‘How about if you are present?’
‘OK. . but remember, I’m only doing this because I’m one of those blokes — and call me old-fashioned if you like — who doesn’t believe in coincidence.’
‘Henry, hello,’ Tara had responded to Henry’s words of surprise in the waiting room at Blackpool police station. She stood up and crossed over to him. She looked as good as ever. Slim, blonde, highly attractive if a little too heavy around the jawline to make her stunning. Since Henry had last seen her, she had acquired a golden tan which set off her azure eyes and blonde hair brilliantly. She took hold of Henry’s hand, tiptoed into him and kissed him on the cheek. She was wearing a beret tilted at an angle on her head. Henry knew it was covering the injury she had received to her head, the blow from the handle of a gun administered ruthlessly by the man who had gone on to murder her husband. She’d had to have part of her head shaved for the wound to be treated, but six weeks on, it looked as though much of the hair had grown back, at least enough to provide some cover.
Henry recoiled slightly from her lips, even though they felt soft, warm and wonderful, sending a little twelve-volt jolt through him. She gazed with disappointment at him. ‘What is it?’
‘Nothing, nothing,’ he shrugged it off. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘I need to talk. . talk things through.’ She looked awkwardly around the waiting room. ‘Can we go somewhere else? I don’t feel at ease here in the police station.’
‘Such as where? It’s very late.’
‘I have a suite down at the Imperial. . maybe there?’ She saw his disinclination to say yes. ‘In the bar, I mean.’
He relented. Less than five minutes later he was driving northwards along the promenade, Tara’s Mercedes behind him, wondering what the hell he was doing.
The Imperial Hotel is on the sea front at North Shore, Blackpool, a five-star hotel used most famously by visiting politicians during the annual party conferences in the resort. All the great and good had stayed here, some not so good either. Henry knew the hotel well, inside and out, though he was glad to say on that night he did not recognize any of the staff as he sat in the bar being attended by a waiter who brought him a large cappuccino and Tara a black coffee and double brandy.
She took a big mouthful of the spirit and aahed as it sank down into her chest and stomach.
Henry waited, sipping his hot frothy coffee.
‘The full inquest is in a month,’ she said, opening her gambit.
‘I’m aware of that.’
‘I’m worried about things. About what to say, about being questioned by barristers, about slipping up and telling the truth.’ She spoke the last three words in a hush.
Henry rubbed his eyes, scratched his head. ‘Just stick to the script and it’ll be fine.’
‘That’s easy for you to say. You’re used to being cross-examined, I’m not.’ She supped the rest of her brandy, gestured for the waiter to return with a refill.
‘It’s not like a court of law,’ Henry said patiently.
‘That’s not what I’ve heard. They’re just as hard on you, or they can be, and I feel like I might crack under pressure. . this isn’t easy, you know.’
Henry could feel his heart changing up a gear, whilst his stomach seemed to contract. This was not a reassuring thing to hear. As he massaged his tired face again, his hands shook slightly as though his sugar levels were low.
‘If you tell the truth, you’ll go to prison for murder,’ he said harshly. ‘Is that what you want?’
Henry’s mind came back to the present. He shivered apprehensively.
‘You OK?’ Jane Roscoe asked.
‘Somebody just walked over my grave.’ He saw Roscoe smirk.
‘How are you and the chief these days?’ she asked out of the blue.
He frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You and FB. Like that, aren’t you?’ She held up two crossed fingers.
‘Oh,’ Henry said dubiously, ‘haven’t seen or spoken to him in weeks.’
‘You and he reckon to dislike each other, but actually he looks after you, doesn’t he?’
Henry’s mouth turned down at the corners. It was true to say that the relationship between him and the chief was a complex one. Henry often thought that Fanshaw-Bayley simply used Henry’s skills and abilities callously without any thought to the damage it did to Henry, just so long as a result came about. Having said that, Henry had some things to be grateful to FB for, recently in particular, so there was a two-way exchange, though much of the bias was tilted towards FB. Most lately FB had secured Henry’s return to work following suspension, but that in itself was now having repercussions which left Henry feeling a little numb.
‘I think we know each other well enough to call a spade a spade, don’t you?’ Roscoe pummelled on. Obviously she believed she had a right to say anything she wanted to Henry following the acrimonious end to their brief affair. Henry braced himself for something unpleasant. ‘Dave Anger wants rid of you from the SIO team.’ Henry sighed. So what’s new, he thought. ‘He’s come into the force and been given the job of running the team and he feels hampered by having you in it — someone he first met under very dubious circumstances, someone he suspects is not being quite straight with him. Not a good start, is it? He wants to get people in he knows and can trust.’
‘How many people can he know? He’s only just come into the force,’ said Henry crossly.
‘He knows people. . me, for example. I’ve shown him how well I work and he wants me on the team. There’s others, too. Having people like you dumped on him gives him very little room to manoeuvre.’ She paused, then pounced. ‘Can I be blunt with you, Henry?’
Henry sighed through his nostrils. ‘Would it make any difference if I said no?’
‘No.’
He waited nervously.
‘This is just between you and me, Henry, and if you repeat any of it, I’ll deny it, OK?’ Their eyes locked at seventy mph on the M65. Henry had once thought Roscoe beautiful, but now to him her face seemed hard and callous. She had lost a lot of weight and her face had become thinner, chisel-like. ‘He’s out to get you and so am I. . but actually all we want is for you to request a move. . if you don’t, life will be very uncomfortable because we’ll keep digging and digging into this Wickson thing. We won’t let it drop. . unless you ask for a transfer out.’
Henry, jaw clamped tight, muscles in his face tense, turned his eyes back to the motorway and felt himself begin to waver.
The chance came as Whitlock had planned. He had been wheeled in to see the duty solicitor in an interview room specifically reserved for such private consultations between client and brief. The room was not monitored by either CCTV or audio.
He spent an hour in discussion, told the solicitor everything that had happened to him. In some ways that was good. A cathartic release, but finally the conversation was over.
‘Are you ready for the police to interview you now?’
Whitlock nodded. ‘There is one thing. . I don’t want to go back into the cell just yet. . is there any way I could sit here for a while? It’s so depressing and claustrophobic, even with the door open. This isn’t much better, but at least it’s brighter.’
‘I’m sure it’ll be all right, but I do need to have a chat with the interviewing detectives first. You could be here for a good ten minutes.’
‘That’s OK. . just as long as it isn’t a cell. It’s doing my head in.’
‘No probs.’ The solicitor pressed the attention button. After a minute the door opened and a civilian gaoler poked his head in.
Karl Donaldson was allowed to listen to Detective Superintendent Brooks’s chat with the duty solicitor, together with the two other detectives who would actually be carrying out the interview with Whitlock.
The solicitor did not give much away and the purpose of the interaction was more about setting ground rules than anything else. This was a very big job and everybody wanted to get it right. It took about ten minutes, then they were ready to proceed.