by Nick Oldham
He opened his eyes and found himself looking up the barrels of two Glock pistols held and aimed by two armed police officers in dark blue overalls, ballistic vests and goggles.
‘Jeez, what the—?’ he said and one of the officers dragged the quilt off, exposing his body, naked but for a pair of boxers and an electronic tag on his ankle.
‘You get out of bed very, very slowly and do everything I tell you without fucking about,’ one of the officers instructed him forcefully. ‘You get out, you get down on your hands and knees, then down on your stomach and spread your arms and legs – understand?’
‘What the hell are you on about?’
The AFO pushed the Glock right up into his face. ‘Do it now! Say nothing, just … do … it.’
‘What’s this about?’ he demanded, almost laughing. ‘You are such idiots.’
Rik loomed into his vision behind the AFOs. ‘Are you Charlie Wilder?’
‘Might be.’
‘Are you Charlie Wilder?’ he demanded.
‘Yeah, you fucking know I am.’
‘You’re under arrest, suspicion of robbery and murder.’
He screwed up his face. Then lifted his leg and pointed at the tag. ‘In case you haven’t noticed, I’m tagged and curfewed for the next six months. I got out of prison this morning and other than getting my hair cut in Preston, then travelling back here, I’ve been here all freaking day, you chumps.’
‘We won’t tell you again, Charlie: get out of bed and get on the floor.’
The rain abated slightly and the sky brightened almost imperceptibly as dawn slowly encroached.
Flynn moved away from the police activity around the farm buildings and walked through the gates, crossed the track and leaned on the stile where he had found FB’s warrant card. It was now in an evidence bag, as were Henry’s warrant card found in the stable and the folded business card that Flynn had found at the top of the hill, overlooking the quarry.
Flynn’s ‘just do it’ instinct was to swing over the wall and go looking again, but he knew that could be reckless. He had been up there once and to do it again might be silly and construed as police obstruction. He knew he had to wait for the arrival of the Support Unit and they would carry out a properly planned search whereas he would just thrash about haphazardly.
‘Where are you, Henry?’ Flynn asked the wind. ‘What’s been going on here?’
Suddenly Flynn stood upright, peering into the gloom up the field, his senses sharp and alive.
He was certain he had heard something.
He was right.
A dark shape was pounding down the hillside.
Flynn tried to focus in.
The shape grew larger, more distinct. It was a man, and at the very last moment the whiteness of his desperate face appeared from the darkness.
Henry Christie.
SIXTEEN
The dawn did arrive. Slowly, unwillingly. The heavy rain abated as the skies lightened to dull grey from black, but the thick clouds remained stubbornly overhead, going nowhere, hanging there as ugly as the faces of gargoyles.
Shrouded by a heavy blanket, a towel wrapped around his neck, Henry Christie stood quietly amongst the group of onlookers consisting of the deputy chief constable, an assistant chief constable, other high-ranking officers and members of the ambulance and fire services, as well as Rik Dean, Jerry Tope and Flynn.
Henry’s facial shotgun wounds had been treated by a paramedic who had also checked all his other injuries and insisted that he should go to hospital. Henry scowled at the very notion and opted instead for four extra-strong ibuprofen tablets.
Sitting in A&E was the last place he wanted to be.
He stood in the group at the top of the hill on the lip of the quarry, looking down to the ledge that had saved him and FB from tumbling to their deaths a further fifty feet into the quarry itself.
As daylight came, the huge extent of the quarry was revealed to Henry’s eyes. It was a massive, sheer-sided bowl a mile and a half across and of varying depth. The quarry had been abandoned years before, the stone worked out, and would forever be a scar on the already harsh landscape of the moor. Fencing and some walls surrounded it, danger notices abounded, but all were in a bad state of repair, virtually useless.
‘You OK?’
It was Rik Dean asking Henry.
Henry grunted, not really having it in him to form a reply. He was wet, cold, dirty, close to complete exhaustion, but above and beyond all that, he kept going because he had left a badly injured man in the tunnel.
So, no, he wasn’t OK.
‘Silly question,’ Rik chided himself.
A few minutes earlier Henry, with the others, had watched members of the local mountain rescue team secure ladders and a pulley system to the quarry face and then go down and enter the tunnel from the ledge. They had worked quietly and professionally, just a group of volunteers, true heroes, skilled at rescuing others from hills, mountains, caves and potholes. Henry watched six of them enter the tunnel and disappear, sick to his stomach with an overpowering sense of dread because he truly believed this was not a rescue.
This was an operation to find and recover a body.
They had entered the hole with a folding stretcher amongst their equipment.
He felt Rik’s reassuring hand between his shoulder blades – a blokey form of comfort. This jarred him and he glanced at Rik, tried to raise a smile, but could not manage anything other than a scowl.
‘I’ve known him for over thirty years,’ Henry said, ‘and I left him behind.’
‘Henry, you couldn’t have carried him. You left to get help.’
A deep, juddering sigh made his chest vibrate.
‘He might be OK.’
‘If he is, then OK, and I’ll do a jig with the Bacup Coconutters.’ The words spoken were, on the face of it, light-hearted. In tone and meaning, however, they were filled with deep gravitas.
Henry took a sip of the sweet tea someone had given him in a polystyrene cup and closed his eyes as the hot liquid travelled down his throat and warmed his chest.
Rik’s mobile phone rang, now able to pick up a decent signal from the present location on the hilltop. He spoke a few words, then held out the phone to Henry. ‘It’s Alison.’
Henry blinked, swallowed, took the phone and detached himself from the group.
‘Babe,’ he said.
‘Henry, love.’ Her voice fractured.
He had to hold himself together as he said, ‘You OK?’
‘Course I am … it’s you … what’s really happening? Have you been hurt? I’ve been so worried and Rik is just useless.’
‘Sorry,’ he said inadequately. ‘I’m OK.’ He glanced up as a murmur flitted through the group of people assembled on the quarry lip. ‘It’s a long story.’
‘When will you be home?’
‘Soon as I can.’ The line became silent as the two of them struggled to find words to say. Then Henry said, ‘You’ll be there for me, won’t you?’ He raised his face skywards as tears cascaded down his face like the rain of the night.
‘Henry? Yes, of course I will. What do you mean? I love you. Just get home.’
‘Thank God,’ he gasped in relief. ‘I thought—’
‘But let me fucking tell you this, Henry Christie,’ she cut in furiously – and despite himself, he could not prevent a grin from coming to his face: here it comes, the lecture. ‘This kind of thing is not going to happen again.’
‘No, you’re right, it isn’t.’
He glanced over and saw that everyone had moved closer to the edge.
‘Love you,’ Alison said softly now.
‘I love you, too – but I need to go. Something’s happening.’
He ended the call, threaded his way through the little crowd and handed Rik the phone, then went to the front.
Two rescuers had emerged from the tunnel, discussing something urgently, transmitting on their walkie-talkies and speaking to two paramedics who had jus
t shimmied down the ladder to join them on the ledge. Then they turned back to the tunnel entrance.
Every organ in Henry’s body seemed to go on hold. He watched, zoning everything out, his face not betraying his inner terror.
Four rescuers manoeuvred their way out of the tunnel, the stretcher between them with a bulky body on it, covered and strapped to it.
Henry swallowed and threw down his tea.
‘It’s the chief,’ Rik said unnecessarily.
Course it’s the chief, Henry heard a voice in his head scream angrily. Course it’s the chief. How many other bodies are there in there?
But he remained silent, the blood pounding in his head.
The paramedics went to the stretcher as the rescuers placed it down. They leaned over the body, quickly checking for vital signs. It was something that did not take long, because there were none.
They stood up, looking up to the people on the quarry lip, and shook their heads.
Henry had just emerged from the shower in the male changing room at Rossendale Police Station, a newly acquired towel wrapped around his middle. He was looking hypercritically at his reflection in a full-length mirror on the wall, checking the injuries, dabbing his face with a blood-flecked paper towel. The paramedic had been right, he did need hospital treatment, but it could wait.
Rik Dean was bringing him up to date. ‘Forensics confirm it is possible that two people were shot dead in the stable.’
‘Two people were shot dead,’ Henry said, wincing as he touched an open wound. At a rough guess he would say he had half a dozen pellets and about the same number of windscreen crumbs embedded in the side of his face. ‘What about the hookers?’
‘They’re still with us in the waiting room. Looks like they’re from Brazil, Portuguese speaking; ended up in the UK under false pretences. Expected to be working as child-carers, ended up giving blow jobs instead. Working for a guy called Hassan. We have an address and we’re on to him.’
‘Good. What else?’ Henry asked.
‘Annabel Larch did have a miscarriage – down the toilet in the farm.’
Henry tutted sadly, recalling the blood in the toilet bowl. ‘What a shame.’
‘She’s going to have surgery and she’s not in a position to be interviewed, maybe won’t be for a few days yet.’ Rik was leaning on a row of lockers. ‘She was hysterical when I saw her.’
‘Wasn’t that happy when I saw her, either,’ Henry commented.
‘As regards the farm itself, baseball caps and surgical masks recovered from a cupboard. One of the masks has blood in it, like one of the wearers had a nose bleed or something.’
‘Or got smacked in the face?’ Henry suggested.
Rik frowned at that. ‘Mm, maybe. However, it looks like there’s a good link between the Wilders and the armed robbery/murder in Rochdale yesterday afternoon. GMP are making noises about interviews.’
‘They can wait.’
‘I told them to back off.’
Henry breathed out slow and long. ‘And the prison officer?’
‘Well, could be Charlie on a revenge spree. Still, early days re that.’
‘So,’ Henry turned to Rik, started counting on his finger and thumbs. ‘Charlie Wilder gets out of prison. He runs over and kills a prison officer who upset him. He later commits a nasty robbery in Rochdale. Then he finds out his girl has been cheating on him whilst he’s been banged up, gets cross – which he seems to do quite easily – and tries to kill the boyfriend, who is a member of his gang. The boyfriend escapes from police custody, then gets blasted for his trouble. I stumble in like a prick, taking the chief constable along with me. Charlie kills another gang member, Jake, who was about to do the right thing. Meanwhile he’s beaten up Annabel half to death, so badly she loses a baby. We just about escape but get lost in some friggin’ mine workings and the chief constable of Lancashire Constabulary is now dead.’
‘Fair summation,’ Rik said, stone-faced. ‘Objectively speaking.’
‘Charlie Wilder is a true psychopath,’ Henry said, vividly remembering watching him kicking the bodies into the back of the Land Rover. ‘But at least he’s in custody; the other brother, Luke, is still out there.’
‘Yes, though the question of the electronic tag needs to be addressed.’
‘They’ll have found a way to get it off and back on,’ Henry predicted. Then he paused and glanced down at his stomach and the tummy shelf just below his man-boobs. He looked at himself in the mirror again, not liking what he saw under the injuries.
‘You didn’t kill FB, Henry – we don’t even know how he died yet. Could be a heart attack.’
Henry blew a mini raspberry fart. ‘Yeah I did.’
‘Look, at the end of the day—’
Henry interrupted fiercely. ‘A phrase I detest, “at the end of the day”. What exactly does it mean?’
Rik rolled his eyes, then stepped up to Henry. ‘Let me lay this on the line, OK?’ He arched his eyebrows in an expression designed to brook no argument. ‘Robert Fanshaw-Bayley was the chief constable, right? But the key word in that is “constable”. He was, bottom line, a constable. High up the tree, admittedly, but still a constable, Henry. And you know what that means? It means he’s sworn to protect life and property, and that’s what he was doing. Just as you were, because even though you’re a detective superintendent, you are still a constable. And when you protect life and property, sometimes you put your own life on the line. It’s the nature of the game. Mostly you end up OK, sometimes you get a smacking, sometimes – rarely – you get killed.’
Henry listened to the lecture, unimpressed.
‘I robbed him of his right to die with dignity, surrounded by his family. He died in a flooded underground mineshaft, shot in the face, shot in the back. He died a shitty horrible death. That’s what I dragged him into. A gung-ho adventure that needn’t have happened.’
‘You were concerned about the safety of a member of the public, Annabel Larch. You were doing your job,’ Rik insisted.
Henry slumped heavily down on a bench and dropped his head into his hands, wanting to cry and bawl. Into his palms he said, ‘Who’s informing his wife?’
‘The dep.’
‘Right … it should be me.’ He withdrew his face from his hands, stretching and distorting his features. ‘His family need to know he died a hero’s death. I know it sounds corny, but they need to know that.’
‘Then you go and tell them.’
‘I will – but not yet.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I have a job to do. I’m going to put that evil bastard Charlie Wilder behind bars for the rest of his natural life.’
‘Henry, leave that to us, the team. You’re too deeply involved. You need to trust us to do that job.’
Henry shook his head as Rik pleaded. ‘I’ll do it by the book; no need to worry on that point.’
Rik’s phone rang. He answered, said, ‘OK’, then hung up. ‘Alison’s here with that change of clothing.’
Holding her felt good and right and he held tightly. For a long time. And she clung to him, tears streaming down her face, until eventually they separated. She blew her nose, then said, ‘Let me have a look at your face.’ She pushed him down on to the chair in the inspector’s office and tilted up his chin. He was a mass of cuts, bruises and swellings, lumps all over his head.
‘I look like the Elephant Man on a bad day,’ he said tastelessly.
Alison had been a nurse in the army and had treated many wounds like Henry’s, and many much, much worse ones. She had brought her own first-aid kit along and wasn’t afraid to look under the dressing and plasters the paramedics had put on to his wounds.
‘It’s a mess, but not serious, as such.’ Once before she had treated a shotgun wound to his shoulder following a blood-soaked confrontation in Kendleton when Henry had found himself in the middle of a violent stand-off between visiting gangsters at war in the village. ‘There will be scars and they won’t be pretty. Y
ou might need plastic surgery if you want to look as gorgeous as you did yesterday.’
‘Oh bollocks,’ he groaned. ‘Just what I need – a facelift.’ He then looked into Alison’s eyes and suddenly she was overwhelmingly more important to him than anything or anyone else in the world. She had come into his life soon after the death of Kate, his wife, and he knew he had found someone he wanted to spend the rest of his life with and when he died he knew he wanted her to be with him, holding his hand.
Today, that desire had become so much more vital.
He had ummed and aahed about asking her to marry him and had then done it, so they were officially engaged, with a ring and all that; then he had prevaricated about setting a date and about retiring from the police so he could live and work full time at the Tawny Owl. He knew that, practically, there was nothing stopping him making those moves. His house in Blackpool had been sold, the money banked; his two daughters had more or less flown the coop; all he needed to do was shake off the shackles of being a cop.
‘Look, when I’ve sorted this mess, I will retire and we can get married, both sooner rather than later.’
‘Henry, you don’t—’ she began, but he stopped her with a finger on her lips.
‘It’s what I want and what you want – I hope?’
‘You know it is.’ Her eyes glistened.
‘Then let’s do it.’
‘Seriously?’
He nodded. ‘I can be out of the job in a month; maybe we can pull a wedding together in three months? The only thing is, I just wonder if you’ll be able to tolerate me around you all the time. I’m pretty high maintenance. I need a lot of lurving.’
‘Don’t I know it.’ She gently cupped his face in her hands, careful not to press too hard on his injuries.
‘No more call-outs, no more not knowing where I am, because I’ll be right next to you, annoying you intensely.’
‘Yes please,’ she said.
‘And with continued irony, I need to get on with some things first.’
‘I know.’
Henry looked over to Steve Flynn who had been hovering close by, but out of earshot. ‘Get him to drive you home, will you?’