The split screen was very grainy, hazy and in black and white. A cheap system, but better than nothing at all. As he reached the right place on the tape, he slowed it down to normal speed, waiting with anticipation.
The left half of the screen was the forecourt, the right the interior of the shop.
A car drove on and stopped at a pump. A man got out, filled the car. Not the one they were interested in, but even so Henry was slightly disappointed because it was impossible to read the registered number of the vehicle. He frowned. Make and model, yes. Colour would have to be guessed at. But number, no.
The man approached the cashier’s window and then disappeared out of shot, before reappearing a few moments later, getting in his car and driving away.
‘The shop’s locked at midnight, apparently,’ Hannah said. ‘Everyone pays at the window up to eight a.m.’
‘And the camera picks people up on the forecourt, but not at the payment window,’ Carradine said. ‘Not well sited,’ he added.
Then, on the periphery of the screen, another car drove on to the forecourt, but did not stop at the pumps. Other than a shot of the wheels as it crossed the far side of the forecourt, there was nothing.
‘Wonder if this is the one?’ Roscoe asked.
The time stamp on the screen said three fifty-five a.m.
The detectives waited. The split screens stayed empty.
Henry mussed his face with his hands, impatient.
A man walked into shot on the right side of the screen, walking down the aisle in the shop, reaching up to a shelf for something, then walking back holding a petrol can.
‘The cashier,’ Henry said.
He disappeared off screen, probably taking up his position behind the counter.
A figure of a man then appeared on the left half of the screen, walking towards the pumps, his back to the camera, holding the petrol can.
‘This is the guy who bought the can,’ Henry said.
All four cops hunched closer to the screen, watching as the man went to a pump and filled up the can, all the while keeping his back to the lens.
‘He knows he’s being filmed,’ Roscoe said.
Unknowingly, all four of them were holding their breaths, collectively waiting for the man to turn and walk back to the window.
The figure on the screen stood up, slotted the petrol-pump nozzle on to its holder and screwed the cap on the can. He picked up the can and then walked away from the camera, across the forecourt, and out of shot.
‘Cheeky bastard. He paid for it before he served himself.’
They continued to watch the screen for a few moments before Henry fast-forwarded it, but there was nothing else to see.
‘Shit,’ breathed Carradine. ‘Doesn’t give us much.’
‘Gives us something,’ Henry said. ‘If this is our man, and there’s a good likelihood it is, we’ve got height, build, clothing, gait. . good stuff. . breakthrough. Let’s get it copied,’ he said to Carradine and Roscoe, ‘then I want it sent to technical support to see if they can do anything with the images. I know we only get the bottom edge of a car, but we need to put a make to it, if possible. . OK, back on your heads,’ he said, pushing himself out of his seat, ejecting the video from the player and handing it to Roscoe.
‘Well done,’ he said to Hannah. ‘My gut feeling is that we’ve just had our first glimpse of a murderer.’
The support-unit sergeant left the room feeling very pleased with herself.
Roscoe looked at Henry as though he were pathetic. ‘Another of your conquests, Henry? She looked all gooey-eyed. . is it the overalls that do it for you?’
Henry exited without comment.
Roads and tracks of varying quality criss-cross the bleak moorland which rises between Bacup and Todmorden, a town nestling just within the boundary of West Yorkshire. Other than the A road which straps across the gap between the two towns, these other roads are not ones on which a Bentley, which when new cost somewhere in the region of?140,000, should be driven. However, the Bentley driven by Tony Cromer was the exception. He purposely picked rough tracks, bouncing the battered luxury car over and into pot-holes and ditches, bottoming it, tearing the ultra-expensive exhaust from its mountings. He spent a good ten minutes enjoying a kind of off-road experience. Eventually he met up with Teddy Bear Jackman, who was waiting patiently in their own car near to the small, hilltop hamlet of Sharneyford.
Cromer pulled in, climbed out and stood back to admire his handiwork.
The Bentley had been trashed, but he was impressed by the way in which it kept going. It was undoubtedly a fantastic car and it hurt Cromer to have had to do what he had to do. But business was business.
He walked around to the boot, which he had to force open.
Inside, curled up in a foetal ball, was the equally battered Spinks, who had also just enjoyed an off-road experience. He peered up with eyes surrounded by a face pulped and disfigured and broken by Cromer’s merciless beating. He cowered and whined, terrified.
‘Got good suspension, your motor.’
Spinks nodded, then coughed blood.
‘Well? Change of heart?’
‘I don’t know anything,’ he said weakly.
Cromer nodded. He tossed the Bentley keys into the boot, then leaned in close. ‘You have any thoughts about a follow-up, a return match, and you’re dead — understand?’
Spinks nodded.
Cromer slammed down the boot and climbed into the waiting car, next to his colleague. ‘One down, nine to go.’
It was the end of a long day. Some progress had been made — such as the video from the petrol station. The cashier had been located and was being interviewed, later to be visited by the e-fit expert. It was a good lead and there would be some good actions from it. In the morning Henry fully expected the DNA results to be through, one way or the other, and maybe something from the firearms people at Huntingdon.
But now he was shattered. The nine o’clock debrief had gone well and everyone involved was still very much up for it. The following day’s actions had all been allocated and Henry decided to skip a morning briefing so everyone could get working early.
After the debrief, Henry spent half an hour making up the policy log and then, confident he was hitting all bases, he got ready to hit the trail home. The thought of an hour in the car did not fill him with glee, but his bed was calling, and cancelling the morning briefing meant he could laze in it until eight a.m. A lie in!
He stepped out of the police station at nine forty-five p.m.
The evening was cool and fresh, in contrast to his body, which was stale and sweaty. His car was in the small yard at the back of the station and he walked round to it.
His mobile phone rang.
‘Henry — it’s me, Tara.’
The voice and name smote a wave of horror through him. Tara Wickson.
‘Hi,’ he said, trying to disguise the note of hysteria in his voice, vividly recalling the other night at the Imperial Hotel in Blackpool. A memory he had tried to bury over the last few days.
Thirteen
The first time Henry Christie had ever seen Tara Wickson he had been very impressed by her looks and had briefly imagined that she might have been ‘interested’ in him. A male ego thing. Then he had got involved with her and her family and their sordid, lawless affairs, and he had ended up covering for her. Not just a minor thing, but murder, and now it was coming back to haunt him. He had done something which, at the time, he had believed was the right thing to do. Now he regretted it, but was stuck with it because if he told the truth, his life as he knew it would be over. Anger, Roscoe and Lancashire Constabulary would descend on him like a pack of vultures. He would be torn to shreds and dumped.
It all came back to Tara, though. She was on a major guilt trip now. Henry should have been ultra-cool about it, used his interpersonal skills, kept his distance and dealt with it.