‘What d’you think?’ she asked.
‘I think we’ve got the preliminaries out of the way in terms of the bodies and we should schedule the post-mortems for this afternoon. That way we can both get a few hours sleep. On top of that, I need to get a pre-briefing meeting together at eleven this morning, followed by a full murder squad briefing at noon.’
‘Not much sleep for you, then?’
‘Doubt if I’ll be going to bed at all.’
‘I’m not remotely sleepy, myself, so I don’t see bed as an option just yet… could you handle a coffee with me?’
Henry checked his watch, then looked at the dead boy. He was standing at his head at an angle of about forty-five degrees and his eyes caught something on the scalp. His brow furrowed and he stooped for a closer inspection.
‘Have you seen this?’ he asked. Without touching, he indicated what he was looking at. O’Connell came around to see.
‘Admittedly. I haven’t.’
They were looking at a recent cut on Rory’s head, just on the scalp line above his left eye, a thin red mark where it looked like something had struck him, or his head had struck something.
‘Could he have done that when he fell after being shot?’ Henry asked.
She pulled a face. ‘Not sure about that. Looks like he might’ve caught his head on something, a door maybe, possibly the sort of injury you get when you crack your head on a car bonnet, or something. Know what I mean?’
Henry’s mind stirred. ‘Unconnected with the murder?’
‘That’s an assumption I won’t make. I’ll present you with the facts as I see them after the PM.’
‘Fair enough.’ Henry said, unable to think it through, his mind just a mush now. ‘How about that coffee?’
‘Sorry about that.’ Henry slipped his mobile phone into his jacket pocket after having dropped a text to Kate telling her he would not be home for some hours yet, and could she sort out the last bits ’n’ bobs for the holiday. He added, ‘SOZ’, and put a whole bunch of kiss crosses, hoping to appease her a little.
‘Wife?’ O’Connell said.
He nodded. ‘Supposed to be off on a romantic break tomorrow. I said I’d be a bit of a Teflon pan and pass all this on to someone else, and I will,’ he said, meaning it, ‘but I’d like to get as much done as possible before I hand anything over. And I only turned out for one murder, not two.’
‘You’re just a man who can’t say no, aren’t you?’
He glanced at her, wondering just what he was doing here. They’d driven across town in their own cars to the twenty-four-hour McDonald’s on Preston New Road, both collected a McMuffin breakfast, hash brown and coffee at the drive-thru, then headed down to the seafront at Blackpool south where the prom meets Squires Gate Lane. They were on the car park adjacent to the go-kart track at Starr Gate, which was also the southernmost terminal of the famous Blackpool tram system that plied up and down the prom.
They’d eaten their breakfasts together in O’Connell’s Mazda RX8.
He tried to tell himself this was just a business chat in an unusual location to discuss unusual business — murder. But he was only half convinced by that argument.
It seemed all too easy in the cops — if you wanted it to be.
Throughout his entire career, now spanning thirty years plus, Henry had been amazed at just how easy it was to get laid. The situations, often dealing with vulnerable people, or those who just could not turn down a man in uniform or a smooth detective — and the relationships with colleagues, working strange hours, being involved in stressful situations — brought you close to people in an extraordinary, often sexual way. And since his early days as a rookie, right up until very recently, he had been an avid follower of his penis, and that relatively small piece of equipment had dragged him into hot water on too many occasions. It had taken him to a divorce, an often penniless existence in grubby flats, and now that he had fairly recently remarried Kate he had sworn he would never go down the route of weak flesh again.
Yet here he was — and nobody but a fool would say there was any other reason for him to be there sitting in O’Connell’s fancy sports car, other than to get his hands on her tits, which he had to admit were just about right.
‘Oh, I can say no if I want to,’ he said weakly, turning to her and going short of breath.
‘I’m not sure I can.’ She wound towards him and slid her right hand along his inner thigh, a movement that sent a shimmer up inside him, made him groan as a rush of blood left his head and coursed south. The hand moved further up, then even further and grabbed him through his jeans.
Henry pulled her to him and they kissed savagely, a moan escaping from O’Connell’s throat as her hand tightened on him. Henry’s left hand slid over her blouse. She fumbled for his zip. He could feel himself straining against his underwear, trapped at a wonky angle, desperate to be freed. As he heard the first unzipping noise, something came into his head that counteracted the testosterone, like oil on water.
He drew sharply away. ‘Bloody hell,’ he gasped.
‘What is it?’ she asked unsurely. ‘Did I hurt you?’
‘No — it’s tight, but no… I’ve just thought of something.’ He opened the car door and rolled out, remembering why he wasn’t keen on sports cars. He wasn’t built for them. ‘Follow me back to the morgue,’ he said, leaning inside briefly, then he walked over to his own car with a slight crab-walk motion and tried to adjust himself discreetly.
O’Connell watched him open-mouthed, blew out a long breath, readjusted herself and muttered, ‘Follow me back to the morgue. Just what a woman wants to hear.’
‘Two things,’ Henry said, opening the body-chiller and withdrawing the sliding tray on which the very dead Rory Costain lay, wrapped in white.
O’Connell watched impatiently, hands on hips. ‘This better be hellish good.’ Her foot tapped.
Henry shot her a glance, then turned his attention back to Rory and pointed to the injury he’d noticed earlier on the boy’s head.
‘And?’ O’Connell said, her hands flipping out with impatience.
‘Wait.’ Henry gave her the double-handed gesture that meant, ‘Stay right there.’ He went to the far end of the room where the bank of steel property lockers was fixed up against the wall. He found the key he’d taken for the one containing the property belonging to the old man and opened it. He rooted out what he wanted and returned to Rory’s body — brandishing the old man’s walking stick. He showed her what he had seen on the cane shaft when he’d been recording the old man’s belongings, pointed at it, rotating the stick carefully to reflect the artificial light.
‘Hair and blood,’ O’Connell said. Henry handed her the stick and she held it up for a close inspection. ‘Hair and blood,’ she confirmed.
Henry pointed to the injury on Rory’s hairline. ‘Could that have been caused by the cane?’
O’Connell held the cane a couple of inches above the wound, careful not to let it come into contact with the flesh. Immediately she said, ‘Yes, and it’ll be easily confirmed.’
Henry gave her a triumphant smirk. ‘Two shootings on the same night in the same town… even for somewhere as lawless as Blackpool, that’s some going.’ His head began to spin a little, but he managed to level it as a wall of exhaustion rushed through him. Suddenly he was very tired, but he pointed at O’Connell and said, ‘Something else, too.’
This time he went to the locker containing Rory’s clothing and pulled out a brown paper bag in which the boy’s trainers had been placed. He broke the seal, knelt down on the floor and carefully extracted the footwear, looking at the soles of the trainers. O’Connell joined him, peering curiously over his shoulder. He tilted the left one.
‘Excuse the lingo — but there might be dog shit on here.’
‘Eh?’
‘I can’t quite see any, and it might have all come off in the rain, but deeply ingrained in the ridges, I’ll bet some lucky scientist will find doggy-doo.’ He sniffed gingerly.