Psycho Alley (14 page)

Henry held the sealed tapes in his hands, wanting to speak to Pearson off the record. It was a difficult thing to pull off these days, but Henry reckoned he had about four or five minutes grace. Some of the things he wanted to say, he didn't want recorded. He glanced at Jane, wishing she wasn't here.

Before Henry could start, though, Pearson blurted, ‘I hope you're looking after Nigel. If you don't look after him, I'll sue you.'

Henry gave him a cold stare. ‘Let me get this straight,' Henry said. ‘You are more concerned about the fate of a kitten, which you were only too happy to throw at me, than the predicament you're in? Because, let me lay this right on the line: you are in very serious trouble. Not only have you attempted to murder a police officer—'

‘Yeah, yeah – and look at me!' he cut in, pointing to his face which was red and swollen from Henry's slapping. ‘I've been assaulted too – by you!'

Henry surveyed the prisoner. ‘Not only have you tried to murder a police officer,' he reiterated, ‘but a twelve-year-old boy was found bound and gagged in your bedroom, naked, having been brutally buggered, and video-recording equipment was also in the room. I've very quickly skimmed the tape found in the camera and yes, you are in very serious trouble, Mr Pearson.' Henry could not keep the contempt out of his voice or his body language. ‘And yes, I slapped you to defend myself and my colleague. I slapped you as hard as I could under the circumstances and I'll quite happily tell that to a court … the offender in this case is you, and you need to get that firmly in your brain.'

Their eyes remained locked. Henry's were hard and unyielding; Pearson's were initially defiant, then crumbling.

‘He consented,' he pouted. ‘He was very mature.'

‘Twelve-year-olds can't consent,' Henry corrected him. Pearson went silent. ‘And it's all on video.'

Still no response.

Henry allowed the pause to stretch out a while, enjoying the prisoner's discomfort as the consequences of his actions filtered through.

‘I'm going to prison, aren't I?'

‘I'll say – and for a very long time. You are a danger to young boys and I imagine any judge will relish sending you down.'

Pearson nodded thoughtfully.

‘Whatever happens,' Henry persisted, ‘you will be going down. That's a fact – no way round it.'

‘I think I've got that message.' Pearson began to well up.

‘But you can smooth the way.'

Pearson wiped his red, bloodshot eyes. Henry saw the swelling around Pearson's cheekbone was lovely. He was rather proud of it, never having appreciated the value of a good slap, well delivered, other than in the occasional soft-porn he'd watched.

‘How?'

‘Admit, admit, admit – and help me. Throw yourself on the mercy of the court – and help me.'

‘Why should I help you?'

‘Because I truly can make sure the court knows how helpful you've been, how remorseful you are, all that sort of thing.'

He eyed Henry with suspicion. ‘What sort of help?'

‘I need an address.'

Pearson swallowed as though he knew what was coming. ‘Whose?'

‘You already know. George Uren's.'

‘I don't know it,' he said, too quickly.

Henry paused. ‘Yes you do.'

Pearson looked down at his knees. ‘I can't tell you. It was a mistake to tell you lot I'd seen him around … if he ever found out I'd said anything, he'd kill me.'

‘Violent, is he?'

‘You don't know the half of it.'

‘I promise he won't find out and, this is a promise too, if you don't tell me you're looking at the difference between five years or ten years in the pokey. That's what I can do for you.'

‘You can't do that!'

‘ 'Course I can. I have very good contacts in the judiciary. A trial court judge is in my lodge,' he lied. ‘I can make things happen, Percy, but only if you give …' Henry's voice trailed away. Using Pearson's first name stuck in his throat. He found it almost impossible to be matey with anyone who abused kids. ‘I know you spent time with him in Accy. I know you were his pal.'

‘No,' he said. ‘I was never his pal. I did what I had to to rub along. He is very violent, he hurts people … know what I mean? I don't. I love people and they love me. I treat people right.'

Henry felt Jane squirm next to him. He glanced at her and saw her face was seething with disgust at what Pearson was claiming.

‘He is a very bad man,' Pearson said.

‘And I want his address.' Henry persisted. Pearson touched his swollen face gingerly. ‘And I want to know who he's running with.'

Pearson gasped, his eyes suddenly filled with terror. He began breathing rapidly and held his hand over his chest. Henry had hit a nerve. ‘I don't know that. I don't know who he's with, honest.' His rapid breathing continued as he wound himself up.

‘OK, just the address then … think of the difference between a five and a ten stretch.'

Pearson gave him what he wanted.

Henry checked his watch, quickly ripped the wrapping off the tapes and inserted them into the recorder. ‘Now let's have a quick interview,' he said.

With Pearson back in his cell, Henry, Jane and Debbie stood in one corner of the custody office having a scrum-down.

Henry was excited, something concrete in his hands at last: an address.

‘Good bloody result,' Jane said. ‘You dealt with him well.'

‘I lied … because I'll actually do my best to get him fourteen years, not five or ten … it's the least he deserves … and I don't know anyone in the judiciary, except a few local JPs.'

‘And I didn't know you were a mason,' Jane teased.

Henry just winked at her and touched his nose mysteriously. ‘Still, good result, but what a creepy bastard.'

Jane shivered in distaste as though she was chewing something sour. ‘All that talk about love.'

‘One thing's for sure, we're dealing with the grubby end of policing. Give me a good old drug dealer any day.'

‘Course of action?' Debbie interrupted, annoyed by the intimate exchange between Jane and Henry.

‘Let's get a team together and hit this house.'

0
0:05 hours. Fortunately the adrenalin was rushing, and despite the fact he'd been on duty since early morning Sunday, Henry was feeling elated, even though he knew it was a sensation that would be short-lived.

The last two hours had been a flurry of activity and he was now revelling in being at the middle of things, unlike earlier when all he wanted to do was hide his head in a bucket. Such were the vagaries of being a cop. Feelings often contradicted themselves within the blink of an eye, and this was often how officers burned out. Lows, followed by highs, followed by lows, then seeking the next high. It was like being on crack cocaine, only it was legal, and far more addictive.

So for the moment, Henry was loving it, but he realized when it was over he would be exhausted and not in receipt of any overtime payments.

He looked at the faces in the briefing room. A dozen blue-overalled Support Unit officers, all mean-looking with close-cropped hair (even the women), wearing steel-toe-capped boots, everyone eager to go and smash down some doors. They lounged around indolently, sipping free hot drinks from polystyrene cups and helping themselves to mounds of biscuits Henry had managed to source. A dog handler, minus dog, chatted with them, anticipating the use of his dog in a search. Three crime scene investigators in white overalls hovered behind the uniforms and two local jacks leaned against the wall, annoyed they were here so late.

Henry coughed the cough of the person wishing to bring chatter to an end and draw attention to themselves.

‘Evening folks,' he said amiably, getting a muted, but fairly friendly response. ‘Thanks for coming … hopefully tonight we are going to catch ourselves a murderer.'

By calling in a couple of favours, Henry managed to turn out two members of the surveillance team who lived locally. Following a quick telephone briefing, they pinpointed the address Pearson had divulged and were keeping discreet obs on it.

The house was a four-storey terrace in Blackpool's North Shore, in the streets behind the Imperial Hotel off Dickson Road. It was a substantial building, like thousands of others in town, having been through a series of uses, now split into eight units, or bedsits. Henry had managed to get as much information about it as possible, but in the time available, he struggled to get very much. All he had was what Pearson had given him: Uren lived at that address in one of the flats, but which one he did not know.

A check in the voters register was inconclusive, so up to a point the police would be going in blind – but what was new about that? It just meant a slow, systematic raid, going to each flat in turn as quietly as possible, with a secure cordon around the perimeter so that if Uren was spooked and did a runner, he'd be caught in the net.

As a plan it was flawed, but it was the best he could do.

He RVd with one of the surveillance officers, together with Jane and Debbie, at a pre-arranged point just behind the Imperial Hotel.

‘All we can say is that the place is occupied, Henry,' the constable informed him. ‘It's obviously split into flats and we haven't seen Uren enter or leave the place. We haven't seen anyone, actually.'

Henry considered the information, still wondering what the best way would be to search the place. He concluded that low key was the answer.

The RV for everyone else was the forecourt of a deserted filling station on Dickson Road, plenty of room on it for the Support Unit personnel carrier, dog van, as well as Henry's, Jane's and Debbie's cars. He looked at the two DIs, thinking that there was nothing like a dynamic operation to keep the grey matter churning. After licking his lips thoughtfully and pulling a few pained expressions, wondering what the hell else he could do, he said, ‘I think the best way to go about this is …'

Based on the information from the surveillance guy, Henry and one of the Support Unit constables wearing a civvy jacket over his overalls simply walked up to the address, opened the insecure front door and stepped through a tiled vestibule into the ground floor hallway. It was wide and spacious, two doors off it and stairs leading up to the first floor. Henry could have had an educated guess at the floor plan based on past experience, and been confident at getting it right. The two doors would open into the ground floor flats, and he wondered fleetingly if there was a basement flat, but there didn't seem to be any entrance to it from this level.

‘We're inside,' he said into his PR. ‘Next pair please, nice and easy.'

Jane Roscoe and another Support Unit officer walked smartly down the street and entered the building.

‘OK?' Henry said. They nodded. ‘You stay at the foot of the stairs and we'll do these two.' He thumbed at the doors down the hallway. Into his PR he said, ‘Everyone in position?'

‘Four-eight-five and one-one-three-one at the rear,' came one response.

‘Four-oh-nine, eight-one-oh covering the front.'

‘Roger,' Henry said, not entirely comfortable with radio jargon even after so many years of coppering. It always felt a bit daft to him. However, it meant that two officers were sat at the front in a car and two were on foot in the back alley, avoiding shit and trash, covering the rear of the premises, all ready to nab anyone doing a runner. In addition, it was Jane's job to cover the stairs while Henry and the constable dealt with the first two flats at ground floor level. Under the circumstances, it was as good as it gets if this was to be as low key as possible.

He knocked on the first door. Hard, loud. His warrant card was at the ready and next to him, the SU constable had a ‘door opener' in his hands – basically a solid metal tube with handles – just on the off chance the door needed battering. He could hear muted TV inside and the door opened fairly quickly, secured by a chain.

A woman answered, peering through the crack.

Henry held up his ID and smiled the good smile. ‘Sorry to bother you at this time of day, love,' he began apologetically.

Pleased that, so far, his powers of persuasion had not diminished, he was now about to knock on the fifth door, the third flat on the first floor, and had managed to gain entry and search every flat he'd tried without too much of a problem.

The first one had been a lone, single female with a baby, who had been more than happy to have a couple of big blokes nosing around her sparse bedroom; next was a smackhead couple, both of whom Henry had locked up in his dim, distant past. They'd been too spaced out to know what was going on, and would probably wake up later believing it had just been a bad trip. Henry could have busted them, but he didn't have time to be derailed by inconsequence, so he let it go.

He and Jane and their accompanying constables went to the first floor after ensuring that another pair were stationed at the foot of the stairs. It was a bit like a military operation: taking and securing ground, bit by bit. Slow and steady and a bit boring, but Henry struggled to see any other way of doing it, other than by blitzkrieg, which he didn't really want to do because of the lack of planning time.

The first two flats on this level had been a doddle too. Henry marvelled at how easy it was to gain entry to other people's homes. The flash of a card which no one really read. A few persuasive words and, of course, the addition of an evil-looking henchman bearing a mini battering ram did help matters. The first flat on the first floor had been a teenage couple with a foul-smelling baby; the second was another of Henry's old customers, a guy who was a prolific shoplifter in order to feed a drug habit which had spiralled out of control. Entry had been easily gained and a cursory search – with permission – carried out swiftly. Henry was certain that a more detailed search could well have uncovered the guy's stash, but again, Henry did not need that distraction.