‘Not a good choice of words under the circumstances,’ he said. ‘I am not here to play silly fuckers with you, Troy, so I suggest you get up to your feet, keep a civil tongue in your head and answer my questions nicely and listen to what I have to say, because it’s very important. Now get up.’
Henry hoisted him up, but Costain drew his arm away, frightened and cautious of a side of the policeman he’d never really seen before. He cradled his sore jaw which was starting to swell. Henry had hit him very hard.
‘Right — has she been back to your house since the raid?’
Costain shook his head.
‘When she raided your house, did you know where Joey was?’
‘Might have,’ he said sullenly.
‘Did you, or not? Just fucking tell me.’
‘Yeah. At his new flat.’
‘Why didn’t you tell DI Roscoe where he was?’
‘Oh, get real, Henry. Like we would — no effin’ way. We just wouldn’t, would we? We tell the cops fuck all — well, y’know what I mean.’
‘When did you last see Joey?’
‘Dunno.’
‘Think!’
‘Er. . yesterday mornin’ I think. . I really don’t know. He comes and goes — Look, Henry, what is this? Tell me what’s going on.’
Henry knew that what he was about to say was probably untrue, but because he was feeling bad, he wanted Troy to feel even worse.
‘If you had told her exactly where he was, Troy, you might — just might — have saved his life.’
She could have been dead and not known it. There had been blackness — nothing, just nothing. No dreams, nothing. It was only now she knew she was alive. The first thing she felt again was her heart beating. It was unpredictable, all over the place. Fast, slow, irregular. That was what had woken her, the beating of her heart.
Next some kind of consciousness seeped back into her brain, like water dribbling through stones. Drip. Trickle. Senses returned. She shivered and knew she was alive, knew she was naked, could feel goose bumps on her skin. Then pain returned.
And with pain, fear.
Sixteen
A grief-stricken Troy Costain paced up and down the road, displaying a mixture of extreme emotions which surged and surfaced while he ranted, raved and cried like a demon. He flapped his arms like a wounded gull, or wrung his hands like a motor mechanic using gunk. Anger, despair and pain all came and went, sometimes singly, sometimes in combination.
Henry let him have his head for a while, just to get this initial response out of his system.
‘I want to see him, Henry. I want to see him now, my baby brother.’
‘Good, that’s good — we need someone to identify him formally.’
Costain stopped, head to head with Henry. There was a cold intensity in his voice as he said, ‘I want to see what those bastards have done to him.’
‘Which bastards are those?’
Suddenly Costain slumped to the side of the road and down onto his knees and was violently sick. He stood up, wiping his lips with his sleeve. He came back to Henry. His breathing was out of control and now smelled of vomit. His eyes were wide and staring like a mad man.
‘You know which bastards — those fuckin’ Khans. They’ve done this, haven’t they? Don’t tell me they haven’t. They’re all gonna die for this, they’re gonna get torn to pieces and I don’t give a toss what you say, Henry. I’m past caring now. My little brother is dead — and I loved him.’ The last few words brought on a rainstorm of tears. He sank to the ground again, sat on the kerbside and buried his head in his hands.
‘You think the Khans killed him?’
‘Yeah,’ snuffled Costain, snot dripping from his nose. ‘Obvious, innit? Revenge for their father. They think Joey killed him, don’t they?’
‘You’re saying he didn’t?’ Henry asked with surprise.
‘No way, no fuckin’ way. Joey gave him a bit of a kickin’, that’s all. He were well alive when Joey left him. That’s what Joey said, anyway, and I’ve no need to disbelieve him, have I?’
‘Joey would say that, wouldn’t he? I thought Mo Khan was against Joey seeing his daughter. That’s why Joey killed him, isn’t it? Because he wouldn’t let Joey see her.’
‘No, no, no, you got it all wrong.’ Costain, dribbling, spat something substantial into the gutter which landed with a heavy splat. ‘It weren’t serious. He were just shaggin’ the black bint for fun, just to wind the whole family up, to get ’em riled. He didn’t take it seriously. She’s a slag, gaggin’ for white man’s dick and she got Joey’s. He just wanted to stir the twats up.’
Interesting, Henry thought, taking this twist of information on board. Did that fit in with the Hellfire Dawn strategy — to incite racial problems during the week the government came to town? Did Joey Costain really leave Mo Khan in a recoverable state? Henry knew that Mo’s injuries had been brutal and horrific, coming from more than just a slapping, which Troy seemed to think was all that Joey had given Mo.
‘What was Joey’s involvement with Hellfire Dawn?’ Henry slid in.
‘Eh? Oh, that bunch of tossers? Just a bit of fun for him. He liked gettin’ into fights with ’em.’ Using the bottom edge of his shirt, Troy wiped his wet, slimy face thoroughly. ‘Take me to see him, Henry. Yeah, I’ll identify him — and I want to see exactly what they’ve done to him.’
‘Not a good idea, Troy.’
‘I want to see,’ he insisted.
‘Mind if I ask a question, boss?’ Dermot Byrne asked Henry as they drove towards the hospital. ‘How come you didn’t let on about Troy being an informant?’
Henry shifted uncomfortably. The reason was because of sheer bloody-mindedness at the way FB had treated him and also because at the time it did not seem so important. ‘Next question,’ Henry said.
‘OK, you’re not really going to let him see Joey, are you?’ Dermot Byrne said.
Henry’s lips remained tight. ‘If he insists.’
‘Out of order and you know it,’ Byrne said, not afraid to challenge a senior officer. ‘It’ll do his shed in.’ Byrne jerked his head backwards, indicating Troy in the back seat, head lodged between his knees, mentally out of it, immersed in a myriad thoughts.
‘It might knock some sense into the little shit,’ Henry said, maintaining the hard line, but deep down knowing Byrne was right. For anyone to see the body of a relative in such a mess would blow their minds. He refused to relent. ‘It might make him realise that the Khans didn’t kill him and that might just stop any further rioting tonight.’
‘Might, might, might,’ Byrne mimicked him angrily. ‘So this is your master plan, is it?’ he added contemptuously. He screeched the car into the roadside and halted. He opened his door, got out, leaned back in and said to Henry, ‘I need to speak, boss, urgently — out here.’
Henry looked blandly at him, his mouth slightly skewed. He considered advising the sergeant to fuck off, get back in the car and drive, follow orders and stop being such an insubordinate twat. Instead, groaning inwardly, he got out, slammed his door and stood on the pavement. On the rise above them, across the road, loomed Blackpool Victoria Hospital. Henry folded his arms defensively and waited for Byrne.
The sergeant got straight to the point. ‘There is no way on God’s earth that I will allow you to show him the body of his brother other than as much as is necessary to identify him — his face, in other words. I know he’s a shit, but you can’t do this, otherwise you’re as bad as he is.’
Henry’s lower jaw rolled left to right and back again. He stood firm, silent.
‘I fuckin’ mean it, Henry. I fuckin’ mean it.’ Byrne was resolute. And what was more, the angels were on his side. ‘It’s ethically and morally wrong, don’t you see? And it won’t solve a damned thing.’
Henry spun and glowered into the darkness behind which was Stanley Park. He swallowed and lifted his head skywards towards dark clouds spitting a light rain. He knew Byrne was exactly right and wondered what the hell he himself had been thinking of. He knew what was overriding his professionalism — the unknown whereabouts of two officers. He was desperate to solve one problem by whatever means possible so he could concentrate on the one he really wanted to get to grips with — Jane’s disappearance, even though he knew other officers were already out searching for her. Logic told him that if the Costains were satisfied that the Khans had not killed Joey, then the problem on Shoreside could be reduced somewhat. It seemed that the best way to convince them was to show Troy Joey’s mutilated body, because otherwise they would just think Henry was spinning them a line in order to quell a riot. And maybe, Henry admitted to himself, that was the logic of a man who was back at work too soon and not fully recovered from stress.