The secretary rose defensively as Henry barged through the door of the divisional commander’s outer office.
‘I want to see Mr Geldhill,’ he said, and made to his right to pass her on the wing to get to the divisional commander’s office door.
She moved quickly and positioned herself between Henry and the door, shaking her head. ‘He’s busy. Someone’s in with him.’
‘Margery,’ Henry said, he had known the battle axe for quite a few years, ‘I don’t give a toss.’
‘You can’t go in, Henry.’
Henry shot her a pitying look. ‘I think you’ll find I can,’ he said petulantly.
‘Henry, please.’
‘Just tell him you couldn’t stop me. Tell him I was rude and elbowed my way past you — which is what I am and what I’m going to do.’
She saw ire and determination in Henry’s whole being, could see he was shaking. She wilted and moved sideways, allowing him to pass, a glint of apprehension in her eyes.
He did not knock, simply opened the door and let himself into the chief super’s office.
Tom Gledhill was sitting behind his wide desk, a uniformed inspector sitting opposite him. From their body language they seemed to be having a fairly informal discussion. Gledhill looked up and the instantaneous change in his demeanour was visible, becoming upright in his chair, tense suddenly.
Henry stood there, not saying a word.
Gledhill said, ‘Excuse me?’ Still Henry did not speak. ‘Henry, can’t you see I’m busy here?’
Henry knew he was trembling. He pointed a finger at the inspector. ‘Get out,’ he said.
Dumbfounded, the inspector’s mouth actually dropped open in complete horror. He looked for guidance from the commander.
‘We’ll continue this later, Gerry.’
The inspector stood and sidled warily around Henry, looking at the detective superintendent with a mix of awe and contempt, unable to make up his mind one way or the other.
‘And shut the door,’ Henry snapped. The poor man reacted as though he’d been slapped by a wet towel in a changing room and jerked out of the office.
Henry’s gaze settled on Gledhill, who picked up his desk phone. ‘Margery, definitely no interruptions now. Yes, I know.’ He glanced at Henry. ‘He is, you’re right.’ He cradled the phone. ‘Sit.’
Henry sat on the recently vacated chair. ‘What’s going on?’
‘With regard to your prisoners?’
‘Tom, no — with regard to the situation in the Middle East. Please, don’t fuck me about.’
Gledhill’s face hardened. ‘And don’t you forget you are talking to someone of senior rank,’ he bristled, but not terribly convincingly. Sometimes, even in the modern day and age, rank was pulled.
‘Fair enough,’ Henry relented. ‘Don’t fuck me about — sir.’
Henry saw the man was needled. His jaw muscles worked as though he was chewing something tough and unpleasant. ‘Like I said,’ Henry repeated, ‘what’s going on. Sir?’
‘I was dragged out of bed at five this morning by an irate solicitor, demanding that he be heard and that his clients were to be released forthwith, following their unlawful arrests.’
‘OK — so why wasn’t I contacted about this? I would have gladly turned out to defend the position.’
‘Henry, I tried to call you several times — no reply.’
Henry held up his phone. ‘No missed calls on this,’ he said.
Gledhill shrugged. ‘I take it you were ensconced with your tame landlady, out in the wilds where the phone signal is non-existent. Not good for an SIO. Hardly professional, eh?’ Gledhill was trying to bounce it back to Henry.
‘If you knew where I was, why didn’t you call the landline?’
‘It doesn’t really matter now, does it? Fact is I got dragged out of bed, you were uncontactable and someone had to make a decision.’
‘So you took the line of least resistance?’
‘I did the correct thing under the circumstances, and with regard to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act and the Codes of Practice.’ He waited for Henry’s challenge.
‘Utter cock!’
‘The solicitor argued that the arrests were purely speculative, with no evidential foundation or reasonable suspicion. The force was in a very bad position.’
Henry studied the senior officer, senior in terms of rank, not years. He was not impressed. ‘Tom — Harry Sunderland probably killed his wife. Ralph Barlow has been feeding him confidential information which was used to commit crime. They could both be linked to the unsolved murder of a teenage girl and the search of Sunderland’s house has uncovered some pretty fucking damning evidence about him sheltering two killers.’
‘Henry, this is not the good old days, like when you worked down the Valley. You cannot lock people up on a whim and then go looking for evidence, just because you think they might be guilty. That was a seventies trick and you know it. And how come the searches are still going on? I specifically instructed Rik Dean to contact the search teams to call them off.’
Henry held back a smirk. ‘Guess the message mustn’t have got through — bad reception up there.’
‘What have you found?’
‘A camera phone which could contain evidence.’
Gledhill rolled his eyes at this. ‘Could?’
‘Passports relating to the two men who tried to kill me and Steve Flynn, and guns.’
‘Shit,’ Gledhill breathed.
‘Yes, shit.’
The two men regarded each other silently.
‘They’re still on bail,’ Gledhill said. ‘They have to come back. You still have a hold on them, time to build up your case.’
‘Did you ensure they surrendered their passports?’
‘No. I didn’t think that was necessary. I was assured…’ Gledhill’s voice trailed off pathetically. ‘Sunderland is an upstanding member of the community. He won’t be going anywhere. And Ralph Barlow has twenty-odd years of solid coppering behind him. He’ll fight any allegation. Neither man will disappear.’
Henry shook his head. ‘This is just incredible bollocks and you know it, Tom. I’m going to walk out of here, find those two men and drag their carcasses back in.’
‘No you’re not.’
Henry pushed himself up, Gledhill watching in disbelief. Henry turned at the door to say something, but Gledhill said, ‘Henry?’
‘What?’
‘Be careful.’
‘What does that mean?’
Gledhill’s mouth clammed shut and Henry realized he wasn’t going to say anything else. He went out.
As the door closed, Gledhill reached for his phone.
SEVENTEEN
‘Mr Christie? This is Melanie Speakman… I’m really sorry to bother you.’
‘No, that’s fine,’ Henry said. There was a note of strain in her voice. And in his.
He was sitting in the pool car down in the police garage, brooding and attempting to make some sense of what had happened. The call from Melanie came on his mobile phone as he slumped there in the driver’s seat, surrounded by bleak concrete walls, thinking the absolute worst of everyone in the world. He was completely gutted by the chief super’s decision, but what was done, was done. Deal with it. Pick up the pieces. The underlying problem was that the force was always running scared of litigation, which always took a huge dent out of its budget.
An hour in unlawful custody easily equated to a thousand pounds for the poor soul, plus substantial legal costs that ensured the lawyers didn’t starve. Over eight hours for two people meant a lot of dosh, potentially, so better to take the easy way out, especially when the people in custody had access to slimeball solicitors who enjoyed screwing the cops.
On critical reflection, Henry thought that maybe he had jumped the gun. Arresting people just to see what came out of the woodwork was maybe a little old hat. He should have got warrants first, then there would have been no argument. Or maybe Gledhill was part of the plot. Or am I just being paranoid, he wondered.
It was fortunate that Rik Dean had come in early to clear some of his own backlog, and picked up on what was happening. At least that gave Henry some warning.