Free Substantial Threat by Nick Oldham

you were here and I was busy with other things . . . but then I couldn’t resist,’ she admitted ruefully.
    Jane Roscoe let her shoulders rise and fall in a gesture of submission.
    â€˜I didn’t even have a clue you were coming back. I thought you were having a long career break, especially after all you went through.’ Henry fell quiet for a few seconds as he thought about the fairly recent past. ‘And you were trying for a child, weren’t you?’ Henry was quite nervous being so near Roscoe. His voice wavered slightly.
    â€˜Yeah, we were, but it never seemed to happen. I suppose it helps if you have sex.’
    â€˜Usually part of the equation.’
    â€˜Well it started off like having sex to order . . . can you imagine that?’
    â€˜Bliss.’ Henry laughed.
    â€˜Not in our house,’ she said seriously. ‘But apart from that, I got bored being at home, doing the wifey thing. It just didn’t seem natural, so I asked to come back and luckily my job was still open, so . . . here I am! Large as life and twice as dangerous.’ They reached the end of the landing and stopped walking. Roscoe took a deep breath, which she then exhaled unsteadily. ‘Things aren’t right between me and Tom, which doesn’t help.’ She had a sad expression on her face.
    Henry could feel his heart beating away, thumping away at his ribs.
    â€˜What’s wrong . . . why the sad face?’ he asked, the words sticking slightly in his throat, afraid of the answer.
    Roscoe had big eyes and they looked into Henry’s.
    â€˜What’s wrong?’ she said. ‘You really want to know?’
    Henry nodded, but not with great enthusiasm.
    â€˜You,’ she said. ‘I can’t get you out of my head. Can’t stop thinking about you. I know we’ve never actually done anything other than kiss – and that was bloody brief.’ She chuckled. ‘Yeah, all we ever did was kiss, but I had to get back to work because it was the only way I could think of seeing you again.’ She blinked, her eyes moist, then gave a short laugh. ‘That’s why.’
    Henry was speechless. It had been the same for him.
    â€˜I think we can move the body now,’ Professor Baines declared as he emerged from Carrie’s flat. ‘Done all we can here.’ He caught sight of Henry and Roscoe standing face to face, inches apart. He tilted his head back and looked down his nose at the pair of them. ‘Obviously I’m sorry to interrupt,’ he added, ‘but a murder has been committed here.’
    The King’s Cross public house was situated on Lytham Road, South Shore. It was a large building, double fronted, bars on either side of the front door. Its clientele was drawn mainly from the seedier side of town and much drug dealing was carried out on the premises, which were owned by a man called Rufus Callan.
    Callan had four such pubs, all of a similar nature, none very upmarket, but they made him vast amounts of money, as did the drug dealing he controlled in them and which he was keen to expand. It was this desire to grow which had led him to cross swords with Ray Cragg. And why, on that day, Ray Cragg had decided that Rufus Callan was going to pay the ultimate price for trying to muscle in on his territory.
    Rufus Callan was going to die.

Four
    H enry had met Jane Roscoe a few months earlier under very difficult circumstances. He had returned to work following a virtual nervous breakdown, expecting to return to his old position – detective inspector at Blackpool Central. He had been shocked to be told that – for his own good – he had been transferred to uniform duties and that someone else had been given his job, that someone being Jane Roscoe. He had wanted to despise her, but had found himself deeply attracted to her and she to him, although neither of them did anything about it.
    In a particularly traumatic incident Jane had