by Nick Oldham
‘I’m sorry, who exactly is this?’
‘I think you know who it is.’
Henry geed up Rik to move. He shot out of the office.
‘No, I’m sorry, I don’t.’
‘Oh, and if you’re thinking of trying to trace this, don’t bother … I’m on my encrypted, non-traceable military phone.’
‘I’m sorry, I still don’t know who I’m talking to,’ Henry said.
‘I’m guessing you do, really,’ the voice said smoothly. ‘I’m also guessing that my bosses gave you details of my bank accounts, otherwise why did eight cops flatten that poor fucker tonight?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
Suddenly he was clammy and feeling very weak again. He tried to remain calm.
‘Yeah you do, so let’s just stop farting around, eh?’
‘All right, Jack, let’s stop farting,’ Henry agreed. Keep calm, keep cool, his mind intoned. ‘Where is Ginny?’
‘Ginny? You mean my daughter, Virginia Marsh?’
‘Yeah, yeah I do. Where is she, Jack? Because let me tell you something …’
‘No,’ Marsh shouted. ‘Let me tell you something. You have stolen my family and all I did was take it back.’
‘OK and, er, why not do that the way any normal, sane person would do – by discussion and negotiation, Jack?’
‘It … it went beyond that,’ he said. ‘It went to betrayal, to lies, to fucking, to doing one over on me.’
‘And then to murder, eh?’ Henry said with contempt. He had been feeling weak, now he was feeling stronger with rage. He stood up, the phone clasped to his ear. ‘You killed innocent people, Jack, people with no connection to you whatsoever.’
‘People who stood in my way.’ His voice was trembling.
Henry’s jaw tightened. ‘You slaughtered Alison and if you touch or harm Ginny in any way, I’ll hunt you down for the rest of my life, if that’s what it takes. If she’s alive, you let her go now. You’ve had her too long, now you need to let her walk away and make her own decisions, not be forced into something she doesn’t want.’
‘She wants to be with me. Her Dad!’
‘Let me speak to her, then. Let me see her.’
‘Nah, she doesn’t want to speak to you.’
‘OK, fine … but how do I know she’s all right.’
‘Because I’m her dad. I’ve come back to claim my inheritance.’
‘You’re the one who chose to leave in the first place, Jack. Your decision, not theirs.’
‘Is that what Jenkins and Smith told you? Two-faced, manipulating bastards.’
‘Jack, let her go,’ Henry said. ‘You know it’s the right thing to do.’
Rik Dean swung back into the office making ‘Keep going’ gestures by rolling his hands around each other.
‘You know she doesn’t deserve this,’ Henry said. ‘We can work this out now,’ he cooed. ‘The ball’s in your park, I’m sure you can be reasonable.’
Jack laughed harshly. ‘One minute ago you called me mad, not sane, now you say I can be reasonable. Make up your mind, Henry Christie, which is it, mad or sane?’
Henry hesitated.
‘Thought so,’ Jack said.
‘Yeah, you are mad.’
‘And you should be dead, matey. Do you know why you’re not?’
‘Go on, surprise me.’
‘Because a great big red-deer stag got in my way, that’s why!’
He ended the call leaving Henry with a dead phone in his ear. He peeled it away with a slurp as it was drenched with sweat from his earlobe. He gave it to Rik.
Rik was on the internal phone a minute later asking for an update re the phone conversation and a possible triangulation to get Jack’s position.
He looked at Henry sadly as he hung up. ‘Didn’t get it, the signal’s dead, untraceable.’ He paused. ‘We’re going for the basement.’
Henry was not allowed to take part in the raid, but sat in Rik’s car parked a couple of hundred metres away from the target premises. The fact Rik hooked him into the comms network with a PR so he could listen to the progress of the raid (on the proviso he did not butt in at any stage) did not make him much happier, but he understood. He was a civvie now and there was no way he could be involved for so many reasons and even letting him listen to the radio channel was pushing it.
In the past Henry would have been at the forefront of such operations. He had a reputation for leading from the front whilst other bosses usually took a back seat. There was nothing Henry liked more than knocking on a villain’s door and, if need be, kicking it down, then looking into their eyes as he nicked them.
Now he was out of it.
His job had devolved to Rik Dean, who was just as enthusiastic as Henry had once been.
So Henry sat and listened.
The team got into place. Eyeball was established with the target premises.
There was a lot of breathlessness as heavily kitted up officers began to move and transmitted their progress up to the point where (and Henry had to visualize this) officers armed with rams positioned themselves either side of the basement flat door, firearms officers lined up behind them, weapons drawn, then all in position, then the ‘GO’ instruction.
They were inside within seconds, pouring through the door of a tiny flat Henry could only imagine.
‘Entry gained,’ came the first transmission.
‘Living room, clear.’
‘Toilet, clear.’
‘Kitchen, clear.’
‘He’s in the bedroom.’
Henry’s chest constricted, his teeth were grinding, sending echoes around his skull. His breath was held inside his lungs, his heart whomping.
Waiting for that next stage.
‘Bedroom door in!’
Feet pounded, breathing was laboured.
‘Down, down, down on your knees. Show me your hands.’
Then the agonizing pause.
‘One male arrested.’
Henry exhaled and in spite of the warnings to keep off the radio, the tension of the next few seconds almost tore him to shreds and he couldn’t stop himself from picking up the PR on his knees and pressing the transmit button. ‘Is she there, is she OK?’
‘Henry!’ Rik’s voice came sternly over the radio. ‘Stop your transmission. We’ll keep you up to date.’
Henry growled, ‘You better fucking had.’
He waited. It seemed an hour but was perhaps five minutes before Rik came back on.
‘Henry?’
‘Go on.’
A pause, then, ‘I’m sorry, Henry, Ginny’s not here … and the man arrested is not our intended target, repeat not our intended target.’
TWENTY-TWO
‘By default it was a bloody good arrest,’ Rik Dean told Henry.
‘That makes me feel a whole lot better,’ he replied almost on the verge of crying.
By any stretch of the imagination it was an excellent arrest, actually. The man, who had rented the flat without providing personal details but with cash up front, was wanted by the police in Wolverhampton for a serious stabbing in the town centre that ended in death. He had been on the run for four months, skipping around the country, keeping one step ahead of his pursuers and had even featured on Crime Watch. His freedom had come to an end by accident.
‘She’s still out there. He’s still out there,’ Henry said bitterly.
They were back in the SIO’s office at Preston police station. The local chief superintendent, James Lee, a man Henry had known for almost twenty years, had come on duty specifically for the raid, poked his friendly face around the door and commiserated with Henry.
‘Thanks, James.’
‘We will get him, you know,’ James promised.
‘I know, I know,’ Henry said glumly.
James gave him a short wave, then left.
Henry shook his head wearily. ‘Need to get to my bed.’
Rik slapped his shoulder gently. ‘Sorry, pal, but now we
know he’s in the area we’ll soon have him.’
‘It’s Ginny I’m bothered about. He’s had her too long now.’
‘Go home, go to bed,’ Rik urged him.
Henry dragged himself out of the office and made his way to the car park out front where he’d brought his car up from the cinema and left it.
The night was still warm, a little stuffy. He took off his jacket as he walked to the car, pressing the remote control to unlock it. It made the little beeping noise that indicated the car was already open. It didn’t really register with him as his mind was on other things more important than that.
How to hunt down Jack Marsh.
He opened the driver’s door and slung his jacket across the front passenger seat, dropped in heavily behind the wheel and started the engine. He did not even register that the interior light did not come on as usual.
He sat there for a long time with his hands on the wheel, staring into dead space ahead of him, his thoughts tumbling and rolling, then he drove out of the car park onto the A6, going to take the same journey home as before, going up the M6 north, then off at Lancaster.
The first couple of sets of traffic lights were on green and Henry sailed through, his mind not really on driving. He was on automatic pilot up to the point where he was driving alongside Moor Park, with Preston North End’s football stadium way across to his right.
That was the moment he realized exactly what was happening.
Why his car was unlocked.
Why the interior light had not come on.
Henry pulled in to the side of the road just as he felt the cold muzzle of an automatic pistol pushed into the back of his neck and hot breath down his left cheek and saw the flash of evil eyes in his rear-view mirror.
‘Jack Marsh,’ he said simply.
‘Hello, Henry, we meet again.’
‘So it seems.’
‘Let’s go and see Virginia, my daughter.’
With the gun at his head and Jack Marsh whispering directions and other things into his ear, Henry drove.
‘I’m going to give you this opportunity because deep down I’m a good man … left here, keep going … I get it that you’re fond of Virginia, but you know what? I get shivers of revulsion when I see you or even imagine you with her … next right, then straight on … the thought of you anywhere near my daughter disgusts me … not that I think you’d touch her or anything like that – you saved that for my wife, didn’t you? No, because I’m her father … I’m the one who should be laughing with her, giving her a hug, not you …’
‘You gave up that right a long time ago.’
‘Is that what Smith and Jenkins told you? They brainwashed me.’
‘You always had the right to pull out. You know what you did?’ Henry turned his face and Jack jammed the gun into his cheek.
‘Keep looking forwards … No, go on, what did I do?’
‘You let Alison and your tiny daughter grieve over body parts that weren’t even yours. Now that’s what I call a cunt, not a father.’
Jack slammed the barrel of the gun sideways into Henry’s face. He swerved the car with the stinging blow, corrected it and felt blood trickling from just under his left ear down his neck.
Jack moved his lips to Henry’s ear. ‘I am her father,’ he whispered.
‘Yeah you are, and where were you? Taking the Queen’s shilling. A good life. Killing people.’
‘Necessary.’
‘Maybe, but don’t bleat about your choices.’
‘The marriage was as good as dead anyway. She was a bitch to me.’
‘So that makes it all right … Just let me tell you one thing: being a father is never over. You can’t pull in and out of it just ’cos you want to.’
Jack crashed the gun into Henry’s face again. Henry’s jaw slipped out of line, then back again.
‘You really know how to wind me up, don’t you?’
Yes I do, Henry thought, suddenly putting others first. He knew he had to keep himself calm and then keep Jack calm if there was any chance of survival here.
‘Where are we going?’ Henry asked, touching the cut inside his cheek with his tongue, tasting blood which he then swallowed.
‘Next right.’
Henry complied with the directions.
‘Keep going … pull in here.’
They were outside a terraced house in the Plungington area of Preston, that was all Henry knew. He stopped, said nothing.
‘Here we are,’ Jack said, sounding jolly. Then he became serious. ‘I killed people for a living, Henry. I found it easy, then I found it hard, then I couldn’t even think how I found it, and it all became a blur and I knew I wanted my family back and then I found you had stolen it.’
‘So why not kill me outside the pub, or me and Alison in Ginny’s bedroom,’ Henry asked. ‘You had the chance.’
‘I really don’t know. My mind … y’know, all over the place. But at least now I’m thinking straight and clear.’
‘No you’re not. You’re warped and unstable. You’re a threat to too many people, Jack. Just stop this shit here and now and you might come out of this alive.
‘I’ll survive,’ he said. ‘Me and Virginia. A team. On the road. There for each other.’
‘I seriously doubt it.’
Henry walked ahead of Jack into the house. He pushed Henry along the narrow hallway into the kitchen at the rear, Henry stumbling, feeling dizzy and terrified. His ear was bleeding badly, the one that had been previously half-blown off by a shotgun blast. He despaired it would ever recover. He constantly swallowed blood.
Henry steadied himself on the sink.
‘Stop here,’ Jack said. The gun in his hand was a silenced Browning 9mm. He kept it steady on Henry as he said, ‘Look in here.’ He felt for the handle of the under-stairs cupboard and the door swung open.
Henry almost screamed as the crumpled, blood-caked and naked body of a female rolled out and unfolded on the floor. Henry saw terrible head wounds, huge holes exposing brain matter.
For a moment he thought it was Ginny.
But it was an older woman.
‘First wife,’ Jack said gazing down dispassionately at her. ‘She was a bitch. When we split up – because she was shagging around – she didn’t want Virginia, so I took her, I had to have her, I had to bring her up …’
‘And then abandon when you became an assassin.’
‘No – when I was brainwashed to become the best fucking hunter in the world. Don’t you listen? Anyway,’ he glanced at the dead woman, ‘I paid her a visit, told her my plans and she went nuts, so I had to kill her. She got what she deserved.’
‘Beginning to think no one deserves you, Jack,’ Henry said. He wiped blood from his face. His shirt was saturated with it around his collar.
Jack stepped over the body and opened the cellar door. ‘After you.’ He gestured for Henry to go down the tight, narrow, very steep stairs ahead of him. At the foot, Henry turned left into the dimly lit room and saw Ginny.
Jack shoved him towards her.
She was prostrate on the camp bed, tape over her mouth. She shot upright as Henry staggered towards her, instantly recognizing him.
Henry swooped to his knees and carefully removed the tape and said, ‘Ginny, Ginny,’ softly. It was then he saw the thin chains securing her to the bed frame which itself was screwed firmly into the concrete floor.
‘Henry, you came, you came,’ she said groggily.
‘Course I did,’ he breathed, looking into her tired, sunken eyes. ‘Always, always,’ he said.
‘So you see she’s alive and well,’ Jack said. ‘I presume that’s what you wanted to know before meeting your maker.’
Henry looked back at Jack with eyes glinting like the devil’s. ‘May you rot in hell, you sick bastard.’
Jack threw his head back and roared with laughter which stopped abruptly. ‘I’ll meet you there one day, Henry.’
‘I very much doubt it.’
‘O
K, get away from her, over there, kneel with your head against the wall.’ Jack hauled Henry across the cellar with his free hand and threw him against the wall. Henry slithered down and faced it. ‘Forehead on the wall,’ Jack ordered.
Henry shuffled on his knees, and placed his forehead against the cold, painted brick.
‘Dad, don’t,’ Ginny pleaded plaintively.
‘Virginia, sweetheart,’ Jack said softly, ‘I’ve explained all this to you. There are things that have to be done, and this is one of them.’
‘Dad, Dad,’ she sobbed.
Henry’s eyes could not focus on the wall.
He waited. He knew Jack Marsh would kill him quickly. He closed his eyes.
He thought about Kate and Alison.
The muzzle of the Browning twisted into the back of his head.
And Jack Marsh was dead before he hit the concrete and the back of Henry’s head and neck were covered with the splatter of hot blood from the massive wounds to Jack’s head.
‘This is the only justice you were ever going to get, so don’t argue,’ Major Smith said as he placed a shell-shocked Henry in his Mondeo. Ginny was already sitting in the passenger seat. ‘Take her home, make her better, say nothing.’
‘How the hell do I explain … this?’
‘Which bit?’ Smith said. ‘I’ll have a cleaning team here within the hour. There’ll be nothing left, not your problem, OK? As for her, wing it, make something up, tell ’em you found her wandering the streets or something, whatever. Like I said, take her home, make her better.’
Henry nodded. He knew this was the best he would ever get.
‘Thank you,’ he said to Smith.
‘I knew he’d come for you sooner rather than later. That was how he worked and, by the way …’ Smith held out his hand.
‘Oh, yeah,’ Henry said. He reached into his jeans pocket and took out the tracker, which he handed back to Smith, the device Smith had slipped him at the motorway services when he’d taken Henry to one side. ‘Good idea.’
‘Go, leave this to us now, try and get some sort of life back.’
Henry started his car and set off.
Ginny was silent until they reached the motorway when she turned to Henry and said, ‘Henry, will you be my dad, please?’
‘Yeah, yeah, course I will,’ he said. ‘Forever.’