The lad was eventually jailed for life, with a judge’s recommendation that he must serve a minimum of fifteen years. The full story behind the killing was never revealed and it was played out as just another night out in Blackpool that had gone sour. As they often did.
And now Henry was back facing Terry senior, a man with pure hate etched across his features. Henry said calmly, ‘I’m simply responding to a missing person report.’
‘Fuck off, Christie,’ Cromer spat. ‘You’re just nosying. Just a friggin’ excuse to get into my house. I know. I’m not thick.’
‘OK, fine, have it your way.’
‘Yeah — my house, my way. You’re trespassing, so you’d better get out now or else I’m gonna smash your head in.’
‘Dad!’
Cromer looked over Henry’s shoulder at the young woman who had let Henry into the house. It jolted Henry to learn she was his daughter, mainly because he didn’t know that Terry had one.
‘Keep out of this,’ Terry warned her.
‘Dad. . Gran’s worried about Freddy. . you should be, too,’ she said forcefully, standing her ground. ‘He is your brother.’ She raised her chin defiantly.
Henry saw Terry’s right fist bunch up like a rock as he looked at Janine and seemed to want to utter something. His fist shook.
Henry said, ‘Look — seriously, we are concerned about him, Mr Cromer. I’m not here nosying, as you put it,’ he fibbed a little. He was being nosy, but he also had a right to be there, because he thought there was the outside chance that Freddy was the target for a serial killer.
Should he tell Terry that? As he looked at the man, Henry thought, No, sod it, you bastard. If he gets dead with feathers stuffed in his mouth, then so be it. He actually said, ‘Are you bothered or not?’
‘Get out,’ Terry stated. ‘Janine — show him past the dogs.’
SEVEN
Henry had been ejected from a lot worse places. He hadn’t expected a warm welcome and they were right to be distrustful of his motives — all crims were — but it was frustrating to be hoofed out without being given the chance to fully explain why he had turned up on the doorstep. He knew he could have forced the issue and made Terry pin his ears back, but that could have been counterproductive.
Their reaction to the possibility that Freddy fitted the profile of a serial killer victim would have either been laugh-out-loud dismissed, or taken so seriously it could have got out of hand. So, Henry had thought as he threw his big Teddy out of his cot, if they wanted to be twats to him, he’d be a twat to them.
The best course of action would be to back out gracefully, then go home and get laid. No contest. Or would have been if it hadn’t been for two things.
The first happened as, led by Janine, he walked down the hallway ahead of Terry Cromer. As he passed the door that had been closed when he’d arrived, the one behind which he’d heard male voices, it opened.
Henry could not help but glance to his right.
And just for the instant that the door was open — and it was opened by a man he instantly recognized — Henry glimpsed three other men in what was a large dining room. It was literally a glimpse. A man at the door, three at a table, and on the table a revolver and a sawn-off shotgun, side by side. The door was immediately slammed shut — because, also in that instant, the man who had opened it knew he had been clocked, and Henry could tell from his instantaneous expression of grief that he had committed a faux pas, or in his language, a fucking cock-up.
Henry walked on, internally jolted, but pretending he’d seen nothing. Janine went out of the front door ahead of him and collared the dogs.
As he stepped out, and Terry slammed the door behind him, the second thing happened.
Janine hissed, just loud enough for him to hear, ‘Park up the road and wait for me.’ Then louder, she said, ‘I’ve got the dogs, you’ll be safe.’
Henry didn’t acknowledge either statement, but set off for the gate and out to his car, dropping into it and heaving a big sigh. Then, as instructed in the stage whisper, he drove a couple of hundred metres up the lane, did a three-point turn and parked, lights out, engine idling.
Inside him, his own pistons were pumping. Guns on the table.
And the dining room door had been opened by none other than Iron-man William Grasson, or Bill the Grass as he was known with irony. Henry knew that in the organizational chart of the Cromer crime business, Grasson fitted in very nicely, thank you, as a violent enforcer, a vicious man once convicted of cutting off another man’s little finger with garden shears when chasing up a hundred-pound drug debt.
Henry had recognized him straight away, because Grasson was a difficult man not to know. Although he was an enforcer, he had himself once come a cropper when he encountered a couple of other rival enforcers chasing his debt. They branded him with the triangular and unmistakable imprint of a steam iron, hence the ‘Iron-man’ epithet. He was scarily recognizable, even to Henry, who had never met the man before.
From what he’d seen of the other men in the room, he didn’t know them, but they seemed equally appealing.
Henry worked through the scenario. Not the nicest bunch of people to invite around for Christmas dinner. He guessed that in the normal course of events, guys like these would only be at the family homestead for two reasons — protection or attack.
Or was he being totally preposterous?
Perhaps the Cromers always invited their best staff around at Christmas, then they could all share their war stories for the last year. The best drugs deal I made. That bloke’s finger I snapped off. That lad’s head I broke. . that rival’s brains I blew out.
Perhaps the guns were merely Christmas pressies.
But knowing what he did about the lifestyles of the rich and criminal, their presence unsettled him.
And on top of that, Janine, daughter of Terry Cromer.
Henry didn’t even know he had a daughter.
A deranged, ultra-violent son, yes, but not a daughter, and one who at first glance didn’t seem to fit the profile of the rest of the tribe. But that didn’t mean anything. Looks could be deceptive.
Just as he was wondering what she wanted, there was a thud and a scraping noise at the car door. Henry jumped, twisted sideways and looked into a pair of menacing eyes. He almost let out a squeak — one of the Cromer dogs was looking at him, leaving a snotty nose print on the window.
Suddenly the head was dragged away sharply as Janine brought the dog under control, leaned forward in its place and looked into Henry’s eyes. ‘Is it unlocked?’ she asked.
He nodded, and she walked around the car and dropped into the passenger seat, trapping the dog’s lead in the door so it could not wander off.
Henry looked at her, confirming her good looks. ‘Didn’t see you coming.’
‘Back way.’
Henry could actually smell her, a mix of nice perfume and cigarette smoke on her breath. It was quite alluring in a strange sort of way. He raised his eyebrows. ‘So?’
‘I wanted to tell you about Freddy.’
‘The missing man — or the missing man, not?’
‘He’s definitely missing and Gran is worried about him.’
‘I’ll make sure he’s circulated.’
‘Dad’s right, isn’t he?’
‘About what?’
‘You turning up. You’re just being nosy, aren’t you? Just an excuse to get into our house, isn’t it? I mean, a detective superintendent — pah!’ She glared accusingly at him.
‘Why are you here? Does your dad know?’
‘No.’
‘Then why?’
‘I wanted to make sure you treated Freddy’s disappearance seriously and didn’t get the huff just because you got kicked out of the house.’
‘Every missing person is treated seriously,’ Henry told her, ‘but what the police do about them is based on the surrounding circumstances. . so I’ll leave Freddy to the local cops and see how it pans out.’