Edge

by Nick Oldham

  But none of them could see into his dark, brooding, pain-filled soul.

  He looked at the landlord and pointed to the empty glass. ‘One more for the road,’ he said, then wiped his lips with the back of his hand. ‘Fate, eh?’

  The ‘fate’ that Henry was ruminating over was this.

  If Abel Kirkman had not shot his dog, Shep, and then turned the shotgun on his wife, Ingrid, and killed her too – and then barricaded himself in his farmhouse and started blasting all comers on that Friday afternoon, Henry Christie would not have had to turn out to that neck of the woods, the most far-flung reaches of Lancashire Constabulary. He would have been at home, socializing in a bar, having a wonderful meal and eventually retiring to bed with his amazing wife-to-be: sheer bliss.

  But even when Henry was drinking that glass of JD and thinking that life had dealt him a shitty hand, he did not know that the dealer was already stacking the deck and things were about to get even worse than they had been for him up to that point. He did not know that he was going to end up in a fight for his life which really had nothing to do with Abel Kirkman. Abel Kirkman was just an innocent cog in all that transpired.

  But that was what fate did. It tore you up, put you through the wringer, spat you out.

  Henry came to be at Abel Kirkman’s farm on that rain-drenched Friday because of a situation at work which (though he was at first blissfully unaware of this) was fairly unusual.

  He discovered that between two p.m. and six p.m. – four tiny, inconsequential hours – he was the most senior officer on duty in the whole of Lancashire Constabulary. He was the highest ranking cop available, with the exception of the chief constable – but Robert Fanshaw-Bayley didn’t count because he wasn’t deemed to be operational, whereas Henry was.

  It was a situation Henry only discovered when he reluctantly picked up his desk phone and took a call at four minutes past two. In fact, at the moment of the call, Henry was doing something he rarely did at his desk. He was clock watching and daydreaming.

  He was supposed to be on duty until six p.m. and after that time one of his colleagues, another detective superintendent, would automatically be ‘on call’ and Henry could then chill and head home for the weekend. He was now bang up to date with paperwork, having finally completed a very complex file for an upcoming inquest into the double murder of a local jeweller and his girlfriend, basically bringing an end to a far-reaching investigation that had lasted four months. It had taken Henry from the Canary Islands to Florida, involved the FBI, Spanish police and ex-cops. He was happy all the loose ends had been tied tight and the job would not be going to criminal court because the offender – the hit man who had murdered the unlucky pair – was also dead, drowned off Gran Canaria.

  The file was stacked and bound neatly on his desk. Done, dusted. He now planned to have the weekend off with his fiancée at the pub she owned way out in the north Lancashire countryside. It was long overdue lovey-dovey time and Henry was looking forward to being a bartender (unofficially, of course: police regulations did not allow cops to serve and sell alcohol, or even live on licensed premises), drinking too much and generally having a good old knees-up with a few friends.

  He had glanced out of the window, seen the weather was still dreadful. All across the country it had rained heavily for weeks on end and huge swathes of southern England were flooded, though it wasn’t so bad in Henry’s part of the world. He was thankful for that but still wished the rain would ease and the dark clouds lift. He was convinced he was suffering from seasonal affective disorder, or maybe he was simply sad.

  Then his eyes darted to the digital wall clock: 14.03 hrs.

  Just four hours to go.

  He could almost taste that first pint of Stella Artois on his tongue, then on its way down his throat, its icy spread into his chest. Could feel the heat from the open fire in the main bar. He almost groaned with pleasure at the prospect.

  The phone rang as the clock flipped: 14.04 hrs.

  He leaned forwards and checked the caller display. It was the Force Incident Manager on the line. Henry scowled with annoyance and emitted a petulant gasp like a spotty teenager might.

  Invariably a call from the FIM, the officer in charge of the main control room at force headquarters, situated less than two hundred metres from where Henry was sitting at that moment, meant a call-out.

  For the first time in his career as an SIO he considered ignoring the phone, as a sinking feeling pervaded him, warning that fate was about to piss on his plans. But he knew that ignoring the call would, ultimately, be a useless tactic because the next number the FIM would call would be his mobile and if he failed to answer that, questions would be asked ‘in the house’, as they say.

  He scooped up the phone dramatically, already planning to drop whatever job it was on to some other poor sucker’s shoulders. He said his name.

  ‘Boss. Chief Inspector Taylor, control room. We’ve got a situation …’

  Even as the FIM was outlining the situation, Henry was trying to work out how to bluster and bluff his way out of it. When he learned that there was literally no one else in the force of equivalent rank until after six p.m., Henry’s shoulders drooped, a quiet sigh rose and fell in his chest and he admitted defeat. Someone of his rank was needed on the plot as soon as possible – and he was the only one.

  He swore inwardly after he had quizzed the FIM as to the whereabouts of the other supers and chief supers, and although Henry accepted that owing to cutbacks and natural wastage, officers of these ranks were pretty thin on the ground, it annoyed him to discover that two were on leave, one was on a course down south, another was sick … and so it went until that big forefinger pointed right down at him in his cosy little office.

  He jotted down the bare essentials, ended the call a bit rudely, grabbed his personal radio and coat, and scurried out through the now torrential rain to his car, muttering, ‘If only the public knew …’

  Then he was on his way, not needing to be given directions. Thirty-plus years as a cop in Lancashire had given him an intimate geographic knowledge of the county and he could easily find his way from one side of it to the other without help.

  Despite the persistent downpour slowing down the afternoon traffic, Henry made good progress and covered the thirty or so miles in less than forty minutes, speeding down the M65, then up on to the A56, rising high above Accrington – although the remnants of that town’s dark satanic mills were hardly visible in the low cloud – towards the Rossendale Valley, a place where he had served as a young cop and revisited on many occasions since, usually to look at dead bodies.

  In the course of this journey he made the important call to Alison, his fiancée, using the hands-free set. He told her he was likely to be considerably late and instantly got the message that she was unimpressed by the news. Not from what she said, exactly, but from the way she said it, with those almost imperceptible pauses before the ‘OK’ and the muted ‘Whatever’. She did melt ever so slightly when he told her how much he loved her and wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.

  ‘Oh, by the way,’ she said. ‘Steve’s here.’

  Henry frowned. ‘Steve who?’

  ‘Flynn.’

  Henry’s guts did a flip. ‘What’s he doing there?’ he asked. It was his turn to be unimpressed.

  ‘He’s here for the inquest next week, as you know. He came early to see his son, but he just popped over this afternoon to say hello.’

  ‘Really.’ Definitely unimpressed.

  ‘He’s staying with a friend in Lancaster, but I’ve offered him a room here for the night, so he’ll be here whenever you get home, whatever time that might be. Rik’s coming up too, isn’t he?’

  ‘Mm … he caught a nooky job this morning, so I’m not sure when he’ll land. Give Flynn my regards.’

  Henry ended the call and exhaled long and hard, but knew he didn’t have time to dwell on Steve Flynn.

  His next call was to the patrol inspector at the scene of
what the FIM had dramatically described as ‘carnage’ and a ‘siege’.

  He raced his Audi coupé off the A56 towards Rawtenstall town centre and smirked to himself; he realized he had truly reached the far outpost of civilization when, as he approached the main roundabout – Queen’s Square – he saw a herd of sheep grazing on it. They had clearly migrated from the moors, maybe having been driven down by the bad weather, to squat in the town instead. They seemed a fairly happy bunch, oblivious to the passing traffic. Henry shook his head in amusement as he recalled how much time he had spent pursuing stray animals when he was a PC in this town.

  He took the road towards Bacup but before reaching that town he bore right towards Whitworth, literally the last outpost in that corner of Lancashire, a small, straggly town sitting thinly in a valley floor, winding south, overshadowed by dark moorland. It was like entering a narrow, winding gorge and as Henry crossed the town boundary, the sky seemed to darken even more and the rain got a whole lot heavier.

  Once past the police checkpoint manned by a miserable looking and very wet PC, Henry parked his Audi at the bottom of the narrow track leading up to Abel Kirkman’s farm. He scuttled around to the tiny boot, slid off his jacket, put on his black zip-up anorak with the word ‘POLICE’ emblazoned across the back and chest in hi-viz letters. On top of this he squeezed on his stab vest, then a black woollen hat with a reflective chequered band, grabbed his torch, opened his mini-umbrella and started to make his way up the rocky track. On either side ran fast flowing streams of rainwater, channelled down from the moors.

  Ahead he could see the track was blocked by police vehicles of varying descriptions.

  His first rendezvous was with the patrol inspector, whom he met at the inner cordon tape about a hundred metres from Kirkman’s farmhouse. At the farm, Henry could see officers huddled behind walls and fences, some armed, all trying to keep as dry as possible.

  The rain pounded on his umbrella, making it hard to hear properly.

  The inspector was a man called Rankin and Henry vaguely knew him.

  It was immediately apparent that conducting any meaningful conversation in the downpour was going to be difficult, so Rankin beckoned Henry to follow and led him into a long, low farm building with a corrugated iron roof that was in fact a pigsty with probably over fifty of the beasts in stalls inside, snuffling away contentedly in what Henry could only describe as shit. The reek was terrible, but at least it was warm and dry.

  ‘Where are we up to?’ Henry asked. He was already thinking he wanted an early resolution to this, not least because he was parched and hungry.

  ‘Abel Kirkman, local farmer, pretty well known – mainly for all the wrong reasons. Got drunk, blasted his dog and wife, then started taking pot shots at two walkers strolling past. Fortunately missed them, but they called us. The first uniformed officer on the scene was also fired at. Abel missed him, too, then ran inside and as best we can tell he’s barricaded himself inside. He’s smashed a window and fires at anything that moves.’

  Henry listened to this. ‘Wife’s body?’

  ‘Outside the front door, next to the dog. He won’t let us recover her, or it.’

  ‘He’s speaking to people, then?’

  ‘Shouting at them. Won’t answer the house phone or his mobile. He had a bit of dialogue with the local bobby, who knows him because he’s locked him up a time or two for drunkenness,’ Rankin explained.

  Henry took this in as he glanced at the pigs in their pens.

  ‘So Abel’s a bit of a hothead?’

  ‘Yes – he’s not a nice man.’

  ‘Yet he still owns a shotgun? I’m assuming it’s licensed.’

  ‘It is,’ the inspector confirmed. ‘It’s hard to prevent a farmer getting a firearm – vermin, you know?’

  Henry nodded. Despite all the hoops, acquiring a shotgun was still quite easy. ‘Anyone else in the house?’

  ‘We don’t think so, but we can’t be certain.’

  ‘And a negotiator is on the way?’

  ‘ETA half an hour,’ the inspector said, ‘last I heard.’ He touched his PR. ‘Doesn’t help that radio reception’s crap this side of the valley – varies from rubbish to useless. Same with the mobiles.’

  ‘Well,’ Henry said, ‘anything can happen in the next half hour. Let’s just hope it doesn’t.’

  The traffic department had managed to illuminate the front of Kirkman’s farmhouse with a mobile rig and generator, positioning the powerful light just out of range of his shotgun, although he had loosed off a few ineffective rounds at it. The farmhouse itself was in darkness, all the interior lights off. From a position behind a low stone wall about forty metres from the house, Henry could just about make out the double barrels of Kirkman’s shotgun poking out through the broken window pane just to the left side of the very sturdy looking front door.

  Henry was crouching next to the local bobby, Roy Philips, who had a loudhailer in his hand. Inspector Rankin was squatting behind them and two very drenched firearms officers were huddled by a barn wall with two other uniformed cops. Two more unarmed officers were covering the rear of the farmhouse from a safe vantage point.

  Peering over the low wall, Henry could see the body of Kirkman’s wife, sprawled in death about ten feet from the front door. The dog lay beside her. In the progressive darkness as the afternoon drew in, and despite the mobile lighting, Henry could not make out any of the features of either body.

  He ducked back down.

  ‘It’s about fifteen minutes since he last spoke to me,’ Roy Philips said, tipping his flat cap back at an angle, causing a rush of rainwater to run off it. Henry knew Philips had been a beat bobby in Whitworth for many years. He was a bit of a legend, sometimes a loose cannon, but completely dedicated to his work and the community, most of whom he knew by their first names.

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘“Fuck off.” I quote.’

  Amongst Philips’s traits was a healthy disrespect for high-ranking officers. Henry liked that.

  ‘You have any idea what all this is about?’

  Philips shook his head. ‘I’ve been to quite a few domestics here recently, but it’s always been quiet on arrival, though he can be a handful. His wife is – was – a lot younger than him, maybe twenty years. Rumours circulating the village …’ he concluded mysteriously, referring to Whitworth as a village.

  ‘Infidelity?’

  ‘Either that, or she’s out shagging some other blokes,’ Philips said straight-faced. ‘Maybe he’d reached the end of his tether.’

  Henry grinned and shuffled around on his haunches, feeling his knees straining. He asked Rankin, ‘How well equipped are we for a forced entry if needs be?’

  ‘We’re not,’ he answered truthfully. He indicated the sodden firearms officers. ‘These are the only two authorized firearms officers on duty in the division until eight tonight; after then it’s a possibility. The rest are unarmed. We’ve got that traffic cop back down the lane, and the local DC has been, gone and is coming back. The DI is on his way; he’s been at crown court today.’ Rankin looked up and got a face full of rain.

  ‘I know,’ Henry said, seeing Rankin’s expression of hopelessness. Having a ton of staff on duty was a thing of the past, but it was something that everyone had to deal with and it looked as if Henry’s desire for an early resolution was going to bite the dust. He was already thinking that the best way forward was to keep Kirkman holed up, try to establish a meaningful dialogue and wear the bastard down, probably until morning when, if all else failed, he might be able to muster enough troops to storm the house. But he did need a few more cops on the ground now, just for safety reasons. He didn’t want any more unnecessary bloodshed, which was always a possibility when there were not enough cops around.

  He turned back to PC Philips. ‘Not that I can do any better than you, Roy, but let’s see if Abel will talk to me.’

  Philips handed the megaphone over with a smirk.

  Although he kn
ew he was reasonably safe at this distance, Henry still rose cautiously from the cover of the wall, holding the speaker in his left hand and bringing it up to his mouth. After a screech of ear-splitting feedback, Henry called, ‘Abel Kirkman, I’m Detective Superintendent Christie. I’m the police officer in charge now and I wonder if we could—’

  Henry did not get a chance to explain what he was wondering; he saw the barrels of the shotgun come up, aiming at him. He saw Abel’s hand on the barrel and a flash of his face in the darkened room beyond. Then there was the simultaneous blast and flash of the shotgun and its recoil as Abel yanked back the triggers and fired at him.

  Even as he saw the shotgun come up, Henry had started to drop instinctively, leaving the loudhailer on top of the wall. He heard a shot from the cartridge clatter into it like ball bearings in a bagatelle.

  ‘Fuck – I thought we were out of range,’ he growled at Rankin, who gave a worried shrug as he removed his hands from his head.

  ‘Me too.’

  The firearms officers had drawn their handguns and taken up firing positions at the corner of the barn, one above the other, aiming at the farmhouse.

  ‘Put your guns away,’ Henry ordered them. He reached for the loudhailer, drew it down off the wall and inspected it inside the cone. It was splattered by buckshot and looked as if it had chicken pox. He blasphemed and felt himself quiver inside. It might not have done much damage, might not have killed, but it would have hurt.

  ‘Maybe he’s changed his load,’ Rankin suggested. ‘More powerful.’

  ‘Whatever,’ Henry said through tight lips.

  ‘Sorry, boss,’ Rankin said sheepishly.

  Henry nodded acceptance of the apology. He tapped the loudhailer and blew into it. Incredibly it was still functioning. He angled the speaker on the top edge of the wall and spoke to Kirkman again without revealing any portion of himself as a target. ‘Abel? Detective Superintendent Christie again. That was a very dangerous thing to do—’