Tuesday was also the day when anti-government, anti-anything protesters, campaigners and demonstrators landed en masse in Blackpool. Some were harmless slightly potty cranks, who reappeared year after year peddling their skewed points of view to anyone who would listen, regardless of who was in power. Others were seriously dangerous people, dedicated to their, often, warped causes and their right to inflict their message on the world by whatever means necessary.
The media also came into town on Tuesday. TV broadcasters had been in the resort setting up their outside broadcast equipment all weekend, both at the conference venue and at the conference hotel. Tuesday was the day they plugged in and started transmitting in earnest from breakfast to bedtime. They were joined on this day by their brethren from all other branches of the media.
Tuesday was therefore the day on which the massive police operation moved into top gear. Hundreds of officers were flooding into town from the surrounding countryside, rather like descending hordes of vandals intent on rape and pillage. They would work fourteen-hour shifts, day and night, and very few of them would enjoy the experience of the four very long, usually monotonous, tours of duty. The only good thing was the overtime — which came in useful in their December pay packets — and the free food and drink provided.
At 8 a.m. on that morning, now into his fifteenth hour of the first proper night shift he had worked in almost fifteen years, Henry Christie found himself in an emergency planning meeting in FB’s commandeered officers’ mess. FB was describing the get-together as a ‘strategy and resources’ meeting. Henry thought of it more as a ‘shit’s hit the fan, don’t panic’ sort of meeting.
Henry was with such luminaries as the local divisional commander and the head of the conference operation for that day, both chief superintendents. A detective superintendent senior investigating officer was there, together with Jane Roscoe, another DI called Corner and the Met superintendent Andrea Makin. Karl Donaldson, the FBI representative, stood at the back of the room, chewing, coolly taking it all in.
To Henry’s surprise, Basil Kramer was also there, or perhaps he wasn’t so surprised following FB’s word in the shell-like a few hours before. FB was obviously out to impress by being an all-dancing, all-singing, all-round entertainer and Assistant Chief Constable.
Henry struggled to concentrate on the meeting but his mind felt like mush because he was so exhausted. However, when he did manage to focus he rather enjoyed the way in which FB fawned in one direction to Basil Kramer and preened in the other to Andrea Makin as he spoke. It was plain to see that FB was seriously stressed out: he’d had little sleep and now his police force had let him down by allowing two murders to happen right under its nose.
‘We find ourselves in a very grave situation,’ he was saying, ‘and I don’t need to tell you what effect these murders will have on the streets as well as on our image — particularly as this week we are right under the spotlight.’
‘So what are you going to do about it?’ Basil Kramer asked, applying pressure which Henry thought was out of order. ‘The PM will be extremely eager to hear, particularly as tomorrow he will be making his keynote speech on law and order and the home secretary will be making one on how he proposes to relax immigration laws. The PM will be pledging millions of pounds of extra cash to the police service and Lancashire will get a sizeable chunk of this cash. It would be ironic to see the forces of law and order collapsing around his ears as he spoke — wouldn’t it?’ Kramer’s voice held a hint of threat: perform, or you don’t get the dough.
FB blanched. Beads of sweat tumbled down his forehead, his jaw muscles tensed visibly. His eyes criss-crossed the room, landing on Henry Christie whom he blamed totally for the current predicament. ‘Henry,’ he said, ‘maybe you’d like to brief us all about last night’s events.’
Henry had expected this to be dumped on him. FB was a past master at buck passing.
‘Yes, sir, no problem.’ He cleared his throat and began to recount the happenings of the busy night to his attentive audience. He had spoken in such forums before and was unfazed by it. He knew all the Lancashire detectives in the room well, having worked extensively with them all, bar Jane Roscoe. He concluded by recapping his thoughts on the two murders, because as an ex-detective, he believed he had the right to do so and as FB had given him the floor, he was going to take advantage. He kept it pithy and to the point, though. He didn’t want to bore or alienate his audience with too many details.
‘Geri Peters had already intimated she knew something about the right-wing extremist group, Hellfire Dawn, but that she was afraid to tell us. I think she would have said something to us eventually and whoever killed her believed this too. I know that an impulse killing will have to be a consideration, but I believe the answer to her death lies with the knowledge she possessed. So what was that knowledge?’ Henry stopped, allowing the question to hang in there. He went on, ‘Joey Costain was linked to Hellfire Dawn, too. He was an activist, although his own ethnic background doesn’t quite sit with their ideals of white purity — he’s from a gypsy background,’ he explained to the one or two puzzled expressions in the room. ‘So how come he was doing their dirty work for them? Having said that he was the main suspect for Mo Khan’s death, so things point to the Khan family taking retribution, right down to the slogan written in blood on the wall. So, yeah, the Khan brothers have to be pulled in for questioning, but the way he was butchered doesn’t sit easy with that line of thought, not to my mind anyway. The Khans are very handy with knives and guns and I think they would quite happily have slit Joey’s throat and let him bleed to death. They wouldn’t have carried out the post-mortem.’ Henry’s face screwed up. ‘The Khans don’t feel right for it — that’s it,’ Henry ended.
‘Right, thanks for that. . er. . insight,’ FB said insincerely. ‘You can go home now,’ he continued, dismissing him. ‘Now, gents — and lady — we need to make some decisions about how we are going to divide up our meagre resources for these murders.’ His eyes roved the room and landed back on Henry, who had not moved. ‘You still here, Henry? I thought I’d told you, you can go home to bed now.’
A titter of laughter rippled round the room: Henry Christie was being publicly shown his place in the new order of things. Reactive inspectors were very low on the food chain, somewhere just above plankton.
‘And by the way,’ FB rubbed it in, ‘be back here for five o’clock. I want to know your plans for keeping the peace tonight — because they weren’t very good last night, were they?’
Patronising twat, Henry thought as he rose, red-faced, not making eye contact with anyone. He slunk out of the room thinking, Stuff you!
FB continued, ‘We might well be overrun with bobbies, but each and every one of them is tied up with the conference, so you can forget them. The next few days are going to be very tight manpower-wise so you can forget full murder teams until the weekend. As I see it, we need to get two investigations up and running side by side, but linked by the same senior investigating officer — anybody disagree?’
No one did.
‘Detective Superintendent Thomas — Dave, you’re in overall charge, OK?’ FB indicated the man, who nodded. ‘DI Corner, you can have Geri Peters, and DI Roscoe, you can have Joey Costain because his death seems like a follow-on from the job you were already running.’