‘He’s not here,’ she gasped.
‘Where, then?’
Her mouth constricted. ‘He’s heading to Blackpool.’
Henry understood at once. ‘Tooled up? Costains?’
She nodded.
‘How many?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘Vehicles?’
‘Don’t know, either.’
Henry closed his eyes. ‘Shit.’ All he needed to ice the cake that was the best Christmas Day he’d ever spent was a shoot-out between rival gangs.
‘And I haven’t told you,’ Janine said, spinning away and striding quickly back to the house.
TEN
Even allowing for the time taken to swap the police van for his own Audi, Henry still managed to get to Blackpool within twenty-five minutes — some going, even on roads virtually devoid of traffic. He seemed to be making a habit of breaking all world land speed records across the county.
He exited the M55 at Marton Circle and headed into Blackpool along the A583. His house was on an estate over to his right; more importantly, the council estate that was his destination was on his left.
He turned, slowed right down, his heart still pounding at the memory of the 140 mph he had managed to coax out of his car. Both he and the Audi had loved it — until he lost his nerve and slowed to a more respectable ninety. He entered the estate and slowed to a crawl as a police patrol car came slowly towards him. He flashed it and the cars stopped alongside each other, the drivers opening their windows for a chat. Henry had already asked for an immediate high-visibility presence on the estate to discourage anything that might happen, but Blackpool section was as strapped for staff as everywhere else in the county, especially now — in the early hours of Boxing Day. One car was as much as could be mustered: one cop, one car, police sign illuminated. Still, better than nothing.
The PC driving the car knew Henry. ‘Boss.’
‘Pete — happy Christmas. . anything doing?’
‘You too, boss. . not so far, all quiet on the western front.’
‘Anything happening at the Costains’?’
‘Party time. Banging music. Youngsters hanging out the door and windows, flashing Vs at me, usual shite. But not the only party on the estate. Whole place is heaving.’
‘Let’s loop around and have a drive past.’
Shoreside: an estate Henry knew well. It had a terrible reputation for public disorder, criminality and unemployment. Some figures claimed that seventy-five per cent of adults on the estate were out of work and that a benefits culture was endemic. Despite many initiatives, most of which involved throwing truckloads of cash at the place, nothing seemed to change.
The only row of shops on the estate had been systematically destroyed and was now a memory. A community centre was first firebombed, then resurrected only to be completely flattened by kids using a stolen bulldozer, driven two miles onto the estate from a building site.
It was as if the estate was cursed by a death wish.
And lording over it all by means of terror and intimidation was the infamous Costain family. Claiming, spuriously, descent from Romany gypsies, they had landed in Blackpool almost fifty years earlier and settled into a life of crime which grew from almost honourable thieving and burglary through to drug dealing and armed robbery.
Henry had dealt with them for more years than he cared to remember. Perhaps his greatest victory over them was that one of their number — Troy, now sadly deceased — had been Henry’s informant for a good number of years prior to his demise. Henry had also dealt with the deaths of other members of the family, including old man Costain who had died in a drive-by shooting completely unconnected with his position as the family godfather. But they survived and prospered. To the best of Henry’s knowledge, old man Costain’s younger brother — Runcie Costain — had taken over at the helm and piloted them to new levels of criminality. This obviously included expanding their empire across the county.
Henry drove slowly past the Costain home, two semi-detached council houses knocked into a single huge one. It was alive with festive cheer. A group of alcohol-fuelled teenagers in the front garden jeered at Henry and the police car behind. One of them threw a bottle of WKD at them, which landed and shattered between the two cars with a pop. Henry dipped his accelerator automatically and the police car behind swerved to miss the broken glass.
They drove out of sight and pulled up for a chat, leaning against the police car.
‘Heard you’ve had a busy night, boss,’ the PC said.
‘Understatement,’ Henry said.
‘Reckon there could be repercussions over here?’
‘Every chance. But where, I’m not certain. . if there are a few higher level Costains here, this could be a target.’ He bit his bottom lip. ‘I think I need to go and knock on the front door.’
‘I’ll come with you.’
‘No, you just hang on here and watch the cars. I don’t want to wind them up unnecessarily. . but come like the wind if I yell, obviously.’
‘Obviously.’
He strolled around the corner, wondering if he should have kept his stab vest on. That would have been like a red rag to a bull and someone would have had to try it out.
He walked confidently to the house, passing the group of teens — or were they kidults these days? — who’d lobbed the bottle. They watched him with snake-suspicious eyes. Henry wished them the season’s greetings, and was told to fuck off in reply.
The front door was wide open, but Henry was canny enough to stay outside. He knocked. Youngsters pushed past him rudely in both directions.
A couple on the stairs in front of him were locked in an embrace. The lad’s hand was down the girl’s panties, hers down the front of his jeans. Some very frantic rubbing was going on, more likely to ignite a real flame than produce unforgettable orgasms.
Henry knocked again, the sound lost in the thump-thump of the music and sounds of revelry emanating from the house. The second time in only a few hours that he had turned up unannounced on the doorstep of a criminal family, both for good, honest reasons. Mostly.
First time because he suspected one of them might be a victim of a serial killer. This time to warn of the possibility of some very nasty reprisals. He then had a thought: the news that two of their family had been taken out in Blackburn might fire an uncontrollable reaction from the Costains, either against him as the messenger or in retaliation against the Cromers.
Suddenly his impulsiveness in knocking at the door sent a shimmer of uncertainty through him. This was not the time to be delivering such news to the family, even if they already knew that Stuart and Benji had gone out tooled up to cause mayhem thirty-odd miles to the east.
The thought that he might just be stepping into a cow-pat of conspiracy to murder now struck him.
It was highly likely that Runcie Costain had sent them on their task. They wouldn’t have done it off their own bat.
And — again, Henry thought — had Freddy been used as a lure to draw Terry Cromer out into the open and kill him? Had that been their strategy: kidnap and lure?
Too many questions, not enough answers.
Henry now wanted to reverse out of this situation and reappraise things. He had been acting on impulse, which was often his downfall.
But he also didn’t want anyone else to lose their lives.
The words ‘rock’ and ‘hard place’ sprang to mind.
The Costains needed to know about the deaths in the family (if they didn’t already know), and it was Henry’s responsibility to tell them. But at the same time, Runcie might well have been the person who effectively sent them on the mission that led to their deaths.
Question was — should he now execute a flawless, unobserved exit, or finish what he’d started?
In his mind he sifted through this dilemma in milliseconds, signals surging through the dendrites in his head like a mini electrical storm.
His decision was to get out, regroup, then return with backup so that he would be in control of the situation, not be one cop versus a bunch of drunks likely to kick off just for fun.