Fortunately, backup was en route, though for Henry it couldn’t get there quickly enough. Freddy’s windpipe-crushing grip was having a serious effect on his vision as blood and oxygen were effectively cut off from his brain and his punches were losing force and coordination, becoming more like weak slaps as Freddy simply rolled with them.
The real ignominy for Henry was that he was going to die at the hands of a deranged teenager, which would only go to prove the old police adage that it was the routine jobs that were always the most dangerous.
First on the scene to assist was the local detective inspector, who just happened to be in the neighbourhood on an unrelated matter. He ran up and kicked Freddy’s head like it was a rugby ball — which did the trick momentarily.
Freddy released the killing grip on Henry’s throat as he rolled away. Beautiful, fresh, clean, lovely air rushed back into Henry’s lungs and he sat up, clutching his throat, but he didn’t have time for much convalescence because Freddy simply rolled over a few times, came back up as though he was on starting blocks and charged Henry and the DI.
The ensuing scuffle was messy and a bit dirty.
The DI — a certain Robert Fanshaw-Bayley — got stuck in and he and Henry managed to subdue Freddy, but only by getting him face down on the front lawn and, Henry having dropped with all his weight on one knee onto his spine between the shoulder blades, forcing Freddy’s thick arms around his back. They got him double-cuffed: in those days the police were issued with rather flimsy cuffs connected by metal links, not rigid handcuffs, and sometimes it was prudent to put two sets on a violent prisoner, ratcheting them tight into the skin. They then both sat on Freddy, gasping for breath as he continued to squirm and curse underneath them like a trapped crocodile.
‘Can’t believe this fucker is only a teenager,’ FB said, ruddy faced. Even back then he was a big, unfit bloke.
‘Big lad,’ Henry agreed, massaging his neck.
Freddy was arrested — thrown into the back of the section van by four officers. Having caused a lot of problems in the cells down at Rawtenstall nick, not least because he suffered severe claustrophobia, he was sectioned under the Mental Health Act and spent much of the rest of his life after that in secure and non-secure institutions, depending on his state of mind.
Henry didn’t bother to pursue the assault on himself (and neither did Freddy’s aunt, even though she was badly injured). The main reason was that when Freddy’s room at his aunt’s was searched, Henry found fifty beheaded pigeons, the heads having been bitten off by Freddy, two dead dogs that had been gutted, four dead cats — hung from the ceiling by their tails — and numerous rodents that had met their deaths in various ways, all stacked neatly away in Freddy’s sock drawer.
It was plain that Freddy was not remotely stable ‘up top’ and to prosecute him would be a pointless exercise, a waste of public money. It was going to cost the state enough to provide him with the care and treatment he needed, so Freddy pretty much disappeared into the system, never to be heard of again.
Until now.
Terry Cromer looked at Henry through half-lidded eyes, an expression of contempt on his face, and a little surge of something skittered through the detective. Apprehension and excitement.
Henry knew about this family. Despite their outward appearance as country hicks, they had become a well-oiled money-making machine, very disciplined and ruthless. To be honest, Henry hadn’t had much contact with them over the years. He was someone who investigated murders — and if asked, he would say that he had been put on this earth to do just that.
In an earlier period of his service, Henry had been a detective sergeant on the Regional Crime Squad, involved in long-term operations against outfits like the Cromers. Now he wasn’t, and he only really came into contact with such people when they had some connection with a murder that had been committed. But he did know that the Cromers were often the subject of long-range investigations by major crime units; they may possibly have been so at that moment as Henry stood there, facing off with one of the north-west’s scariest gangsters — a man who shared a little of his younger brother’s mental state. Henry wasn’t routinely kept up to date with ongoing operations, which were often run very secretively.
He could imagine that if the Cromers were the subject of any sort of ongoing job by NCIS or the MCU, he might easily end up being bollocked by someone further up the line for stepping on toes without permission and putting a well-planned op in jeopardy by simply barging up to their house.
Maybe.
But needs must. Everyone had a job to do. He just hoped that he wouldn’t come across an undercover cop he might recognize who had infiltrated the family and was having Christmas dinner with them.
So, Terry Cromer.
He was the older brother. Mid forties, and although he was a stocky, muscled guy, he wasn’t built to the same proportions as Freddy. But he was still intimidating — or would like to be. He obviously worked out with weights, his arms being all Popeye muscle and tattoos and the tight vest he wore outlining his pecs and rippling six-pack. His shaved head and accompanying snarl harmonized with his tough persona.
He didn’t faze Henry, who loved stuff like this. Eyeball to eyeball. Henry and a crim. ‘Can I have a word?’ Henry had said.
‘You’re gate crashing our celebrations. . and to be completely honest with you, no one here’s really that worried about Freddy. . He’s nuts, always has been, always will be, and he’ll turn up somewhere drunk and incapable, hopefully face down in a ditch.’
Tension is a strange thing. Invisible, yet possible to slice with a sharp knife. And tension surrounded the two men. Henry watched Cromer as he spoke, could smell a whiff of alcohol on his breath, but could tell he wasn’t drunk.
Cromer’s forehead furrowed as he realized who Henry was. He jabbed a finger at him. ‘You’re the fucker responsible for getting Freddy sectioned all those years ago. . and on top of that, you got my lad convicted for murder, too.’
Cromer had a good memory. In terms of the former allegation, Henry had actually had very little contact with the Cromer family and the sectioning had been done by social workers and doctors. In fact the only time he’d met any of them back then was when he had visited the aunt’s bedside at Burnley General Hospital to check on her progress and the family had turned up en masse to visit. Young Terry had been part of that entourage, Henry recalled; then he had been a slim, wiry youth with a cop-hate, sneery attitude well embedded in his psyche.
Years later, of course, he had got Terry’s son — Terry junior — convicted of murder. That had entailed a lot of very fractious encounters with Terry senior, but at that time no mention had ever been made of the incident with Freddy many years before.
The murder committed by the junior member of the family had taken place outside a nightclub in Blackpool, when he had stabbed a doorman to death in a frenzied attack witnessed by too many people and had been jumped on and restrained by other bouncers, still with the knife in his hands. A simple enough murder — bang to rights — but one for which the real reason was never properly explained. Henry knew it was about drugs and turf, but neither that nor the murder itself were ever admitted by Terry junior, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that included disturbing CCTV footage of the killing. Not that it mattered, because he was stuffed — and the family did not like it.
Henry’s only role had been to oversee the investigation, just to ensure nothing was overlooked. Everyone else did the work, as it should be.
But as SIO Henry could not avoid coming into contact with the Cromers, and at one point he had a stand-up row with Terry senior that almost came to blows in Blackpool police station foyer. Terry’s threatening rants then became a personal attack on Henry, who he blamed for taking away his only flesh and blood.