She rubbed her panda eyes. ‘Ungh — you,’ she said. The duvet slid down and Henry averted his eyes like a gent. ‘Whazzappenin’?’ she mumbled thickly. She scratched her left breast, which was completely exposed.
‘Where’s Runcie?’
‘Fuck shoulda know? He were here.’ She exhaled like a horse and reached for a packet of cigarettes on the bedside. ‘D’ya wan’ ’im for?’
‘He’s done a runner. I need to speak to him urgently.’
Henry watched her pick up the cigarette packet next to an ashtray overflowing with ciggie ends, spliffs and two used condoms.
‘Where is he?’
She placed a cigarette between her lipstick-smeared lips, her eyes bleary. ‘No idea.’
‘Tell me your best guess, Cherry, or I’ll bust you.’
She screwed up her nose and hoisted the duvet back over her boob. ‘F’ what?’
Henry pointed at the ashtray. ‘Mary Jane’s still illegal, I believe. And are those traces of coke I see on the dressing table top?’
‘You wouldn’t.’
‘Would.’
‘Bastard.’
‘Just tell me.’
‘Uh. . prob’ly gone to that club on Withnell Street, I dunno.’
Henry only knew of one club on that road in South Shore. ‘John Rider’s old place?’
‘Yuh, that’s the one. . he’s just bought it.’
‘Right.’ Henry turned to leave.
‘Hey!’ Cherry called.
He turned back. ‘What?’
She flung back the duvet, revealing her completely naked and completely hairless body, which to Henry looked very fine indeed. She rotated and opened her legs wide, allowing Henry to see her very finely shaved pubic area. ‘Jig-a-jig? You — me? I’ll fuck your brains out for Christmas for free.’
‘I’ll pass.’ Henry raised a hand. Just at the moment Henry’s brain was screwed up enough.
ELEVEN
Henry knew the club on Withnell Street too intimately for comfort, but was under the impression it had been virtually abandoned and allowed to fall into disrepair, untouched for years. The previous owner, John Rider, had harboured big ideas for the place, a former casino, with visions of turning it into a lap dancing club. Those visions had come to a very bloody end when one of Rider’s rivals had declared his own plans for the club and Rider had been killed in the crossfire. Henry had been deeply involved in the situation — it had almost cost him his life — and returning to the club for the first time in years unearthed a lot of unpleasant memories.
That said, he wasn’t surprised someone had taken it over for something. He guessed that the licence for the place would have been kept current by whoever had owned it — Rider’s executioners, he assumed. Once a liquor licence lapsed it was hard work to resurrect, as the application process would have to begin from scratch. And any premises with a drinks licence in Blackpool could be a gold mine.
He hurried back to his car, still in one piece after his close encounter with Cherry, and set off towards South Shore. Much of that area of town was quite pleasant, but the two hundred metre wide strip from the Pleasure Beach complex as far north as Central Pier was not the most salubrious of localities. Many of the terraced houses, once proud and clean bed and breakfast establishments, had been turned into rabbit-warren flats, financed by the Department of Social Security, run by seedy landlords and inhabited by the unfortunate and the criminal. Henry disliked to stereotype, but many of the people he came across were lazy third-generation scroungers, living off benefits embedded in their psyche, existing hand to mouth, stealing, taking drugs. Many he didn’t come across were decent folk living in harsh times. But the truth of the matter was that South Shore did have a high rate of crime, drug use was rife, and a lot of kids didn’t know their fathers.
The clubs and other drinking establishments didn’t help matters.
Most were well run, but a core of them were managed by individuals whose names should never have appeared on a licence, or were fronts for more organized crime, thriving on the weakness of others.
Sitting behind the wheel of the Audi, Henry exhaled a long breath, then inhaled an equally lengthy one in the hope of replenishing the oxygen in his system, which felt very depleted. He knew he was running on fumes.
His fingers gripped the steering wheel as he focused his mind. His intention now was to visit the club and see if Runcie had gone there. Hopefully, he wouldn’t be there. That would mean Henry could execute a graceful retreat, brief a few people then dash home — to his house in Blackpool, tantalizingly close, but oh so far away — sleep for four hours, then get back to work, and write off any possibility of seeing Alison.
He considered calling her, decided not to, and started the engine, having arranged to meet the night-duty detective at the club. Henry had decided his approach to finding Runcie would be blunt. He would simply knock on the door and take it from there.
He weaved through streets he knew intimately and emerged on the sea front. He drove north, turning into Withnell Street which ran at ninety degrees to the promenade. He drove past the club, did a three-point turn, then pulled in about fifty metres away, just as the night detective came and parked behind him in an unmarked Astra. The jack’s name was Brighouse, a youngish DC Henry knew vaguely and had heard good reports about. He had been busy with a prisoner in the cells when Shoreside was kicking off.
‘Some rockin’ tonight,’ he said to Henry as they walked up to the club.
‘One of those nights that make it all worthwhile,’ Henry said, with a mouth full of irony.
It was well over ten years since Henry had set foot in the club. Standing in front of the big, solid, ornately carved double doors that were the entrance, he paused and his heart upped a beat for a moment as a palpitation shimmied through him, head to toe. He swallowed.
Brighouse noted his hesitation. ‘You OK, boss?’
Henry nodded. ‘Yeah — someone’s just tangoed over my grave, that’s all.’
‘Don’t you just hate it when that happens?’
Henry shook himself free from the terrible memories and ghosts of the past. He had not thought about John Rider for years, a fact that slightly baffled him. Rider had been a top-rate Manchester gangster who had tried to break free from the shackles of his past, but his ex-buddies wouldn’t let go. They had muscled in on Rider’s Blackpool dream with fatal consequences for too many people, almost including Henry. Henry was amazed that he had the ability to move on from such life-changing events and still function as a cop. He knew that had to be the nature of the cop mentality, to be able to compartmentalize, to box off sections of the brain, file away the shit and carry on.
Not that he was completely immune to leakage between those inner walls. On occasions, they had disintegrated — big style — and the plumber had to be called in.
But not tonight. Tonight he had accidentally stepped into a violent set of circumstances that needed to be dealt with firmly and swiftly and forcefully, and a tenuous link to the past wasn’t going to throw him off the scent.
‘I’ve had dealings here in the past,’ Henry said.
‘I know,’ Brighouse said. ‘Bit of a legend.’
Henry shot him a glance, seeing if he was taking the piss. He wasn’t, but a concurrent thought struck him: did becoming a legend mean you were over the hill? Was it time to retire? he asked himself again. ‘This place hasn’t been used in a long time, by the looks.’
‘Not that I know of,’ Brighouse said. ‘So why are we here?’
‘Runcie Costain owns it.’