Their run slowed to a stop. They were ten metres away from him.
FB walked up. ‘Very commendable, guys,’ he said, ‘but your boss is under arrest and unless you want to end up in the same cell complex, I suggest you down tools and go back from whence you came. Like now!’
‘And who the fuck are you, fatty?’ one snarled at him.
FB did something he hadn’t done for a very long time: he flashed his warrant card. Relishing the drama, whilst also feeling just slightly silly, he announced, ‘I’m the fucking chief constable.’
It would have been unwise to have lodged the two prisoners in Lancaster’s cells. Henry needed to get them away from their home turf, particularly Barlow. He was a well-liked detective with a lot of friends at the station, a situation that could conceivably make things difficult for Henry.
To that end, Henry had already warned the custody office at Blackpool to be ready for two prisoners who were to be kept separate and given cells at the opposite ends of the big complex so they could not communicate in any way with each other. Henry did not reveal who the prisoners would be.
Henry had also arranged transport for them, having commandeered the services of two headquarters driving-school instructors, two plain cars and two uniformed constables from the public-order training unit in order to convey the prisoners to Blackpool.
Moments after Henry had made the arrest of Harry Sunderland and the possibility of being battered by Sunderland’s wrench-wielding staff had passed, Henry called up the driving-school car that was on standby half a mile away.
When it arrived, Sunderland was pushed into the back of it alongside a burly riot-squad trainer.
Henry gave them certain instructions and assured them he would not be far behind.
Once Sunderland was on his way, Henry called up Rik Dean to confirm that DI Barlow had also been arrested and was on his way to Blackpool in the other driving-school car to Blackpool.
So far, so good. Henry liked smooth plans. He and FB looked at each other and grinned.
Then Henry realized that Flynn was nowhere to be seen. He looked around to see that he was climbing through a Judas door set in the larger door of the warehouse unit where the two employees had scuttled back to. Flynn had obviously followed them.
Henry tutted.
Flynn’s head reappeared through the door and he waved for Henry to come over. Henry tutted again, but set off with FB in tow.
‘What is it?’
‘Feast your eyes,’ Flynn said.
He pushed the door open and Henry climbed through into the warehouse, followed by FB.
‘Allo, allo, allo,’ Henry said for the first time in his career.
In a row, facing him, stood three almost new top model Range Rovers, all in black. None bore a registration plate. They stood side by side, magnificent machines, like knights’ chargers.
Henry had a swell of relief.
‘Bingo,’ FB said.
‘Full house,’ Henry confirmed.
FOURTEEN
Silence.
Background noise, yes. The sound of a cell door slamming shut. A shout of a prisoner, the response of a gaoler. The humming of the air conditioning. The hiss of the tape machine running.
But between the two men, silence.
It always came down to this, Henry thought — and relished the prospect.
Verbal jousting.
The tapping of a wedge, metaphorically speaking, into a tiny crack, then — tap, tap, tap — opening it up.
Or not.
It didn’t matter to Henry. All he knew was that there were not many better feelings than being face-to-face with a prisoner, maybe two feet separating their faces across the interview table, and slicing them to shreds.
But, not far into this encounter, the prisoner had clammed up tight.
Henry wasn’t perturbed. Silence didn’t faze him. He revelled in it. ‘No comment’ didn’t even touch his radar. You want to say nothing, fine. Your prerogative. Say nowt.
Henry smiled and twitched his eyebrows, held his gaze on the man sitting opposite, a man who had almost as much experience as himself of the interview situation and maybe because of that thought he knew how to deal with it.
But not from that side of the table.
Often silence worked to the disadvantage of the interviewee. Usually they couldn’t stand it, somehow felt obliged to speak, to fill the gaps, to drop themselves in it, tie themselves up in knots with convoluted tales that then unravelled like a ball of wool.
This man was different, as no doubt he had used silence as a tool himself — when he was sitting on Henry Christie’s side of the table.
‘OK,’ Henry said, smiling slightly. He nodded at Ralph Barlow, who was the man across from him, his solicitor sitting alongside him. ‘You’ve had the chance, now I’ll lay it on the line for you.’
At this stage, Henry didn’t have a problem with this tactic. He was fluid in his approach. Go with the flow — but always stay in control.
If Barlow knew he was screwed, that the ball was well and truly spinning in his direction, then it was up to him how he dealt with it.
Henry went on, ‘I’ll lay out some bare, irrefutable facts for you.’ He had a folder in front of him, which he opened, and cleared his throat. ‘Your mobile phone is paid for by the police. It’s a tool of the trade. All detectives have mobile-phone accounts, paid for by the force, generally without question — unless the invoices are astronomical.’ He extracted a few sheets of paper from the folder, invoices from a well-known service provider. ‘These are your bills for the last two years. On them I have highlighted numerous calls to a particular phone number. Also’ — Henry slid out another sheet of paper — ‘I have this, a bang up-to-date record of the calls you’ve made in the last three days, including several to the particular number I’ve been talking about — times, dates, including this morning…’
Henry swished the sheet around so Barlow could see it. He didn’t allow his eyes to wander. They were set, but unfocused, behind Henry’s left shoulder.
‘Made whilst DI Dean was standing outside your office. You were making a frantic phone call to this number because I’d just phoned you to tell you about an intended arrest. I won’t even talk about the comical debacle of you trying to dispose of your SIM card down a toilet. This is Harry Sunderland’s number,’ Henry declared.
Barlow sat there, unimpressed.
Henry shuffled the papers around and pointed to a highlighted series of calls to Sunderland’s phone. ‘These calls were made the morning his wife was found in the river.’
He raised his eyes and looked at Barlow, whose eyes would not return the look. ‘And this call, using 141 to disguise you as the caller, was made to Steve Flynn’s phone this morning, too.’
Henry slid the papers back into the folder. Underneath was a second one, which he opened, talking as he did. ‘I mean, the thing is you were pretty careless, but in the normal run of events, none of this stuff would have been spotted. We don’t comb through mobile-phone accounts of our officers, do we, Ralph? Not unless we suspect something’s amiss.’
‘It proves nothing,’ Barlow said, breaking his silence.
‘It proves that when you get cocky, you get caught,’ Henry said. ‘Now we come to this,’ he said with delight. He laid his hand on the next folder and said, ‘As a divisional DI you wield a great deal of power, don’t you? Not least in terms of the administration of crime reporting. Absolute power, I’d say.’ Henry looked at him and saw a frown on Barlow’s forehead — wondering, or knowing, what was coming. ‘You have the power to write off crimes, have them deleted from the system — or, OR, to invent crimes in order to facilitate criminal activity. You can cook the books, or burn the books, can’t you?’
Barlow shrugged noncommittally.
‘See — problem is, once a ball starts rolling, it’s usually very hard to stop. Interest is aroused. More digging begins. Unsavoury things are uncovered — and that ball turns into an Indiana Jones boulder which, even though you might not believe it, is what you are now fleeing from.’