Free Judgement Call by Nick Oldham

I’ve got plans for the evening.’
    â€˜Shelve ’em. You’re a cop. Stuff like this comes with the territory.’ FB waited for Henry’s challenge. ‘And it’s a uniform job escorting prisoners.’
    â€˜Right … OK.’
    â€˜But there’s a carrot in it for you: Jack Bowman. I’ve got evidence on him for three burglaries. I think he’s committed about forty more.’
    â€˜I know that.’
    â€˜He’s all yours,’ FB said magnanimously. ‘Get him back, get him to confess, test your interrogation skills … If nothing comes of it, just charge him with the three I can prove.’
    Henry started to perk up. ‘He’s mine?’
    â€˜You get him, you have him. If you don’t want to go, I’ll find someone else willing. You could clear up a lot of crime here. Bowman’s a one-man burglary machine. But if your social life …’
    â€˜I’m on it,’ Henry snapped.
    Now all he had to do was let Kate know that the job had come between them.
    Henry’s rented house was off a main road on a side street that led to a dead end. A very basic two-up, two-down terrace that had only recently had an inside toilet and bathroom and central heating installed. But it was adequate for two single, horny cops who did not crave great comfort, just a bed each, a TV in the lounge and a Chinese takeaway and good pub within walking distance.
    Henry crashed through the front door and shot upstairs to the narrow landing where he was greeted by the wonderful sight of the very sleepy, rumpled landlady of the aforementioned pub emerging naked from his colleague’s bedroom. She blinked at Henry through a very unkempt fringe of hair and smiled as his eyes opened so wide at the vision of her body, he thought they were likely to pop out on stalks.
    â€˜Hi, Henry,’ she said thickly and turned into the bathroom, giving him a flash of her ample, dimpled bum.
    Then she was gone.
    â€˜Lucky sod,’ Henry mumbled and went into his bedroom at the back of the house. This consisted of a three-quarter-size bed with one bedside cabinet and a small wardrobe that he’d bought from a local DIY store and somehow assembled himself. The process of putting it together had taught him he wasn’t cut out for do it yourself. He changed quickly into jeans and a shirt, then threw a change of underwear and socks into a soft zip-up bag, together with his toilet bag.
    When he came back onto the landing, he heard the toilet flush, then the bathroom door opened and the landlady stepped out. She stood before him, naked and unashamed – and quite hairless – and after a saucy jiggle of her boobs disappeared back into the bedroom, giving Henry a second glance of her bottom, which he had one day hoped to grab. His colleague and housemate had got there first.
    â€˜I’m going to get one of those for myself one day,’ he said under his breath, then went back downstairs and got into the marked police car he had helped himself to. Even though it was only a Mini Metro, there was no room to spin it round in the cobbled street and he had to reverse it all the way back onto the main road, then head back to the police station, worrying how he was going to explain it to Kate.
    One thing for certain, his tale would not include the name Jo Wade.
    Kate worked in a local insurance brokers, close enough to walk to from Rawtenstall nick, but Henry’s courage evaporated on the drive back. He found a phone in an empty office, one from which he knew he could get an outside line by dialling 9, and called the brokerage.
    â€˜Valley Insurances,’ a bright female voice answered: Kate Marsden, the girl Henry had met at the scene of a brutal murder. She had discovered the body of a missing girl whilst out walking her dog on the moors above Haslingden. Henry, and FB, had attended and it had been Henry’s job to take the young lady’s statement. She was