Henry loved field intelligence officers. In the old days they were called collators, but things had moved on in the ’90s and the twenty-first century as the whole of the police service moved into intelligence-led policing. The old-style collator disappeared to be replaced by full-blooded intelligence units. The beauty was, though, that people who would have been collators in the old days had become FIOs and they were a wonderful source of information. They knew everything about everybody, made it their business to poke their noses into criminals’ businesses.
Henry found the Intel unit on the third floor of the building and collared the detective sergeant, a grizzled old lag by the name of Ball, who reminded Henry of Shrek.
‘Glad to help,’ he said when Henry introduced himself and told him the nature of his enquiry. ‘An inevitable death, I suppose,’ Ball said, referring to Snell.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Marked for it. You know. . the circle of a low life. . eventually I think he would have overdosed and killed himself anyway. . but two bullets in the back and being set on fire. . musta really upset someone.’
‘Any idea who?’ Henry asked hopefully.
‘Take your pick. Low-level drug barons are ten-a-penny in this neck of the woods.’
‘What do you know about him, then?’
‘Into heroin and anything else he could lay his hands on. Petty thieving to pay for his habit. . God knows how he got into guns. Probably thought it would make stealing easier.’
‘Never does.’
‘No.’ Ball looked thoughtful, then down at the file Henry had in his hand. ‘You’ve got his file, I see. I copied it a few days before for Phil, the DS upstairs.’
‘My SPOC? Did you now?’ Henry waved the file. ‘Seems a bit thin on the ground.’ The corners of Ball’s mouth turned down and so did his large ears. To Henry, Ball looked as though he had seen too many scrum-downs in his time. Ball took the file and flicked through it, his face perplexed and not a little fearful.
‘Strange. . looks like the edited version,’ he said. ‘He hasn’t given you everything here.’
‘Can you give me everything?’ Henry asked, trying to make the question sound unimportant, though he had seen the look in Ball’s eyes which asked the question: why the trimmed-down file?
‘I don’t see why not. .’ He breathed out through his nose, torn a little. ‘There was nothing contentious in the file, as far as I know.’
‘Phil said he knew Snell quite well,’ Henry said, fibbing, but wanting to test the water.
‘Yeah, he did. Always locking him up — on a whim usually. In fact Snell was in custody last week. . we always get an “in custody” shot from the computer system. Locked up on suspicion of armed robbery, but not charged. Given police bail, I recall.’ Ball had walked across to a filing cabinet, was rifling through files, his hand emerging with one about half an inch thick. ‘Here we are. . Keith Snell. . no longer of this parish, nor this world. I’ll have to deal with it appropriately.’
Henry took the file from him. ‘It’s essential I have this copied fully.’
Ball nodded. ‘No probs. I’ll do it here and now.’ He pointed to the photocopier in the corner.
Henry liked Ball more and more. He took the file back from Henry and placed it on the machine. Without looking at its contents, Henry could tell it was more like he had anticipated. Lots of bits of stuff which would provide useful leads for the inquiry team back in Rawtenstall. Nuggets of gold which, Henry was certain, would lead to the killer.
As Ball handed the copied file back over, he said, ‘Between you and me, I think Phil used Snell as a source. . unofficial, like.’ He shrugged as if to say, Do with that what you will.
Henry thanked him and ten minutes later he was in the canteen, the file in front of him, skim-reading, picking up salient points, facts. The address of Snell’s current girlfriend, his best friend, his associates. . including one which made Henry gasp.
Closing the file, he knew he had two things to do urgently.
First he had to see Snell’s girlfriend. She was vital, if not as a witness, then at least as someone who could point the murder team in the right direction regarding Snell’s family and friends.
Second, he wanted to get back into Lancashire. Someone who lived there was someone he desperately needed to see.
There were some delays with passengers disembarking from the Alicante flight, something connected with a baggage-handler dispute. Jackman and Cromer waited patiently under the meeting point, discussing life, death and the universe as they so often did. They thought of themselves as philosophers and because of this, their favourite movie was Pulp Fiction, which they often revisited together.
Eventually passengers emerged.
Cromer edged his way to the barrier at the end of the customs run and unfolded an A4 piece of paper on which he had scrawled Sweetman, because he had never yet met or seen any of the two men he had been detailed to collect.
The SPOC eyed the file with apprehension, which he tried to cover with a show of bravado. Henry watched his eyes, his reaction to the fact that it had quadrupled in size. SPOC’s Adam’s apple rose and fell a few times. Henry said nothing about wandering down to the Intel unit and chatting to the FIO, nor did he challenge SPOC on the obvious lies he had spun to Henry. That would come later, Henry was positive on that point, even though he was inclined to grab SPOC’s finely tailored lapels and bang him back against a wall. There had to be a good reason for the deception, but Henry knew this was not the time or place to go for it. At the moment Henry was still on the back foot, trying to get a handle on things, and he needed to be on an even keel before lurching forwards. He wanted it to be cold and sweet, like all good revenge should be.
‘You’ve been more than helpful, Phil.’
‘Pleasure.’ His voice sounded strained.
‘I’m sure you’ll be hearing more from the murder team, and me, in the very near future. Your local knowledge will be crucial to this, I reckon.’
SPOC nodded. ‘Happy to help.’
‘I’ll bet the trail leads back here,’ Henry said.
‘Meaning?’
‘It’ll be a Manchester crim who killed Snell,’ Henry speculated.
‘Oh yeah, yeah,’ said SPOC.
Henry held out a hand. SPOC took it, they shook. This time there was a difference from the time when they had shaken earlier. SPOC’s hand had become damp and lettuce-like, a far cry from the cool skin he had felt before. Henry kept looking into SPOC’s eyes, but they did not waver from his scrutiny. They still had the same smugness and arrogance in them.
‘See you again.’
‘And you.’
Henry gave him a wide smile, whilst behind his own eyes he wondered what the hell was going on.
‘Starving,’ FB moaned dreadfully, holding his generous stomach. ‘My belly thinks my throat’s been cut.’
Wishful thinking, Henry thought. ‘Why don’t we grab a burger at the Arena? There’s a McDonald’s in the foyer. It’s only just round the corner, walking distance.’
‘Well, I don’t really do fast food,’ the chief said, ‘but I’ll make an exception this time. I’m ravenous.’
They trotted out of the police station, crossed the road and headed towards Manchester Arena.
Just before they turned the corner out of sight of the station, Henry glanced back, his eyes rising quickly to the third floor, where he glimpsed two people at the window he had stood at whilst taking the frantic mobile call from Karen Donaldson. He recognized the two as Detective Superintendent Easton and SPOC.
‘We need to talk,’ he said urgently once they were out of sight.
Easton turned to the detective sergeant, his face grim and worried.
‘Country bumpkins my backside,’ Easton said. ‘We should never, ever have taken on that pillock, Snell. You said he’d be trustworthy.’
‘Thought he would be.’
‘Proved wrong, weren’t you?’ Easton growled. ‘We may be in trouble here. . Snell just complicates matters so much. It wouldn’t be so bad if it’d just been the inquiry, but Snell as well. It would have helped if he’d been dumped in Greater Manchester, wouldn’t it?’