by Nick Oldham
Flynn ignored this and powered into Tom, who hacked down at Flynn’s unprotected head, catching him a glancing blow off the side of his head and cutting his ear. It knocked Flynn off track, and he smashed into the desk awkwardly.
Tom shrieked something incomprehensible, hurled the gun across the room, ran out of the office, slamming the door behind him, down the hallway to the kitchen.
Flynn came up into a one-kneed starting position and looked worriedly over at Henry.
Pale and wounded, Henry had crashed against the wall and slithered down, sitting there dumbly, his right hand holding his left shoulder. Blood oozed through his fingers.
‘Shit,’ Flynn uttered and scrambled over on all fours to Henry, whose terrified eyes played over Flynn’s face.
‘Just get him,’ he said to Flynn. ‘Don’t let him get away, whatever happens.’
‘You sure?’
‘What’re you going to do – operate on me? Go!’
Flynn gave a short nod, glanced at Callard who, still drunk and glassy-eyed, was sitting up, a look of horror on his face. Flynn got up and ran to the door.
The pain in Henry’s shoulder was incredible. It was like a dozen blunt needles had been hammered deep into his flesh. He took a long steadying breath and began to unbutton his shirt.
Flynn opened the office door cautiously, stepped into the hallway, paused, listened. He kept to the wall, using the staircase as part cover, and edged towards the kitchen, moved across the last gap and flattened himself against the wall next to the door frame. He reached for the handle, turned it slowly and opened the door a crack, trying to remember the layout of the room.
Pretty standard. A work surface immediately to the left of the door, on which he’d foolishly left the shotgun. Then ninety degrees to the sink and draining board, a gap where the back door was, another ninety degrees to another work surface, with cupboards along the walls, the door to the garage, cooker, and a huge fridge-freezer.
So – open the door and diagonally opposite, basically, was the back door.
Flynn felt something around his legs and his heart leapt. Roger, the German shepherd, had nudged him with his forehead. The old dog looked up kind of sadly.
‘I think you’re going to be an orphan,’ Flynn said and patted him.
But then the dog did what Flynn was hesitating to do – simply barged through the door into the kitchen.
Tom fired from the back door, two bullets smashing through the door panel by Flynn’s head. Flynn leapt backwards, slamming the damaged door. Another door closed and he knew Tom had gone outside.
Roger sat at the back door on his haunches, big tail wafting back and forth like a feather duster. Flynn glanced through the door to check that Tom had definitely gone, then ran back into the office to find Henry still propped up by the wall, his shirt unfastened to reveal the nasty-looking wound. He was touching it gingerly with dithering fingers as if it wasn’t real.
He looked up at Flynn, ashen, shaking. ‘I hope you’ve caught the bastard.’
‘Done a runner out back. Got another gun, a pistol of some sort I think.’
‘He seems pretty well armed.’
Callard, propped up on one arm, said, ‘He is.’
‘Is what?’ Henry said.
‘Well armed. That shotgun’s his. He gave it to me. They made me go and try to kill Cain.’
‘Ahh,’ Henry gasped as his finger touched the injury.
Flynn squatted down by him. ‘Phew – lucky.’
‘This is lucky?’
‘Two inches to the right and I’d be taking you to the butcher’s.’
‘Cheers . . . look, I think you need to find him . . . no, no, zap that. You don’t have to put yourself in any more danger. Let him go and let’s hope he goes to ground and not on a shooting spree. We’ll get back-up tomorrow, whatever the weather.’
‘I have a horrible feeling he’ll be back.’
‘Do you think you could get Alison back up here?’
‘Yeah, good idea. I think I need her again.’ He touched his ear that had been cut by the shotgun and rubbed the back of his neck where the muzzle had been skewered into his skin.
‘I meant for me . . . and can you let Karl know what’s going on?’
Flynn grinned, looked at Henry’s shoulder, feigned an ‘Ooh’ of pain. ‘Now do you believe me?’
‘I’d shrug, only it hurts too much.’ Henry winced. Sweat drizzled down his forehead; his face went a grey-blue shade.
‘Whatever,’ Flynn said and headed for the door, where he paused and turned to Callard. ‘Thanks mate – you saved us all.’
‘Unph,’ he grunted. ‘He’d’ve shot me too.’
‘Oh, for definite.’
Flynn left the room and went back into the kitchen, slid the bolt across the outer door, dropped the blinds over the windows. Roger was still there, watching him with interest.
‘If only you could talk,’ he said. The dog responded with a deep bark and a wag of the tail. ‘Maybe you can.’ Flynn patted his head and made his way back into the hall to the front door. He opened it slowly, looking at the snow-encrusted vista, his eyes drawn to Tom’s VW Golf behind Cathy’s Shogun on the drive. The inner light was on.
Then he saw the bob of a head just before the light went out.
‘He’s made it to his car,’ he yelled for Henry’s benefit, before bolting out. The Golf’s engine screamed as Tom reversed down the drive, slewing backwards, glancing off the back of Flynn’s hired car that Henry had parked on the road.
Flynn ran through the snow, unsure of what to do. Leap on the bonnet? Or the roof? The Golf slithered to a stop at an acute angle, then Tom slammed it into first, revved the engine and let out the clutch. The front wheels spun, tried to grip, sending a shower of slush up against the mudguards. The car veered forward as Flynn skated down the driveway and came alongside the car.
Tom raised the pistol and fired. The window shattered but the bullet missed, though only because a split second before Tom pulled the trigger, Flynn had completely lost his footing and smashed down on to his backside in the snow. He was sitting there, his jeans getting soaked, as he watched the Golf eventually get some grip and speed off. He sat there, watching the rear of the car, his mouth popping like Toad of Toad Hall.
He swore and clambered to his feet, brushing himself down in disgust, his eyes on the car as it gathered speed. Too much speed.
He was heading towards a mild right-hand twist in the road. Under normal circumstances it was nothing more than a kink, hardly even noticeable. But in the present weather conditions, combined with travelling too quickly, not concentrating properly as a result of all the other things that must have been swirling through Tom James’s mind, he yanked the steering wheel down, expecting the car to go where instructed. It did no such thing. So he slammed on and exacerbated the situation.
The car mounted the kerb with a sickening thud and smashed head first into the lamp post on that ever-so-slight curve.
Actually, he wasn’t travelling that quickly, maybe had got up to twenty-five miles per hour, but as he wasn’t wearing a seat belt, was only holding the wheel with one hand, a gun in the other, he could not even brace himself firmly for impact.
He was tossed forward in his seat and his lower face impacted on the rim of the steering wheel.
Then the crash was over.
Flynn made his way carefully to the car, approaching the last few yards at a crouch, coming in behind Tom’s right shoulder. Tom was slumped over, but moving, and just before Flynn got there, he opened the door and swung his legs out of the car. He saw Flynn, raised the gun, before his whole being turned to mush. He sagged, sank to his knees, still waving the gun, which he then dropped.
Blood oozed from a cut around his chin. He spat out a gobful of it on to the white snow.
‘I’m hurt,’ he said plaintively.
‘Tough,’ Flynn responded. He kicked the gun away into the snow, grabbed Tom’s bloodied shirtfront and pulled him roughly
to his feet, then frogmarched him back to the house.
As Henry sat miserably on the side of the bath, stripped to the waist and shaking, Alison dabbed his wounded shoulder, squeezing out the disinfected cloth into the bloodstained water in the wash basin. Henry tensed himself for each touch, but the pain was less than it had been, thanks to some powerful, quick-acting analgesics Alison had produced from the medical kit she had liberated from Dr Lott.
Most of the time, Henry had his eyes closed. He didn’t mind the sight of blood, unless it was his own. Since first checking the wound he’d studiously avoided looking at it.
Alison had hurried back to the house on receiving a phone call from Flynn and had gasped when she’d seen Henry slumped by the wall in the office, blood running down his chest, splattered on the wall behind him. He’d tried to give her one of his famous – at least to himself – lopsided grins and tried to act brave, but it was a thin veneer. She had helped him up to the bathroom, where she had cleaned the wound after administering the painkillers.
She did a last wipe with an antiseptic pad and stood back. The pellet holes wept and seeped blood like a series of mini-taps, but it didn’t look as bad as at first. He could still move his shoulder and it seemed that the shot may have only entered the fleshy part and not penetrated the joint. It was not serious – at the moment – but still required proper hospital treatment, as at least half a dozen pieces of shot were embedded in him and Alison had no way of removing them. She was about to bandage the shoulder.
‘The sooner you get to a hospital the better,’ she told Henry. ‘There’s a real chance of infection and one way or another, you need to get there in the morning at the latest.’
‘Weather dependent.’
‘Stuff the weather,’ she said.
‘Yeah, OK. Thanks,’ he said pathetically.
‘It’s a good job Dr Lott was still in the pub. I was just about to shout last orders and clear the place when Steve phoned.’
‘Why didn’t he come, Dr Lott that is?’
‘It’s his weekly inebriation. He’s fit for nothing except dealing drugs. He just handed his whole kit over.’ She started to bandage the wound.
‘You’ve seen worse than this, then? Ow!’
‘Much. This is nothing, so stop being a baby.’
‘OK, nurse. What’s happening down at the pub, by the way?’
‘I’ve left Ginny to lock up, et cetera. She’ll be all right, she’s done it before.’
‘And Karl?’
‘Sent to bed. He wanted to come, but he’s really ill. He needs more TLC than you.’
‘And your guests, the ones in my rooms?’
‘Causing no trouble at all.’ She pulled the bandage tight, Henry juddered. ‘There, how does that feel?’
He gave her sad, puppy-dog eyes, although the pathos of his expression was tempered with the heavy bags of an old bloodhound, which probably spoiled the overall effect. She pecked him on the cheek, stood back and looked tenderly into his eyes, then with an even sadder inflection said, ‘I wish,’ and sighed.
Henry swallowed – which actually hurt. He hadn’t realized that his throat had a direct connection to his shoulder.
Flynn barged in, holding a tea towel to his ear. ‘What’s your plan of action, Henry?’ he demanded, then his face fell as he realized he had stepped into a moment. He said nothing, but his demeanour changed.
Henry inhaled deeply. A shiver of pain arced through his shoulder. He tried to ignore it, and applied his mind to more pressing matters.
Alison busied herself by swilling out the blood-splashed wash basin.
Henry wanted to go to bed, too. Instead of admitting that, he got up stiffly and reached for a clean shirt Alison had liberated from Tom’s wardrobe, easily big enough to fit Henry. He carefully slipped his arms through the sleeves.
‘First things first. I need to tell Tom formally that he’s under arrest for the attempted murder of you and me. Then I’m going to break the news to him about Cathy, although I suspect he knows we’ve found her. I’ll arrest him on suspicion of that.’ He turned to Alison. ‘We’ll need a statement from Ginny, by the way, saying she saw Cathy and Tom drive past, then only Tom came back.’ Alison nodded. Henry went on to Flynn, ‘I want to start a custody record, too.’
‘Locked up in his own home,’ Flynn quipped.
‘You’ve heard of house arrest, haven’t you?’
‘The cells are certainly filling up. Then what?’
‘Hold on to him until the cavalry arrives. I won’t be questioning him, or Callard. They’ve got some connection over the shotgun, if what Callard says is true about Tom giving him the gun . . .’
‘Which also connects Tom to Jonny Cain?’
‘It hadn’t escaped me.’
‘Let me talk to him,’ Flynn suggested.
‘Talk or torture? Anyway, you’re not a cop now.’
‘I never tortured anyone, not even close.’
‘Let’s not go there, eh?’ Henry buttoned up his shirt.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Flynn said.
‘Forget it.’ Henry tried to walk past him, his legs unsteady. But Flynn didn’t budge, blocked the way threateningly.
‘I said . . .’
‘Steve,’ Henry said tiredly, ‘when I investigated you, I turned over lots of stones.’ He arched his eyebrows pointedly. Flynn’s lower lip tightened. ‘OK,’ Henry relented, and glanced over to Alison, who was transfixed by the interaction. ‘The broken jaw of a witness against you in Rossendale?’ Henry held Flynn’s stare. ‘The drug dealer held over a balcony in Morecambe?’ Still they remained eye to eye. ‘A sock full of pennies on the guy in Preston . . . need I go on?’
Flynn’s expression changed subtly. His eyes dropped and, defeated, he stood aside for Henry to pass.
‘Now then, let’s have speaks with Tom James, soon to be ex-detective of this parish.’
As he was a man of action, being debilitated was driving Karl Donaldson crazy, especially with all the excitement going on at the police house. It was almost destroying him that he hadn’t been there in amongst the thick of it backing up Henry who, he had come to realize over the years, usually needed all the help he could get. He hoped that Steve Flynn was as handy as he appeared to be.
But Donaldson was more exhausted than he’d ever been in his life. Even when he’d been recovering from the gunshot he’d taken from a terrorist, he’d had more energy to deal with things. It had taken every ounce of his will power to put on the tough-guy act behind Henry when he’d been challenging Jonny Cain and his assorted rag-tags.
Now all he could do was think of sleeping.
The combination of food poisoning – an affliction intense and fatiguing like nothing else he had experienced – and the sprained ankle that had ballooned to double its normal size, had simply floored him. That, plus the ill-conceived walk across the moors through conditions that would have been a test even in the rudest of health.
He did have a lot to thank Henry for, however, although his friend’s reading of the weather could have been a mite more accurate.
‘This is my room.’ Ginny, Alison’s teenage stepdaughter, led him down the corridor towards the living room and stopped in front of a door.
‘Look, honey,’ Donaldson drawled, ‘I’m happy to crash out on the sofa. I don’t really want to put you to any trouble.’
‘Honestly, it’s not a problem. My mum has a huge bed and I’ve slept with her before, on girlie nights.’
‘If you’re sure . . .’
‘Course – and thanks for, y’know, flattening that arsehole. He deserved it.’ Ginny opened the bedroom door, revealing a sumptuous room in various shades of pink, with a very inviting three-quarter width bed. There was an en suite off to one side, and lots of teddies. She stepped in and Donaldson followed. ‘Well, this is it,’ she said shyly.
‘It’s great,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘Thanks.’
She paused at the door before leaving. ‘Those men
,’ she said, ‘they’re dangerous, aren’t they?’
Donaldson nodded.
‘Mm, thanks again.’ She collected her PJs and left Donaldson in the room. He tossed his rucksack on to the bed, then sat on it himself, feeling his bottom sink into its softness.
‘Ooh, nice.’ He eased off his trainers, swung up his legs and, still fully clothed, closed his eyes. Within moments he’d drifted off.
Tom had been put in the main bedroom across the landing from the bathroom. He sat on the edge of the wide bed, hunched sullenly over, his cable-tied wrists between his legs. He glowered grimly at Henry as he came into the room, blood from the gash he’d received in the car accident smearing his face, some drops on the light-coloured carpet.
The two men stared at each other, judging, until Tom looked away.
Flynn stood behind Henry, filling the door with his big frame.
‘This is shit,’ Tom said.
Henry did not bother with any preamble. He told Tom he was under arrest on suspicion of murdering Cathy James, plus various offences including the attempted murder of himself and Steve Flynn. He cautioned Tom and asked him if he understood what had been said.
‘No – how can I have murdered her?’
‘We’ve found her body, Tom.’ Henry waited for the reaction, but all he got was a subtle change in facial expression.
‘And you didn’t tell me? You didn’t tell me about my wife?’
‘I didn’t, but now I have.’
‘And you think I shot her?’
‘How do you know she was shot?’
‘Assumption,’ Tom said quickly.
As much as Henry would have liked to pick up on that little error, and what Tom had let slip when he was threatening him and Flynn with the shotgun, he knew this was not the time or place. Tom had to be taken to a proper cop shop and processed scrupulously by the book.
‘What’s happens now?’ Tom asked.
‘You’re under arrest and you won’t be going anywhere, and you won’t be dealt with until I can get you into a custody office. I won’t be questioning you, so we’re all going to have to sit tight until the weather clears and we can get out of the village.’
‘What a joke. Suppose I just get up and walk?’