said about âimmediate effectâ, he had just over a month to get used to the idea, during which time he drove to Rawtenstall a few times so he could get the location fixed in his head.
In that time he also had to find new lodgings â or âdigsâ â as it would be impractical to travel every day from Blackburn, especially in winter when the journey could be treacherous â plus Henry didnât like having to travel too far to work. He was given a few addresses to check out and settled on a landlady who lived in a terraced house in Rawtenstall. She reminded Henry of the brassy landlady in the film
Get Carter
who took in and then screwed the Michael Caine character. Henry harboured hopes of the same thing happening to him, being taken in by an older, experienced woman, but it never materialized. Their relationship was purely professional and just a bit chilly. He lived in a single bedroom, bathroom down the hall, breakfast and tea provided with access to the living room to watch TV. There were strict rules on hours and visits by members of the opposite sex, which Henry broke regularly.
He didnât last long there, mainly because the landlady caught him in bed one afternoon, trying to have sex as silently as possible with a policewoman he had sneaked in. He was given a monthâs notice.
This suited Henry because he ended up living in a rented terraced house with another bobby and his life became much more bearable and liberated, but very unstructured, with the exception of work.
Also, the shock of being posted somewhere he had never heard of soon wore off.
He was ultimately determined to leave the valley for busier police pastures but he did realize the potential of the place as a learning environment, because unlike Blackburn, where backup was never far away, in the valley an officer usually operated alone. It was here he learned how to be a cop, learned to apply law and procedure, learned how to deal with and talk to the public and started to develop his skills as a detective, his ultimate goal.
This was how he had managed to wangle a secondment as a CID aide to Blackburn, but had fallen foul of a DI who kicked him back to Rossendale, an incident that frustrated the hell out of him as he thought it might be a nail in the coffin of his career as a detective.
One thing he knew for certain was that he was starting from scratch and that he would have to remember to keep his mouth shut a bit more, not just declare UDI and do whatever he wanted.
FB was the ruler of the roost in Rossendale and Henry was bright enough to realize that getting him on his side was a good move, even if he already disliked and mistrusted him.
Henry knew that his own biggest problem was seeing things in black and white, right and wrong, and he was only really just becoming familiar with those murky shades between those ends of the continuum.
Not that that made it any easier for him to accept that Vladimir Kaminski was walking the streets when he should really be banged up facing a rape charge.
But Henry had to keep FB sweet â at least until he could fathom how to drag Kaminski back in and nail the bastard to the wall ⦠judicially speaking.
In the meantime, he would just have to go with the flow and hope that nothing worse happened to Sally Lee. He also wanted to be involved in the hunt for the armed robbers who had scared him shitless â and that also meant keeping on FBâs good side.
But he also knew he was constricted by doing his âday jobâ. He had a specific area to police and whilst he had a lot of freedom in how he did it, he couldnât just go wandering off into Greater Manchester to make his own enquiries just because he felt like it.
Had he been a detective, things would have been different. They had much more freedom to follow things through, something else that appealed to him.
But he wasnât â yet.
One day, maybe. ⦠So in the meantime he had to play the
In that time he also had to find new lodgings â or âdigsâ â as it would be impractical to travel every day from Blackburn, especially in winter when the journey could be treacherous â plus Henry didnât like having to travel too far to work. He was given a few addresses to check out and settled on a landlady who lived in a terraced house in Rawtenstall. She reminded Henry of the brassy landlady in the film
Get Carter
who took in and then screwed the Michael Caine character. Henry harboured hopes of the same thing happening to him, being taken in by an older, experienced woman, but it never materialized. Their relationship was purely professional and just a bit chilly. He lived in a single bedroom, bathroom down the hall, breakfast and tea provided with access to the living room to watch TV. There were strict rules on hours and visits by members of the opposite sex, which Henry broke regularly.
He didnât last long there, mainly because the landlady caught him in bed one afternoon, trying to have sex as silently as possible with a policewoman he had sneaked in. He was given a monthâs notice.
This suited Henry because he ended up living in a rented terraced house with another bobby and his life became much more bearable and liberated, but very unstructured, with the exception of work.
Also, the shock of being posted somewhere he had never heard of soon wore off.
He was ultimately determined to leave the valley for busier police pastures but he did realize the potential of the place as a learning environment, because unlike Blackburn, where backup was never far away, in the valley an officer usually operated alone. It was here he learned how to be a cop, learned to apply law and procedure, learned how to deal with and talk to the public and started to develop his skills as a detective, his ultimate goal.
This was how he had managed to wangle a secondment as a CID aide to Blackburn, but had fallen foul of a DI who kicked him back to Rossendale, an incident that frustrated the hell out of him as he thought it might be a nail in the coffin of his career as a detective.
One thing he knew for certain was that he was starting from scratch and that he would have to remember to keep his mouth shut a bit more, not just declare UDI and do whatever he wanted.
FB was the ruler of the roost in Rossendale and Henry was bright enough to realize that getting him on his side was a good move, even if he already disliked and mistrusted him.
Henry knew that his own biggest problem was seeing things in black and white, right and wrong, and he was only really just becoming familiar with those murky shades between those ends of the continuum.
Not that that made it any easier for him to accept that Vladimir Kaminski was walking the streets when he should really be banged up facing a rape charge.
But Henry had to keep FB sweet â at least until he could fathom how to drag Kaminski back in and nail the bastard to the wall ⦠judicially speaking.
In the meantime, he would just have to go with the flow and hope that nothing worse happened to Sally Lee. He also wanted to be involved in the hunt for the armed robbers who had scared him shitless â and that also meant keeping on FBâs good side.
But he also knew he was constricted by doing his âday jobâ. He had a specific area to police and whilst he had a lot of freedom in how he did it, he couldnât just go wandering off into Greater Manchester to make his own enquiries just because he felt like it.
Had he been a detective, things would have been different. They had much more freedom to follow things through, something else that appealed to him.
But he wasnât â yet.
One day, maybe. ⦠So in the meantime he had to play the
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