‘Home Office Pathologist,’ she said.
Costain’s eyes darkened. He looked accusingly at Henry. ‘Fuck d’you want?’
Henry had been to the house on two occasions previously to deliver death messages, not including Troy’s. One had been for Troy’s brother, who had been murdered, and another time for a cousin who had been killed in a road accident in a car driven by another cousin who’d survived and gone on the run. Though Henry had nothing to do with these deaths, the family was quite happy to blame him.
And now, here he was, about to deliver another blow, and as much as Henry knew Rory was a wild, villainous boy — a chip off the old block — he felt extremely sorry for the family.
He and Billy were still standing, facing each other with hostility, on the living room carpet.
‘Mr Costain,’ he said softly, using calming hand gestures, ‘Like I said, I need to speak to you and what I have to say is very important.’
‘Do I need my brief?’
‘No.’ Henry shook his head, but avoided an impatient tut.
‘Please. Mr Costain,’ Keira O’Connell intercut with a soothing feminine voice, stepping between the men. ‘Please take a seat, and if we may, could we sit too?’
Costain eyed Henry, then nodded begrudgingly and edged back into a leather armchair, slightly pacified by her words.
O’Connell looked at the couple hovering in the hallway, keen to be part of this scenario. ‘We need a little privacy,’ she said and tried to close the living room door. The nightie-clad girl said, ‘Oi,’ to her, then, ‘Gramps?’ to Costain.
‘Bugger off,’ he told her, ‘both of you.’
O’Connell closed the door, the girl eyeing her malevolently as the gap closed, mouthing the word, ‘Bitch.’ O’Connell merely smiled and arched her eyebrows, then she sat next to Henry on the sofa.
‘This better be good,’ Costain said.
‘Mr Costain, I’ll just cut to the chase… the thing is, Professor O’Connell and myself have just come from the scene of a murder on the car park behind the chippy just off Preston New Road. You know where I mean?’
‘Yuh.’
‘A young lad has been shot…’
‘Oh, aye, and you think one o’ my lads had something to do with it, don’t you?’ Costain concluded instantly, his blue touchpaper being lit. He leaned forwards. ‘Well I can vouch for all of my family, you vindictive bastard.’
Henry simply stared at him, then said evenly, ‘Mr Costain, I’m pretty sure the victim is Rory, your youngest lad.’
The words stopped Costain in his tracks.
‘Say that again.’
‘I’m genuinely sorry, but I think the dead boy is Rory.’
From the hallway came a scream of anguish and suddenly Old Man Billy Costain seemed to age ten years.
FIVE
As stunned as he was by Henry’s revelation, Old Man Costain’s mistrust of the police, ingrained and inflexible after fifty years of living on the wrong side of the law, made extracting any information from him a tortuous process. In spite of the reassurance that, for once, the forces of law and order were on his side, blood didn’t come easily from the stone that was William Patrick Costain.
Eventually, Henry had had enough. Even getting Costain to tell him what clothes Rory had worn the previous evening had been hard work, but he was ninety-nine per cent certain now that the corpse of the car park was the aforementioned Rory. One hundred per cent would only come with a formal family identification, or a photographic and/or dental comparison, which Henry would have preferred. As much as Henry had ‘issues’ with the Costains, even he didn’t want to have to put Billy through the trauma of having to identify Rory’s body. The lad’s head was a disfigured mess and not something he would have wanted any family to see.
But Costain insisted. ‘He’s my boy, I have a right.’ And despite the less than subtle warning from Henry, Billy was going to have his way.
The ID took place at the public mortuary in Blackpool Victoria Hospital at six thirty that morning.
Costain drove to the hospital in his huge old Mercedes, accompanied by his wife of many years, the adorable Monica. She was quite a bit younger than him at fifty and had once been a real stunner, a raven-haired, green-eyed beauty. But the carriage and birth of seven children (plus two stillbirths), heavy drinking, smoking and the long exposure to the sunshine of the Costa del Sol, had ravaged her looks and body.
It had been a rush to get Rory’s body in a fit state to be gazed upon, an undertaking that entailed cleaning up the face without compromising any evidence, and then wrapping his head in a muslin towel to hide the horrific wounds on both sides, the entry and exit. All that remained to be seen were his distorted features. The creepy mortuary technician, who Henry noticed had a lazy eye, making him even scarier, carried out this prep. A hump would have completed the tableau wonderfully. He did the job under the supervision of O’Connell. The rest of the body was covered with a sheet and was then wheeled on a trolley into the viewing room, and positioned underneath the curtained window on the other side of which was an anteroom for relatives to gather in.
Henry stepped into this room from the mortuary, O’Connell behind him. The Costains waited, muted and afraid.
Old man Costain rubbed his face continually, stretching his features. Monica stood there numb.
Henry took a deep breath. ‘Look, you don’t have to do this. I’ve got enough in terms of identification. The coroner will be happy with that.’
‘We want to see him,’ Costain said firmly.
‘OK, OK, but I need to reiterate…’
‘Reiterate nothing, Henry,’ Costain cut in. ‘We’re ready, so just do it.’
Henry tapped on the glass and the mortuary technician drew back the curtain.
‘I expect you’re pleased.’
Henry was outside in the mortuary car park, standing next to Costain at the Mercedes. Mrs Costain was already in the passenger seat, still as shell-shocked as she’d been in the viewing room, the death of her son probably not yet having hit her properly. She was shrouded in grey cigarette smoke.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You’ll be pleased, eh? Three Costains down…’
‘No, I’m not,’ Henry said.
‘Less trouble for you and the rest of the cops, though.’
‘Mr Costain, I’m truly sorry you’ve lost another son.’
‘Hey — not to mention my niece from the car crash. I don’t suppose you’ll be putting much effort into this, will you?’
‘I’ll tell you what pleases me: catching killers. I’ll put as much effort into this as I would any other murder — which means I’ll work around the clock until I get a result — OK?’
Costain shrugged, disbelief written all over his face. ‘You say he was with someone?’
‘It looks that way… two lots of chips, looks like he was walking across the car park with a mate, yes. But like you said already, you don’t know who he was out with. It’s vital we find this person, y’know? It could even be his killer, who knows?’
‘Have you been to the chippy? That might be a good start.’
‘Yes we have, but the chip shop owners are new and they don’t live over the shop like the last ones did, and they haven’t seen fit to give their name and address to the police as yet, so we can’t contact them.’
Costain considered the information, then said, ‘I’ll see what I can do — I honestly don’t know who Rory was with, but I’ll find out.’ He climbed into the Merc and the big car rolled smoothly away. Henry watched it go wondering which poor soul would end up with the unenviable task of being the family liaison officer. The role would have to be given to a seasoned detective, one who had the bottle to brave things out with the Costains, if they would even allow an FLO into their lives. Henry guessed there would be a huge firewall of reluctance from the family at having a cop assigned to them full-time.
Henry walked back to the mortuary where he found O’Connell inspecting Rory’s naked body. She was speaking into a hand-held tape recorder and stopped when she saw Henry.