Facing Justice

FOURTEEN

‘ Him there,’ Alison whispered. She had led Henry and Flynn through to the bar. She pointed out a big, unruly-looking man sitting in the far corner of the room at a brass-topped table, diagonally opposite where Henry was now standing by the side of the bar.

Henry looked at the guy, dressed in a heavy, mud-stained donkey jacket, jeans, steel-toecapped work boots with the caps exposed. He was a big, broad man, looked like he could be a handful, with thick, calloused hands and a brooding, menacing expression enhanced by heavy eyebrows. Henry put him mid-forties and in manual labour.

He had one big hand wrapped around a half-drunk pint of beer, next to which were a couple of empty whisky tumblers. He was hunched over the table, staring, deeply thoughtful — troubled, Henry surmised — into what remained of the beer.

‘What’s he done?’ Henry asked.

‘Nothing so far, but he’s obviously been drinking before he came in, and he was really nasty to Ginny, who was too scared to refuse him a drink.’

‘Then what?’

‘He went and sat at that table.’

Henry considered this, tried to assimilate what she’d just told him. A pissed-up guy comes into the pub, orders more drinks, is offhand with the staff, then goes and sits down with his drinks and, basically, does nothing.

‘I think I’m missing something here,’ Henry said. ‘I take it you want him ejecting, is that it?’

‘No… no… yes… but…’

‘But what?’

‘He’s got a gun.’

One of the things Henry had loved most about being a uniformed cop — back in the day — was dealing with pub brawls and incidents in licensed premises. Bread and butter stuff for uniforms, and Henry had been witness to, or involved in, many disturbances that wouldn’t have been out of place in Dodge City. He had also been called out to a few reports of people in pubs carrying weapons, firearms or knives. The customer who had tried to conceal something that someone else had spotted, such as this man.

These incidents were fraught with much more danger and unpredictability than good old-fashioned fisticuffs, with many awkward questions zooming through a cop’s head as the suspect was approached. Not least of which was, ‘Am I going to be the one the weapon gets used on?’

Henry said, ‘You sure?’

‘Yes, well, Ginny said she saw what looked like a double pipe thing inside his jacket.’

‘A sawn-off shotgun?’ Flynn said. He, too, had attended numerous pub fights when he’d been a uniformed constable on the beat, and had revelled in the excitement as well as the opportunity to land punches of his own in the melee.

‘We think so,’ Alison said.

Ginny was still at the bar, serving a new customer. The place was getting a little busier, a few more locals braving the weather to get stiff drinks inside them in the warm atmosphere. There was a pleasant buzz about the place, people coming together to face the adverse weather and all that. There was, however, a space around the sullen man, rather like a no-fly zone.

‘Is he local?’ Henry asked.

‘Yeah, Larry Callard. Local tough guy, or so he reckons. He’s one of Jack Vincent’s drivers. Was in here yesterday, pissed up.’

The mention of Vincent gave Henry a jolt and he flicked a glance at Flynn, who had listened to all this eagerly. Henry sensed he wanted to get involved. ‘Not your call, Steve, no need to pitch in.’

‘Not much chance of that,’ Flynn responded. ‘I’m here, mate.’

‘What do you think, then?’

Flynn pouted. ‘Play it cool, get a drink at the bar, gravitate to him, sit down, strike up a pleasant conversation. See where it leads.’

‘I thought you’d be for the more direct approach,’ Henry said cynically, but was secretly pleased that Flynn had volunteered to help.

‘Not when there’s a chance of getting my guts blasted.’

‘Ahh,’ Alison said knowingly. ‘You used to be a cop, too? That’s how you know each other. I wondered.’

‘Now you know,’ Flynn said.

‘Amazing.’ She shook her head.

‘OK, then, that’s what we’ll do,’ Henry said. ‘I don’t think the guy’s clocked us, so we’ll go to the front of the bar, you give us a coke each and we’ll take it from there, Alison.’

She went behind the bar whilst Henry and Flynn leaned on it, pouring them two colas from the soft drinks dispenser. They turned, elbows on the bar, and watched Callard.

‘Be careful,’ Alison said. Both men nodded.

‘If he’s right handed and he’s got a big pocket inside his jacket to hide the thing, then it’ll be on his left side. Not rocket science,’ Henry said. Flynn nodded. ‘So keep an eye on the right hand and let’s see how close we can get to him.’

They pushed themselves off the bar and weaved, pretending to chat, through the few customers towards Callard, who didn’t look up once. The brass-topped table next to him, and the two chairs with it, were unoccupied.

‘Mind if we sit here, pal?’ Henry asked.

Callard’s watery eyes angled up slightly, his face a deep-lined, vicious scowl. He said nothing, turned his eyes back to his drinks, his shoulders turned away from the two men. Henry saw a deep, recent cut on his head, still weeping blood and a bit of slime. Looked like he’d been hit hard or caught his head on a lorry door or something.

‘Obviously not,’ Henry muttered. The two of them manoeuvred around and seated themselves on the low stools. Henry was about four feet away from Callard, who was on his right-hand side. Flynn slid his chair around so he was sitting opposite Henry across the table. When they were settled, Henry said, ‘A hell of a night,’ directing his voice at Callard.

The man’s head stayed low, he did not acknowledge Henry.

‘I said-’

‘I heard you,’ Callard growled, jerking his head round and staring venomously at Henry. ‘Just piss off, OK?’

Henry nodded slightly and tried to give the impression he was offended by the reaction. ‘OK,’ he said, between unmoving lips. He glanced at Flynn.

‘So much for a nice conversation,’ the ex-cop commented. ‘I thought this was a welcoming village… no strangers here, just friends we haven’t met.’

‘Obviously doesn’t apply to all members of the indigenous population.’ Henry scanned the customers at the bar. Don Singleton and Dr Lott were still just about propping up the bar. Both gave him a knowing nod from their unsteady perches. The young woman who’d been in the bar when Henry first arrived was still in the same spot. Henry caught her eyeing him and Flynn and his brow creased. She was definitely out of place. Maybe she’d been stood up. But it was only a transitory thought because Henry’s problem was how to deal safely with a suspected armed man without getting anyone else — or worse, himself — injured. He sighed down his nose and spoke close to Flynn’s ear. ‘You get on his other side and grab his arm if necessary and I’ll speak into his…’ Henry was going to say ‘shell-like’, but the truth was that Callard’s ears were an amalgamation of cauliflower florets and walnuts. ‘Lug hole… see if we can charm him.’

Flynn nodded, took a few steps and quickly seated himself on a stool on the opposite side of Callard as Henry shuffled his own stool up to Callard’s left-hand side. He held out the palm of his left hand in the gap between Callard’s face and his drinks on the table. In the hand was Henry’s warrant card and county badge.

‘Detective Superintendent Christie,’ he said into Callard’s ugly ear. Callard’s face jolted around, his whole being tensed up instantly. ‘And that’s my colleague.’ Callard took a quick look at Flynn, then back at Henry, remaining hunched over his drinks. ‘Now then, Larry — it is Larry, isn’t it? I don’t want any aggro here, understand?’ Callard’s eyes widened at Henry’s use of his name. Henry decided to keep it more formal than chatty, so there would be no misunderstandings. ‘I have reason to believe you are carrying a shotgun under your coat, Larry, and what I want you to do is simple. Put your arms around your back and link hands, then let me and my colleague escort you out, each of us holding one of your arms, yeah? Then I’ll search you outside.’ Henry’s voice was soft, firm, yet audible.

Callard’s tongue stuck out between his lips. ‘Dunno what you’re talking about.’ He looked into Henry’s eyes with defiance. But from the expression in the eyes, Henry saw that the allegation was true. Callard did have a weapon on him, Henry would have placed a month’s wages on it.

‘If you’ve got it for a legal reason, then it’s not a problem — but we both know that guns and booze don’t mix, so let’s do this nice and slowly and compliantly.’ Henry arched his eyebrows. ‘Don’t even think about kicking off.’

Callard’s thick neck rose and fell as he swallowed, his eyes taking in Henry, then cautiously moving to Flynn. All three of them were big men. Flynn six-four, lean, muscular, with broad shoulders and strong legs from years of hauling in big fish for wimpy clients. Callard was smaller, stockier, but had the power that came from driving big wagons and helping to move heavy loads. Henry at six-two was the eldest of the three, but although he did not have the developed muscle of the other two, he was as fit as could be for a man in his early fifties. If they came to blows, it would be an interesting contest, Henry visualizing that tackling Callard would be like fighting an ogre.

Callard wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He sat slowly upright, still gripping his pint glass, weighing up the situation.

Henry’s heart rammed against his ribcage as adrenalin spurted into his system. He could taste it.

Gut feeling told him that this encounter was not going to turn out well. Sometimes you could just tell. There was something desperate about Callard, like a wild animal trapped.

Callard looked across the room.

The door to the steps leading up to the first floor accommodation opened and a man appeared, glancing around the room. Henry recognized him as one of the three who had arrived earlier with Jonny Cain. The henchman looked back up the stairs and made a thumbs-up gesture and a moment later, the man himself appeared, leather jacketed, looking cool. And it was this appearance that ignited Callard. Just for the briefest moment Henry and Flynn had lost their concentrated focus on Callard because of Jonny Cain, and Callard, despite the amount of alcohol in his system, acted with incredible speed.

His right hand, the one in which he was holding his pint, flicked upwards and sideways at Flynn, covering him with almost half a pint of bitter, then in the same movement he opened his fingers and let the glass go. It flew into Flynn’s face, bouncing off the side of his head, just above the right eyebrow. Callard had thrown it hard and although it did not shatter as it connected with Flynn’s face, the rim of the glass split Flynn’s skin like a knife, causing him to flinch backwards.

The glass crashed to pieces on the wooden floor of the bar.

Callard rose with a roar like Samson breaking off his shackles. The hand that had thrown the glass went inside his unfastened donkey jacket, reaching for the weapon he had concealed in the inner pocket. His fingers grabbed the butt and his forefinger slid into the trigger guard.

At the same time, he backhanded Henry with his left hand, a fierce, hard blow which, had it connected cleanly, would have easily pulped Henry’s nose. As it was, Henry was already reacting to Callard’s sudden surge. He saw the hand coming in a blur, ducked instinctively, but in so doing moved away from Callard and unbalanced himself temporarily.

With Flynn flinching in one direction and Henry the other, this opened up a route for Callard and gave him time and space, the extra microseconds he needed, to draw the weapon from beneath the jacket.

Henry was dimly aware of screams and shouts of warning coming from the other customers, but it was just white noise to him as, horrified, he saw the shotgun emerge. It was only inches from him. He could see every minute detail of it. The ends of the barrels that had been roughly sawn off, then filed down, the double-cocked hammers, the taped sawn-off butt, Callard’s calloused hands and the fat tip of his forefinger on the double triggers.

It was as though Henry had stuck his head in a tumble drier. A roaring, pounding noise in his cranium. Then nothing, just his reactions, him operating.

He swung back round, his right arm moving in an upward arc, knocking the shotgun upwards in the moment before Callard managed to yank back the triggers. He didn’t need to force them back as they had obviously been set to operate at the whisper of a touch. The weapon of a desperate criminal.

Callard blasted the ceiling, taking out a mini disco ball that hung as a kind of ornament. It exploded spectacularly like an expensive firework, the sound of the weapon deafening and terrifying.

Henry’s arm carried on in its upward trajectory, then he twisted his whole body, contorted as his forearm slid down the short barrel and he was able to grab both barrels with his hand and tear it from Callard’s grip. He threw the hot-barrelled gun across the room like it was a cobra.

Flynn had recovered. He pushed his body into Callard and his left hand went around his neck. He started to power the man down to his knees, scattering table, chairs and glasses as both men thumped to the floor. Callard hadn’t stopped fighting. He shouted and swore and attempted to free himself from Flynn’s ever-tightening grip.

Flynn held on. Callard managed to gut-punch him in the lower belly and the air shot out of Flynn.

Henry moved in to assist, grabbing the back of Callard’s donkey jacket, and forced him down until he was on all fours. Then, in a combined effort, he and Flynn completely flattened him. Flynn’s right knee dropped on to Callard’s spine right between the shoulder blades, pinning him to the bar room floor. Henry positioned himself on Callard’s legs, preventing any movement from them, and he dragged the man’s thick arms around his back, holding them together… at which point he would usually have applied handcuffs.

Callard continued to fight and squirm to try and break free, far from being subdued. Henry and Flynn caught their breath and looked at each other.

‘You’re the cop,’ Flynn said. ‘What’s the next move?’

‘Would this be of any help to you?’ Don Singleton was approaching them, reaching into his pocket and producing a tangle of plastic cable ties that he used for fastening around pipes, engine components, hedging, the type that ratcheted up tight.

‘Yeah, ta.’ Henry took one and looped it around Callard’s big wrists, pulling the free end tight as he dare without cutting into the skin, drawing the man’s hands together.

Flynn eased some of the pressure on Callard’s spine by taking some of the weight off his kneecap. He drew his palm across his face, wiping away the blood from the cut inflicted by the pint glass. It was a good inch long and would need medical attention. Flynn glanced at the blood, a sardonic twist on his lips, then wiped his hands on his jeans.

‘You OK?’ Henry asked.

‘Never better.’

Henry looked around the bar. Every face was aimed in his direction, expecting him to take the lead. One noticeable exception was that of Jonny Cain, who had done a smart U-turn back up the stairs.

‘What’re we — well, you actually — going to do with him?’ Flynn asked, smirking.

Henry barked a short laugh. ‘Good question.’ Hell of a good question, he thought. What the hell have I done to deserve this to happen to my day? A pleasant stroll across the moors that turned into an epic. A policewoman murdered. Trapped in a small village that should have been a peaceful place. Bumping into Steve Flynn… ugh! Now sitting astride the legs of a man who’d gone loopy in a bar — and, surely the glue that connected some of those strands together, Jonny Cain was in town.

‘Can’t let him go,’ Henry said. ‘Best option might be to get him out of here and take him up to the police station and tie him to a radiator, or something. You said the garage door was open?’

‘Yes, but…’

‘No buts. He’s under arrest for a very serious offence and I know it’s not ideal, but what’s the choice? Can’t just brush him down and let him go, because he might come back, or disappear, or whatever… I’ll start a handwritten custody record and keep him up there — somehow.’

‘Do you want to chuck him in the bucket?’ Singleton asked. He’d been listening in.

‘No, thanks for the offer, but we’ll take him up in the Shogun.’

Flynn nodded, eased a little more pressure off Callard’s back. Henry rolled forwards and spoke into Callard’s mashed ear. ‘Listen, Larry, we can do this easy or hard. Sounds corny, I know, but it’s how it is. You’re under arrest for attempted murder, plus loads of other things, so you’re going nowhere. If you want to make it hard, that’s your problem. I’ll gladly run your head into a brick wall, understand?’

‘Fuck you.’

‘I’ll take that as a yes. Now, me and my friend here’ — Henry cringed slightly at the use of the word ‘friend’ — ‘are going to help you to your feet. If you want to fight, that’s up to you.’

Henry and Flynn took an arm each and raised him slowly to his knees. It was no mean feat. The will to fight had evidently left Callard but he wasn’t exactly cooperating and they had to work hard, lifting an unresponsive dead weight, sullen drunk, unpleasant and still with the possibility of kicking off again if the chance arose. They heaved him to his feet and began to steer him towards the door.

As they passed the sawn-off shotgun, Henry scooped it up, gave Alison a nod, and also Donaldson, who had made his way through to the bar, annoyed at having missed a fracas. Henry told them, ‘We’ll take him up to the police house and decide what to do from there.’ The trio went out through the exit door next to the revolving one and virtually dragged Callard towards Cathy James’s Shogun, which Flynn had parked outside the pub.

Dispiritingly, the snow was still falling just as thickly and a gusting wind whipped it in flurries around them. They forced Callard into the back seat, then caught their collective breath.

‘How’s this going to pan out?’ Flynn asked. He wiped away more blood from the side of his face. It was streaming from the cut.

‘How should I know?’ Henry answered truthfully. ‘You need to get that seen to, though.’

‘I’ll be fine. I’ll try not to bleed on you.’

‘No — it needs sorting. There’s a doctor in there.’

Flynn shrugged. It was just a cut. He’d had worse injuries from fishing hooks and the fish themselves. But then Alison came out of the pub, hitching an outer coat on, a small zip-up bag in her hand.

‘I’ll come with you,’ she announced. She held up the bag. ‘First aid kit, and Dr Lott’s given me some butterfly strips, so I’ll fix you up,’ she said to Flynn. ‘The doctor’s too drunk to do anything. He’d probably stitch your eyelids up… I did used to be a nurse, in case you were wondering.’

‘Yeah, thanks,’ Flynn said gratefully. ‘It really needs sorting.’

Henry shook his head at Flynn’s sudden desire to seek medical attention.

‘I’ll follow in my car,’ she said and pointed to a Hyundai four-wheel drive. ‘I’ll bring that dog back up, too…’

‘What the fuckin’ hell you bastards doing?’ Callard demanded from his face-down position in the back seat.

Henry looked sadly at the Shogun, realizing that if the car did have any connection with Cathy’s murder, any evidence inside it was now completely screwed.

The police house was still in darkness, no sign of habitation. Flynn parked the Shogun in the snow-covered drive, wondering where the hell Tom James had disappeared to.

Henry was sitting alongside Callard in the back seat, having righted him for the journey. The shotgun had been placed in the front passenger footwell, out of reach. On the way Henry had made sure Callard understood exactly that he was under arrest and cautioned him, giving him the ‘full hit’, though the words did not seem to mean much to him at that stage. He hung his head miserably and avoided all communication. Henry had gone on to ask questions in a conversational way, but Callard stonewalled him, refused to speak and stared at his knees, his jaw rotating, his facial features angry and grim.

By the time they drew up to the house, Henry didn’t know anything more than what he had personally witnessed and been involved in: Callard pulling a shotgun from underneath his jacket and blasting it in the general direction of Jonny Cain, who had just appeared in the bar. That, again, was no coincidence, not one that Henry would ever believe. That Callard was just a madman with a festering grudge against society in general who’d decided to wreak havoc and death in the community in which he lived, a sort of Hungerford massacre… Was it simply fortunate that Henry and Flynn had been on hand to prevent it happening?

Henry doubted it. He was certain that if Ginny had not spotted him concealing a weapon, a bloodbath would have ensued, but only the eight pints in Jonny Cain would have been spilled.

Cain again, Henry thought. The catalyst, something it didn’t take a nuclear physicist to work out.

They heaved Callard out of the back seat and propelled him roughly up the drive. Whatever Callard’s motive had been, whoever his intended target had been, Henry still didn’t feel terribly warm and fuzzy towards him and he got a bit of pleasure from shoving him between the shoulder blades. Inside, he was still worked up about the incident and knew it would be quite hard to keep his hands off the prisoner, remain detached and professional. Hence the flat of the hand between the shoulder blades.

Flynn opened the up-and-over garage door, flicked on the light to illuminate the empty garage. Henry continued to shove the cable-tied Callard ahead of him.

Behind them, Alison had arrived. She followed them into the house, having brought Roger the dog back with her. Flynn led them through the connecting door into the kitchen, then into the hallway, switching on lights as he went. Roger wormed his way through, went into the living room and crashed out.

‘You think this’ll be all right?’ he asked Henry over his shoulder.

‘Using the house, you mean?’ Flynn nodded. ‘Well, it’s police owned and I can’t believe for one moment Tom would object, even in the present circumstances.’

‘Got some news for you,’ Flynn said. ‘Cathy and Tom bought the house from the county when they got spliced. It’s theirs, not the force’s.’

‘Bugger,’ Henry said. ‘Didn’t think of that. Why didn’t you-?’

‘Just remembered.’

‘Ah well, needs must, eh? Let’s suck it and see. The county must provide some of the costs for the office bit.’

As he said this, Flynn opened the office door. Henry pushed Callard through and forced him down on to the plastic chair on the public side of the desk. He sat awkwardly and complained, ‘These things are digging into my skin. You have to take them off. I know my rights.’

‘You pull out a gun, you ain’t got no rights,’ Flynn blurted angrily, the ball of his hand pressed on to the cut, trying to stem the bleeding.

Henry gave him a ‘shut it’ look and perched himself on the corner of the desk. Unfortunately the bastard did have rights and Henry would make sure he got them as best he could under the circumstances. However, taking off the makeshift handcuffs did not enter the equation.

‘I’ll sort out your rights as and when. At the moment you need to know you’re under arrest for many serious offences and you’re going nowhere, and you’re too drunk to have your rights given to you anyway.’

‘I am fuck!’

There was a radiator on the outside wall of the office, with short copper pipes coming out of the wall. Henry smiled. Just as he predicted, that was where the prisoner was going to be fastened. He pulled out the half-dozen or so cable ties that Don Singleton had given him as he’d left the pub with Callard.

‘My advice to you is get your head down,’ Henry told Callard, who was now attached to the radiator pipe via a series of looped cable ties, one around the pipe, another looped into that one and a final one around Callard’s right wrist. It was not ideal, but the ties were strong and could not be unfastened by hand, although if he kicked off again, he was probably capable of ripping the radiator off the wall. However, Callard was now sitting dumbly on the carpet, scowling at Henry, seemingly resigned to his fate.

‘Henry — can I have a word?’ Flynn said into his ear. He beckoned Henry into the office doorway, out of whispering earshot of Callard who watched them all the time, but then started to work himself into a prone position. Henry had provided him with a pillow and he grumbled as he adjusted himself and stretched out on the floor. ‘You need to question him, urgently,’ Flynn said.

Henry shook his head. ‘Nope. If he was locked up properly, we’d not be able to interview him even then, because he’s so pissed. As far as I can see, the moment of violence has passed, no one else is in danger, so I couldn’t even justify an urgent interview if he was in a police cell. You know all this.’

‘Because I was a cop?’

‘Exactly.’

‘But I was bent — apparently.’

‘Let’s not get into that.’

‘OK then, what about the shotgun? He’s got a shotgun, Cathy was murdered with a shotgun, by the looks. Uh?’

‘And we have the shotgun, we have Cathy’s body and we have someone to interview — when he sobers up and he’s in a real interview room with a real solicitor and all that garbage. For now, nothing.’

‘You’re just going to keep him here?’

‘It’s not ideal. I didn’t order the fucking weather.’

‘You need to speak to Jonny Cain,’ Flynn insisted.

Henry gave Flynn a withering look. ‘I know — but I’ve got a prisoner and I can’t leave him, unfortunately.’

‘I’ll look after him.’

Henry considered Flynn, his mind going back to his previous dealings with the man in whom Henry saw much of himself reflected. The desire to lock up high-class criminals, the way Flynn had approached his job when he’d been a cop. The big difference had been Flynn’s excessive use of violence and intimidation. Deep down, Henry knew Flynn was honest, but there was too much of a cloud over him, especially when a million pounds in cash of drug dealer’s money went missing on a botched-up raid. Henry hadn’t personally made Flynn’s life in the cops unbearable. The organization, together with Flynn’s paranoia, had done that.

‘We can get Jonny Cain here, if we-’

‘We?’ Henry butted in.

‘OK, you. Whatever. What’s he doing here? Why did this idiot try and shoot him, an idiot who incidentally drives for Jack Vincent? Y’know, what’s going on here? Two top crims in one location — why is that?’ Flynn said. ‘We might be trapped here by the weather, but so are they and it gives us — you — a chance to grab ’em by the balls. I was after Cain for years and I’d still like to get him nailed.’ Flynn was almost shaking as he spoke. ‘It’s not often you know where he is, for cryin’ out loud! You know something big’s happening here, don’t you?’

‘I’ll think about it.’ Henry’s lips pursed tightly, bringing the conversation to an end. ‘Anyway, how do you know Jack Vincent?’ he queried.

‘I used to be a drug squad detective,’ Flynn blustered. Truth was, he’d only just learned of Vincent’s existence following his phone call to Jerry Tope in the intelligence unit, but Henry didn’t need to know that. Flynn was happy to have him believe that he still had a finger on the pulse of the drug scene.

‘Hm,’ Henry said doubtfully. ‘I need to make some phone calls, bring the control room up to date and start the paperwork.’ The two men’s eyes clashed for a moment, then Henry went back into the office, started looking for some forms to fill in.

‘And what’s more — what happens when he wants a piss?’ Flynn asked.

Henry gave him a blank stare and Flynn shook his head with frustration.

Henry found an unused custody record in a drawer, sat down at the desk and started to complete the form. His mind wanted to shut down, really. He’d had food and a bath, but he was exhausted. He knew though that he couldn’t allow himself the pleasure of switching off. He also knew that the night was yet young.

Flynn sat on the edge of the bath, presenting his profile for Alison, who cleared away the blood from his cut, then dabbed the wound clean, applied antiseptic cream, which made him recoil slightly, and started to seal the cut with butterfly strips.

As she worked on him, their faces were only inches apart. Flynn could smell her perfume and it reminded him of a tragically lost love from his recent past. Exactly the same heady aroma worn by the woman he had loved, albeit briefly. He could not remember what it was called, though. He went slightly misty-eyed at the memory.

‘Are you OK?’ Alison asked, drawing back slightly, concern in her eyes.

He half smiled. ‘Yeah, fine… your perfume… I kinda know it.’

‘Just Chanel Number 5.’

‘Ah, yes.’

‘Sweet memories?’

‘Bittersweet.’

Alison smiled as she laid a butterfly strip across the cut, pulling the skin together in what seemed to Flynn a very intimate, caring act. ‘What happened?’ she asked quietly.

‘I screwed it up, drove her away,’ he said ruefully. ‘It was a while ago now.’

‘Was marriage in the air?’

‘I had been married once, screwed that up, too. Then this woman came along who I’d known for years and suddenly, click! In love.’ Alison applied another strip. ‘But as I say, I messed it up.’ He pouted. ‘What about you? You said you were a nurse.’

‘In the army. I was a soldier first, then trained as a nurse.’

‘Oh — I was a Marine as a kid.’

‘I’m impressed.’

‘And… go on,’ he encouraged her.

‘I met my husband in the army. It was a short marriage. He was killed in Afghanistan when his unit were trapped in a village and the population came out and beat them to death.’ She peeled another strip and placed it over the wound.

‘How long ago was that?’

‘Six years, give or take.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Shit happens.’

Flynn’s brow furrowed. ‘Is Ginny your daughter? I noticed a photo…’

‘She’s Robert’s daughter from his first marriage, Robert being my husband. We’re kind of inseparable and when I left the forces and came up here, she tagged along. She’s a good lass. There.’ The final strip was applied and smoothed down, fully closing the wound. ‘You still need to go to A amp;E. It’s a while since I patched anyone up.’

Flynn touched it gingerly. ‘Seems like a good job.’

Their faces were only inches apart.

Henry had completed the custody record. Separately he jotted down on a scrap of paper some notes which would form the basis of his arrest statement. When he’d done that, he phoned through to control room and spoke to the Force Incident Manager, brought him up to date. An incident log had been started from his previous call and Henry was keen to keep things updated, mainly to cover his own back.

During the course of the conversation with the FIM he was told that Rik Dean was trying to get a message through and could Henry call him back as soon as possible.

Henry gave Rik a call to his mobile, but it went straight through to voice mail. Henry left a short message, then sat back as a wave of exhaustion swept through him like the tidal bore on a river. He looked at Callard, attached by the plastic hoops to the central heating system. He had fallen asleep for a while, but had woken himself with a loud snore and was staring uncomprehendingly at Henry.

Don’t spew and don’t piss your pants, Henry thought, recalling the days when he’d been a custody officer, one of the toughest jobs in the police, and one of the most unpleasant. Henry had cleaned up a lot of shit in his time.

‘It’s not over,’ Callard growled thickly.

‘What’s not over?’

‘Tonight… more to come.’

‘Meaning?’

But Callard just closed his eyes and was instantly asleep again.

Fending off the urge to kick him repeatedly, Henry stood up slowly, his limbs and muscles screaming with annoyance. All they wanted to do was curl up and go beddy-byes, as did his brain. The phone rang. He grabbed it.

‘Superintendent Christie.’

‘Henry — what the hell’s going on?’ Rik Dean demanded to know. ‘I’ve been trying to contact you for hours.’

‘I’m trapped in the middle of nowhere with a dead cop, a nutter with a shotgun and a sus ex-cop, so I hope what you have to tell me is important, Rikky boy.’

‘Uh — dunno then.’

‘Spit.’

‘You know I went to speak to Calcutt after the trial?’

Henry screwed up his face, trying to recall. It seemed such a long time ago, but he remembered Calcutt, the professional killer, had asked to speak to Henry after the trial had ended. Henry, eager to get away, had delegated the job to Rik, then promptly forgotten about it. Calcutt, he reflected, suspected of being hired by none other than Jonny Cain to whack a rival. The only thing the trial had proved, and all that was needed, was that Calcutt had killed Deakin. The ‘why’ had never been established because Calcutt had admitted nothing. Henry tensed. ‘Yes.’

‘Well, big dos, little dos, I only actually got to see him on remand at Manchester prison today. He spoke — actually spoke! Said he knew he was screwed, was going down for life and wanted to unburden himself.’

‘Bollocks,’ Henry said in disbelief.

‘Exactly,’ Rik said. ‘And he told me nothing, except for one thing.’ Rik paused dramatically. ‘He said the world he operates in is very cloistered, y’know, Assassins Anon, and there are only a handful of people who do what he does and they sort of know each other-ish.’

‘The point, Rik.’

‘Told me that the person who hired him, the identity of whom we’ll never know, had hired someone else to do some more dirty work.’

Henry waited for the revelation. It never came. ‘And?’

‘That’s it. Reading between the lines, he’s telling us that Jonny Cain has hired a hit man to whack some other guy.’

Henry soaked this up. ‘Nothing else? Just teased us like that?’

‘Yes. Calcutt said that if he told us anything else, he would end up dead in prison.’

Henry thanked Rik and hung up slowly, churning this new information. He sighed deeply, knowing that, interesting as it was, it probably had no bearing on what had happened or what was happening in the village on this snowy evening. But it was interesting, needed to be borne in mind.

Callard was asleep, groaning, snoring obscenely. Henry went out of the office to find Flynn.

The cough snapped the moment between Flynn and Alison. They jumped back from each other to see Henry standing at the bathroom door, a scornful expression on his face.

‘When you’ve finished,’ he said, his voice brittle.

Alison ran her thumb across the butterfly strips on Flynn’s wound, then gathered the medical kit together, not looking at Henry.

Flynn grinned triumphantly.

‘Callard’s asleep,’ Henry said. ‘I will go and speak to Jonny Cain. Do you think you can look after him?’

‘Not my problem,’ Flynn teased him.

‘I know, but if you don’t do it, I’ll be stuck here watching him all night and I’ll miss the chance to collar one of the country’s biggest drug dealers.’ Alison spun to look at Henry, shock on her face at this revelation. ‘And you were so desperate to nail him way back when, so I don’t want to miss the chance, yeah? Even if he only gets roped into this as a witness, at least we’ll have some hold over him.’

‘I’ll do it.’

Alison stood up. ‘I’ll run you back down to the Owl,’ she said to Henry, who hid a smirk when he saw Flynn’s crestfallen face.