The team was willing but, as Danny noted glumly, it was fairly short of experience of jobs like this, herself included. Most members of the squad were Detective Constables, and Danny sighed a few times when she gazed round at them; there were far too many young ones for major investigations like this. One of the Detective Inspectors was on the ‘fast track’, acquiring information for his CV on the way up. Hysterically he did not even have an investigative background; such were the philosophies of a police service where it was believed entirely appropriate that if someone possessed generic management skills they would be able to manage anyone or any group of people in the Force. A completely ridiculous ethos, of course. Ask anyone who has tried to manage a team of grumpy detectives without the necessary background. Unless they were exceptional people, they sank.
Danny despaired. The whole thing needed people with the calibre, bottle, clout and experience of detectives like Henry Christie; people who played the system but had the occasional flashes of perception, intuition — whatever — that set them apart from the crowd. And got results.
She saw her chance to make representations when ACC Fanshaw-Bayley strolled cockily into the assembly hall, chatting to the SIO. Someone like FB could get Henry on board.
Danny kept surreptitious tabs on FB’s progress. When it looked as though he was about to take his leave, she moved away from the group of detectives she was working with, sidled up alongside him and gripped him.
‘ Sir?’
‘ Oh, hello young lady.’
Instantaneously she felt her skin creep. She detested the man. He always rubbed her up the wrong way — intentionally or not, she did not know. She had her suspicions that he was naturally a chauvinistic pig.
‘ Can I help you?’ he asked.
‘ Have you got a moment, sir?’
‘ For you, Danny, I have many moments.’
I’ll bet you do, she thought. Don’t you ever learn? Danny knew FB was facing an Industrial Tribunal hearing in the near future for his sexist behaviour. She cut to the chase. ‘Did the SIO give you the party line, or did you get the truth?’
‘ About what?’ He was intrigued.
‘ The state of this investigation. Did he come clean, or did he bullshit you?’
FB blinked rapidly. His voice became serious. ‘I think you should explain what you’re inferring.’
‘ OK — did he tell you that we expect to make an arrest very soon or did he tell you the truth — that we’re basically getting nowhere fast?’
FB’s political head slotted into place. ‘The conversation I have just had with the SIO is confidential, as is the conversation I’m having with you. Now what the hell are you talking about?’
‘ What I’m trying to say is that we need better people on the squad. This lot are OK,’ she gave a sweep of her hand, ‘but they’re plodders and doers. We need some new blood on this if we intend to crack it — because every day we don’t feel a collar, means that whoever murdered those three people is one step further from our grasp.’
‘ I thought you had a particularly good lead in Tenerife?’
‘ I think I have — but I need help on it. Class help. Someone like Henry Christie.’
FB snorted. ‘He’s off sick with some mysterious illness. Doctor’s note says “General Debility”… soft sod. But yeah, he would be good to have, I can’t disagree with that — but he’s off sick, as I said.’
‘ I’ve seen him at Occupational Health this morning,’ Danny said. Despite herself, she batted her eyelashes. ‘Could I ask him if he’d be interested — and would you square it with the SIO if he was?’
‘ What was he doing at Occupational Health?’
‘ Getting a Healthline check, he said.’
FB’s electronic organiser chirped tunefully in his pocket. He looked at his watch. ‘I should be with the Chief Constable.’ He started to move away from Danny, all his thoughts suddenly directed to the meeting ahead. Danny saw she was about to lose him.
‘ Sir, sir… what about Henry?’
‘ Right, right,’ he shouted back over his shoulder. ‘You sort it out with him.’
Danny bunched a fist in joy.
‘ I like this very much indeed,’ Drozdov nodded approvingly. ‘It is a very good plan.’ He raised his black eyebrows at his two business partners, Thompson and Elphick. Their faces acknowledged that it sounded good, too. ‘I particularly like these additional aspects,’ Drozdov concluded with an evil smile. ‘Very cunning.’
‘ Thanks. It’s the kind of thing I’ve done before. It works well — and on today’s scale, it should mean we won’t be troubled.’
Drozdov sat back pensively. He pointed at Crane. ‘You have gone to a great deal of time and trouble for a quarter of a million pounds.’
Crane felt his ears begin to turn red, even though he had been ready for this. ‘Better safe than sorry, and the additional labour is cheap. Look, it’s coming out of my whack, so don’t worry.’
Drozdov eyed him uncertainly, was about to say something else when Smith called, ‘They’re here,’ from the window where he was stationed.
As before, everyone bar him filed back into the office, out of sight. Smith dragged open the roller doors which gave access to the warehouse. Two Audi sports cars were driven in and parked behind Thompson’s BMW Both were stolen, but bore clean number plates, new engine numbers and perfect tax discs (stolen two days before in a Post Office burglary in Swindon); the engines were perfectly tuned and serviced. Only the most rigorous physical check by a nosy cop would start to reveal any defects — and that would never be allowed to happen.
Smith went across to the loading bay and opened that door too. A blue Leyland Sherpa van, 3.5 litres, reversed into the empty space. Again stolen, all details accordingly altered or obliterated.
The drivers of these vehicles knew their jobs. They did not hang around, simply left the keys in the ignition and trotted out of the warehouse, looking neither left nor right, and got into a car waiting for them in the yard. By the time they drove out, the warehouse doors were half-closed.
Smith wandered into the office where the others were downing their umpteenth coffee. ‘That’s everything,’ he announced. ‘One phone call’ — he tapped the mobile on his belt — ‘then we can roll.’
Frustratingly for Danny it was almost 1 p.m. before the Murder Squad review workshop finished. Four hours since she had bumped into Henry that morning. As a Healthline check lasts only about forty minutes, he would be long gone.
Annoyed by that and slightly depressed because the workshop did not seem to have taken the investigation any further, she meandered back to her beloved new car. When she sat down in it, she immediately began to feel better. She turned the engine on and revved it; then she spent a few minutes selecting the musical accompaniment for the return to Blackpool. Stars, by Simply Red. She slid the CD into the slot and as Mick Hucknall’s sex-filled voice grooved in, she drove off the car park and down Hutton Hall Avenue… to be very surprised to see Henry Christie’s car still parked outside Occupational Health.
Danny stopped and reversed into the narrow track by the tennis courts, more or less opposite the OHWU, and waited for him to appear.
Twenty minutes later, the front door opened and Henry emerged. He seemed to have no more energy than earlier.
Danny’s mind revolved. Four hours and twenty minutes. What the hell had he been doing in there for so long?
She quickly got out of her car and strode towards him. He did not notice her, or look up, until they almost collided next to his car.
‘ Danny!’ he said in astonishment, as though she was a being from another planet.