Facing Justice

by Nick Oldham

  Henry chortled. He hated officers junior to himself addressing him by his rank, let alone a strange woman whilst he was naked in her bath. ‘That was a bit formal, all things considered. Henry will do nicely.’

  ‘Henry, then.’

  She withdrew, closing the door softly. Henry leaned out of the bath, stretching to reach the towel, dragging it towards him with the photographs on top that Alison had kindly downloaded from her digital camera on to her PC and printed off. There were four photos on each sheet. He dried his hands, picked up the sheets, and settled back to examine what had been produced.

  They weren’t brilliant, but they did the job well enough. He hoped there would be a chance of enhancing them later, just to sharpen them up. The ones of Cathy’s body in situ showed the scene well enough, but the ones he’d taken in the walk-in freezer were very clear, if not terribly well composed. He shuffled through them several times.

  As well as his favourite mantra about only getting one chance at a crime scene, another one from the Murder Investigation Manual also went through his head: find out how they lived, discover why they died. For most murders he investigated, this held true. Often the circumstances of a murder reflected the way the victim had lived in the first place. So, he asked himself, how did this apply to Cathy James?

  Was she merely doing her job, investigating the report of a poacher, and was she killed just because of that? Or was there something more to her death? Modern, organized poachers were violent men, Henry knew, but the killing of a cop was way extreme. Not that he would discount this theory, but he was already thinking that Cathy James’s death was more than a bad luck encounter.

  He placed the photos back down on the bathroom floor, sank deep under the suds again, revelling in the sensation, wishing he’d stayed at home instead of turning out for a stupid walk. Donaldson would still have got food poisoning, but he, Henry, could be sipping Jack Daniel’s and watching a film without a care in the world.

  He dressed in the change of clothing from the rucksack – light trousers, a polo shirt, trainers. The idea had been that they would have time to dry their outdoor clothing and change back into it the day after for the second half of the walk to Kirkby Lonsdale. Rubbing his close-cropped hair dry as he entered the landlady’s dining room, he found Donaldson sitting at the table next to Steve Flynn. Roger the dog was laid out asleep on the floor. Henry winced at the sight of Flynn.

  ‘You smell wonderful tonight,’ Flynn said. ‘All feminine.’

  Henry ignored him. ‘How are you feeling?’ he asked Donaldson, who had also changed after his bath and looked much better. His right foot was strapped up and propped on a dining chair.

  ‘Bit better. Guts still churning,’ he said, giving Henry a sit-rep. ‘But I’m hellish hungry and need some nourishment. The foot is very sore and swollen, but I don’t think it’s broken. Alison got the doctor to check it.’

  ‘Could he focus on it?’ Henry asked, settling at the table. ‘I see you two have met.’

  ‘Yep. You’re old friends,’ Donaldson said with irony.

  ‘Old somethings,’ Henry said.

  Flynn eyed him malignly. ‘Whatever, he’ll always believe I took that million, won’t you, Henry?’

  ‘Until you can show different, I’ll find it hard to move on.’

  ‘You know it was my partner, Jack Hoyle.’

  ‘So you say.’

  ‘And I found him living the high life in the States.’ He exchanged a look with Donaldson. ‘Skippering a fishing boat out of Key West,’ he explained.

  ‘But yet, somehow he wasn’t to be found when the cops arrived to question him, detain him, whatever,’ Henry pointed out. ‘A real will o’ the wisp.’

  ‘Not my fault if the forces of law and order move with the speed of a tortoise.’

  ‘Whoa, guys! Knock it on the head, as they say,’ Donaldson interjected. ‘Leave it for another time.’

  Henry shook his head despairingly.

  A door opened and Alison came through balancing three plates on her arms, each with a succulent serving of beef steaming thereon. She placed one in front of each man, instantly picking up the tension. ‘I’ll be back shortly with the veg,’ she said and withdrew, but not before she caught Henry’s eye with a questioning frown, an exchange both Donaldson and Flynn noticed. They waited until she’d gone before speaking.

  ‘Nice woman,’ Flynn said.

  ‘Pity about the rooms,’ Henry said. ‘Don’t really fancy bedding down here for the night.’

  ‘Judging from that look, it’s only something me and Steve here will have to worry about.’ Donaldson arched his eyebrows.

  Henry shot him a withering look. ‘I won’t be taking a leaf out of your book,’ he said, seeing Donaldson redden at the under-the-belt jibe at his recent indiscretion. Henry instantly regretted the dig, but at least it ended that line of conversation.

  Alison reappeared with a couple of stainless steel serving dishes, crammed with steaming vegetables, and a gravy boat. ‘Help yourself, guys.’

  They fell like ravenous wolves on the food.

  Henry felt its immediate effect, warming him from the inside and meeting up with the outside warmth from the bath. Energy returned to him and though he was still shattered from the day’s exertions he felt more capable of dealing with the night ahead, which he knew might be very fraught and long.

  They ate heartily and in silence, the main course being supplemented by a dessert of sticky toffee pudding and custard that had Henry purring with delight.

  Once the food was over, Alison brought in coffee and Henry got down to business.

  ‘OK, Steve, let’s hear your story – all of it.’

  Flynn squinted thoughtfully, arranging his brain, and began to relate everything from start to finish. From receiving Cathy’s frantic phone calls, the unpleasant encounter with Tom James, finding Henry and Donaldson and then Cathy’s body. At least that was his plan, but just as he opened his mouth to speak, Alison burst in.

  ‘I need some help,’ she said, clearly distressed. ‘There’s trouble in the bar.’

  FOURTEEN

  ‘Him there,’ Alison whispered. She had led Henry and Flynn through to the bar. She pointed out a big, unruly-looking man sitting in the far corner of the room at a brass-topped table, diagonally opposite where Henry was now standing by the side of the bar.

  Henry looked at the guy, dressed in a heavy, mud-stained donkey jacket, jeans, steel-toecapped work boots with the caps exposed. He was a big, broad man, looked like he could be a handful, with thick, calloused hands and a brooding, menacing expression enhanced by heavy eyebrows. Henry put him mid-forties and in manual labour.

  He had one big hand wrapped around a half-drunk pint of beer, next to which were a couple of empty whisky tumblers. He was hunched over the table, staring, deeply thoughtful – troubled, Henry surmised – into what remained of the beer.

  ‘What’s he done?’ Henry asked.

  ‘Nothing so far, but he’s obviously been drinking before he came in, and he was really nasty to Ginny, who was too scared to refuse him a drink.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘He went and sat at that table.’

  Henry considered this, tried to assimilate what she’d just told him. A pissed-up guy comes into the pub, orders more drinks, is offhand with the staff, then goes and sits down with his drinks and, basically, does nothing.

  ‘I think I’m missing something here,’ Henry said. ‘I take it you want him ejecting, is that it?’

  ‘No . . . no . . . yes . . . but . . .’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘He’s got a gun.’

  One of the things Henry had loved most about being a uniformed cop – back in the day – was dealing with pub brawls and incidents in licensed premises. Bread and butter stuff for uniforms, and Henry had been witness to, or involved in, many disturbances that wouldn’t have been out of place in Dodge City. He had also been called out to a few reports of people in pubs carrying weapons, fi
rearms or knives. The customer who had tried to conceal something that someone else had spotted, such as this man.

  These incidents were fraught with much more danger and unpredictability than good old-fashioned fisticuffs, with many awkward questions zooming through a cop’s head as the suspect was approached. Not least of which was, ‘Am I going to be the one the weapon gets used on?’

  Henry said, ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yes, well, Ginny said she saw what looked like a double pipe thing inside his jacket.’

  ‘A sawn-off shotgun?’ Flynn said. He, too, had attended numerous pub fights when he’d been a uniformed constable on the beat, and had revelled in the excitement as well as the opportunity to land punches of his own in the melee.

  ‘We think so,’ Alison said.

  Ginny was still at the bar, serving a new customer. The place was getting a little busier, a few more locals braving the weather to get stiff drinks inside them in the warm atmosphere. There was a pleasant buzz about the place, people coming together to face the adverse weather and all that. There was, however, a space around the sullen man, rather like a no-fly zone.

  ‘Is he local?’ Henry asked.

  ‘Yeah, Larry Callard. Local tough guy, or so he reckons. He’s one of Jack Vincent’s drivers. Was in here yesterday, pissed up.’

  The mention of Vincent gave Henry a jolt and he flicked a glance at Flynn, who had listened to all this eagerly. Henry sensed he wanted to get involved. ‘Not your call, Steve, no need to pitch in.’

  ‘Not much chance of that,’ Flynn responded. ‘I’m here, mate.’

  ‘What do you think, then?’

  Flynn pouted. ‘Play it cool, get a drink at the bar, gravitate to him, sit down, strike up a pleasant conversation. See where it leads.’

  ‘I thought you’d be for the more direct approach,’ Henry said cynically, but was secretly pleased that Flynn had volunteered to help.

  ‘Not when there’s a chance of getting my guts blasted.’

  ‘Ahh,’ Alison said knowingly. ‘You used to be a cop, too? That’s how you know each other. I wondered.’

  ‘Now you know,’ Flynn said.

  ‘Amazing.’ She shook her head.

  ‘OK, then, that’s what we’ll do,’ Henry said. ‘I don’t think the guy’s clocked us, so we’ll go to the front of the bar, you give us a coke each and we’ll take it from there, Alison.’

  She went behind the bar whilst Henry and Flynn leaned on it, pouring them two colas from the soft drinks dispenser. They turned, elbows on the bar, and watched Callard.

  ‘Be careful,’ Alison said. Both men nodded.

  ‘If he’s right handed and he’s got a big pocket inside his jacket to hide the thing, then it’ll be on his left side. Not rocket science,’ Henry said. Flynn nodded. ‘So keep an eye on the right hand and let’s see how close we can get to him.’

  They pushed themselves off the bar and weaved, pretending to chat, through the few customers towards Callard, who didn’t look up once. The brass-topped table next to him, and the two chairs with it, were unoccupied.

  ‘Mind if we sit here, pal?’ Henry asked.

  Callard’s watery eyes angled up slightly, his face a deep-lined, vicious scowl. He said nothing, turned his eyes back to his drinks, his shoulders turned away from the two men. Henry saw a deep, recent cut on his head, still weeping blood and a bit of slime. Looked like he’d been hit hard or caught his head on a lorry door or something.

  ‘Obviously not,’ Henry muttered. The two of them manoeuvred around and seated themselves on the low stools. Henry was about four feet away from Callard, who was on his right-hand side. Flynn slid his chair around so he was sitting opposite Henry across the table. When they were settled, Henry said, ‘A hell of a night,’ directing his voice at Callard.

  The man’s head stayed low, he did not acknowledge Henry.

  ‘I said—’

  ‘I heard you,’ Callard growled, jerking his head round and staring venomously at Henry. ‘Just piss off, OK?’

  Henry nodded slightly and tried to give the impression he was offended by the reaction. ‘OK,’ he said, between unmoving lips. He glanced at Flynn.

  ‘So much for a nice conversation,’ the ex-cop commented. ‘I thought this was a welcoming village . . . no strangers here, just friends we haven’t met.’

  ‘Obviously doesn’t apply to all members of the indigenous population.’ Henry scanned the customers at the bar. Don Singleton and Dr Lott were still just about propping up the bar. Both gave him a knowing nod from their unsteady perches. The young woman who’d been in the bar when Henry first arrived was still in the same spot. Henry caught her eyeing him and Flynn and his brow creased. She was definitely out of place. Maybe she’d been stood up. But it was only a transitory thought because Henry’s problem was how to deal safely with a suspected armed man without getting anyone else – or worse, himself – injured. He sighed down his nose and spoke close to Flynn’s ear. ‘You get on his other side and grab his arm if necessary and I’ll speak into his . . .’ Henry was going to say ‘shell-like’, but the truth was that Callard’s ears were an amalgamation of cauliflower florets and walnuts. ‘Lug hole . . . see if we can charm him.’

  Flynn nodded, took a few steps and quickly seated himself on a stool on the opposite side of Callard as Henry shuffled his own stool up to Callard’s left-hand side. He held out the palm of his left hand in the gap between Callard’s face and his drinks on the table. In the hand was Henry’s warrant card and county badge.

  ‘Detective Superintendent Christie,’ he said into Callard’s ugly ear. Callard’s face jolted around, his whole being tensed up instantly. ‘And that’s my colleague.’ Callard took a quick look at Flynn, then back at Henry, remaining hunched over his drinks. ‘Now then, Larry – it is Larry, isn’t it? I don’t want any aggro here, understand?’ Callard’s eyes widened at Henry’s use of his name. Henry decided to keep it more formal than chatty, so there would be no misunderstandings. ‘I have reason to believe you are carrying a shotgun under your coat, Larry, and what I want you to do is simple. Put your arms around your back and link hands, then let me and my colleague escort you out, each of us holding one of your arms, yeah? Then I’ll search you outside.’ Henry’s voice was soft, firm, yet audible.

  Callard’s tongue stuck out between his lips. ‘Dunno what you’re talking about.’ He looked into Henry’s eyes with defiance. But from the expression in the eyes, Henry saw that the allegation was true. Callard did have a weapon on him, Henry would have placed a month’s wages on it.

  ‘If you’ve got it for a legal reason, then it’s not a problem – but we both know that guns and booze don’t mix, so let’s do this nice and slowly and compliantly.’ Henry arched his eyebrows. ‘Don’t even think about kicking off.’

  Callard’s thick neck rose and fell as he swallowed, his eyes taking in Henry, then cautiously moving to Flynn. All three of them were big men. Flynn six-four, lean, muscular, with broad shoulders and strong legs from years of hauling in big fish for wimpy clients. Callard was smaller, stockier, but had the power that came from driving big wagons and helping to move heavy loads. Henry at six-two was the eldest of the three, but although he did not have the developed muscle of the other two, he was as fit as could be for a man in his early fifties. If they came to blows, it would be an interesting contest, Henry visualizing that tackling Callard would be like fighting an ogre.

  Callard wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He sat slowly upright, still gripping his pint glass, weighing up the situation.

  Henry’s heart rammed against his ribcage as adrenalin spurted into his system. He could taste it.

  Gut feeling told him that this encounter was not going to turn out well. Sometimes you could just tell. There was something desperate about Callard, like a wild animal trapped.

  Callard looked across the room.

  The door to the steps leading up to the first floor accommodation opened and a man appeared, glancing around the room. H
enry recognized him as one of the three who had arrived earlier with Jonny Cain. The henchman looked back up the stairs and made a thumbs-up gesture and a moment later, the man himself appeared, leather jacketed, looking cool. And it was this appearance that ignited Callard. Just for the briefest moment Henry and Flynn had lost their concentrated focus on Callard because of Jonny Cain, and Callard, despite the amount of alcohol in his system, acted with incredible speed.

  His right hand, the one in which he was holding his pint, flicked upwards and sideways at Flynn, covering him with almost half a pint of bitter, then in the same movement he opened his fingers and let the glass go. It flew into Flynn’s face, bouncing off the side of his head, just above the right eyebrow. Callard had thrown it hard and although it did not shatter as it connected with Flynn’s face, the rim of the glass split Flynn’s skin like a knife, causing him to flinch backwards.

  The glass crashed to pieces on the wooden floor of the bar.

  Callard rose with a roar like Samson breaking off his shackles. The hand that had thrown the glass went inside his unfastened donkey jacket, reaching for the weapon he had concealed in the inner pocket. His fingers grabbed the butt and his forefinger slid into the trigger guard.

  At the same time, he backhanded Henry with his left hand, a fierce, hard blow which, had it connected cleanly, would have easily pulped Henry’s nose. As it was, Henry was already reacting to Callard’s sudden surge. He saw the hand coming in a blur, ducked instinctively, but in so doing moved away from Callard and unbalanced himself temporarily.

  With Flynn flinching in one direction and Henry the other, this opened up a route for Callard and gave him time and space, the extra microseconds he needed, to draw the weapon from beneath the jacket.

  Henry was dimly aware of screams and shouts of warning coming from the other customers, but it was just white noise to him as, horrified, he saw the shotgun emerge. It was only inches from him. He could see every minute detail of it. The ends of the barrels that had been roughly sawn off, then filed down, the double-cocked hammers, the taped sawn-off butt, Callard’s calloused hands and the fat tip of his forefinger on the double triggers.