He was nervous but, at the same time, certain.
Using his swipe card, he stepped into the building and trotted up the stairs to the first floor, walking along the narrow corridor until he reached Anger’s office. The door was open and the superintendent was at his desk. Anger did not look, even though he must have at least sensed Henry was there.
Henry did not move, did not knock or cough, just waited.
Finally Anger raised his head. His piercing, angry black eyes turned to Henry.
‘Come in. Sit,’ he said tersely. Henry did as ordered, sitting down primly on the low, pink-cushioned chair that was a feature of the whole complex. Someone must have bought a job lot of them years before, and they were ubiquitous. He placed the envelope on his lap.
Anger made a weary, psychological one-upmanship show of finishing some report or other just to show Henry where his place was, closed the folder, tidied the desk, then rose and closed the door softly, before returning to his chair.
Henry blinked dumbly.
‘Well, you’ve gone and done it, haven’t you?’ Anger said, ‘And I couldn’t be happier.’
‘If you mean I’ve caught Louis Trent and arrested someone else for the crimes I was originally investigating for you, and saved a young girl from certain death, then yes,’ Henry nodded enthusiastically, ‘I’ve done it. Good result, I’d say, despite the odds.’ Henry looked meaningfully at Anger, who sighed.
‘Not even that lot can save your sorry arse, Henry.’
‘And why’s that?’
‘I’m afraid you’re going to be transferred off FMIT. You’ll be starting work on some pen-pushing, half-baked project in Corporate Development starting Monday. Where you can’t do any harm.’
‘And why’s that?’ he said again.
‘Because officers who assault prisoners the way you do are not fit and proper to be on FMIT, nor or they fit to be police officers full stop. You assaulted a prisoner, namely Troy Costain, in front of a witness, then compounded this by allowing him to be released on bail. I suspect this was because you did a deal with him so he wouldn’t complain about you. Am I right?’
‘No comment,’ Henry said, realizing who had grassed on him. Sheena Waters, the woman DC so aggrieved that Henry had released Costain, had gone straight to the big cheese. Henry didn’t bear her a grudge, though.
‘And there’s more … it just gets better and better. Allowing a member of the public, ie your friend Karl Donaldson, to be an unauthorized part of a police operation and — and! — to allow him to use a taser. Fuck me, Henry. Hanging offence. You are well and truly stuffed. Try and wriggle out of that one. Any comment now?’
‘Nope.’
‘However, you’re not suspended, but you’ll be working in the Best Value department of Corporate Development, just for the time being.’ Anger smiled nastily. ‘I knew that if you had enough rope, you’d eventually throttle yourself and give me a legitimate reason to bin you.’
‘It’s a pleasure.’
‘Jane Roscoe’ll be taking over your investigation. She’ll be given temporary DCI and you’ll be returned to your actual rank of inspector.’
‘What a surprise.’
‘Professional Standards will be getting my report first thing Monday morning.’ He tapped the file he had been working on. ‘Expect an early visit from them.’
‘I’ll look forward to it.’
‘You can’t believe what this means to me, Henry,’ he gloated.
‘Huh, don’t bank on it.’ Henry inspected his nails, raised his head and looked levelly at Anger. ‘When are you going to tell me what this is all about? I think I’ve a right to know, because it’s not really about my lack of professionalism, is it?’ His eyes roved the desk and he clocked that the Anger wedding photograph was no longer there. The Bruche passing-out parade was still on the shelf behind him.
‘Believe what you want. I think you are a crap detective, not fit to be on FMIT; you’re a loose canon, and certainly not chief inspector material, and as long as I’ve got a hole where the sun don’t shine, you’ll never achieve that rank if I have anything to do with it. Then again, there’s every chance you won’t be a cop any longer when PSD have finished with you, so that won’t be an issue anyway. And I don’t like you, you’re right — but my report will be purely objective, based on fact.’
‘That’s nice to know.’ He paused, took a breath. ‘Any chance of you reconsidering?’
Anger almost bayed with laughter. ‘When the devil’s home freezes.’
‘Is there anything I could do to make you change your mind?’
‘Don’t be pathetic,’ Anger spat derisively. ‘Now get the hell out of here, take the weekend off — enjoy it — and come back into the big house on Monday morning and tootle up to Corporate Development.’
Henry made to stand up, then sat back. ‘There are a couple of things, actually. I won’t beat about the bush.’ He had practised this in his mind a few times, but he knew this was one of those occasions when he’d just have to wing it. ‘I’ve been receiving text messages over the last week, threatening and taunting ones, from two different numbers. I don’t suppose you have any ideas about them, do you?’
‘Why the hell would I?’
‘I’ve tried to ring the numbers back, but haven’t got any replies. I’ve sent texts to each one, too.’
Anger shrugged.
‘I tried this morning, too — but still got no reply, though the phones did ring out.’
‘What are you getting at, Henry?’
‘Thing is, sir, as you know, it’s possible to get cell-siting approved to trace the location of mobile phones, which is accurate to a matter of metres. And, so long as the phone is switched on, it doesn’t matter whether the phone is being used or not; the phone companies have the technology to pinpoint them from the pulses they emit. Amazing stuff. But you know all that.’
Anger remained motionless, his facial expression revealing zero.
‘The chief has authorized us to get Orange to do a cell-siting for the two numbers this morning. They’re both pay-as-you-go numbers, you see, so there’s no contract address or anything for either of them.’ Henry forced a smile and took a breath. ‘I phoned both numbers this morning from a withheld number and hung up when they went to ansaphone,’ he said. ‘Other thing is, my car got damaged a few times over the last week, which was a real pain, so I did something about that, too. Called in a favour from a guy in tech support. Like I said, technology is amazing, innit? I got him to fix up a couple of them mini cameras inside my motor, so that if anyone damaged it, they’d get filmed. And then, would you believe it?’
‘Believe what?’ Anger’s face had gone slightly green.
‘My car gets smashed up in a pub car park and we get some fantastic pics of the offender in full flight.’ Henry took the envelope and pushed it across Anger’s desk. ‘Want to look? They’re very clear.’
‘I don’t think so.’ His mouth had turned down at the corners. He looked as though he was going to puke.
‘The cell-siting pinpointed the offending mobile phones to this building. I know it’s expensive and only usually used for life and death situations, but the chief made an exception in this case. He believed it money well spent to catch a high-ranking officer harassing and threatening lower-ranking officers. That and the damage thing.’
He and Anger stared at each other across the expanse of the desk. Henry’s face remained impassive, even when he said, ‘Touche.’ Anger’s face tensed continually at the jaw line, but something in his eyes said, ‘Beaten.’
‘I’m having marital problems,’ Anger said simply. ‘After over twenty-five years of marriage, she’s left me … it all started going horribly wrong just about the time I transferred here from Merseyside.’ He wiped his face with his hand. ‘Then when she found out you were on my staff, she started taunting me about … about, well, you can guess.’