Instinct hc-17

by Nick Oldham

  ‘Thanks for saving my life — in so many ways,’ Boone said gratefully.

  ‘Could have gone either way,’ Flynn admitted, recalling the mad ambulance journey to Lancaster Royal Infirmary. It took ten minutes but felt like a lifetime.

  Flynn visited him often and saw a change in the man who had been so close to death. A heart attack can soften even the toughest men.

  ‘I know you’ll be on me like a hawk on a sparrow as soon as I’m fit to walk out of here,’ Boone had whispered hoarsely to Flynn during one of his visits. His throat was like sandpaper from the number of tubes that had been inserted and removed from it. ‘Anything I say after that will be on record and I’ll say what you expect me to say — fuck all.’ Flynn had grinned. ‘But I’ve had time to reflect, and when this is all over and I’ve paid my dues, I’m off out of here. Going to live in the sun. Get a new life. You did that for me — gave me that chance, and I thank you.’

  ‘Plans?’ Flynn had asked.

  ‘Big ones,’ Boone answered. ‘A life in the sun, sea fishing and maybe a few bits ’n’ bats if necessary. If you know what I mean.’

  Flynn knew. ‘Bits and bats’ meant things that were not above board, but what caught Flynn’s attention more than anything was the mention of sea fishing. He was well into the sport and when Boone revealed his plans to up sticks, head for the tropics, buy a boat, he was hooked and despite their positions on opposite sides of the legal fence, they became tentative friends.

  And Boone kept his word.

  At Crown Court he received a ten year prison sentence and was out in 2007. By using a stash of money the police had failed to find (and to be honest, Flynn hadn’t tried that hard to find it), he headed south never to be heard of again, paying for the Ba-Ba-Gee to be shipped down with him.

  Flynn got a phone call from him a couple of years later. Boone had heard about Flynn’s inauspicious departure from the police, suspected — but never proved — to have stolen a million pounds worth of drug money from Felix Deakin, another big time drug dealer, RIP. By that time, Flynn had also gone south, tail between his legs, skippering a sportfishing boat out of Puerto Rico on Gran Canaria. The men had met up a couple of times and Boone insisted on Flynn coming down to the Gambia, where he had relocated, to spend a few days tarpon fishing in the river estuary.

  Flynn had persuaded his boss, the actual owner of Faye2, to allow him to use the boat, take a holiday and visit Boone so he could check out the commercial viability of fishing in the Gambia.

  It had been utterly fantastic.

  He and Boone had spent the day of Flynn’s arrival fighting huge tarpon and Flynn could see the possibility of running some sort of operation down here, although the weather was always hot and sticky, more so than the Canaries.

  ‘Do you know how much this place cost?’ Boone said, handing Flynn another chilled beer. Flynn pouted and shook his head.

  ‘One.’

  ‘What? One thousand?’

  ‘No — one. One pound.’

  Flynn blinked. So the rumours had been true.

  ‘Yep — condition being that I took it away from the mooring in Glasson. Cost one hell of a lot to get it transported down here, and refurbished, but it’s bloody great. And the superstructure is still in fantastic condition, easily last another thirty years.’

  ‘Why though?’

  ‘Nostalgia. Used to get my fish ’n’ chips on it when I was a biker. Bikers used to congregate at weekends in Glasson and I loved it. Didn’t want to see it broken up, which is what would have happened.’

  ‘So how much did you have stashed?’ Flynn asked cheekily.

  Boone’s lips twitched a smirk. ‘I could ask you what you did with Felix Deakin’s million quid,’ he retorted playfully, but realized he’d touched a raw nerve when a cloud passed over Flynn’s face. The allegation was one that was destined to haunt him. Sometimes Flynn wished he’d been the one who had taken the damned money. It was his partner, Jack Hoyle, who had — whilst also having a torrid affair with Flynn’s wife behind his back.

  ‘Oops,’ Boone said.

  ‘No probs.’ Flynn coughed and shook it off. As a cop he’d been tough, often violent, but definitely honest. He forced a smile and took a long draft of the beer. ‘So… how do you keep the wolf from the door around here?’

  ‘Oh,’ Boone shrugged, ‘bits ’n’ bats, you know…’ At which point Michelle reappeared from below decks and cooed that dinner was ready, and that she needed a hand to carry the pots upstairs.

  The food was remarkably good. Flynn ate ravenously, drank the excellent wine and enjoyed the nice small talk, mostly about fishing and lifestyle. Boone seemed to have it good and was very content with his lot. He took a few tourists fishing on the coast and upriver. He also did a few other moneymaking tasks and, reading between the lines, Flynn reckoned that an old dog like Boone certainly hadn’t learned any new tricks. Flynn guessed he was still dabbling, just in a new environment. The Gambia, as he knew, was just one link in a worldwide drug and people smuggling chain and Boone was probably getting his cut, using his boat as a means of transport. But Flynn was past caring what others got up to. He wasn’t a cop any more and certainly felt no obligation to get involved in preventing or detecting crime. Those days were long gone.

  As the meal finished Boone’s mobile phone rang. He excused himself and wandered down to the front of the houseboat where a muttered conversation took place, leaving Michelle and Flynn at the table, sipping wine. She produced the chocolates Flynn had bought for her.

  ‘Do you have a wife?’ she asked him directly.

  ‘Er…’ He was slightly taken aback by the question out of the blue. ‘Did have… went very wrong.’

  ‘But you must have someone,’ she insisted politely. ‘A man like you.’

  ‘Did have. That went wrong, too.’

  At the far end of the boat, Boone said in a loud voice, ‘What, now?’ into his mobile. Flynn and Michelle glanced down at him, then looked at each other.

  ‘Is there someone — at all?’ she asked, still probing.

  His face screwed up. ‘Nah. I think I might be past settling down now anyway. Not many women would put up with me. Too selfish.’

  ‘It’s good to share your life with someone. I really love Boone. We’ll get married I expect and live on the Ba-Ba-Gee.’ She spoke with heart-warming simplicity.

  ‘I truly hope so,’ Flynn said. He didn’t wish to dash her hopes but he thought Boone had a wife back in the UK. He smiled warmly at Michelle and selected a Turkish delight from the chocolates.

  Boone returned, clearly agitated, phone conversation over. He shook the phone. ‘Pal, I’m really sorry about this. Bit of urgent business needing attention.’

  ‘Bits ’n’ bats?’ Flynn ventured.

  EIGHT

  At eleven p.m. that night, Henry Christie was in a bleak mood as he walked into his kitchen and went through each cupboard for the fourth time since arriving home. Once again, there was nothing in them, certainly nothing that appealed to him.

  He still hadn’t changed, was still wearing the same clothes he’d been in since two thirty that morning when he’d been turned out to the murder of Natalie Philips. Many, many hours ago. A day which had seen him freeze at the scene of that murder (like a ‘numb twat’, he kept castigating himself), then get his act together, only to find himself on a wind-battered motorway dealing with a serious incident that had no connection whatsoever with the earlier murder.

  He bent over to open the fridge door, then went light-headed as he stood upright again, stepping back a pace to keep his balance. He needed food. Behind the knife rack, the unofficial pending tray for letters delivered to his house, was also a menu for a local Chinese restaurant, one that he and Kate ordered takeouts from regularly. He hadn’t used it since she had died and unfolded it slowly whilst walking back into the lounge. He sat down and looked at the third-filled tumbler of Jack Daniel’s, still untouched, but tempting. He picked up the phone as he flicked throug
h the menu and settled on his old favourite. Nothing fancy, just a chicken curry. They both liked the same and would order two, one with boiled rice, the other with chips and a bag of prawn crackers. They’d split the rice and chips and scoff the lot in front of the TV.

  Henry looked around the lounge. It was deathly quiet. Leanne was out, so he was alone in the house. He could hear the wind outside. He looked through the menu again and decided to plump for something he’d never tried before, otherwise he’d just end up wallowing in the self-pity of what had once been. He placed the order by phone and was told it would be twenty minutes before it was ready. In that case, he thought, I’ll have a drive round in my new car.

  As he opened the front door, Leanne was coming up the driveway with her boyfriend. She halted abruptly, surprised by Henry’s appearance. She and the man were obviously sneaking up to the house.

  ‘Dad! I thought you’d be in bed.’

  ‘Well I’m not.’ Henry’s cold eyes turned to the man. ‘What’s he doing here?’

  ‘We… we… uh, made up,’ Leanne stuttered.

  ‘This man has caused you endless grief,’ he said, his eyes still locked on to his prey. ‘And if you think he’s coming under my roof, you’re one off.’ He now moved his gaze to his daughter. ‘Your relationships aren’t my business, but I know a shitbag when I see one.’

  ‘Oi,’ the young man said warningly.

  Henry’s head jerked back to him. ‘I’m not going to argue about it, but he isn’t coming in here — end of. I’m going for a takeout. I’ll be back very soon and he’d better not be here.’ Henry walked towards the pair, stopping shoulder to shoulder with the young man, who was fit and broad, but had no real scare factor about him. ‘And,’ Henry said, ‘no one “Oi’s” me at my house.’ He bustled past and got into his car, feeling a bit of a shitbag himself at his outburst. But also unrepentant. He didn’t like the guy and whilst Leanne was old enough to make her own mistakes, he still felt a certain parental responsibility towards her. It was odd, though, that she could not see what an out-and-out bastard the boyfriend was, yet he could. Why was life like that?

  He reversed the Mercedes off the driveway and burned a bit of rubber to emphasize his disapproval. As he hit the roads of Blackpool, he exhaled, took a mental chill-pill and concluded that a ten minute tootle up the prom might give him chance for reflection on what had been, in Henry’s own words, ‘One hell of a fucking day.’

  In complete contrast to the way in which his brain had imploded at the scene of Natalie Philips’s murder, Henry had remained clinical and professional on the motorway.

  From the moment the young man from the Ford Fiesta had raised his right hand with the detonator in it, shouted words to his God that were scooped away in the wind, Henry had gone into Superintendent mode, shouting instructions to the firearms officers — which, incidentally, had not been heard by anyone else.

  The AFO did everything that was expected of him in assessing the threat posed by the youth. That said, there was no time to shout a warning.

  And even though the officer was only armed with the Glock self-loading pistol, and the distance between him and his target was at least ten metres — which is a long way to shoot a pistol accurately, even on a blustery motorway — his shooting was superb.

  The two 9mm bullets he fired ripped the top portion from the lad’s skull and also destroyed his facial features.

  Henry, although pirouetting away defensively, was still looking at the youth. He saw the lad’s face disintegrate as the bullets passed through and completely stopped all bodily function — which was the intent. It had to be an instantly fatal shot, otherwise there might have been a chance for the boy to either deliberately press the plunger — one last act of hatred — or to do so because of a twitch of the thumb. The latter chance still existed but was lessened by the complete and utter destruction of the brain.

  It was technically brilliant shooting.

  The lad jolted backwards as though yanked by a cable and landed on the carriageway between the Fiesta and the traffic car. His fist opened with a spasm and the detonator lay across his palm, looking for all the world like a ballpoint pen.

  Then Henry took control — a calm, cool, efficient, effective presence. And he was pretty proud of himself.

  Lots of things had to be concurrently and consecutively considered. A series of parallel and intercrossing thoughts tumbled through his head, like a four-lane Scalextric track with side by side racing, crossovers, chicanes, bridges and no excuses for collisions.

  He had to secure and preserve the scene and save life. All traffic had to be stopped — properly this time, and from both directions. The motorway had to be closed immediately. The shooting officer had to be seated in his car, his gun seized. Extra resources had to be called in, such as more cops, the ambulance service, forensic and crime scene teams. Everyone had to be informed — but above all, Henry had to keep a firm grip, which he did, and focus on the task.

  On autopilot he drove to the Chinese takeaway, a journey he’d made a hundred times or more over the years, and picked up the trial new dish. Spicy Ku Bo King Prawn, with boiled rice and an appetizer of Salt and Chilli spare ribs. The place was also licensed, so he added three large bottles of chilled Chinese beer. The aroma of the food filled his car and he became ravenous.

  Then his mind wandered back to the day he’d just experienced.

  He had had spent six bone-chilling hours on the motorway and as the day dragged on, even though the weather was good, it got colder and colder. Even as he was dealing with the shooting, he was also thinking about Natalie Philips and feeling guilty because he’d become involved in something that wasn’t really his business. In the end, he realized he wouldn’t be able to get away from the motorway scene, so he sent Rik Dean back to Blackpool to carry on with the investigation.

  It was seven p.m. by the time that Henry made it to the public mortuary at Blackpool Victoria Hospital. He stood alongside a stainless steel slab, looking across the stripped body of Natalie Philips at the pathologist, who was ready to carry out a post-mortem that had already been delayed for four hours. She had been formally identified by her distraught mother some hours earlier, accompanied by Rik Dean and the Family Liaison Officer.

  In the reception area outside, preparations were also underway for the arrival of the Asian youth, whose body, with explosives strapped to it, had eventually been scooped off the motorway tarmac and was next in line for the pathologist’s scalpel. That was a post-mortem Henry would not be attending because that incident had been taken over by a detective chief superintendent, much to Henry’s relief. He’d done his job at the scene and that was plenty.

  Not long ago Henry would have fought hard for the opportunity to lead such a job but now, although he’d done well at the scene, it would have been too much for him. One murder at this delicate moment in his life was enough, thank you.

  Professor Baines looked at Henry over the top of his surgical mask, which moved comically when he talked.

  ‘Been a busy day,’ he said, voice muffled by the mask.

  ‘I assume you’re going to do the PM on the boy?’ Henry knew the question was superfluous because Baines had been out at the scene to carry out his preliminary tasks. His second killing of the day, too.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Best of luck.’

  Natalie’s post-mortem lasted three hours. Baines concluded that she had been sexually assaulted, beaten about the head, most likely with fists and a blunt instrument of sorts, and then strangled, probably with something like a scarf. The pattern of the indentations in the skin around her neck, he believed, could possibly be matched to the item if it was ever recovered. He took all necessary samples from her.

  Afterwards, Henry had a brief chat with Rik Dean to go over arrangements for the next day, then he’d gone home and started riffling unsuccessfully through his kitchen cupboards.

  And by 11.30 p.m., Chinese takeaway propped up carefully in the front passenger footwel
l, he was returning home, relishing a midnight feast, maybe with an old Clint Eastwood film for company.

  His phone rang. He answered without taking his hands from the steering wheel, still quite amazed by Bluetooth. ‘Henry Christie,’ he said, trying to sound brusque and businesslike. There was silence on the line. Henry repeated his name.

  ‘It’s me, Mark Carter,’ came the feeble sounding voice of the teenager who’d done a runner on Henry and Rik at the KFC. Mark had Henry’s mobile number from previous encounters, none of which had been pleasant.

  ‘Go on,’ Henry said coolly.

  ‘I’ve heard.’

  ‘Heard what?’

  ‘About Natalie.’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘I didn’t do it… kill her.’

  ‘Well, we need to talk about that, don’t we? Blackpool nick, nine tomorrow morning. Be there,’ Henry said.

  ‘What about now?’

  ‘You heard — and don’t make me come looking for you.’ Henry ended the call. Instantly another one came in. ‘Henry Christie.’

  Again, there was silence on the line. Henry wondered how Mark could have rung back so quickly. With irritation, he said, ‘Tomorrow morning, nine o’clock.’

  ‘Henry, it’s me.’

  The voice was female, slightly breathless, hesitant and sweet. Henry recognized it immediately and he swerved to the side of the road, heart pounding.

  ‘Alison?’ he said.

  ‘Oh God, I’m sorry… I’ll hang up… this is ridiculous.’

  ‘No! No, it’s fine.’

  ‘It’s just… I’ve been dialling your number, then hanging up, or just pressing delete… a million times… a billion.’

  Henry gasped. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Good. Question is, how are you? I was so sorry to hear about your wife. Kate?’

  ‘That’s OK. These things happen, but thanks.’

  ‘Such a tragedy.’

  A tear formed on the lip of Henry’s right eyelid. ‘Yes.’

  He had met Alison Marsh well over a year before when he had stumbled into her pub in the village of Kendleton in North Lancashire and found himself involved in some violent shenanigans with ruthless gangsters and corrupt cops. There had been an instant attraction, but at that time Henry had been happily married to a live and kicking Kate. Why would he have married her twice if he was going to be unfaithful, he’d thought. So he had kept Alison at arms’ length and following the events that took place in the village — during which Henry strongly suspected Alison may have killed a very bad man who was about to murder someone else — it was probably a wise thing to do. Part of him didn’t want to find the evidence that she’d pulled the trigger because it would have complicated an already confusing scenario. And she would have had to face a legal situation that she didn’t deserve. Fortunately there was another legitimate suspect who might have shot the man and the inquiry into the death veered away from Alison.