Substantial Threat by Nick Oldham Page A

help it that three people have been shot to death on my patch . . . Yes,
my
patch, and unfortunately I have to start running an investigation immediately . . . time? Er . . . not sure . . . when I get there . . .’
    The door to Roscoe’s office opened. Henry Christie poked his head through.
    She beckoned him in, shaking her head. She did not want him to go. She mouthed the word ‘husband’ to Henry and raised her eyes heavenwards.
    â€˜Look, I’m not sure what time I’ll be back . . . There’s a pizza in the fridge which you can do in the microwave . . . As soon as I can, okay?’ She slammed the phone down and sat heavily on the chair at her desk, brushing her hair back from her face. She looked frazzled and sighed deeply.
    â€˜Yeah,’ she said, ‘first day back and I’m going to be late home.’
    â€˜Goes with the territory, and you don’t get overtime for it.’
    â€˜And guess what?’ she said, placing both hands on the desk. ‘I don’t care. I’m just glad to be back at work, involved in something as meaty as this – and especially with you around.’ She sat back. ‘Henry, I’ve really missed you.’
    He swallowed. She had been in his thoughts too. Not just in his thoughts, but all over his brain every waking moment. He sometimes even dreamt about her. ‘I’ve missed you too,’ he admitted. ‘But we’ve got a bit of a job on and it needs to be done pdq.’
    She smiled radiantly at the prospect of working alongside him. ‘Better get on with it, then.’
    â€˜I need an alibi,’ Ray said to Jack Burrows. ‘For around two till four o’clock this aft. You have to say I was with you during that time, okay?’
    She had returned to the bedroom from the shower, having spent a long time washing under the hot, power jets. Ray made her feel dirty. She always had to wash herself after intercourse.
    â€˜Sure, no problems.’ She sat at the dressing table, a towel wrapped around her body, and started working on her hair. Suddenly, a thought came to her and she stopped brushing it. ‘I can’t,’ she said, her mouth arid. She turned to Ray, who was spread-eagled on the bed, still naked, thin and pasty white.
    â€˜What the fuck do you mean, you can’t?’
    She told him about the visit she’d had from a cop that afternoon.
    Henry and Jane walked side by side into the parade room on the ground-floor annexe of Blackpool police station.
    The people assembled there were not the actual murder squad, but a mish-mash of people cobbled together just to get things underway. The real squad would come together for an 8 a.m. briefing in the morning when all the detectives and other specialists were brought in. Henry desperately wanted to get things moving now, but it didn’t mean it would be a haphazard deployment of personnel. He had particular goals in mind for this evening, especially the rooting out of informants to bleed them of anything that might be useful.
    It was 8 p.m. by the time the briefing finished. Henry and Jane returned to her office to discuss the briefing which would take place the following morning and get everything prepared for it. They had numerous phone calls to make, trying to pull a team together. It did not help that other murders were being investigated across the county and that the majority of the people Henry would have liked on his team were already gainfully employed.
    After an hour, Henry hung up the phone for the last time and wiped his brow in mock exhaustion.
    â€˜Just one more call to make, if you’ll excuse me.’ He stood up and took his mobile phone from his jacket pocket, leaving the room as he dialled Kate.
    Out in the corridor he filled her in on what was happening. She already knew a lot because he had spoken to her earlier, but as part of the communication package between them he had felt obliged to call her again and tell