EIGHT
At eleven p.m. that night, Henry Christie was in a bleak mood as he walked into his kitchen and went through each cupboard for the fourth time since arriving home. Once again, there was nothing in them, certainly nothing that appealed to him.
He still hadn’t changed, was still wearing the same clothes he’d been in since two thirty that morning when he’d been turned out to the murder of Natalie Philips. Many, many hours ago. A day which had seen him freeze at the scene of that murder (like a ‘numb twat’, he kept castigating himself), then get his act together, only to find himself on a wind-battered motorway dealing with a serious incident that had no connection whatsoever with the earlier murder.
He bent over to open the fridge door, then went light-headed as he stood upright again, stepping back a pace to keep his balance. He needed food. Behind the knife rack, the unofficial pending tray for letters delivered to his house, was also a menu for a local Chinese restaurant, one that he and Kate ordered takeouts from regularly. He hadn’t used it since she had died and unfolded it slowly whilst walking back into the lounge. He sat down and looked at the third-filled tumbler of Jack Daniel’s, still untouched, but tempting. He picked up the phone as he flicked through the menu and settled on his old favourite. Nothing fancy, just a chicken curry. They both liked the same and would order two, one with boiled rice, the other with chips and a bag of prawn crackers. They’d split the rice and chips and scoff the lot in front of the TV.
Henry looked around the lounge. It was deathly quiet. Leanne was out, so he was alone in the house. He could hear the wind outside. He looked through the menu again and decided to plump for something he’d never tried before, otherwise he’d just end up wallowing in the self-pity of what had once been. He placed the order by phone and was told it would be twenty minutes before it was ready. In that case, he thought, I’ll have a drive round in my new car.
As he opened the front door, Leanne was coming up the driveway with her boyfriend. She halted abruptly, surprised by Henry’s appearance. She and the man were obviously sneaking up to the house.
‘Dad! I thought you’d be in bed.’
‘Well I’m not.’ Henry’s cold eyes turned to the man. ‘What’s he doing here?’
‘We… we… uh, made up,’ Leanne stuttered.
‘This man has caused you endless grief,’ he said, his eyes still locked on to his prey. ‘And if you think he’s coming under my roof, you’re one off.’ He now moved his gaze to his daughter. ‘Your relationships aren’t my business, but I know a shitbag when I see one.’
‘Oi,’ the young man said warningly.
Henry’s head jerked back to him. ‘I’m not going to argue about it, but he isn’t coming in here — end of. I’m going for a takeout. I’ll be back very soon and he’d better not be here.’ Henry walked towards the pair, stopping shoulder to shoulder with the young man, who was fit and broad, but had no real scare factor about him. ‘And,’ Henry said, ‘no one “Oi’s” me at my house.’ He bustled past and got into his car, feeling a bit of a shitbag himself at his outburst. But also unrepentant. He didn’t like the guy and whilst Leanne was old enough to make her own mistakes, he still felt a certain parental responsibility towards her. It was odd, though, that she could not see what an out-and-out bastard the boyfriend was, yet he could. Why was life like that?
He reversed the Mercedes off the driveway and burned a bit of rubber to emphasize his disapproval. As he hit the roads of Blackpool, he exhaled, took a mental chill-pill and concluded that a ten minute tootle up the prom might give him chance for reflection on what had been, in Henry’s own words, ‘One hell of a fucking day.’
In complete contrast to the way in which his brain had imploded at the scene of Natalie Philips’s murder, Henry had remained clinical and professional on the motorway.
From the moment the young man from the Ford Fiesta had raised his right hand with the detonator in it, shouted words to his God that were scooped away in the wind, Henry had gone into Superintendent mode, shouting instructions to the firearms officers — which, incidentally, had not been heard by anyone else.
The AFO did everything that was expected of him in assessing the threat posed by the youth. That said, there was no time to shout a warning.
And even though the officer was only armed with the Glock self-loading pistol, and the distance between him and his target was at least ten metres — which is a long way to shoot a pistol accurately, even on a blustery motorway — his shooting was superb.
The two 9mm bullets he fired ripped the top portion from the lad’s skull and also destroyed his facial features.
Henry, although pirouetting away defensively, was still looking at the youth. He saw the lad’s face disintegrate as the bullets passed through and completely stopped all bodily function — which was the intent. It had to be an instantly fatal shot, otherwise there might have been a chance for the boy to either deliberately press the plunger — one last act of hatred — or to do so because of a twitch of the thumb. The latter chance still existed but was lessened by the complete and utter destruction of the brain.
It was technically brilliant shooting.
The lad jolted backwards as though yanked by a cable and landed on the carriageway between the Fiesta and the traffic car. His fist opened with a spasm and the detonator lay across his palm, looking for all the world like a ballpoint pen.
Then Henry took control — a calm, cool, efficient, effective presence. And he was pretty proud of himself.
Lots of things had to be concurrently and consecutively considered. A series of parallel and intercrossing thoughts tumbled through his head, like a four-lane Scalextric track with side by side racing, crossovers, chicanes, bridges and no excuses for collisions.
He had to secure and preserve the scene and save life. All traffic had to be stopped — properly this time, and from both directions. The motorway had to be closed immediately. The shooting officer had to be seated in his car, his gun seized. Extra resources had to be called in, such as more cops, the ambulance service, forensic and crime scene teams. Everyone had to be informed — but above all, Henry had to keep a firm grip, which he did, and focus on the task.
On autopilot he drove to the Chinese takeaway, a journey he’d made a hundred times or more over the years, and picked up the trial new dish. Spicy Ku Bo King Prawn, with boiled rice and an appetizer of Salt and Chilli spare ribs. The place was also licensed, so he added three large bottles of chilled Chinese beer. The aroma of the food filled his car and he became ravenous.
Then his mind wandered back to the day he’d just experienced.
He had had spent six bone-chilling hours on the motorway and as the day dragged on, even though the weather was good, it got colder and colder. Even as he was dealing with the shooting, he was also thinking about Natalie Philips and feeling guilty because he’d become involved in something that wasn’t really his business. In the end, he realized he wouldn’t be able to get away from the motorway scene, so he sent Rik Dean back to Blackpool to carry on with the investigation.
It was seven p.m. by the time that Henry made it to the public mortuary at Blackpool Victoria Hospital. He stood alongside a stainless steel slab, looking across the stripped body of Natalie Philips at the pathologist, who was ready to carry out a post-mortem that had already been delayed for four hours. She had been formally identified by her distraught mother some hours earlier, accompanied by Rik Dean and the Family Liaison Officer.
In the reception area outside, preparations were also underway for the arrival of the Asian youth, whose body, with explosives strapped to it, had eventually been scooped off the motorway tarmac and was next in line for the pathologist’s scalpel. That was a post-mortem Henry would not be attending because that incident had been taken over by a detective chief superintendent, much to Henry’s relief. He’d done his job at the scene and that was plenty.