Rik Dean chuckled when Henry middle-fingered a guy and his family who unintentionally cut him up in their people-carrier. ‘You were right about your temper,’ he laughed. ‘Mr Road Rage personified.’
Henry uttered a ‘Harrumph!’ and his mouth tightened as another car veered across his bows, causing him to brake hard. He said nothing more, bottled up his frustration and decided to ease off, get back in one piece.
There were definitely no crowds of day-trippers on Shoreside, Blackpool’s largest council estate, one of the most deprived areas in the country. A place where unemployment ran to a staggering percentage and drugs and crime all but dominated an estate where kids ran riot and the cops trod very carefully. Whole avenues of houses were boarded up, abandoned by tenants who had lost all hope; rows of shops that had once provided essential local services had been destroyed and burned down, with the exception of one which, steel-grilled and CCTV-protected, somehow continued to trade.
‘Fuckin’ dump,’ Rik commented as Henry drove on to the estate.
Henry made no response. On and off for many years he had policed Shoreside and seen some terrible things. He knew, however, that the blight was caused by just a few individuals who brought misery to the majority, who were decent, law-abiding folk wanting peaceful lives.
‘Sink-hole,’ Rik added, his eyes roving.
‘Made your point,’ Henry said bluntly. ‘You’ve become very cynical.’
‘Haven’t you?’
Henry considered the question, brow furrowed. ‘Possibly,’ he said in an unconvincing way.
‘So you haven’t become cynical?’ Rik peered at him.
‘I’d like to think I haven’t.’
Before he could continue, Rik said, ‘We police the shits of the world who are all out to lie and cheat and hurt you; all they’re concerned about is themselves and a fast buck; we get treated like shit by the organization, we deal with the dross of society and you say you’re not cynical. I mean, you’re on the bloody murder squad, Henry …’ His voice trailed off hopelessly.
Henry remained silent.
‘I mean — look.’ Rik pointed to a group of youths lounging indolently at the roadside. One of them stuck a middle finger up as the car drove past. Rik shook his head sadly. ‘Shits.’
Henry had had enough introspection, because he was feeling strangely uncomfortable with Rik’s allegation. Something inside was telling him that being a cynic was a ‘bad thing’, and he was agreeing with it, even though the evidence which pointed to him being the biggest cynic of all time was overwhelming. ‘What’s the address again?’
Rik gave him a sardonic sidelong glance, then read it out from the note, realizing the conversation had come to a grinding halt.
Henry drove through Shoreside, the progress of the car monitored by many pairs of suspicious eyes. Henry felt a shiver of menace. He knew the estate had become an increasingly dangerous and intimidating place for cops, or anyone from the authorities. Although some government money had been tossed at it, it was to no avail. Henry believed the local authority saw it as a lost cause and would have loved to ring fence it, which saddened him. Even the police seemed to keep it at arms’ length, though they would deny this. Henry knew the post of community beat officer was vacant and had been for a few months. No one wanted it.
‘Psycho Alley,’ Rik said.
‘What?’
He repeated the words. ‘That’s what they call that rat run these days,’ he said, pointing to a high-walled ginnel which ran between two sets of council flats. It threaded from one side of the estate to a pub on the outer edge where many locals drank, and a row of shops which were not on the estate. It was actually called Song Thrush Walk.
‘Why Psycho Alley?’
‘The place where sane persons fear to tread,’ Rik said spookily. ‘Not unless you want to be raped, robbed or battered.’
‘Go on,’ Henry urged.
‘Two old biddies robbed and beaten; three assaults and one indecent assault in the space of six weeks … hence it being christened Psycho Alley. All the street lighting has been smashed, and even on a good day it’s a menacing walk.’
Having been based at HQ until recently, Henry often missed out on local crime hotspots and he had never heard of the problems here. ‘What’s being done about it?’
Rik shrugged as if to say, ‘Who knows?’
‘It’s a problem to be solved, isn’t it?’
Rik guffawed. ‘Problem solving. Our policing panacea? We’re so fucking busy, Henry, we don’t have time to solve problems. All we do is respond, respond, respond. Every bugger is driven by the brick around their necks,’ — he was referring to the personal radio — ‘or just by sheer volume of work. Do you know,’ he began to rant, ‘there are over five thousand crimans outstanding for Lancs PCs?’ Crimans were the follow-up enquiries doled out by supervisors to their officers. It was a statistic Henry did know. ‘We’re running round like bluearsed flies, chasing our tails all the time. It’s horrendous. We don’t have time to solve bloody problems!’
‘Finished?’ Henry said, unimpressed.
‘Finished.’
‘Now where’s that house? Down here somewhere.’
Henry drove into a cul-de-sac with three-storey blocks of flats on either side of the road, one of which contained the flat Percy Pearson lived in.
Peering through the windscreen, Rik pointed. ‘That one up there.’
Henry pulled into the kerb, looking up at the block, which made his mouth turn down at the corners. The sort of place he had been into, it felt, a zillion times. One of those 1970s experiments in housing which looked good on the plans, but when built turned into a social nightmare. A crumbling concrete balcony ran along the front doors of all the first and second floor flats, and one or two kids leering over were already interested in the appearance of an unknown car in the area. Henry was uncomfortable at leaving the Mondeo which had been the victim of enough damage recently, thank you.
Wondering whether it would be on bricks when he returned, he did leave it and walked toward the flats, up the stairwell which ran up the gable end. He was not surprised to step over what he had to step over on the way up, and this made him think that not being surprised by anything any more equated to cynicism. Or was it pragmatism? Some sort of ‘ism’ anyway.
All the while next to him, Rik Dean chunnered away about druggies and shits and no-hopers and low-class denizens of the jungle in general. He was having a bad day. It was about to get worse.
The pair emerged on to the balcony which clung to the upper floor, pausing to check on the car, which had attracted the attention of two snotty kids who were standing close to it, rather like a newly-born antelope found by ravenous wolves. They looked fearlessly up at the two detectives.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ Henry called through hands cupped like a loudspeaker.
Both kids shouted something back and stuck their fingers up at him, but sauntered away. Henry watched them a while longer until he was satisfied they’d gone for good.
The detectives walked along the balcony until they reached Pearson’s front door, which had been repaired by boards and had graffiti sprayed across it. Henry looked for anti-paedophile slogans, but saw none. Rik banged on the door, hard and clear: a copper’s knock. He caught Henry’s eye, then thrust his hands into his pockets. There was no response, so he kicked the door instead with his toe cap, then bent down and tried to peer through the letterbox. He found he could not push up the flap. He rapped on the door again, put his ear to the wood and listened. Henry raised eyebrows at him.