Free Nightmare City by Nick Oldham Page B

what the hell you’re on about.’
    ‘ See you now,’ Henry said affably.
    He and Seymour walked out.
    Rider remained at the bar. Jacko and Isa materialised out of
the woodwork. Jacko stayed behind the bar. Isa asked him what it
was all about.
    He gave a sneer. ‘Nothing - just one of my tenants. Nothing to worry about.’ But he was
worried, and frightened. ‘Fuck that bastard Conroy!’ he said
between gritted teeth and slammed the bar top with his fist. ‘Fuck
him for getting me involved again.’
    Out on the street Henry took the number of the Jag and radioed
it through for a PNC check.
    The two detectives got into their car, an unmarked Rover Two
series. ‘He didn’t even ask “Why?” when I mentioned the zoo,’ Henry
said. ‘I find that intriguing. I mean, if a cop asked you if you’d
been somewhere, surely you’d-’
    Henry’s audible musing was interrupted by a very garbled
message on the personal radio. A patrol was shouting, but most of
the words were impossible to make out - with the exception of,
‘Assistance! Assistance! Officer down!’

Chapter Six

    ‘ We’ve to take the stuff back to the warehouse - the deal’s
off for some friggin’ reason,’ Dundaven said to his passenger,
whose name was McCrory.
    He ended the call on the mobile and tossed it onto the
dashboard of the Range Rover. They had been mooching around
Blackpool, killing time in amongst all the tourists, pretending to
be trippers themselves, whilst waiting for the call from Conroy.
The theory was that they would look less suspicious on the move
rather than parked up in some back alley somewhere. Two guys
sitting in a motor always attracts attention.
    The mobile had chirped whilst they were driving south down the
Promenade from Gynn Square, stuck in the flow of
traffic.
    However, McCrory breathed a sigh of relief at the news. ‘Thank
fuck for that, Dunny.’ He was getting decidedly jumpy, trolling
around the place with enough firepower in the back to arm a unit of
the SAS. ‘Let’s get the crap outta here.’
     
     
    Stopping and searching persons and vehicles is one of the most
fundamental functions of a police officer. Its effectiveness in
preventing and detecting crime cannot be over-stressed.
Stop-searches result in thousands of arrests each year, mostly for
minor criminal and drug-possession offences, as well as more
spectacular ones. The Yorkshire Ripper, the Black Panther and
members of the IRA responsible for planting bombs in the north of
England were all arrested by officers exercising their basic
powers.
    Many officers stop-search using the numbers game: if enough
people and vehicles are stopped, the theory goes, sooner or later
there will be a result.
    Some officers simply have a nose, an eye, an ear - an instinct
– for pulling the right person or vehicle at the right
time.
    Or in some cases, the wrong time.
    PC Rik Dean was one such officer. He had three and a half
years’ service, but at the age of thirty-two, had another eight
years’ experience behind him as a Customs and Excise
officer.
    Blackpool Central had been his first posting as a cop and he
loved the place. The work was hectic - Blackpool never stood still
- and the social life was even better now that he was
divorced.
    He was one of those policemen who just seem to fall over
villains. He didn’t know why - it just happened. When he stopped a
car, odds could be laid he’d find a hoard of stolen goods; if he
pulled a person, he’d find heroin. And he didn’t know why. He’d
look at someone, or a car, his brow would furrow, his head would
tilt to one side and he’d say, ‘Let’s have a look at
that.’
    Which is what he did that Sunday afternoon.
    He was working the 2-10 p.m. shift. When he paraded on duty he
was given a thick wodge of arrest warrants, mainly for people who
had failed to appear at court, and was told to go and execute a few
of them. The warrants, that is.
    He was partnered with a policewoman called Nina. She was
nineteen