A Time For Justice

by Nick Oldham

Hinksman threw himself to one side at the first sight of the gun, but Dakin froze momentarily. A moment too long.

  August fired.

  Dakin was propelled back against the cabin; he slithered down onto his knees, facing August, clutching his right shoulder which spurted blood. Once again the gun in August’s hand cracked - smack! - the sound almost deadened by the heavy rain. A bullet burned its way through the air to Dakin’s chest, burying itself deep in his heart, tearing it to shreds.

  This all happened in a matter of seconds.

  Henry and Donaldson ran across the grassed area between themselves and the lock, unable to see exactly what had transpired because of the boat obstructing their line of sight.

  They bounded over the footbridge spanning the lower gate of the lock and onto the opposite side where they were confronted by the scene.

  August was standing there with the revolver hanging loosely in his right hand by his thigh.

  Dakin’s body was sprawled out on the deck, blood and rainwater mixing. He was twitching.

  Dakin’s two men were crouched down behind the wheelhouse, both quivering wrecks.

  Henry and Donaldson came to a halt.

  A couple of steps behind August was Lisa Want, drenched, a camera in her hand but not being used.

  Henry was confused, to say the least. He couldn’t work any of this out at all.

  August turned and looked at him, a distant faraway deadness in his eyes. His face was streaming wet, his hair plastered down on his forehead. He had no particular expression on his countenance as he levelled the revolver slowly at Henry.

  Henry went low, bringing his own gun up, prepared to fire to defend himself. But it was not necessary. He watched in fascination as August, in what seemed like slow motion, drew the tip of the revolver into his own mouth cavity and pulled the trigger.

  It was almost like his hat had been blown off in the wind - but it wasn’t a hat - it was the top of his head.

  For several seconds the newly dead man remained standing. Then his body realised it was no more and collapsed.

  Lisa Want screamed hysterically and began frenziedly trying to wipe August’s brains off her chest.

  Henry frantically looked round. ‘Hinksman!’ Where the hell is he?’ he screamed.

  As soon as the gun appeared in August’s hand, Hinksman followed the survival instincts which had kept him alive for so long. He immediately threw himself down to the deck, scrambling wildly away as Dakin was hurled back against the cabin. By the time August fired the second shot, Hinksman had vaulted over the side rail of the boat and was running for his van.

  Hinksman had started the engine before Henry and Donaldson had even got as far as the lock. He accelerated away from the lock, away from trouble. Desperate to clear the windscreen as his vision through the glass was a complete blur, he fumbled for the wipers switch, momentarily confusing it first with the headlights switch, then with the indication controls.

  ‘Fuck!’ he cursed angrily.

  ‘Ram that van! Stop him! It’s Target Two!’ Henry shouted hysterically down his radio, hoping that the transmission was being picked up and understood by the firearms team personnel carrier which was hurtling down the road towards the dock.

  What Henry was advocating was completely against force policy. However, in those split seconds, he reasoned that it didn’t matter too much because there wasn’t a Chief Constable to enforce it.

  ‘Ram the bastard off the road,’ he screamed again.

  He was chasing after the vehicle on foot.

  The Sergeant who was sitting in the front passenger seat of the personnel carrier exchanged a brief glance with the driver, who was a PC. He said, ‘Do as you’re told.’

  The Constable didn’t need telling twice.

  He almost stood on the accelerator pedal and the 3.5 litre engine seemed to growl as it surged forwards.

  At last Hinksman found the stalk for the windscreen wipers.

  The blades cleared the screen with their first sweep ... and Hinksman’s eyes widened as the huge blue personnel carrier bearing down on him filled his total vision.

  He wrenched the steering wheel down to the left, but there was no way he could avoid a collision. The bastard was aiming straight for him.

  Henry knew not to underestimate Hinksman, but he thought that it would have been impossible for even the American to get out of the van alive. The front end of it had clipped the front fender of the personnel carrier and the van had been flipped over onto its roof. Its momentum had then carried it on over the kerb where it had smashed into the ladies’ entrance to a block of roadside toilets.

  It was a complete mess. The roof had been crushed and the front end stove into the toilets and the windscreen shattered. Looked like a good fatal RT A.

  Henry stopped running. He holstered his gun. He walked cautiously towards the van, past the firearms personnel carrier which had skidded to a halt by the side of the road, virtually undamaged.

  ‘Anyone hurt?’ Henry called out.

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Good.’

  Then he couldn’t believe his eyes when Hinksman, apparently uninjured, crawled out through the space where the windscreen had once been, and sprinted away.

  Henry was only feet behind. He was almost near enough to lay a hand on Hinksman’s shoulder.

  They ran behind a pub. Hinksman leapt over a low fence, closely followed by Henry.

  ‘I’ve got you, I’ve got you,’ Henry said to the beat of his running pace.

  Suddenly they found themselves on the edge of the outer dock wall. On their right was a fifteen-foot drop into the fast-ebbing, brown-coloured, swirling water of the River Lune.

  Henry was gaining on Hinksman all the time. He was feeling confident. Hinksman, in turn, seemed to be slowing down; perhaps he was injured, after all.

  Then without warning, Hinksman stopped, spun round on the spot with the agility of a soccer centre forward. The move caught Henry completely by surprise and before he could stop himself he ran right into Hinksman’s arms.

  Hinksman brought a knee up into Henry’s testicles and rammed them home. Pain seared through his groin and he doubled up, letting go of the American. Hinksman then punched Henry in the back of his head and Henry dropped to the ground.

  Hinksman turned and was about to run, but Henry was not having that. Despite the pain he reached out and grabbed an ankle with both hands, catching Hinksman off-balance, bringing him crashing face-down to the ground. Henry fell on top of him, trying to pin him there for as long as possible. Surely assistance could only be moments away?

  But Hinksman was strong, agile and dangerous.

  He elbowed Henry in the ribs, causing him to release his grip, and both men rolled towards the edge of the dock, clutching at each other.

  In a flash of speed Hinksman was on top and Henry’s head was dangling over the edge.

  ‘Hold it,’ came a voice. Assistance, Henry thought with relief.

  Hinksman glanced up. Then he looked down at Henry, smiled and said, ‘Let’s go together.’ With one final surge he took both of them off the edge of the dock into the river below.

  They separated as soon as they hit the water, pulled apart with such incredible icy force that they were powerless to resist.

  Henry struck out ferociously with his arms and legs in a desperate panic to remain on the surface. It was a futile attempt. He was drawn under with terrifying ease and he knew he was going to die. He clamped his mouth shut in an attempt to keep his lungs clear of water. He found it impossible. The dirty river water cascaded down his nostrils instead, making his mouth open in a gasp, then swallowing what seemed like the equivalent of a bucketful of gritty water into his stomach and lungs. It felt as if it was filling his head too. His body was twisted and turned, stretched, slewed and squashed, thrown around like a piece of clothing in a spin drier.

  All in blackness. Everything freezing cold.

  He knew he would be dead very soon. If not from straightforward drown
ing, then from the numbing cold of the river. It was pointless to make any effort. He might as well give up. To struggle would achieve nothing.

  Suddenly he was spat up to the surface.

  Air shot down his gullet - sweet, sweet air. His eyes opened. He saw that he was in mid-channel, surging with the tide towards Morecambe Bay and the open sea beyond. He could see the open dock-gates of Glasson about 150 metres away. Several figures were looking out at him.

  He tried to shout but his voice was lost in the heavy wind and rain. A vortex twisted him round 180 degrees. Now he was looking at the opposite bank of the river, about 120 metres off.

  A second later the invisible hands of a current dragged him under again.

  This pull was long and strong and he couldn’t fight it. He never expected to come up from it. He seemed to be under for ever, yet only seconds later he was on the surface again, looking towards the riverbank which appeared much nearer, about 50 metres away.

  The water covered him again, this time with less force.

  Even so, he was cold, weak and helpless.

  Yet he began to fight it. Because he had something to fight for – to find Kate. He couldn’t leave the world not knowing. This time he rose to the surface from his own inner strength and there was no panic in his struggle. A rush of power coursed through him like an elemental driving force. He fixed a point on the bank and began to use long, strong, methodical strokes, and utilising the general direction of the flow, struck out towards the bank which was now even closer.

  The mud of the riverbank was deep, brown, sticky and smelly. But to an almost completely exhausted Henry Christie it was as glorious, beautiful and welcome as a tropical beach. One last push and he was out of the water.

  He was alive.

  Coughing and retching, he crawled out of the river on all fours. He rose slowly to his feet and stumbled a few steps before weakness felled him face-down into the mud again. He was completely covered in it now, brown from head to toe like a wallowing hippo. But he didn’t care. He was out of the water, alive, and more or less kicking.

  With a great effort he rolled onto his back, too weak to move any further, lying there, gasping for breath, feeling the rain splatting onto his face. He began to shiver, but he’d already decided that, despite the risk of hypothermia, he was going to lie there until he was rescued. He closed his eyes and began to cough.

  There was a clicking noise near his face.

  Henry looked up into the muzzle of a revolver pointed between his eyes.

  Donaldson was holding the binoculars so tightly to his eyes that they were beginning to hurt the sockets. There was a leak in them too, which didn’t make it any easier, and the lenses were steaming up.

  ‘Fuck this rain,’ he blasted. ‘Can’t see a damn thing properly.’

  He could make out the two figures on the opposite bank about a mile away, one standing above the other. But that was all. They were just stick men on a drawing. He knew one was Henry, knew one was Hinksman, but couldn’t tell which was which.

  He swore again and looked round as a rifle marksman trotted up beside him.

  Henry let his head drop back into the mud with a ‘plop’.

  ‘Christ,’ he gasped, ‘I hoped you’d drowned.’

  ‘Take more than a trickle of water to get rid of me,’ said Hinksman.

  He was also covered in mud, was panting heavily, and coughing up mud and water.

  Though very tired too, the one big advantage he had was that he was holding a gun and pointing it at Henry. The gun was coated in thick mud too, but Henry had no illusions about this. He knew it would probably still fire and wasn’t about to take any stupid risks on the off-chance.

  Hinksman wiped the gritty mud from his eyes and mouth. ‘Well, last time we were together like this, the roles were reversed. So, Henry, how does it feel to have a gun pointed at you?’

  ‘I love it.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ll bet you do, asshole,’ sneered Hinksman.

  ‘So what are you going to do? Kill me, like you killed all the other innocents?’

  Hinksman shrugged. ‘Innocent bystanders get killed occasionally. That’s just the way it is, Henry. But I haven’t got time to get into that debate now. So, Henry, here we are - just you and me. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? Just us two, alone. I’d better watch myself ... you’re a pretty dangerous guy. We got lots in common, you an’ me.’

  ‘Oh, I doubt it,’ said Henry. He started to sit up.

  Hinksman took a step backwards. His foot sank in the mud and he nearly overbalanced. ‘Don’t you fucking try anything, or I’ll just kill you now!’ he warned.

  ‘All I’m doing is sitting up, OK?’ Henry said. ‘Y’know, I really do think you’re afraid of me.’

  ‘In your dreams, chum. You couldn’t scare a kid shitless.’

  Henry looked across the river to Glasson Dock. He could see the tiny figures on the dock wall. Help seemed a long way away.

  ‘They can’t do nothing for you, Henry. It’s just you and me – and our common interests.’

  ‘We’ve nothing in common,’ Henry stated. He drew his knees up and folded his arms around them. He was really shaking now, both with cold and fear. His voice had begun chattering as he spoke.

  Henry felt his gun hanging in the holster under his left armpit. For the first time he realised it was still there and Hinksman obviously didn’t know about it.

  ‘Oh, but we do. For example, we’ve both fucked the same woman. Kate. Lovely lady. Lovely, lovely lady.’

  Henry’s chill disappeared, to be replaced by a burning heat throughout his lower abdomen. The look in his eyes changed from fear to anger, then to danger.

  ‘She’s putting on a bit of weight around the thighs and midriff. But she’s a nice, really nice woman. At least she was until she met me, then she became debauched, a real animal. Do you know, I couldn’t believe you’d never had anal sex before. That really surprised me in this day and age.’

  ‘You bastard,’ Henry hissed. Very deliberately he laid the palm of his left hand over his right bicep and jacked up his right fist.

  ‘I know, I admit it. I’ve done a lot of very bad things to her, Henry. Very bad indeed ... but your colleagues in that big blue van have done something even worse, by ramming me off the road.’

  ‘How do you fathom that?’

  ‘They killed her,’ he said with a fake note of surprise in his tone.

  ‘You see, she was in the back of the van. You mean you didn’t know? Trussed up like a chicken, naked as a jaybird an’ all that, but definitely alive - until they forced me off the road, that is. I gotta quick glance at her before I climbed out. Real mess. Head all smashed in. She looked pretty dead to me, pretty fuckin’ dead. And your pals did it. Not me, not me, Henry.’

  ‘You liar.’

  ‘Now why in hell would I lie at a time like this?’

  Henry thought numbly, And I told them to ram him off the road.

  Shoot the one who’s standing up,’ Donaldson said to the marksman. ‘That’s Hinksman, I’m sure of it. One hundred per cent.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I know. Trust me. Shoot him.’

  ‘No, I can’t,’ stuttered the marksman, cracking under the pressure of a real-life situation. ‘It wouldn’t be reasonable force. I’d have to justify it in court.’

  ‘So? Fuck me! He’s pointing a gun at your colleague. Last time he did that he pulled the trigger and killed the poor son of a bitch. Now shoot him before he does it again.’

  ‘No, I won’t.’

  ‘What is it with you English cops, for Christ’s sake?’ Donaldson screamed through the torrential rain. ‘A pal of yours is being threatened by a maniac with a gun who’s killed before and you’re discussing what you might have to say in court. I don’t believe this! Just pull the fucking trigger.’

  ‘No, I can’t. I couldn’t guarantee a hit at this range and in these conditions anyway.’

  Donaldson looked down pityingly at t
he marksman and made a decision. ‘Sorry about this, pal,’ he sighed and looked at the point just behind the man’s right ear.

  ‘In fact, I’ve changed my mind, Henry. I’m going to let you live. Killing’s too good for you. If I kill you, you’ll only suffer for a few more seconds and I’d rather you suffered for the rest of your life, knowing that the police killed the one you loved - after I’d raped her, that is. So stay where you are, Henry, and don’t come after me otherwise I will shoot you.’

  He turned and began to walk across the mud towards the road. Henry felt for his gun under his anorak. As he drew it he rose to his feet. He pointed it at the back of Hinksman’s head, steadying it on the palm of his hand.

  ‘Stop there. You’re under arrest again. Drop your weapon - NOW!’ Hinksman froze. Then turned slowly around, gun in hand. When he was half-facing Henry, a smile broke out under the facial mudpack.

  ‘I should never have underestimated you,’ he admitted, shaking his head.

  ‘No, you shouldn’t. You should’ve killed me when you had the opportunity, because I wouldn’t have ever given up on you. I’d have chased you to the end of the earth, and we’d have ended up in this position again.’

  ‘I believe you, Henry.’

  ‘Now drop the gun and put your hands up. As you can see, my gun isn’t shaking this time, and if you give me any cause whatsoever, I’ll shoot you dead and feel good about it.’

  ‘Well, you’ve certainly got the drop on me this time.’ Hinksman’s gun came up quickly.

  Henry was hoping it would. He was ready, didn’t hesitate. He fired a double tap. Bam-bam!

  At the same time as his two bullets drilled into Hinksman’s neck and chest, the large-calibre bullet from the rifle entered his face just below his right eye, removing the whole of the back of his head.

  It seemed a long time before the crack of the shot caught up with the bullet from across the river.