by Nick Oldham
It was as though Henry had stuck his head in a tumble drier. A roaring, pounding noise in his cranium. Then nothing, just his reactions, him operating.
He swung back round, his right arm moving in an upward arc, knocking the shotgun upwards in the moment before Callard managed to yank back the triggers. He didn’t need to force them back as they had obviously been set to operate at the whisper of a touch. The weapon of a desperate criminal.
Callard blasted the ceiling, taking out a mini disco ball that hung as a kind of ornament. It exploded spectacularly like an expensive firework, the sound of the weapon deafening and terrifying.
Henry’s arm carried on in its upward trajectory, then he twisted his whole body, contorted as his forearm slid down the short barrel and he was able to grab both barrels with his hand and tear it from Callard’s grip. He threw the hot-barrelled gun across the room like it was a cobra.
Flynn had recovered. He pushed his body into Callard and his left hand went around his neck. He started to power the man down to his knees, scattering table, chairs and glasses as both men thumped to the floor. Callard hadn’t stopped fighting. He shouted and swore and attempted to free himself from Flynn’s ever-tightening grip.
Flynn held on. Callard managed to gut-punch him in the lower belly and the air shot out of Flynn.
Henry moved in to assist, grabbing the back of Callard’s donkey jacket, and forced him down until he was on all fours. Then, in a combined effort, he and Flynn completely flattened him. Flynn’s right knee dropped on to Callard’s spine right between the shoulder blades, pinning him to the bar room floor. Henry positioned himself on Callard’s legs, preventing any movement from them, and he dragged the man’s thick arms around his back, holding them together . . . at which point he would usually have applied handcuffs.
Callard continued to fight and squirm to try and break free, far from being subdued. Henry and Flynn caught their breath and looked at each other.
‘You’re the cop,’ Flynn said. ‘What’s the next move?’
‘Would this be of any help to you?’ Don Singleton was approaching them, reaching into his pocket and producing a tangle of plastic cable ties that he used for fastening around pipes, engine components, hedging, the type that ratcheted up tight.
‘Yeah, ta.’ Henry took one and looped it around Callard’s big wrists, pulling the free end tight as he dare without cutting into the skin, drawing the man’s hands together.
Flynn eased some of the pressure on Callard’s spine by taking some of the weight off his kneecap. He drew his palm across his face, wiping away the blood from the cut inflicted by the pint glass. It was a good inch long and would need medical attention. Flynn glanced at the blood, a sardonic twist on his lips, then wiped his hands on his jeans.
‘You OK?’ Henry asked.
‘Never better.’
Henry looked around the bar. Every face was aimed in his direction, expecting him to take the lead. One noticeable exception was that of Jonny Cain, who had done a smart U-turn back up the stairs.
‘What’re we – well, you actually – going to do with him?’ Flynn asked, smirking.
Henry barked a short laugh. ‘Good question.’ Hell of a good question, he thought. What the hell have I done to deserve this to happen to my day? A pleasant stroll across the moors that turned into an epic. A policewoman murdered. Trapped in a small village that should have been a peaceful place. Bumping into Steve Flynn . . . ugh! Now sitting astride the legs of a man who’d gone loopy in a bar – and, surely the glue that connected some of those strands together, Jonny Cain was in town.
‘Can’t let him go,’ Henry said. ‘Best option might be to get him out of here and take him up to the police station and tie him to a radiator, or something. You said the garage door was open?’
‘Yes, but . . .’
‘No buts. He’s under arrest for a very serious offence and I know it’s not ideal, but what’s the choice? Can’t just brush him down and let him go, because he might come back, or disappear, or whatever . . . I’ll start a handwritten custody record and keep him up there – somehow.’
‘Do you want to chuck him in the bucket?’ Singleton asked. He’d been listening in.
‘No, thanks for the offer, but we’ll take him up in the Shogun.’
Flynn nodded, eased a little more pressure off Callard’s back. Henry rolled forwards and spoke into Callard’s mashed ear. ‘Listen, Larry, we can do this easy or hard. Sounds corny, I know, but it’s how it is. You’re under arrest for attempted murder, plus loads of other things, so you’re going nowhere. If you want to make it hard, that’s your problem. I’ll gladly run your head into a brick wall, understand?’
‘Fuck you.’
‘I’ll take that as a yes. Now, me and my friend here’ – Henry cringed slightly at the use of the word ‘friend’ – ‘are going to help you to your feet. If you want to fight, that’s up to you.’
Henry and Flynn took an arm each and raised him slowly to his knees. It was no mean feat. The will to fight had evidently left Callard but he wasn’t exactly cooperating and they had to work hard, lifting an unresponsive dead weight, sullen drunk, unpleasant and still with the possibility of kicking off again if the chance arose. They heaved him to his feet and began to steer him towards the door.
As they passed the sawn-off shotgun, Henry scooped it up, gave Alison a nod, and also Donaldson, who had made his way through to the bar, annoyed at having missed a fracas. Henry told them, ‘We’ll take him up to the police house and decide what to do from there.’ The trio went out through the exit door next to the revolving one and virtually dragged Callard towards Cathy James’s Shogun, which Flynn had parked outside the pub.
Dispiritingly, the snow was still falling just as thickly and a gusting wind whipped it in flurries around them. They forced Callard into the back seat, then caught their collective breath.
‘How’s this going to pan out?’ Flynn asked. He wiped away more blood from the side of his face. It was streaming from the cut.
‘How should I know?’ Henry answered truthfully. ‘You need to get that seen to, though.’
‘I’ll be fine. I’ll try not to bleed on you.’
‘No – it needs sorting. There’s a doctor in there.’
Flynn shrugged. It was just a cut. He’d had worse injuries from fishing hooks and the fish themselves. But then Alison came out of the pub, hitching an outer coat on, a small zip-up bag in her hand.
‘I’ll come with you,’ she announced. She held up the bag. ‘First aid kit, and Dr Lott’s given me some butterfly strips, so I’ll fix you up,’ she said to Flynn. ‘The doctor’s too drunk to do anything. He’d probably stitch your eyelids up . . . I did used to be a nurse, in case you were wondering.’
‘Yeah, thanks,’ Flynn said gratefully. ‘It really needs sorting.’
Henry shook his head at Flynn’s sudden desire to seek medical attention.
‘I’ll follow in my car,’ she said and pointed to a Hyundai four-wheel drive. ‘I’ll bring that dog back up, too . . .’
‘What the fuckin’ hell you bastards doing?’ Callard demanded from his face-down position in the back seat.
Henry looked sadly at the Shogun, realizing that if the car did have any connection with Cathy’s murder, any evidence inside it was now completely screwed.
The police house was still in darkness, no sign of habitation. Flynn parked the Shogun in the snow-covered drive, wondering where the hell Tom James had disappeared to.
Henry was sitting alongside Callard in the back seat, having righted him for the journey. The shotgun had been placed in the front passenger footwell, out of reach. On the way Henry had made sure Callard understood exactly that he was under arrest and cautioned him, giving him the ‘full hit’, though the words did not seem to mean much to him at that stage. He hung his head miserably and avoided all communication. Henry had gone on to ask questions in a conversational way, but Callard stonewalled him, refused to speak and stared at his knees,
his jaw rotating, his facial features angry and grim.
By the time they drew up to the house, Henry didn’t know anything more than what he had personally witnessed and been involved in: Callard pulling a shotgun from underneath his jacket and blasting it in the general direction of Jonny Cain, who had just appeared in the bar. That, again, was no coincidence, not one that Henry would ever believe. That Callard was just a madman with a festering grudge against society in general who’d decided to wreak havoc and death in the community in which he lived, a sort of Hungerford massacre . . . Was it simply fortunate that Henry and Flynn had been on hand to prevent it happening?
Henry doubted it. He was certain that if Ginny had not spotted him concealing a weapon, a bloodbath would have ensued, but only the eight pints in Jonny Cain would have been spilled.
Cain again, Henry thought. The catalyst, something it didn’t take a nuclear physicist to work out.
They heaved Callard out of the back seat and propelled him roughly up the drive. Whatever Callard’s motive had been, whoever his intended target had been, Henry still didn’t feel terribly warm and fuzzy towards him and he got a bit of pleasure from shoving him between the shoulder blades. Inside, he was still worked up about the incident and knew it would be quite hard to keep his hands off the prisoner, remain detached and professional. Hence the flat of the hand between the shoulder blades.
Flynn opened the up-and-over garage door, flicked on the light to illuminate the empty garage. Henry continued to shove the cable-tied Callard ahead of him.
Behind them, Alison had arrived. She followed them into the house, having brought Roger the dog back with her. Flynn led them through the connecting door into the kitchen, then into the hallway, switching on lights as he went. Roger wormed his way through, went into the living room and crashed out.
‘You think this’ll be all right?’ he asked Henry over his shoulder.
‘Using the house, you mean?’ Flynn nodded. ‘Well, it’s police owned and I can’t believe for one moment Tom would object, even in the present circumstances.’
‘Got some news for you,’ Flynn said. ‘Cathy and Tom bought the house from the county when they got spliced. It’s theirs, not the force’s.’
‘Bugger,’ Henry said. ‘Didn’t think of that. Why didn’t you—?’
‘Just remembered.’
‘Ah well, needs must, eh? Let’s suck it and see. The county must provide some of the costs for the office bit.’
As he said this, Flynn opened the office door. Henry pushed Callard through and forced him down on to the plastic chair on the public side of the desk. He sat awkwardly and complained, ‘These things are digging into my skin. You have to take them off. I know my rights.’
‘You pull out a gun, you ain’t got no rights,’ Flynn blurted angrily, the ball of his hand pressed on to the cut, trying to stem the bleeding.
Henry gave him a ‘shut it’ look and perched himself on the corner of the desk. Unfortunately the bastard did have rights and Henry would make sure he got them as best he could under the circumstances. However, taking off the makeshift handcuffs did not enter the equation.
‘I’ll sort out your rights as and when. At the moment you need to know you’re under arrest for many serious offences and you’re going nowhere, and you’re too drunk to have your rights given to you anyway.’
‘I am fuck!’
There was a radiator on the outside wall of the office, with short copper pipes coming out of the wall. Henry smiled. Just as he predicted, that was where the prisoner was going to be fastened. He pulled out the half-dozen or so cable ties that Don Singleton had given him as he’d left the pub with Callard.
‘My advice to you is get your head down,’ Henry told Callard, who was now attached to the radiator pipe via a series of looped cable ties, one around the pipe, another looped into that one and a final one around Callard’s right wrist. It was not ideal, but the ties were strong and could not be unfastened by hand, although if he kicked off again, he was probably capable of ripping the radiator off the wall. However, Callard was now sitting dumbly on the carpet, scowling at Henry, seemingly resigned to his fate.
‘Henry – can I have a word?’ Flynn said into his ear. He beckoned Henry into the office doorway, out of whispering earshot of Callard who watched them all the time, but then started to work himself into a prone position. Henry had provided him with a pillow and he grumbled as he adjusted himself and stretched out on the floor. ‘You need to question him, urgently,’ Flynn said.
Henry shook his head. ‘Nope. If he was locked up properly, we’d not be able to interview him even then, because he’s so pissed. As far as I can see, the moment of violence has passed, no one else is in danger, so I couldn’t even justify an urgent interview if he was in a police cell. You know all this.’
‘Because I was a cop?’
‘Exactly.’
‘But I was bent – apparently.’
‘Let’s not get into that.’
‘OK then, what about the shotgun? He’s got a shotgun, Cathy was murdered with a shotgun, by the looks. Uh?’
‘And we have the shotgun, we have Cathy’s body and we have someone to interview – when he sobers up and he’s in a real interview room with a real solicitor and all that garbage. For now, nothing.’
‘You’re just going to keep him here?’
‘It’s not ideal. I didn’t order the fucking weather.’
‘You need to speak to Jonny Cain,’ Flynn insisted.
Henry gave Flynn a withering look. ‘I know – but I’ve got a prisoner and I can’t leave him, unfortunately.’
‘I’ll look after him.’
Henry considered Flynn, his mind going back to his previous dealings with the man in whom Henry saw much of himself reflected. The desire to lock up high-class criminals, the way Flynn had approached his job when he’d been a cop. The big difference had been Flynn’s excessive use of violence and intimidation. Deep down, Henry knew Flynn was honest, but there was too much of a cloud over him, especially when a million pounds in cash of drug dealer’s money went missing on a botched-up raid. Henry hadn’t personally made Flynn’s life in the cops unbearable. The organization, together with Flynn’s paranoia, had done that.
‘We can get Jonny Cain here, if we—’
‘We?’ Henry butted in.
‘OK, you. Whatever. What’s he doing here? Why did this idiot try and shoot him, an idiot who incidentally drives for Jack Vincent? Y’know, what’s going on here? Two top crims in one location – why is that?’ Flynn said. ‘We might be trapped here by the weather, but so are they and it gives us – you – a chance to grab ’em by the balls. I was after Cain for years and I’d still like to get him nailed.’ Flynn was almost shaking as he spoke. ‘It’s not often you know where he is, for cryin’ out loud! You know something big’s happening here, don’t you?’
‘I’ll think about it.’ Henry’s lips pursed tightly, bringing the conversation to an end. ‘Anyway, how do you know Jack Vincent?’ he queried.
‘I used to be a drug squad detective,’ Flynn blustered. Truth was, he’d only just learned of Vincent’s existence following his phone call to Jerry Tope in the intelligence unit, but Henry didn’t need to know that. Flynn was happy to have him believe that he still had a finger on the pulse of the drug scene.
‘Hm,’ Henry said doubtfully. ‘I need to make some phone calls, bring the control room up to date and start the paperwork.’ The two men’s eyes clashed for a moment, then Henry went back into the office, started looking for some forms to fill in.
‘And what’s more – what happens when he wants a piss?’ Flynn asked.
Henry gave him a blank stare and Flynn shook his head with frustration.
Henry found an unused custody record in a drawer, sat down at the desk and started to complete the form. His mind wanted to shut down, really. He’d had food and a bath, but he was exhausted. He knew though that he couldn’t allow himself the pleasure of switching off. He also
knew that the night was yet young.
Flynn sat on the edge of the bath, presenting his profile for Alison, who cleared away the blood from his cut, then dabbed the wound clean, applied antiseptic cream, which made him recoil slightly, and started to seal the cut with butterfly strips.
As she worked on him, their faces were only inches apart. Flynn could smell her perfume and it reminded him of a tragically lost love from his recent past. Exactly the same heady aroma worn by the woman he had loved, albeit briefly. He could not remember what it was called, though. He went slightly misty-eyed at the memory.
‘Are you OK?’ Alison asked, drawing back slightly, concern in her eyes.
He half smiled. ‘Yeah, fine . . . your perfume . . . I kinda know it.’
‘Just Chanel Number 5.’
‘Ah, yes.’
‘Sweet memories?’
‘Bittersweet.’
Alison smiled as she laid a butterfly strip across the cut, pulling the skin together in what seemed to Flynn a very intimate, caring act. ‘What happened?’ she asked quietly.
‘I screwed it up, drove her away,’ he said ruefully. ‘It was a while ago now.’
‘Was marriage in the air?’
‘I had been married once, screwed that up, too. Then this woman came along who I’d known for years and suddenly, click! In love.’ Alison applied another strip. ‘But as I say, I messed it up.’ He pouted. ‘What about you? You said you were a nurse.’
‘In the army. I was a soldier first, then trained as a nurse.’
‘Oh – I was a Marine as a kid.’
‘I’m impressed.’
‘And . . . go on,’ he encouraged her.
‘I met my husband in the army. It was a short marriage. He was killed in Afghanistan when his unit were trapped in a village and the population came out and beat them to death.’ She peeled another strip and placed it over the wound.
‘How long ago was that?’
‘Six years, give or take.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Shit happens.’
Flynn’s brow furrowed. ‘Is Ginny your daughter? I noticed a photo . . .’