He was back at work at 12.30 p.m., after having got home just before ten that morning and dropped like a block of lead into bed. He had been sensible enough to set his alarm, and as soon as he had done that and snuggled down into bed, alone, and assumed his number one sleeping position — on his right side, left leg drawn up, hands clasped together under his pillow — he fell asleep instantly. When the alarm clock woke him he felt more drained than ever, could easily have turned over and gone back to sleep.
He dragged himself unwillingly into the shower, trying to keep the water from swilling away the butterfly strips that Alison had applied to his head wound, yet wanting the powerful hot water jets to massage life back into his dead face.
His reflected image in the shaving mirror almost made him want to smash the glass with his fist. Then he realized he probably didn’t look much worse than normal — an unedifying insight. He looked old and haggard. His eyes were heavily bagged, bloodshot and red raw in the corners. He raised his chin and rubbed his neck, feeling where Freddy Cromer had attempted to throttle him last night. It hurt more now than it did at the time, or perhaps he just hadn’t had time to notice it previously. It had all got just a bit frenetic afterwards, and the attempted strangulation seemed tame in comparison to the events that followed.
He shaved and applied moisturizer, something he’d only recently and reluctantly begun to do as his face started falling apart. Then he dressed casually and went downstairs.
Jenny and Leanne were in the kitchen. Lisa was nowhere to be seen and he already knew that Alison had gone back to Kendleton. It was going to be a busy day at the Tawny Owl. It was a special curry day and every table had been pre-booked throughout the day. Henry hoped to be able to make it later. The chef’s Indian food was as authentic as it could be without him actually being from the sub-continent, and Henry always hated the thought of missing out on a good curry.
Jenny was going to spend a few hours with her grandmother, reports from the hospital being positive. Leanne would take over later and Henry planned to be there around teatime for a few hours, too. . not planned — intended. Lisa would do her bit somewhere along the line, too, Henry had decided.
Today, he also decided, other people were going to do the work. He was going to do what a superintendent was supposed to do: delegate. Apart from anything else, he just didn’t have the energy to get strangled or shot at again.
Not that he had many staff to play with or order about.
Which meant that today — still, unbelievably, Boxing Day — would be a day of consolidation and forward planning.
The crime scenes needed to be sorted properly, both at the hospital, on Shoreside and at the club in South Shore. That would be the focus of the day, together with working out which relatives needed to be informed and when the post-mortems would be carried out. Tomorrow, when there were more staff, he would think about tracking down Terry Cromer and his mate and getting the bastards arrested — unless something came to light today which required immediate action. He wasn’t really pleased by this because he would have liked to go hunting for Cromer, but without staff it wasn’t an option. So, all in all, it would be a day of boxing off some of the fundamentals before the investigations really got going next day.
He briefed his handful of staff at FMIT, then retreated to his office and opened the murder book.
Rik Dean appeared a few seconds later and sat down, uninvited, across from him. The two men regarded each other.
Henry said, ‘You OK?’
Rik’s face broke into a wide beam. ‘More than OK, pal.’
‘Good,’ Henry said and looked down at the empty pages of the murder book that needed to be filled. He picked up a pen.
‘Your sister has one helluva hot-’
‘Whoa!’ Henry threw the pen down and held up his right hand, palm out. The police stop sign. ‘Certain things I do not wish to know.’
‘Oh, yeah, yeah,’ Rik said awkwardly. ‘So, anyway — thanks, H.’ Then his eyes glazed over and he said, ‘Oh, mama.’
‘She just needed a nudge in the right direction.’
The door opened and this time Jerry Tope appeared, a thick manila file tucked under his armpit. Henry waved him in and pointed to the spare seat.
‘What are your plans for the day, Henry?’ Tope asked.
Henry pouted. ‘This’ — he pointed to the blank murder book — ‘crime scene revisits, liaison with the pathologist, see my mum, then I’m going to get a curry at my favourite pub in Kendleton, with my favourite landlady.’
‘In that case, what do you want me to do about the original reason we were all summoned together? Something that’s been a bit lost with everything else that’s happened.’
‘The Twixtmas Killings?’ Rik said.
‘Oh yeah. . have we had any other missing persons who fit the victim profiles?’
‘Not had the chance of a proper sift yet,’ Tope admitted. ‘Had a quick chat with the FIM, but there’s nothing he can see.’
Henry churned it over. He had intended to do nothing that day, apart from direct others, but something nagged at him faintly. ‘I might go and have a chat with Freddy Cromer. . he’s sort of a bridge between both incidents, isn’t he? That is, the murders and last night’s shootings. I wonder how lucid he is today? He might inadvertently give up Terry’s whereabouts with a bit of careful questioning.’ If Henry had had a handlebar moustache, he would have been twirling it. ‘Talking of which, Jerry, can you pull everything together we have on the Cromers and the Costains?’
Jerry nodded. Henry looked at Rik. ‘You sort out the crime scenes, will you? And the post mortems. . I’ll follow up Freddy, see what he has to say.’
Henry realized he didn’t have Janine Cromer’s phone number, but he had a brainwave. When Freddy was released into her custody she had to give the custody officer her mobile number. A quick internal call got him the number and he dialled it from his office phone. It went straight onto voicemail, so he left a short message. He wasn’t too concerned.
What had happened overnight was complicated and far reaching, so he took the opportunity to make himself a filter coffee, settle down behind a closed office door — which would remain closed — get the murder book up to date, as he had already tried to do, and put together an investigative strategy. It was invaluable time, an opportunity to step above everything for an overview. The thing was many stranded, a bit like dealing with an excitable octopus, and even if a quick arrest was made, it wouldn’t stop there. Because Henry had decided that once and for all, he was going to dismantle the crime empires of the Cromers and the Costains — and have great fun doing it.
It would be his piece de resistance before retiring. Kind of a swansong. He would do it brick by brick. He would go for everything. The clubs. The supply lines. The protection rackets. The finance. The bank accounts. He was sure it would just be like pulling a thread on a woolly jumper.
Clearly it wasn’t something he would achieve on his own. It would take many agencies and departments and would require them to pool their knowledge, information and resources.
And probably, he guessed, the first tug of that metaphorical thread was to arrest Terry Cromer and get into his ribs. The threat of a murder charge hanging over the head of even the world’s meanest gangster was a very effective bargaining tool.
Then the Cromers would start to crumble.
At the same time he would lean heavily on the Costains. With their head man and two of their hard men lying in mortuaries, this was an ideal time to move in on them and crush the bastards whilst they were running around with no family head to steer them.
Energized by the thought of this little project, Henry spent two solid hours and four coffees planning, from the strategy downwards. (God, aren’t I good at this leadership and management stuff, he thought at one point.) He wrote down what he wanted to achieve and how he would go about it — strategy to tactics. (Oh yes, I’m good.) Plus he had an urgent run to the toilet, because the coffee had a less than desirable effect on his bowels.