Psycho Alley (11 page)

‘It's that Fleetwood job, isn't it?' he guessed correctly. He tapped his ear. ‘Radio Lancashire.'

Henry regarded the man's face. Wrinkled with age, grey hair, bald on top, permanent curl on his lips and piercing cold eyes. Paedophilia had never been Henry's field of expertise, though he had dealt with a few offenders, mainly via murder enquiries. He had found that he had always despised the offenders he came across, usually men, probably because he always had to fight against the images of his own children and the thought of what he would do to anyone who hurt them. He detested Pollack immediately and his right hand balled into a fist at his side.

Pollack saw the movement, smiled. ‘Want to hit me? All cops do.' He raised his wiry eyebrows. ‘Except for the ones who molest kids like I do.'

Henry did the quickest count to ten ever, still felt like kicking the living shit out of this old paedophile, but got a grip, relaxed … c'mon … relax … ‘Have you got any idea where George Uren is?'

‘Why should I know?'

‘You were here when he was,' Henry said. ‘Presumably you talked to him.'

‘Not specially. I practise talking to the little people … that's my speciality.'

Rik Dean reacted instantaneously. Before Henry could stop him, he'd blurted the words, ‘Sick bastard!', crossed the room with one stride, heaved Pollack out of his chair and pinned him up against the wall by the open window. His face was centimetres away from Pollack's. ‘I'm going to throw you out of this window, you perverted git.'

Pollack's expression remained unchanged, as though this was something that always happened to him.

‘You let that man go!' Ms Harcourt screamed. ‘And you get off these premises now.' She pushed Henry out of her way and tried to drag Rik off Pollack.

Dean was a strong, burly man, and he did not flinch. Instead, he almost shrugged Ms Harcourt off and slammed Pollack against the wall once more, inducing a further scream from her: ‘Get off him! I knew this was a mistake, letting you two in here.'

‘Rik, put him down,' Henry said.

‘Yeah, you're right. I don't know where this piece of shit's been, do I?' He released Pollack with a flick and stepped away. Pollack sniggered, unshaken by the event. He brushed himself down disdainfully. Hard-faced bastard, Henry thought. Love to meet you in a back alley.

‘Come on.' Henry touched Rik's shoulder.

Rik's teeth were grinding, his whole being coiled up tight. He gave Pollack a last look which would have killed him if there had been any justice, then strutted out of the room. Henry also shot Pollack a last glance.

‘Expect a complaint of assault and police brutality,' Pollack said coolly. He sat down and tapped a cigarette out of the packet on the desk top, placed it between his curdled lips. Henry reached out, snatched the cigarette and ground it to pulp in the palm of his hand, allowing its content to flake on to Pollack's lap. He leaned in close.

‘Don't,' he whispered, ‘or I'll revisit.' He winked and left it at that, easing past the trembling Ms Harcourt.

By the time Henry got to the front door of the hostel, Rik had already reached the car. He waited for Ms Harcourt, who came down the stairs and walked angrily toward him.

‘I'll be reporting this,' she said.

Henry shrugged. ‘Sorry,' he said. ‘Didn't go the way I'd intended.'

She held Henry's eyes for a few moments, some internal wrangling going on behind her eyes. Then she relented slightly. ‘I'll see what Pollack wants to do.'

‘He won't do anything.'

‘How can you be sure?'

‘Because if he does, he'll get investigated. I'll get a surveillance team on him and I guarantee he'll re-offend – and he knows that.'

‘Are you saying I'm not doing my job?'

‘I'm saying he'll never change.'

Henry was about to leave it at that when Ms Harcourt said, ‘Just hang on there a sec.' She spun away down the hallway, disappeared into the staff rooms and was back a minute later, a piece of paper in hand. She waved the paper. ‘Look,' she said unsurely, ‘don't think I don't want George Uren caught. I do. He's an evil man … This is the name and address of a previous occupant who did spend some time with him. He's moved on to the coast now and this is the address we have on file here. It may not be current. If it isn't, he should have registered with the Probation Service on the Fylde. He might know where Uren is.'

‘Thanks.' Henry took the paper.

‘I heard what you whispered to him up there,' Ms Harcourt said. ‘That sort of thing can be very scary, the threat to return.'

‘And? I meant it.'

‘That's what makes it scary.' She looked into Henry's eyes. He saw fear there, terror maybe. Henry was puzzled, but did not have time to pursue it because his mobile phone rang. He gave her a business card and Ms Harcourt opened the door for him to leave.

He answered the phone as he trotted down the front steps of the hostel. It was Debbie Black calling from Harrogate. ‘Got anything?' Henry asked, doubling into the driver's seat of the Mondeo.

‘Could have,' she replied. ‘Obviously we can't be a hundred per cent, but the young girl went missing last night from an estate on the outskirts of Harrogate. Would be about the right age and height as the dead girl in the Astra. Won't know for sure until we get the forensic matches back, but I have a feeling about it.'

‘Where are you up to with it?' Henry slotted the key into the ignition, fired up the engine.

‘Just off to the parents with the SIO. We've brought some DNA kits, so we'll take swabs and also turn out the family dentist for those records, too.'

‘Good stuff,' Henry said, raising an eyebrow at a po-faced Rik Dean, who was still smarting from his recent encounter. ‘Get the kits back over here and we'll fast-track them tomorrow.'

‘Yeah, no probs with that.'

‘How are they treating you out in the sticks?'

‘Excellent.'

‘Good – and how's Jane?'

‘Being a first-class bitch as ever.'

Debbie cut the connection, leaving Henry with a dead phone at his ear and a twisted grin on his face. ‘Could be some progress,' he said to Rik.

‘Was that Debbie Black?' Henry nodded. ‘Hm,' Rik grunted.

Henry turned squarely to the DS and looked disappointedly at the grim-faced officer. ‘Two things: first off, I thought you were a wow with the chicks?'

Rik shrugged. ‘Sometimes things just don't gel … not that I wouldn't give her one, all things being equal. Actually, she was pretty bloody tasty. And secondly?'

‘Your temper could get you in the shit. I always thought you were a pretty placid sorta chap.'

‘Got it wrong on two counts, then, haven't you, boss? The temper's an experience thing,' he explained. ‘The more experience I have, the less patience I have for crims, pervs in particular.'

‘Hm, going by that logic, my temper should be just about at ground zero.'

‘From what I've heard, it is.'

The two men eyed each other for a moment, then Henry waggled the note Ms Harcourt had given him, the Ms Harcourt he could not quite figure out. ‘She relented a bit – gave me this name and address as one of the previous inmates who knew Uren and may know where he is now.'

‘How did you manage that?' asked an astonished detective sergeant.

‘Boyish charm … crumbled under my aura of male sexuality … a combination of things.'

‘Hardly,' Rik muttered, snatching the note. ‘Bloody hell!' he blurted on reading the name. ‘Percy Pearson – Percy Pearson the perverted person from Preston – now living on us, that is. He was locked up on sus of gross indecency last week sometime … luring boys into public toilets, then introducing them to the delights of his donger. Enticed one kid back to his flat, I think.'

‘Oh,' said Henry, not quite slapping his forehead. The penny had not dropped when he had read the name. Now it had. ‘He's the one who said where Uren might be in the first place. We were in Fleetwood because of something he'd said during an Intel interview. Could've saved us an eighty-mile round trip if I'd remembered.' He pulled an agonized face, annoyed.

‘You wouldn't have had the pleasure of the frigid Ms Harcourt, though.'

Henry pulled away from the kerb. ‘I don't think I'll ever have that pleasure,' he admitted sadly, ‘but something tells me that behind that chilly veneer she isn't frigid.'

Rik gave a wistful, ‘Mm, quite fancied her, actually.'

The return journey across the county was tedious. They joined queues of the great unwashed masses heading into Blackpool. It only dawned on Henry he would have been better going back by another route than the motorway when he hit a tailback of slow-moving traffic as he left the M6 and joined the M55. He began to zigzag through the crawling morass, but to no real avail. Progress was tortoise-like at best. The section of the journey which would normally take about fifteen minutes took almost an hour on a day that was becoming hotter and hotter, and every driver seemed fractious.

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!'