‘Flynn, you’re the twat.’
Flynn cackled wickedly. He had known Jerry Tope for a very long time and they had been good friends when Flynn had been a cop in Lancashire Constabulary. So good that Flynn had done Tope a great favour once, lying to save Tope’s marriage. Ever since, Tope had been in Flynn’s debt. Flynn had never expected to become a debt collector but he had tapped into Tope’s role as an intelligence analyst the previous year when he was after some details of a couple of very bad men who were out to get him. Their friendship had not survived Flynn’s ignominious departure from the cops, but Flynn had found it useful to have someone on the inside who could search databases.
‘It’s different this time,’ Flynn said.
‘I seriously doubt it.’
‘Honest — Cathy James? You remember her. Cathy Turnbull as was?’
‘Yeah, we were all at training school together. Everybody wanted to get into her panties. Rumour had it that someone did…’
‘Yeah, lucky sod, whoever it was.’
‘You did, didn’t you!’ Tope exclaimed. ‘Jeez, you did. Now it all fits into place. Christ, if I’d known that,’ he said wistfully.
‘I didn’t, actually,’ Flynn lied. ‘But, yeah, Cathy James, nee Turnbull.’
‘Mm, haven’t come across her for years. Do know she’s working a rural beat up in Northern Division. She married a jack from Lancaster. Tom James, good lad.’
‘Know much about him?’
‘No, just of him. Good thief-taker by all accounts. Used to be a traffic cop, of all things, but seems to have found his niche. I think Henry’s used him a few times on murders. And he recently got a chief cons commendation for busting a prostitution racket. Probably go far… Look, why?’
‘Oh, nothing. It’s just that I’m here on a flying visit and thought I’d drop in on Cathy.’
‘You’re back in Lancashire?’ Tope said it as though Flynn’s presence was something akin to a deadly virus.
‘Affirmative.’
‘Ugh. Why don’t you just call her up?’
‘Done — no reply.’
Jerry Tope sighed. ‘Hold on, I’ll check the duty states.’ Flynn heard the tap of his fingers on a keyboard, Tope accessing the computerized system that recorded the working hours of every officer on duty within Lancashire. ‘You back for good?’ Tope asked.
‘As I said, flying visit.’
‘Good… here we are… she’s down as being on a rest day today. Maybe she’s gone out for the day.’
‘What about Tom?’
More key-tapping. ‘Nine-five,’ which Flynn knew meant nothing as far as detectives were concerned. They tended to be loose about what hours they actually worked and the official system was often wrong. ‘Oh, what about yesterday?’
‘Yesterday? Um, Cathy, rest day, Tom, nine-five.’
‘Thanks, Jerry.’
‘That it?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Thank God for small mercies.’
Flynn hung up feeling ever so slightly guilty, but not so much that he wouldn’t use Tope’s knowledge and position again if necessary. Because there was no statute of limitations on adultery, Flynn’s knowledge of Tope’s one and only infidelity was something he would hold over him for the rest of his life.
He scribbled a note to Faye, thanking her for letting him crash out and use her facilities, left twenty pounds he could ill afford for Craig, collected his gear and locked the house, then jumped into his hire car. He hoped that he would be done with whatever problem was ailing Cathy by tomorrow and was already looking forward to going home to Gran Canaria, even if he was going to be sued for assault by the jumped-up Hugo. He was missing the feel of the boat under his feet and even though Faye 2 was going to be in dry dock for a couple of months, he wanted to be there, tending her, carrying out any necessary repairs and in general looking after his baby. Survival money would come from somewhere.
‘This is the centre of the known world,’ Henry Christie said grandly as he swung his rucksack off his shoulder and sat down on the ugly rocky boulders busting out of the heathland that were known as Whitendale Hanging Stones. ‘Well,’ he said, amending the claim as he delved into the rucksack for his steel flask and sandwiches, ‘the middle of Britain, anyway.’
He unscrewed the flask and poured himself a welcome coffee, sipping it as he admired the view from a vantage point that made him feel on top of the world.
‘Whaddya mean?’ Donaldson said indifferently. He dropped his rucksack beside Henry, sat down miserably and pulled his anorak hood over his head.
Henry looked at him, realizing what the term ‘green at the gills’ meant. Donaldson was not improving healthwise. If anything, he looked more unwell than earlier and it had been his excellent physical condition that had kept him going up to this point. They had been walking for three hours and when the sheep tracks had petered out, it had been tough going. The bogs were unforgiving and possibly treacherous to the unwary.
‘I mean that this position here is the geographical centre of the British Isles — if the four hundred and one outlying islands are included in the calculation.’
‘Oh.’ Donaldson sounded unimpressed. He had food and drink in his rucksack, but did not open up and get any, just sat there glumly.
It was very windy at this location, 496 metres above sea level, and icy blasts seared through their layers of clothing.
Henry sipped his hot coffee and bit into a Lancashire cheese sandwich, laced with piccalilli, as he surveyed the countryside. It was a truly magnificent vista, the hills of Bowland and Pendle lying like huge sleeping dinosaurs. He looked at the sky. To the south it was fairly clear, and across to the west he could still make out the pinprick that was Blackpool Tower on the coast. He swivelled around, then his eye caught a bird zooming across the moorland just below him. A frisson of joy shot through him.
‘Would you look at that?’
In his not misspent youth, Henry had been a bit of a birdwatcher and could still recognize most of the common species, as well as many birds of prey, which were always a favourite. And what he saw made his heart beat faster with excitement. An adult male hen harrier, grey plumage above, white underneath, showing its dark wing-tips as it shot past. It was a rare bird and still persecuted by ruthless gamekeepers.
Donaldson didn’t even look up, but said, ‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Ooh.’ Donaldson hissed and doubled up, gripping his stomach. He scrambled to his feet, gave Henry a desperate look, and ran behind a rocky outcrop.
Henry looked to the north-east. The sight he saw filled him with some dread. Maybe thirty miles distant, the clouds were black, rolling and heavy. ‘Not good,’ he said.
A few moments later, Donaldson reappeared, his complexion grey.
‘You OK?’ Henry asked him again.
‘I’ve just had the shits on the middle of Britain,’ he said.
Flynn had driven out of Blackpool and dropped on to the M55, heading east across Lancashire. At the junction with the M6, he bore left and north, eventually passing Lancaster on his left, then the young offenders’ institution, exiting the motorway at junction 34. Then he’d gone right, heading in a vague north-easterly direction along the A683, following the Lune valley, the River Lune being Lancashire’s second river after the Ribble. He passed through the village of Caton, past the police house on the left, but before he reached the next settlement, Hornby, he took a right turn, picking up the signs for Low and High Bentham, then took another right following the sign for Kendleton.
The tight meandering roads rose steadily and at one point on the brow of a hill, he got a superb view of the hills across the Yorkshire Dales National Park in the next county.
The view was marred only by the approaching black sky — and if he wasn’t mistaken, Flynn was certain that flecks of snow were in the air. He cursed and thought of the magnificent weather he’d left behind, two thousand miles to the south.