The inspector in charge of the scene was an old lag called Burt Norman, a wizened cop who had seen just about everything in his time. He spotted Roscoe arriving and went up to her.
He blew out his cheeks and said, ‘Even I’m shocked by this one.’
Jane Roscoe did not know Burt Norman well at all, being fairly new to Blackpool division, but she knew of his reputation and for him to admit that was quite something.
‘Tell me,’ she said.
‘Okay — this guy here was seen being chased out of the alleyway here — which backs on to the King’s Cross, by the way — so it looks like he’d been chased out of the pub and gunned down in cold blood here in the street, in broad daylight. A witness says the attacker just kept shooting him as he tried to get away. There’s a trail of blood which pretty much verifies that. Bloody ruthless. This town is the pits.’ He almost spat.
‘Let’s have a look.’
Jane Roscoe inspected the scene quickly. It reminded her of a Mafia-style hit, photos of which she had often seen in Sunday supplements. The man was lying in a pool of black blood. One of his legs was drawn up, his arms splayed out almost as though he was sunbathing.
He had plenty of bullet holes in him.
Norman was at her shoulder. ‘There’s more. . two shot dead inside the pub.’
‘Do we know who they are?’
‘Yep — that’s Rufus Callan. The two inside are his running mates. They’re drug dealers and it looks like they have annoyed somebody.’
‘Annoyed?’ Jane said incredulously. ‘Fuckin’ totally pissed ’em off by the look of things.’
Henry had returned to the mortuary to find Baines engrossed in the post-mortem of Carrie Dancing, assisted by a young male mortuary technician who would not have looked out of place on a slab himself. The burnt flesh smelt terrible and seemed to claw at Henry’s nose hairs and cling to his clothing. The pathologist peered over his mask as Henry entered and walked past the painfully thin body of Johnny Jacques.
The thought of the two of them dying made Henry feel sad. He had always thought of JJ as one of life’s losers, a pretty harmless soul, more likely to do himself mischief than anyone else.
‘Ahhh, Henry.’ Baines smiled behind his surgical mask. ‘Glad you could make it back. Not too smitten with the very pleasant, but homely Ms Roscoe, I hope?’
‘No, I’m not,’ Henry said firmly, but with a grin. Henry’s up and down love life was always cause for amusement for Baines. ‘What’ve you got?’
‘I was right,’ Baines said, delving into Carrie’s open chest with his scalpel and cutting out her heart which he pulled out with both hands. He carried it over to the dissecting table, laid it out and sliced it open expertly, checking the arteries for any possible blockages. ‘Nothing much wrong with that,’ he said, raising his eyes to Henry. ‘Yeah, I was right. . this girl was dead before the fire. It was the line of the jaw that made me suspicious — out of line, if you will. My examination confirmed it. She had a broken jaw.’
‘That wouldn’t have killed her, though, would it? Even I know that.’
‘No, but the severe beating about the head by some blunt instrument did. There was no smoke inhalation in her lungs.’ He pointed with a gloved finger to the deep-pink mass of dissected lung tissue on the table next to Carrie’s heart. ‘Clean and healthy. . as much as a heavy smoker’s lungs can be. Definitely beaten up and killed prior to the fire. And just out of interest,’ he added, pointing to the side of Carrie’s head, ‘I think that could be a footwear mark, so I’ve asked one of your footwear experts to have a look at it.’
Henry peered at Carrie’s temple and could see a couple of faint ridges. ‘So, did he do it?’ Henry thumbed at JJ.
‘I’m not sure a post-mortem on him will give you that answer, Henry old boy. You might have to do some detective work for a change instead of continually relying on me to solve all your cases for you all the time.’
‘Cheeky git,’ said Henry.
The barman who witnessed the shootings in the King’s Cross was in no fit state to make any sort of statement. Roscoe spoke to him for a few minutes, ascertained that he had been threatened at gunpoint and was in fear of his life, and arranged for him to be taken home with a police escort who would stay with him for the time being. Roscoe wanted to be present when he was eventually interviewed.
The pub had been closed and was now a sealed-off crime scene, being dealt with thoroughly and professionally.
She took a seat at the rear of the snug and tried to imagine the terrible thing that had happened here: two masked gunmen, three people shot to death, drugs’ connections, turf war.
One thing was certain. She was dealing with some totally ruthless individuals who had coldly planned this multiple execution very carefully and precisely.
Henry had once dealt with a domestic murder where a man had killed his wife simply because she had moaned at him for smoking in bed. The guy had been drunk at the time, admittedly, but it had demonstrated to Henry that people can go ‘off on one’ for no particular reason and resort to murder in their rage. What Henry could not see happening in the case of Johnny Jacques and Carrie Dancing was that JJ had killed her, whatever the provocation. And he especially could not believe it when Baines peeled back the charred skin from Carrie’s head to reveal the cranium underneath. The damage caused to it was beyond anything Henry thought JJ was capable of. JJ was a weak, spindly druggie and Henry just could not see him being so violent over the sustained period of time needed to inflict such injuries on the woman he’d been with for years.
Which kind of put a spoke in the wheel.
In truth, this was the sort of incident Henry knew he could write off if he so desired. He could easily surmise that JJ had murdered Carrie and then, in a fit of remorse, had leapt to his own death. He was supremely confident he could get a coroner to swallow it hook, line and sinker.
It would be a good one-for-one. A murder solved without the expense of a trial. A good one for the figures.
Except he did not believe it and his conscience would not allow this to happen, until he was totally convinced otherwise.
He bagged up JJ’s clothing for forensic examination, and did the same with Carrie’s burned garments too.
If JJ had killed her, Henry was sure he would be able to see blood on JJ’s jeans at the very least. There was nothing.
He decided to return to the scene of the fire to see if anything had been missed or forgotten.
Before setting off he spoke to Rik Dean via mobile phone and found out he had been re-deployed to the shooting incident down in South Shore. It sounded like an interesting job, but Henry was not going to poke his nose in unless asked — which he knew he would be very soon. He wasn’t going to show his face before then because he trusted Jane to get a grip of everything and work the scene professionally.
He bade farewell to Baines, after warning him he was likely to be dealing with a further three bodies before the night was over.
Baines thanked him profusely for the news and said again, ‘Why is it that when you’re involved there’s always a mass of bodies?’
‘Just lucky, I guess,’ said Henry.
Crazy drove Ray to his girlfriend’s house. Marty, still in the back seat, looked drained and unhappy.
At the end of the driveway, Ray instructed Crazy to be back in an hour or so, not to hurry, but to be there. Crazy promised he would be and Ray got out of the car. Marty clambered over between the seats and plonked himself into the passenger seat.
Crazy put the car into first and set off, but Marty said, ‘Wait!’ a little too quickly, then felt he had to explain himself to Crazy. ‘Er. . let’s make sure he gets inside safely.’