The Nothing Job (3 page)

The four PCs exchanged glances and hesitated until Henry said, ‘Go,' and gestured with his hands as though he was pushing them out.

Henry looked at the night-duty DC. ‘I'm going for a stroll, too.'

The DC nodded.

‘You check the footage for fifteen minutes before and after what we've already seen. Might turn up possible witnesses.'

‘OK.'

Henry gave the CCTV operator a curt nod and when his back was turned, she shoved her tongue down between her bottom set of teeth and bottom lip and pulled a monkey face at him. He, in turn, not seeing this, left the room rolling his eyes at her inefficiency.

Back on the streets it had turned predawn chilly, even though the night had been warm. A kind of light mist had formed and hung wispily like a ghost. Henry walked back up Friargate where he'd left his car, pulled a three-quarter-length zip-up jacket from the boot and slid it on. Then he went back to the point where the CCTV camera was affixed to a lamp post above the Ring Way/ Friargate junction. He looked up at the camera that angled back down at him guiltily.

Hands thrust deep in his pockets, Henry stood on the exact spot that victim and pursuer had crossed at four minutes to two, then twelve minutes later had been re-crossed by the pursuer, now murderer – alone, having committed his brutal deed.

His eyes searched the pavements for a trail of blood. No such luck.

Twelve minutes, he thought.

Henry ran the footage through his mind again, brief though it was. The girl had been fleeing, desperate for her life. As she'd run across the screen with her ripped clothing and shoeless feet, her head had whipped round to look at the man behind her. And even though the image was fuzzy, unclear, it was plain to see it had been a look of terror.

And then the man came into shot, unhurried, with that sure gait, knowing he would catch and destroy her. No knife in hand, though, not even on the return journey.

So he followed her, killed her, then came back.

And she had no shoes on her feet … and she was a drug addict according to the observation from the pathologist.

Henry's eyes moved around, over to the Grey Friar pub on the opposite side of the road, one of the Wetherspoon chain, and the smaller pub on the opposite corner, the Old Black Bull. They were positioned like sentinels to that section of Friargate, one of Preston's oldest thoroughfares, which, if Henry was honest, had seen much better days. Now, despite the best intentions of the city council, parts of it were quite run-down and almost derelict. It was a mixture of Indian restaurants, iffy pubs and a smattering of half-decent shops … and, Henry thought again,
the girl had nothing on her feet
. Just how far could someone run barefoot, he speculated. Not far, not even when running for your life. He crossed the deserted road at the traffic lights, stood outside the Grey Friar, his brow creased as he mulled it through.

Raising his eyes skywards, he squinted at the approaching dawn for a few moments, watching the sky change hue. A few cars came down Ring Way. In the distance he heard the glass-rattle of an electric milk cart. The city was easing itself reluctantly out of bed. He walked a few more metres north along Friargate to the minor junction with Union Street on his right, feeling unsettled.

Nothing on her feet. To Henry that meant two things: she'd either been chased from a nearby premises, or she'd jumped from a car. It was the former hypothesis that captured his imagination there and then so with that in mind, he began to stroll. Hands clasped behind his back, the regulation two miles an hour – cop pace.

He worked his way up Union Street, then across Great Shaw Street until he dropped back on to Friargate where he bumped into the pair of constables making their way from Moor Lane to Ring Way.

There was a short conversation – nothing to report – before parting. Henry crossed the road on to Edward Street, not really knowing what he might be looking for, and basically finding absolutely nothing, nor anyone, as he worked his way back to the traffic lights, his starting point, slightly annoyed at himself.

He rubbed his eyes. They squelched obscenely. He knew that later in the morning this section of town would be torn asunder by the murder enquiry and house-to-house teams. He was already frustrated it would not be him deploying officers on their tasks, which is why he felt driven to find something out here and now, something tangible for the murder team to get their teeth into.

‘Once more,' he told himself.

This time he walked three-quarters the length of the north side of Friargate, then looped right into Great Shaw Street and back again.

‘
DCI Christie?
' his PR called.

He stopped outside the Preston Playhouse Theatre and fished the PR out of his pocket. It was the comms room contacting him. ‘Message from the CSI – can you attend the crime scene re movement of the body?'

‘Roger … I'll make my way back up. ETA two minutes.' As he spoke he rotated on his heels and found himself looking down a narrow, high-walled alley. At first glance it appeared to be a dead end. He had peered down it on his first walk-through, but hadn't seen anything which drew his attention, other than a battered-looking Fiat Panda at the far end of it. Henry slid his radio back into his jacket and walked down the centre of the alley towards the car, feeling broken glass crunch like cockroaches under his feet. It was becoming easier to see as dawn broke.

Suddenly he froze, mid-stride, patting down his pockets for his mini-Maglite torch, which he found in his outer jacket pocket. He twisted the lens cap to turn it on and flashed the tiny but intense beam on the object that had caught his eye. It was on the ground by the front nearside wheel of the car.

Initially he had thought it to be just litter, a discarded chip paper or burger wrapper, scrunched up then thrown down.

He swallowed drily with excitement as his eyes focused on a woman's slip-on shoe, white, rather like a ballet shoe. He squatted, hearing and feeling his knees crack, to inspect the find. Definitely a shoe.

Standing back up stiffly he glanced further down the alley to see if he could spot its partner.

The alley narrowed considerably into nothing wider than a ginnel and then came out on Friargate between two shops. Just to Henry's right, beyond the car, a tight junction in the alley turned ninety degrees and ran parallel behind the shopping street. Henry's whole being tensed as he heard the sound of footsteps in this section of the alley, then a door gently closing and the sound of a latch dropping. His second surge of adrenaline of the night gushed into him, purging his mouth of saliva.

The footsteps came closer.

Henry stepped back and pushed himself against the wall, waiting for whoever this was to emerge. His breathing was put on hold. He covered the torch beam with the palm of his hand.

As he waited, he spotted a motorbike propped up in the shadows against the wall on the opposite side of the alley, the first time he'd seen it. It was a trials bike of some description.

Suddenly a man appeared from the alley within feet of him, fitting a full-face motorcycle helmet over his head and walking over to the bike. He hadn't noticed Henry – and he was wearing the same sort of jacket as the killer in the CCTV footage.

Henry took one step so he was standing behind the man. He'd already fished out his warrant card which was in his fingers, ready to be displayed.

‘Excuse me,' he coughed.

The words seemed to send a charge of electricity into the man. Henry saw him jump, then spin quickly and aggressively. Henry extended his arm and flashed the warrant card, flashing the torch beam to it so the man could see the ID and make no mistake.

‘I'm a police officer,' Henry said, waving the ID. He quickly took stock of the man. He could not see his face in the helmet, but could see he was strongly built, maybe a little shorter than himself.

The man lifted the visor of his helmet. ‘Don't know,' he shrugged, the voice deep, guttural.

‘Don't know what?' Henry said, taking a further stride towards him, that feeling inside him which said, ‘
Don't let this guy go.
'

‘I'd just like a word, please.'

‘For what? Why?'

‘Remove your helmet, please.'

‘For what?'

‘Helmet – off.' Henry mimicked its removal. ‘Let me see your face.'

The man shrugged again as if he did not understand Henry's words. ‘No, no.' He wagged a finger as though he had no time for this nonsense.

‘Yes, yes,' Henry said, stepping even closer, but getting a bad vibe. Was this the murderer? His gut said yes. ‘I need to talk. I'm a policeman,' he insisted, still displaying his warrant card clearly.

The man edged away, getting closer to the motorbike.

‘No – must go.'

‘No,' Henry said firmly. ‘You stop now.' Inside he was regretting not being correctly tooled up. He didn't have his handcuffs or his extendable baton on him.

The man turned his back on Henry and made to the bike. Henry reached out intending to grab his arm and spin him round. No one had ever successfully ignored Henry in almost thirty years of coppering and this guy was not going to be the exception. But somehow, sensing this was about to happen, the man pivoted without warning. It didn't take Henry by surprise. His cop instinct was already sounding clanging bells, but the man did move very quickly, faster than Henry had anticipated, and as he span, he flung out his left hand and caught Henry a glancing blow across the chin. Henry reared away, staggering back a step or two, not really losing his balance, just dropping into a defensive stance like a wrestler.

The suspect – as the man now was – had taken up a similar position, like a mirror image of Henry, but with one major difference: there was now a knife in his right hand, long, slim-bladed. In Henry's right hand was a tiny torch.

The men paused in a stand-off.

Henry gulped, finding his mouth still barren. ‘I'm a cop,' he reiterated so there was no misunderstanding. He held out the warrant card again. ‘Don't be silly. Drop the knife.'

‘No,' the man uttered, his voice slightly muffled by the crash helmet.

‘You drop it,' Henry said warningly. He slowly placed the warrant card in his jacket pocket, extracting his PR, his eyes transfixed on the man and knife. He raised the PR to his face and pressed the transmit button and managed to say, ‘DCI Christie to Preston …' They were the only words he got out before the man lunged at him.

Henry saw it coming, prepared for it.

He sidestepped and crashed the PR down on to the man's wrist, hard and violently, intending to hurt him with the solid radio.

The knife clattered to the cobbles, but the man curved into Henry, driving him back against the wall. Henry's arms flailed upwards like a broken windmill and everything was released. The PR crashed down and his torch skittered away towards the main channel in the centre of the alley.

The man came on. He grabbed Henry's right arm and with a display of great strength hurled him bodily against the Fiat Panda.

Henry lashed out desperately with his foot, feeling his right toecap connect somewhere on the man's right shin – but the man still powered in, his crash-helmeted head rearing back about to head-butt Henry in the face.

Even in that brief flash of time, Henry was able to visualize the damage such a blow could do to his handsome features. He squirmed away and his right hand shot underneath the jawline of the helmet, grabbing for the windpipe. He squeezed his fingernails either side of the Adam's apple, then using all the force he could muster heaved the man backwards – a man who was now fighting like a demented being. Henry's muscles screamed with the effort, his face contorted, his neck sinews like steel twine. The man broke free and reeled away, but gave Henry only a moment of relief because he was back on the cop again, laying into him with a series of well-placed body blows. Henry was powerless to resist them and was not a skilled enough fighter to avoid them.

He sagged down as the man punched and kicked, raining blow after blow on him. He toppled over, groaning, and found himself belly-down on the cold ground, his face twisted and able to see underneath the Fiat Panda. And even despite the violent onslaught he registered another slip-on shoe. Then his vision swam as though he'd dived into a swimming pool – but the sight of the second shoe and the certainty that he'd accidentally come across a murderer had a massive surging effect on him. He managed to roll away and back up to his knees – only to be kicked in the side of the head and sent splaying across the car again.

He gasped, his senses ebbing and flowing, expecting more, to be pounded into oblivion – but the man picked up the knife, ran to the motorbike, leaped on it and fired it up instantly. He revved the engine and slew away up the cobblestoned alley, doing a sharp right at the end and disappearing.

‘Fuck!' Henry spat in rage, forcing all the feelings of pain aside and shaking his head to clear his thinking. He yanked himself to his feet by using the wing mirror of the Panda and rescued his PR, which he began to scream into whilst being completely embarrassed and annoyed at himself. He calmed his voice and relayed the situation, then in pure anger kicked out at the Fiat Panda. As he did he noticed a glint of something hanging in the steering column. The keys were in the ignition.

He wrenched the driver's door handle, found it open and dropped in behind the wheel. Slamming the clutch down and jabbing the accelerator, he twisted the key with all his might, subconsciously hoping that his display of strength would transfer through the ignition system to the starter motor and start the car. It seemed to work, as the engine fired up first time.

He almost cheered, but muttered, ‘Long time since I commandeered a car.'

Not that he had any real right to do what he did, but there was no way he was going to allow a murder suspect to get out of his clutches so easily, especially not one who'd assaulted him.