Psycho Alley Read Online Free PDF Page B

yards and this track stops, then we’re on foot. You up to it?’
    â€˜Aye,’ he nodded.
    Jane pointed. ‘Across that hillock, between those trees, then almost down to the edge of the river, apparently.’
    Looking to where the track petered out, Henry saw two more vehicles, one a liveried cop car, the other plain, probably belonging to the on-call local detective. They were parked nose to tail.
    â€˜Let’s stop here, walk the rest of the way.’
    Jane stopped the car. She knew Henry liked to stroll up to major crime scenes from a distance: ‘With the sun at my back,’ he would say. He always thought that such an approach gave him and edge, although he could never quite qualify or quantify that with any tangible evidence. But as Jane knew, when dealing with a crime and any subsequent enquiry, gut feeling was not always to be sniffed at.
    Henry climbed out stiffly, his leg hurting, his eye throbbing. It was cold out here at dawn, near the banks of the river, a cutting if intermittent breeze coming in from Morecambe Bay. They walked to the point where the track disintegrated and became part of the scrub; then they continued up the small hill Jane had pointed out between some trees. At the top of this rise they paused and took stock. The land ran away from them, harsh grass and scrub, then became muddy sand at the edge of the river, intercut by a number of narrow and, at that moment, waterless creeks. The tide being out, the main channel of the river was the only water to be seen as they looked up towards the big ICI works a mile or so north.
    â€˜Beautiful,’ Jane commented.
    â€˜Spooky.’ Henry was momentarily mesmerized by three more hulks of trawlers abandoned in the mudflats, lying there like the rib cages of some giant, mythical monsters. It all seemed very Dickensian, and if there had been mist or fog rolling in, Henry could have believed he was in the opening chapter of
Great Expectations
. He almost expected to see the fleeing figures of escaping convicts and hear the rattle of manacles.
    Away to their left was where police activity was taking place. They made their way toward it. Three police officers were huddled together in a conflab near Uren’s burnt-out Astra, which had been abandoned there; two uniformed, the third a detective who, when she saw Henry and Jane approaching, broke away and came to meet and greet.
    â€˜Hi, boss,’ she said to Henry. Her name was Debbie Black. She was one of Henry’s protégés, having worked with him when he was on CID at Blackpool. She’d done a spell on Child Protection and Special Branch; promotion to sergeant had brought her to Fleetwood, where she was a DS. She noted his eye and limp, but, diplomatically, said nothing. After acknowledging Jane with a curt nod, she said, ‘Not good, this.’
    â€˜What’ve we got?’
    â€˜Well, you circulated this car last night.’ She pointed to the Astra. ‘So our patrols have been keeping an eye out for it.’
    â€˜Splendid,’ Henry said.
    â€˜About an hour ago we got a call from a man walking a dog on the opposite side of the river.’ Debbie pointed across to Knott End. ‘Said he could see a car on fire here … Fire Service turned out and doused it down before we got here, then they popped the boot, hatchback,’ she corrected herself, ‘and found the body.’
    â€˜Fire brigade been and gone?’ Jane asked.
    Debbie nodded. ‘They got called to a house fire in Cleveleys, but they’ll be back.’
    â€˜What are your initial thoughts?’ Henry asked. As much as he was eager to go rooting about, he liked to gather facts and opinions as he went along.
    The DS shrugged. ‘If there hadn’t been the body, it’s a pretty normal run of the mill thing. Abandoned car gets torched. We get quite a few dumped here. It’s a popular spot for it. Another unusual thing is that the fire brigade said