Seizure (16 page)

He started to turn away from Flynn with a look of contempt.

And Flynn's mask of red mist slotted down.

He swung round and drove his fist into the guy's stomach, but because of their relative positions, the blow landed at an angle and not as hard as Flynn would have liked. The man staggered back, but didn't double over. Flynn saw the mistake he'd made when the guy turned like a bear, roared and bore down on him, trying to grab his head in a lock.

Flynn ducked to one side and laid a punch into the side of his face – but again it didn't connect as he would have liked. The man's head went out of shape for an instant, but he recovered immediately, turned and launched himself at Flynn.

Bar stools crashed over. A roar went up from the other punters, some women screamed and the two men laid into each other, punching, tearing, biting.

Flynn pounded the guy, aware of the man's sweaty face, stinking breath and body smell.

They rolled over. Tables disintegrated, glasses smashed, people leapt out of their seats. Then they crashed out of the bar on to the beach where they came apart, faced each other and circled like wolves.

Flynn was glad to see his opponent was breathing heavily.

‘Now who's an old man?' he taunted.

‘C'mon, cunt.'

The man charged. Flynn sidestepped, turned low and swung a double-handed punch into his guts, getting the result he wanted this time. The man staggered down to his knees, all breath out of him, coughing up his guts into the sand as he dropped on to all fours.

Flynn knew he should have left it there and walked away. But the concoction of adrenaline, alcohol and mood was deadly. He wanted to finish it – wanted it badly – in the sense that he now wanted to really hurt the guy who had stepped into his space and who was now going to carry the brunt of his situation.

He lined himself up next to his spluttering adversary.

It was going to be one hell of a rib-kick – but it never landed as two of the guy's mates leapt on Flynn. One put an arm around his neck in a stranglehold and bent Flynn double, pounding his face with a fist as he dragged him to the sand. The other booted and kicked him as he went forward. Flynn realized he was into something that might not have a happy ending.

He writhed and twisted and used his elbows, but the new attacker had a solid hold of him and continued to punch his face with his free hand.

Then Flynn heard something like a roar and, despite his untenable position, he smiled.

Suddenly the second man no longer had an arm around his neck and the third man wasn't kicking any more.

Flynn hit the beach, scrambled back up to his feet and turned to see the two men laid out cold on their backs, while the rotund figure of Jose hopped painfully around in a circle as though he was doing a rain dance, cradling the knuckles of his right fist.

A semicircle of onlookers watched from a respectful distance, drinks in hand, enjoying the entertainment.

‘Jesus, man,' Jose said, ‘I think I dislodged my knuckles.'

Flynn said, ‘Thanks,
amigo
.'

The man who had borne the brunt of Jose's huge fists stirred in the sand, while the third one pulled himself upright on to his knees. Flynn's original attacker sat up on the sand and was sick.

‘Never call me old,' Flynn warned him.

‘Sorry . . .'

‘Look, look!' Jose grabbed Flynn's arm and yanked him bodily to look across the harbour at the flames rising into the night sky from one of the boats moored in the vicinity of
Lady Faye
.

‘C'mon.' Flynn started to run. Jose rumbled behind him. Even from that distance, Flynn knew this was going to be disastrous.

‘Who the hell was I kidding?' Henry admonished himself in his office, speaking the words aloud, though there was no one else to hear them.

It was gone nine and he had only intended to drop into the office and get a quick situation report on all the things he was dealing with. That had been hours before. Then one thing led to another, one call to the next, and the time whizzed by unnoticed until he received an irritable call on his mobile from Kate, Mrs Henry Christie twice over. That had stunned him and made him realize he should call it a day.

His mobile rang again.

‘Henry, it's me, Naomi.'

‘Oh hi, how's it going?'

‘Good. Look, I've been going through Deakin's statement and seeing where it fits in the overall picture . . . I just wondered . . . I know it's late and all . . . and I'm assuming you're still at work . . . and my place is more or less on your way home. Any chance of you popping in for a few minutes? See what you think?'

Henry lived on the outskirts of Blackpool. Naomi lived somewhere in Kirkham, a small town between Preston and Blackpool, definitely more or less on his way home.

On his way out of the office, he checked his ruffled appearance in the long mirror on the back of the door.

If he had been completely honest with himself, he would have seen a tired, grizzled, middle-aged man who tried to keep fit but was always two steps behind the journey his body was taking. His clothing was rumpled after having spent too long in it. His five o'clock shadow was four hours older than it should have been and his face looked like a prison blanket.

All that, however, didn't stop him giving himself a double raise of the eyebrows, then flattening them down with a damp thumb – they were getting a little overgrown – and giving himself a double-click from the corner of his mouth.

‘Hot man,' he hissed, and touched his thigh with a sizzling fingertip. ‘Burning man.'

By the time they reached
Lady Faye
she was well alight, the fire inside her having spread and grown like a raging monster.

It was too late to save her.

Flynn and Jose, along with a number of others, raced around the quayside, but the heat of the flames cowed them as they neared the boat and there was no way they could get within fifty feet. They were forced to simply stand and watch, shielding their brows with their forearms, seeing the flames rise high into the sky, feeling incredible heat rolling across the quay.

Flynn was mesmerized and appalled. He watched open-mouthed, the heat drying out his mouth. Then he realized what could happen and turned desperately to Jose.

‘The gas bottles,' he shouted.

Jose's face froze in shock.

Behind them a crowd, mainly tourists, gathered, gawping at the unexpected spectacle. In the distance was the sound of sirens.

Flynn turned. ‘Back, everyone get back,' he screamed, gesturing with his hands as though herding cattle. ‘There's gas bottles on board, they could blow. Get back,' he shouted into the lit-up faces that reminded him of Bonfire Night.

The fire was relentless.

‘Go – people – get away,' Jose said, attempting to get people to move. ‘Very dangerous.'

‘Come on, folks – move!' Flynn shouted again.

Behind him there was a huge crackling noise from the boat. He turned, and gutted, he saw the flying bridge, engulfed by flame, begin to waver, then suddenly collapse like blocks in a game of Jenga. Then he saw that the fire had leapt over to the boat moored alongside
Faye
, another sportfisher.

‘Shit, where the hell's the Bombas?'

He saw blue lights coming down the Doreste y Molina. Maybe a quarter of a mile away.

But they were too late for
Faye
. There was one loud
pop
– the first of the three gas bottles. Then, in quick succession, the others went –
pop-pop
– and
Faye
erupted.

The explosion was immense and intense. A huge boom followed by a whoosh of burning air that flattened all the onlookers like a bowling ball smashing down ten pins. About thirty people, Flynn and Jose included, were mown down with unbelievable force. Some hit the ground hard, others were swept off their feet and deposited like animals in a twister. And among all that blast was the debris of the boat and chunks of the adjoining boats.

Flynn felt everything leave him, as though he'd been inserted into a crushing straitjacket pulled tight by racing cars going in opposite directions. Every ounce of breath was forced from his lungs and his whole body was lifted as though by magic. For a moment he hung in mid-air, then the propulsion of the explosion pounded into him and he was flung across the quayside and slammed into something, he didn't know what. And then even more was squeezed out of him as he smacked hard on to the concrete floor and lay there blinking up at the mushroom cloud from the explosion.

For a few moments he was disorientated, had no idea where or who he was, what had happened, what he was or whether he was even alive. He closed his eyes.

For certain, he knew he was dead.

‘
Amigo
,
amigo
.' Jose roughly shook the prostrate, splayed-out figure of Steve Flynn. With a great rush, air shot down into Flynn's empty lungs. He gasped and gulped as consciousness returned. He opened his eyes and saw Jose over him. The Spaniard's head looked as though it had been sliced off. Flynn then realized that Jose's scalp had been ripped from his head and was now flapping by a thread over his left ear, exposing the top of his skull.

Jose slumped down next to Flynn and groaned as he touched the top of his head. ‘What the hell has happened to me?'

Flynn's senses flooded back, even though he felt like a train had hit him. He gradually propped himself up, trying to make sense of his surroundings.

It all came back as he saw a scene of devastation.

Bodies were scattered along the quayside. Some did not move. Others did. The fire service, cops and ambulance had arrived. Dozens of people were racing to the scene.

He looked at Jose. ‘Jesus, you're a mess.'

‘Oh, mama,' Jose uttered, then his eyeballs rolled back in their sockets like a doll and he slumped across Flynn's legs. Flynn looked at the huge flap of hairy skin hanging loose as though a knife had scalped him. Flynn had no idea how it might have happened. Many objects had scythed through the air with the explosion and Flynn realized that both he and Jose were lucky to still be breathing. Whatever had hit Jose, had it been an inch lower, would have sliced his head off like a spoon removing the top of a boiled egg at breakfast. Any lower than that and he could have been decapitated. Flynn could easily have been lifting a severed head.

Flynn leaned forward and touched Jose's neck. There was a good strong pulse and his breathing was steady. It would take more than a fine haircut to kill him off. He eased the big man's shoulders off his legs, pulled himself out from under the dead weight and gently lay him on the quayside, arranging him in the recovery position. Then he stood up slowly, teetering unsurely until the balance came back.

He wiped his nose and mouth with the back of his hand, seeing a swatch of blood there, but not knowing if it was an injury from the explosion or the fight beforehand. He was pretty sure he had escaped anything serious himself, though.

He took in the scene. Devastation. Bloodshed. Possible death. Some people lay in positions on the quayside that looked as though they could only be dead. Others stood screaming. Some stood mute and traumatized, their minds completely baffled by incomprehension. Smoke drifted lazily between the figures as the emergency services started to take control. Cops were on the scene. Paramedics. Blue lights, red lights, sirens.

Flynn staggered a little then moved to the edge of the quay, looking at the place where
Lady Faye
had been moored.

Other than some floating debris and fuel on the surface, still aflame, she had gone. The boats either side of her had been extensively damaged too, and they burned.

A wave of nausea coursed through Flynn. He stepped backwards before gripping his head between his hands and sinking to his knees, realizing that something else had now been taken from him.

‘Bastards,' he said.

‘I've completely reworked the summary to include Deakin's statement . . . what d'you think?' Naomi Dale handed Henry four sides of close-typed A4 paper. He was impressed by the amount of work she had done over the past few hours since they had left prison. She had obviously been pounding away at the laptop.

Henry's mouth twitched down at the corners as he nodded appreciatively and his experienced eyes scanned the hastily rejigged summary that would be the basis of the Crown's case against Johnny Cain. It would, with the verbal embellishment of the prosecuting barrister, basically be the opening speech of the trial. Henry, who had only recently boned up on the case, found it a well-written document, telling a vivid tale of underworld murder, double-cross and intrigue, written in subtly emotive language designed to get under the skin of each jury member. He had written many such summaries himself and appreciated Naomi's turn of phrase. He assimilated the words quickly, smirking at one or two points.

‘Looks good,' he commented, his eyes rising from the text above the top edge of the sheets.

Naomi watched him expectantly, apparently relieved at Henry's reaction. They were in the front room of her spacious terraced house in Kirkham. The furniture was soft leather, a shade of grey. She sat on a large armchair, Henry was tucked into one corner of the settee. She had changed out of her work clothes into a white blouse, three-quarter length cargo pants and flip-flops. Her hair had been liberated into a well-cut bob that framed her features. All traces of make-up had been scrubbed away and her complexion was fresh and fine.

In her right hand was a glass of red wine, the bottle on the coffee table. Henry had declined a drink.

‘Yeah, excellent,' he confirmed, laying the sheets on his lap. ‘The cops can prove Cain knew Swann, but Deakin's testimony really nails the connection. It reads well.'

‘Thanks.'

She held his gaze for a couple of seconds longer than necessary. There was a familiar stirring somewhere in the pit of Henry's stomach. It wasn't many moons ago when Henry might possibly have been forward enough to say, ‘You and I both know I haven't been invited around here to check your summary, don't we?' And sooner rather than later he would have been taking Naomi on a roller-coaster ride to heaven and back. But that was the old Henry with a devil on each shoulder, one trying to outdo the other. Now he was a reformed character, recently remarried and dedicated to the cause. But then he had a thought: maybe he
had
been invited round here just to read the summary.