by Nick Oldham
From the CCU, Jake heard shooting.
‘Shots fired,’ he said into his PR.
The airwaves then became a rush of voices.
And the man with the gun came on remorselessly for Jake.
That was until two firearms officers stepped out from theatre reception, weapons drawn and challenged him from behind.
‘Armed police, drop your weapon,’ one shouted clearly.
Jake pressed himself against the wall, saw the look on the man’s face, that delicious look of defeat as the Glock in his hand clattered to the floor and his hands rose in a gesture of submission. The AFOs came up cautiously, still warning him, still meaning it.
Jake gave the man the thumbs up and a victorious, ‘Ha!’ as he sprinted past him towards the CCU.
The shots he’d heard in there worried him.
He spun into the room to find the second guy pinned to the floor by Karl Donaldson, his weapon having been kicked away by one of the pair of AFOs who had been waiting there whilst the other one kept his weapon aimed steadily at the guy’s head while Donaldson easily twisted his arms up behind his back, laid one wrist across the other and knelt on them before asking the AFO for handcuffs.
‘The shots?’ Jake asked.
Donaldson pointed to the bed. ‘He managed to fire three before we grounded him,’ he admitted.
Jake stepped over the prostrate man and went to the bed, slowly pulling back the covers. ‘Good job we moved Henry and put this dummy in his place,’ he said.
Donaldson eased himself to his feet and remarked, ‘I’d hardly noticed the difference.’
Lisa Dean, née Christie, Henry’s younger sister, now wife of Detective Superintendent Rik Dean, took the phone call from her husband. Her whole body sagged at the news, then she ended the call.
She re-entered the private room at Fulwood Hall Hospital and sat down next to Henry’s bed, looking at her brother and reached for his hand.
‘They would’ve got you, Henry,’ she said, then reached for her paperback, a romantic novel she had planned to take on honeymoon to read by the pool. She wondered when that would happen.
She heard a cough and looked at Henry.
A kind of throaty noise from the back of his throat.
Did his eyes flutter?
She sat forwards. ‘Henry?’
His eyes did open. They seemed sightless, unfocused. He blinked a few times then said croakily, ‘Did they find the plane?’ and closed his eyes again.
SIXTEEN
From complete blackness, just a hole that could have been deep space, with occasional terrifying flashes like the sun exploding, Henry surfaced very slowly into a new undersea whorl of hazy images, blurred lines and faces with distorted mouths out of which indistinguishable, meaningless noises emanated that meant absolutely nothing to his battered brain.
But he did understand the excruciating pain that seared around the perimeter of his cranium like one of those motorcycle daredevils in a circus, a pain that decelerated when, although he did not know this, morphine was pumped into his arm.
There were four days like this in which he grasped nothing at first, wasn’t even sure if he was a human being, or what a human being even was; like trudging through a mangrove swamp with an alligator swimming alongside him with hungry eyes until, after one very long night of dreamless sleep, he awoke at eight a.m. and sat up under his own steam and said to a nurse, ‘Scrambled egg on toast would be nice and an Americano, if at all possible.’
She smiled delightedly, plumped up his pillows, adjusted his bed and said, ‘Coming right up, sir.’
He leaned back and emptied his bladder via the tube into a bag by his bedside and waited to be fed.
When the nurse returned with a tray of hot food as requested and placed it on the adjustable table, he said, ‘Can you tell my wife-to-be I’ll see her now?’
He saw the flinch of uncertainty on her face before she recovered and said, ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
He wolfed down the food, noting the Police and Community Support Officer standing outside the door to his private room, but could not quite get his swollen head around why that person was there or even why he himself was.
There was a vague memory of cars and gunfire but nothing concrete – other than he had got a very sore head and very sore right arm, neither of which made any sense.
A consultant turned up at nine-thirty a.m., sat Henry upright, probed around his head – yes, that fucking hurt – neck, shoulder and arm with a thick finger, muttered, nodded, then stood back.
‘Can I go home?’ Henry asked.
‘Hardly.’
‘What the hell’s happened to me?’
‘Essentially you were involved in a very serious road-traffic accident. The car you were driving overturned and you suffered a fractured skull, which you still have, although it is repairing nicely, and other injuries.’
Henry nodded gingerly. ‘Essentially?’ he enquired.
‘Yes, essentially … now if you’ll excuse me …’
‘Oh, before you go, has my fiancée been told I’m back in the land of the living?’
‘I’ll check and see where we’re up to on that score,’ he said. Henry saw the same flinch flit cross the man’s face as he’d seen on the nurse’s, who then appeared by magic.
‘Bed bath,’ she announced.
‘Nah,’ he said, although severely tempted because she was a very pretty lady. ‘I’d like to get up for a shower, if that’s OK?’
‘I’m sure it is.’
‘Where am I, by the way?’
She told him.
‘Oh, I’m impressed. I don’t recall taking out private health care.’
The journey to the shower felt about the equivalent of a three-mile run and Henry was exhausted by the time he sat down in it but revelled in the sensation of hot water cascading over him, cleansing out the grit.
The nurse assisted him to towel off, then he told her he would shave himself.
He looked in the mirror and for a few moments, reeled in the shock of his reflection and said, ‘Fuck me.’ Then he shaved the field of stubble carefully away, making him wonder how long he had been here.
Lots of questions, not many answers, he thought.
His head was close-shaven and looked a complete mess, a criss-cross of cuts and abrasions, some stitching and still swollen and puffy, particularly around his right ear. He twisted to see if he could inspect his right arm, but it hurt his head to look down, and he didn’t like what he saw anyway.
‘If that’s not a bullet wound,’ he said to himself, ‘I’ll show my arse in ward 1.’
The shower room door opened and the nurse poked her head through. ‘I heard voices.’
‘So did I,’ Henry said, ‘so did I.’
‘Well, I’m definitely not in heaven,’ Henry said as he opened his eyes and saw Rik Dean sitting at his bedside with Karl Donaldson standing behind him. Rik had strange silvery burn marks on his face that puzzled Henry but not enough to make him be bothered to ask. He had fallen asleep after the shower and now, two hours later, it was quite hard to wake up again. ‘You two look like the devil’s disciples. Why the long faces? I have no idea why I’m here, but I’m alive, aren’t I? That’s got to be a plus, and I know who you are, so another plus.’
Neither man smiled.
‘And I’m not paralysed, so what gives, as they say? And where the hell is my kept woman?’
It was the eyes, the expression on his face, that most affected Rik and Donaldson. The slow registering of facts, of the situation. The bereft look of utter loss and desolation, as though something inside him was emptying him into a vacuum of nothingness.
Rik began by saying, ‘What exactly do you remember?’
He did not wish just to dump it all on Henry, but by the same token did not want to tell him anything other than the truth because that would be a path to confusion and misunderstanding, possibly false hope. But to begin, he had to know where Henry’s mind was up to.
‘I remember the murders,’ Henry said, trying to think coherently.
‘Oh, right, that’s good,’ Rik said, at which point Donaldson laid a hand on Rik’s shoulders to shut him up and said, ‘Which murders?’
‘Which murders? Why, how many have there been?’ Henry asked.
‘Which ones are you on about?’ Donaldson asked.
‘One of Lord Chalmers’ security guards and then Chalmers himself.’
Rik and Donaldson exchanged glances.
‘You sure about this?’ Rik asked. ‘We don’t know any of this – but we haven’t been able to contact Chalmers anyway.’
‘Because he’s dead,’ Henry said. ‘So is one of his security guards and maybe his wife, because if that plane didn’t crash, I’m a monkey’s uncle.’
‘What plane?’ Rik and Donaldson said in unison.
‘The one his wife was about to land in, but pulled up at the last moment and the killers strafed it as it went over their heads, just after they’d shot and killed Chalmers.’
‘Which guys are these?’
‘Two tough-looking army-like guys, turned up in black Range Rovers.’
Once more, Rik and Donaldson looked at each other.
‘Could you ID these guys?’
Henry nodded. ‘I’d give it a good go. Plus they were in cahoots with one of Chalmers’ security guys. He’s the one who put a bullet in the other security guy’s head.’
Rik exhaled and said, ‘Two guys, black Range Rovers?’
‘Yep.’
‘Then what?’
Henry pouted. ‘Then nothing. Woke up in this place and that’s all I know. Presumably some gaps in there?’
‘Definitely gaps,’ Rik agreed.
The detective superintendent steadied himself, got all his words into order and began to fill in those gaps for Henry. As he spoke, Donaldson edged around and perched on the side of the bed next to Henry, watching his old friend’s face as those gaps became a story that reached a horrific conclusion.
The two men watched Henry’s face as Rik finished talking and Henry digested the information in his already scrambled brain. He leaned back on his pillows and closed his eyes.
‘This is true?’ he said eventually, opening his eyes.
‘I’m sorry, Henry, it is,’ Rik said.
‘Alison is dead and Ginny has been kidnapped and could well be dead also?’ he said, trying to make sense of it.
His eyes closed tight again. A tear formed in the corner of both.
‘Yes,’ Rik said, knowing he had to make certain Henry understood it, that there was no mistake to be made.
Henry opened his eyes. ‘OK, OK, can you leave me now?’
‘Where is she?’
They were back with Henry, two hours later, and if it was possible, he looked even worse than before.
‘Public mortuary, Royal Preston Hospital,’ Rik told him.
‘I want to see her.’
Donaldson’s hand was under Henry’s arm, helping him remain upright as three of them walked from Rik’s car into the hospital entrance on East Drive, the one closest to the mortuary.
Alison’s body was already laid out in the viewing room.
A muslin sheet covered the whole of her body and head.
A mortuary technician waited until Henry, flanked by Rik and Donaldson, looked at him and nodded. The technician reached for the corner of the sheet, but then Henry said, ‘No.’
The man stopped.
‘Can I do this?’ Henry asked.
The MT nodded. ‘Of course you can.’
‘Thank you,’ Henry said simply.
Donaldson removed his hand from Henry’s left bicep. Henry reached out and took hold of the top corner of the thin sheet and began to peel it slowly back to reveal Alison’s head and face. He folded it carefully across her shoulders and could see the new sewn-up, dreadful wound that had been inflicted on her neck. Her skin had a blue tinge to it, that of death. Henry had seen it on many corpses.
He had seen it on Kate.
Now he was seeing it on Alison.
He looked at her for a very long time, but said nothing aloud. He was going to have a private conversation with her in his own time and it would not be something anyone else would hear.
‘Is this Alison Marsh?’ Rik Dean said, fulfilling the requirements of proving an identity. ‘She has no close family. You are it, Henry.’
‘I can confirm this is my fiancée, Alison Marsh.’
Henry folded the sheet back across her face.
Karl Donaldson caught him as his knees buckled.
Henry’s head thumped, his ears hissed, noises that seemed would never go away. They were there when he was awake and up, and when he lay down and closed his eyes to try to sleep, something he could rarely achieve. His skull pounded and hurt, as did every other part of his body.
He was unsure how he survived the following fortnight, which flashed by in a continuous series of scenes over which he seemed to have no control.
Things just happened.
He went along with them, still not truly understanding everything, like he was finding his way through a boggy minefield, doing things, saying things, saying yes or no to things, even though all those things seemed to be disconnected, unreal, yet also very connected and frighteningly real.
His mind was everywhere and nowhere.
At one point, having eventually been discharged from hospital and finding himself staying with Rik and Lisa in their new house in Blackpool, Rik whisked him off to Preston police station, to the identity parade suite where he was placed in front of a one-way mirror and asked if he could identify the men who had shot and murdered Lord Chalmers.
There were two parades.
Each time Henry picked one man from the line-ups. He was sure they were the ones, and also presumably the same guys who had then pursued him and forced him off the road – but he wasn’t too positive about that bit because his stubborn memory refused to tell him anything beyond the murder of Chalmers and the strafing of the light aeroplane.
Occasionally there were flashes, nothing else.
Jake Niven was not given to blasphemy but when he saw the horrific scenes in the orangery at the back of Lord Chalmers’ country house, his stomach immediately churned and he did say, ‘Oh my effin’ Lord.’
The bodies of Chalmers and his loyal security guard had been devoured by the two ravenous Dobermanns, torn apart as they grew hungry and desperate, having been left to roam the house, quickly reverting to wild dogs. The two bodies, it was assumed, had been moved from where they had been killed and then left for the dogs.
They had been ripped open like something from a horror movie, but by the time Jake and his colleagues forced an entry into the estate, then the house, there was very little left. Flesh had been eaten, bones had been gnawed and marrow licked out. There were the remnants of two rib cages, two skulls (empty, brains eaten) and thigh bones.
The stench was atrocious, death coupled with dog shit and dog vomit and also the bodily reek of the dogs themselves which had fought each other savagely and caused serious injuries to each other which became infected, smelly and gangrenous.
Their poor condition, however, did not prevent them from being ferocious and attacking the police, but having been forewarned about the possibility of vicious dogs, dog-handlers wearing body armour and carrying dog-catching equipment had been pushed first through the door. A vet armed with a tranquilizer gun was also on hand.
Cornered and eventually caught on two heavy-duty catch poles, the dogs were dragged squirming and squealing, still fighting like devils, and placed in the rear of a dog van with two cages.
Only then did Jake and the others enter to find the flesh-strewn orangery.
Jake had left it to the others and retreated outside. He walked towards the airstrip where, according to Henry’s account, Chalmers had stood on the runway and pre
vented a small plane from landing, but which was then shot at.
Henry had obviously been right about Chalmers and the security guard.
He was probably right about the aircraft, too.
The only problem being there was no record of any flight plans for such an aircraft on the day in question. Not that systems were infallible, planes did take off without submitting times and routes to the authorities. Jake had checked with the Civil Aviation Authority – no record – and also a few internet flight-tracking sites such as Flight Radar, which also had no records of such a flight.
Nor had any plane yet been found crashed on the moors.
Jake walked the full length of the runway, which had not had the grass mowed for a while and was fast becoming a meadow. When he got to the far end, he turned and walked back, imagining he was bringing a light plane in to land, even though he could not fly. He visualized the flight path in his mind’s eye, coming in on final approach between the fells, just a dot in the distance at first, quickly growing as it got closer. Then, message received from the frantically waving Chalmers, pull up, don’t land, and the pilot doing that at the last moment and then its belly being shot at.
Had the pilot been hit and wounded?
If so, how far had the plane gone?
Jake looked at the moors. There was an awful lot of space for a plane to ditch in and if it had it would eventually be found, but it was possible it could lie undetected for weeks, possibly even years, depending on where and how it came down.
If it had veered sideways into a tight, deep ravine, it could be a very long time before it was discovered.
Jake’s mobile rang. He answered it, saying his name, though the unidentified caller had still asked, ‘PC Niven?’
‘Speaking. Can I help?’ Jake was still working out trajectories as he spun around and looked at the hills.
It was a man’s voice, a southern accent. ‘I can’t give you my name.’
‘OK, but what can I do for you?’
‘I know you spoke to the manager of Hyde Heath aerodrome yesterday.’
Jake suddenly concentrated. ‘Yeah, that’s right.’ Rik had tasked him to find out more about the plane. He’d done some internet digging and found a photo of Lord and Lady Chalmers on the pages of some high-society journal, standing in front of a light plane on an airfield just outside London. There was a registration number on the plane, but Jake hadn’t got very far with that, so he’d decided to phone the airfield in the picture just on the off-chance someone might know something, anything. He had spoken to a man called Dobson who categorically stated the plane had not ever, never, been on the airfield since that photo had been snapped. Neither did he know where it was now kept or flown from, had not seen Chalmers or his wife for years and it definitely DID NOT take off from the airfield at Hyde Heath on the day Rik asked about. He was blunt, aggressive and defensive, nervous, maybe, but Jake couldn’t do much more than accept his word even if he didn’t believe him.