not believe that.

‘Yeah, yeah … it's over, pal … I screwed up, big style …'

‘Hey, I'm sorry.'

‘I needed to talk … to you, H.'

Henry said, ‘Hey, first things first – Karen loves you. I know that for sure. Why the hell she does, I don't know, but she does. Secondly, sober up, then we can talk. Get some sleep. OK, pal?' There was no response. ‘Karl?'

The line buzzed dead and Henry looked accusingly at the phone in his hand, then replaced it slowly on to the base unit.

T
he sound of the en-suite shower woke Henry from his slumber. He looked at the bedside clock and groaned when he saw it was only 8.30 a.m. He dragged the duvet over his head and did not peek out until Kate emerged from the shower, hair dripping and a bath towel wrapped loosely around her body. She went into the walk-in dressing room, left the door open and dropped the towel, then began to attack her hair. Henry could see her from where he lay and enjoyed the sight of a jiggling bum for a few moments before she realized he was ogling her. She twisted around, shouted, ‘Oi! Perv!' and closed the door.

‘Nice arse,' he shouted, hauling his ageing body out of bed and sitting up. He scratched all those dark, dank places that male members of society felt the need to scrape in a morning, before standing up and lurching towards the shower himself.

‘Anything?'

Henry was standing at the far end of the back garden, hands on hips, eyes crossing and recrossing the area to see if there was something to preserve for a Crime Scene Investigator from the earlier shenanigans. Not that he had any greater pull than a normal member of the public on the services of the CSIs, and a prowler certainly wasn't at the top of their list of priorities for a team already run ragged by Blackpool's high crime rate.

Kate stood at the kitchen door, coffee and toast in hand. She was already late for work, which she did four days a week, 9.30–4.30 at an insurance broker's in town.

There was a raised flower bed next to one part of the back fence and Henry saw a footprint in the soil next to one of his rose bushes. He bent down and inspected it, estimating about a size 8 trainers, maybe. It wasn't his footprint and it was definitely worth preserving from the weather on the off-chance that a CSI might find time to nip around. He placed an upturned seed tray over it and joined Kate back in the kitchen.

‘Shoe print,' he explained. ‘I'll try and get CSI round, but they'll be busy, I expect.'

‘Even if you order them? Is there no benefit in having rank these days?'

‘I can't even fiddle expense claim forms anymore, not like in the days of yore when we first met.'

Kate smirked at a memory. ‘Those were the days, eh? Sex, sex, sex – oh, and dead bodies.'

‘Mm, and your arse isn't that much bigger now,' he teased.

‘Nor is your cock,' she responded, punching his shoulder. ‘I need to go,' she announced. ‘You here tonight?'

‘Yeah, back around nine, I guess.'

She looked relieved. ‘Good – see you later.'

Henry fixed himself a breakfast of coffee and croissants and sat outside on the patio to eat it, even though the day was chilly, wishing he was on a Paris pavement. He had placed his mobile phones on the garden table in front of him and his business phone, which was set to silent, started to vibrate and flash as a call came through. The display read no number. He coughed to clear his throat, steadied himself and answered it.

‘Frank Jagger.'

‘Where the hell are you?' growled the voice of Ryan Ingram.

‘Out and about.'

‘You haven't been at your apartment all night.'

‘As I said, out and about.' Ingram had been watching the flat, which was a worry.

‘Shaggin'?'

‘I wish.'

‘I want a meet,' Ingram said. ‘I liked what I saw.'