Seizure (22 page)

Cromer angled his face with suspicion. ‘What do you think, T-Bear?'

The bigger of the two men shrugged noncommittally. ‘Makes no odds.'

‘Where's the drink?'

‘Underneath the back bench seat.' Flynn jerked a thumb. ‘In a cool-box.'

Cromer nodded, still wary.

‘What? You think I'm going to come after you with a monkey wrench?'

Jackman guffawed.

‘Get it, be quick about it,' Cromer gestured impatiently. ‘I'm too fucking soft.'

‘I need the key for the padlock.'

Cromer fished out the key ring on which the ignition key, plus one other, hung. He tossed them at Flynn.

Flynn gave a short nod of thanks, walked to the Nissan. His captors stood a few paces back, watching him carefully, their guns at the ready. He swung up into the back and bent over to unlock and unlatch one of the bench seats, which he opened on its hinges. There was indeed a cool-box under the seat. Flynn pulled the lid off and looked inside. Swimming in tepid, melted ice-water were four cans of Coke. He took one and flipped up the ring pull, downing half the can in one. The liquid was warm but refreshing. The cans had been there since his last safari about a month ago.

‘Either of you guys want one? Thirsty work, this.' He placed his can on the cab roof.

Jackman, who'd done most of the work, looked hot and bothered, a good bet he could do with some liquid down him – but it was Cromer that Flynn wanted to say yes.

‘You?' Flynn nodded directly at him.

‘Yeah, go on,' he said reluctantly. Flynn reached into the cooler and got out a second can of Coke. He lobbed it underarm at Cromer who had to take his eyes off Flynn and stretch to catch it, but it fell just short of him.

‘Sorry, mate.'

‘Arsehole,' Cromer said.

Flynn bent and dropped his hand as if he was going for a can for Jackman. He saw Cromer stoop to pick up his can, taking his eye off Flynn again. Jackman had put his pistol down by his side and his left hand was held out lazily for the can Flynn was reaching for.

Flynn had to move fast.

His fingers closed around the stock of the Bushmaster rifle. He'd found he could not bring himself to dispose of the weapon, but didn't know what to do with it. So while he'd been thinking about the best way of getting rid of it, he'd secreted it badly under a bench seat in the Nissan, shut away and secured by a crappy padlock from a suitcase.

But it was no easy weapon to use in a fast-flowing situation like this, where speed was of the essence. This was a rifle that required time to aim, get your breathing right, not like a Heckler & Koch MP5 machine pistol, which would have been the ideal weapon to spray the two bastards with bullets.

Beggars could not be choosers, though.

With his right hand, Flynn reached into the cooler for the Coke, tossing it hard in Jackman's direction as he rose.

At the same time he picked up the Bushmaster with the other hand, pulled it into his hip and aimed at Cromer, who was just coming upright with his Coke in his hand. He saw Flynn and the rifle and he opened his mouth to shout a warning.

Another factor playing against Flynn was that only two rounds remained in the Bushmaster from the shark shoot-out. He needed to be incredibly fast, accurate and deadly. Even then his mind told him he had made an irreversible decision. Pulling the gun had opened a door. Before that, there'd been a slim chance of him coming out of this alive, even though a parallel thought told him it was unlikely. Now it could only go one of two ways: he'd end up dead, or they would.

He knew there was one in the breech and one in the magazine. He flipped the safety off with his thumb and his forefinger curled onto the trigger. Cromer's face was a mask of horror, coupled with anger, as he threw down the Coke and brought up his gun.

But Flynn had spent seven years in the Marines practising almost daily with weapons like the Bushmaster. Even though that was over twenty years ago, it had been drilled into him. What he was doing was second nature, even if it was buried deep within.

He pulled the trigger immediately. He saw the round enter Cromer's upper left chest, then exit via his shoulder blade. Flynn did not look to consider what he'd done. It was enough to put the man down – that was the important bit. Now he wound around and aimed at Jackman, who had caught his can of Coke at his chest. Flynn gave him no chance, fired, and the second and final round drilled into Jackman, going through the back of his hand, through the can of Coke and into the centre of his chest, exiting by way of the spine. He was propelled backwards, then fell. Instinctively Flynn knew he was a dead man.

He breathed out, dropped the Bushmaster and vaulted over the side of the Nissan to inspect Cromer, suspecting he could still be alive. He was, but would not be for much longer. Flynn stood over him. Cromer's mouth popped open, bubbles of bright red blood forming on his lips, then bursting with a fine red spray as he coughed. His eyes were opaque, unfocused. He swallowed, coughed once more and a gush of blood rushed out of the chest wound.

‘No one,' he whispered hoarsely, ‘no one has ever . . .' He did not manage to complete the sentence.

TWELVE

T
he next few weeks were a fraught time for Henry, personally and professionally. The double murder inquiry into the deaths of the two armed robbers got nowhere fast. The two prime suspects, Cromer and Jackman, seemed to have leapt off the face of the earth (something Henry was not too far off the mark in thinking, although he didn't know it), even with the snippet from Jerry Tope's old mate, Steve Flynn, who in turn did not seem to want to be contacted. Henry concentrated the murder squad on backtracking the original robbery, the one during which the security guard had been shot in the face, murdered, he suspected, by either Last or Sumner and their gang. Henry was convinced there were definite links between the two cases, not least of which was the bridging presence of Barry Baron, defence solicitor. Henry had actually tried to get authorization to stick a bug in Baron's home and car, but his request had been turned down by the chief constable, who accused him of clutching at straws.

Both investigations had lost momentum and Henry was starting to feel the pressure from above. He desperately needed something to break, but it seemed that the jobs had gone on too long for that to happen. But he kept his teams at it, pushing, knocking on doors, asking questions, getting into people's faces.

The mysterious shooting of Rik Dean was also something he was getting nowhere with, despite a big investigation and lots of media coverage.

There were times when he sat in his office, feeling tightness in his chest and blood pounding through his veins as the stress of it all got to him. He even bought himself a home blood pressure monitor just to keep a check on things. It didn't reassure him when one reading was 172/105, though mostly they hovered around the 125/85 mark, which he thought reasonable for a guy of his age.

At least one of his problems dropped off the radar: his mother. She had made a slow recovery from the heart attack and became well enough to be discharged from hospital. Now she was back in her flat at the sheltered accommodation she called home. Henry had tried to persuade her to move into a home with better caring facilities, but the old lady refused point blank. It had taken him long enough to get her out of the big rambling house she'd shared with his father into the sheltered accommodation in the first place. Now she was settled and Henry could tell from the steel-like glint in her misty eyes that the lady wasn't for moving again. Any further upheaval would probably be detrimental to her shaky health, so it was an issue he didn't force. She had age, status and resolution on her side, and he was just her son. So he let it be. At least she seemed sprightlier than she had been in a while. He did not want to jeopardize that.

Unfortunately another problem that refused to go away, which in fact seemed to get bigger, was that of his sister, Lisa.

Once their mother had been sent home, Henry expected – nay, rejoiced – at the thought that his fickle sister would do the same and he could wave bye-bye with a great big sigh of relief. It didn't happen.

Instead she seemed to claim his daughter Leanne's bedroom as her own, spent a lot of time nursing Mum, letting Henry know how much she was doing for their beloved and only parent. It made Henry sick to the stomach. And as a sideline Lisa was also nursing the recovering stallion that was Rik Dean, DI of this parish. He was convalescing nicely from being shot by the mystery gunman.

One Friday, Henry had come home after a heavy day to find that Lisa had invited a very mobile and obviously rampant Rik to the house, and that they were up in Leanne's bedroom screwing the living daylights out of each other.

Kate was sitting ashen-faced in the living room, hands clasped between her knees, wondering what to do.

Henry erupted in rage, but Kate held him back from chasing Rik from the house with a pitchfork and kicking his wound. He bided his time over a glass of cheap whisky. When Rik left, after popping his head around the living-room door and giving a cheery wave, Henry confronted the two of them as they embraced and kissed in the entrance hall.

‘Rik, get out of this house,' he said evenly with a very clear undertone.

‘Henry – how dare you?' Lisa admonished him.

He leaned into her. ‘It's not a question of daring. This is my house and I lay down the rules of behaviour. And I'm not having you two fucking in my daughter's bedroom, or anywhere else come to that.'

‘Henry,' Rik warned.

Henry's face turned to his friend's. ‘You have something to say?'

They maintained eye contact for a few moments, then Rik backed down. To Lisa he said, ‘I'll see you tomorrow.' His look at Henry should have, by rights, sliced Henry's head off. A surge of something told Henry that things between him and Rik would never be the same again. One of those moments between friends when a woman comes along and screws everything up.

Rik opened the front door and walked down to his car, Henry hot on his heels.

‘Don't get involved with her,' Henry said.

Rik turned fiercely. ‘Who the hell are you to tell me that? We're consenting adults . . .'

‘Well go and consent in a Travelodge or your place – not mine.'

‘And we're in love.'

Henry paused, blinked and retorted, ‘All right, Rik – I'll tell you this once and once only: she falls in love with every guy that half-smiles at her. She fucks every guy she can. She's fickle and will let you down. She has a history of bad relationships. She's on antidepressants. She's got a teenage son she hasn't seen for years and fuck knows what's going on in her head at this moment in time, why she's really come up north and what she's left in her wake. She's certainly not up here for Mother. She's got bad debts coming out of her ears. I wouldn't be surprised if the guy with the gun was coming after her.'

‘You finished?'

Breathless, Henry nodded.

‘Most of what you said there could apply to you, mate,' Rik sneered. ‘So – two peas out of the same pod. Think about it.' Rik hobbled, dropped into his car and drove off, leaving Henry dumbstruck and hurt. Particularly as he reflected on the fact that in so many ways his description of Lisa could well have applied to him to a lesser degree – although without the financial problems.

He turned to see Lisa at the front door. She gave him one of her killing looks, then flounced into the house.

Kate appeared at the door. She and Henry shrugged helplessly at each other, shaking their heads sadly.

Felix Deakin was not required to attend Preston Crown Court until the first day of the third week of Johnny Cain's murder trial. Not unusually for such a complex and serious case, the trial had commenced with numerous legal submissions and arguments, criss-crossing from prosecution to defence and back rather like a slow tennis game. There were also arguments about the make-up of the jury, which took several days to resolve, Cain's defence team being as legally obstructive as they could be. After many days of wrangling, the trial proper commenced on the Tuesday of the second week when the first terrified witness took the stand to testify. Deakin was to be produced on the Monday after that.

That day was an early start for Henry, the Monday after the Friday bust-up with Rik Dean. He was up at five and at police headquarters by a quarter to six, exhausted after a weekend of family fallouts and work callouts.

He parked in the deserted car park behind the FMIT block and walked over to the training block that housed the Motor Driving School, the department that provided the expert drivers for Deakin's security escort. Officers from the firearms training unit would accompany them, including Bill Robbins, and motorcyclists from the road policing unit.

They were being briefed in one of the first floor classrooms in that block. As Henry pushed the door open just before six, the aroma of toast and coffee in his nostrils made him achingly hungry.

The officers sat around chatting, yawning and consuming food. Bill Robbins was at the front of the classroom setting up a laptop connected to a ceiling-mounted data projector.

‘Morning, Bill.'

‘Boss. Brew and toast over there if you need it.'

Henry collected a couple of slices of thick buttered toast and a mug of steaming coffee from the grizzled MDS inspector, who seemed to have taken on the role of chef at the four-slice toaster and kettle. He and Henry exchanged pleasantries, then Henry took a seat in the horseshoe-shaped arrangement of chairs as other bodies arrived, got their rations, sat and waited.

This was obviously Bill's show and he briefed them well, being cool, relaxed and quite funny. Henry thought it ironic that a PC should be doing this. In his earlier days in the job, everything had been done by rank. PCs were the lowest of the low and given little credibility. In the last ten to fifteen years things had changed for the better, Henry thought. Officers' skills and abilities were used to their full potential now, regardless of rank.