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enough.’
    ‘ Everyone said you’d lost your bottle.’
    Rider squirmed uncomfortably. Conroy was getting under his
skin and he didn’t like it. ‘A few things happened. I got a
conscience, I got pissed off looking over my shoulder for cops all
the time, wondering when you were going to grass me up. I saw how
bad the whole scene was and I realised I needed to get out of it
before it killed me, or I ended up as a lifer. I was thirty-five, a
junkie and a piss-head. I suddenly thought, "Let’s get outta here
and try to get to forty-five, preferably not in a prison or a
coffin". Now I’m just a piss-head, got a life of sorts, some brass
and no ties to bastards like you. I don’t deal drugs. I don’t loan
people money at extortionate rates. I don’t beat people up any more
just because they’ve looked at me funny, and I don’t get other
people to maim or murder for me.’
    ‘ Very bloody deep,’ said Conroy sarcastically. ‘You sound like
a complete angel.’
    Rider bristled. His lips puckered angrily.
    Conroy emptied his glass. He shook his head sadly as he spoke.
‘Sorry, mate, but you’ve been involved in it for too long. You owe
too many people and too many still owe you, good and bad. And you
wanna run from it? No chance, because it’s all just caught up with
you today.’
    ‘ How?’
    ‘ Talk about ironic. Here’s you, eh? Quits the big time, wants
to be left alone, get respectable - if you can call being a DSS
landlord respectable. To me it stinks. Selling dope to
ten-year-olds is more fucking respectable than what you do. But
then today I come along - someone you haven’t seen for years - and
bang!’ He pointed his right forefinger at Rider’s temple and
clicked his thumb like a hammer. ‘Some bastards with a gun turn up,
try to slot me and you save my life and half kill one of ‘em. Talk
about ironic.’
    ‘ Why?’
    ‘ You want to know what this is all about? It’s about me and
Munrow-’
    Rider raised his eyebrows. ‘I thought he was still
inside.’
    ‘ You thought wrong. The bastard’s out and he’s after my
territory. They were his boys today, no doubt about that, so
word’ll get back to him and you’ll be linked to me. And you know
what he’s like - bull in a friggin’ china shop.’
    ‘ You mean you’re in dispute with him?’
    ‘ Dispute? That’s a pretty little word. Nah, we’re at war,
John.’ He spoke through gritted teeth. ‘It’s just starting, but
it’ll be big, bad and ugly - just the kinda rumpus you used to
enjoy.’

Chapter
Four
     
    There is one thing about Blackpool, Henry Christie thought
whilst driving south down the sea-front. It is never a dull
place.
    Completely unique. The world’s busiest, brashest, trashiest
resort, attracting floods of tourists every year. It is a finely
tuned machine, expertly geared to separating them from their
hard-earned dough.
    Even in the low season when all the residents - police
included - can take midweek breathers, the weekends draw in
thousands of day-trippers, eager to enjoy themselves and throw
their money away.
    The public face of Blackpool is that of a happy-go-lucky place
where everything is perfect: funfairs, candyfloss, the Tower, the
Illuminations and children’s laughter.
    Henry Christie rarely saw this side of Blackpool.
    He dealt with the flipside which most people never experience
but which, as a cop, he could not avoid. There was the massive and
continually expanding drug culture and the criminal manifestations
behind it - burglary, theft, violent robberies and overdoses; each
weekend the influx of visitors who attended the nightclubs left a
legacy of serious assaults by itinerant, untraceable offenders;
there was the growing problem of child sex and pornography; and the
explosion of a huge gay culture had brought its own problems to
Blackpool, related more to the prejudice of others, resulting in
many gays being the subject of beatings or even rape by
heterosexual males.
    Then, of course, there was