Nick Oldham - Critical Threat

He groaned as he massaged his eyes tenderly. His face throbbed like a jackhammer.

Kate squeezed his leg, looking worriedly at him. He had told her all the details of the day with the exception of his visit to Karl Donaldson’s torture chamber and she had listened with a growing horror and sympathy.

On his way home he had managed to call in at Blackpool Victoria Hospital’s A amp;E department where they had confirmed his cheekbone was fractured and that nothing could be done with it, other than to allow it to heal naturally. His hand wound had been clipped and bandaged. Everything else, bar the inner emotional turmoil, was superficial.

He was on his third JD on ice within an hour.

‘Henry?’ Kate said apprehensively.

He looked sideways at her through his good eye. He could tell she was actually asking how he was feeling. He patted her arm. ‘I’m OK,’ he lied easily, picking up the JD from the coffee table and taking a sip. ‘Honestly,’ he assured her. He snaked his arm around her slim shoulders and pulled her close.

‘Bed yet?’ she asked.

His eyes flickered to the mantelpiece clock. Just gone midnight. ‘Nah, couldn’t sleep even if I wanted to. You go if you want.’

‘I’ll stay up with you, love.’

Henry gave her a peck on the cheek, then finished his drink with one big swig. He held out his empty glass. ‘Smidgen more?’ he pleaded.

She gave him a mock-withering look and took the glass. Before going into the kitchen, she paused directly in front of him. ‘You can talk to me, you know?’

He nodded, aware he would never do so completely. It wasn’t in his nature. She raised her eyes and shook her head, accepting that to be the case, then went out. He leaned back into the big comfortable settee and closed his eyes. He was drained, yet his mind kept revolving, constantly reviewing the day and not enjoying the experience at all, not one second of it. The late arrival back into Preston. The realization that two cops had gone missing. The desperate fight in the hallway with Ali. Karl Donaldson arriving on the scene. The dead bodies. ‘Little Guantanamo Bay’, as he had named Donaldson’s industrial unit. Sabera’s parents. Najma and Iqbal and the race to uncover the plot to kill Rice. Suddenly his mind jumped ahead to his retirement day and he began loosely calculating how many working days he had left …

Kate reappeared and handed him the refreshed JD, which tinkled with ice.

‘Just a little one,’ she said, edging past him. She was about to sit down when the front doorbell rang. She shot him a puzzled look. ‘Who can that be?’

He shrugged noncommittally, not in the least surprised there was someone at his door at 12.10 a.m. Not today, anyway.

‘I’ll go.’ He placed the JD on the coffee table and Kate helped him creak to his feet.

FB and another man Henry did not immediately recognize stood there in the chill morning. The three men eyed each other, then FB banged his palms together and said, ‘Are you inviting us in? We need to talk.’

Henry stood aside to allow his late-night visitors into the living room. Kate hovered there nervously, her dressing gown wrapped tightly around her, looking suspiciously at the two interlopers, even though she knew FB.

‘Kate,’ FB said. ‘How are you?’

‘Fine thanks,’ she said stiffly.

Henry shuffled in behind them, slightly creased by a pain across his back which had come from nowhere.

There was an uncomfortable silence, broken by FB. ‘Like I said, Henry, we need to talk.’ He eyed Kate, hoping she took the hint.

‘We can go into the conservatory,’ Henry suggested.

‘No, no, you stay in here. It’ll be cold in there and I was about to go to bed anyway,’ Kate said. ‘But can I get you a drink first?’

FB had noticed the whisky glass. Hopefully, he said, ‘A little tot of something like that will do nicely.’

‘OK — and yourself?’ she asked the other visitor.

‘That would be lovely,’ he said.

Kate retreated to the kitchen and poured out two generous measures, with ice, of Sainsbury’s own brand cheapo whisky which she and Henry referred to as ‘firewater’. There was no way FB was getting any of the decent stuff. She came in and found the men seated, Henry in the centre of the settee, the other two in the armchairs either side. The TV was off. She handed them their drinks and said goodnight, catching Henry’s eye with a concerned expression as she went out.

FB sipped his whisky and winced slightly, waiting for Kate’s footsteps to reach the top of the stairs before opening his mouth.

‘Henry, this is …’ he began to introduce the man he had brought along.

‘We’ve met,’ Henry said, having now placed him. ‘Martin Beckham, Home Office?’

The man nodded. Henry had met him briefly on the morning he had been called into FB’s office following the dawn raid on the house in Accrington. Beckham had been the one at the conference table Henry had stereotyped as a pinstriped commuter. He had remained pretty silent throughout the debrief; yet Henry had also surmised that Beckham was probably the one running the show.

Henry sat back nursing his JD, waited.

FB coughed nervously and took another sip of his drink. ‘Firewater, this,’ he commented, holding up the glass and inspecting the pale, straw-coloured liquid. ‘First of all, both the Foreign Secretary and the American Secretary of State have been apprised of the situation and the events that took place today; they send you their heartfelt thanks for the job you did.’

‘Do I get a commendation?’

FB ignored the flippancy. ‘And from me, too. Well done, H, you did an excellent job. Bet you never thought you’d end up confronting a terrorist when you got out of bed this morning.’

‘And from me,’ Beckham said. ‘Very well done.’

‘OK, thanks … and?’ he enquired suspiciously. ‘It’s just that I can’t even begin to imagine you’ve come knocking on my door at this time of day to congratulate me … maybe it was something to do with the fact I was quickly surrounded by spooks and hustled off the job and told I wasn’t needed, keep gob shut and go and take some gardening leave … call me a cynic.’ His temper had started to flare.

FB acceded the points with a gracious tilt of the head. ‘Whatever … but we do mean what we said. You did a fantastic job today, it’s just that there’s some teeny-weeny details’ — he held his thumb and forefinger together to illustrate the point — ‘that we need to make clear to you.’

‘Just tell me,’ Henry said, his mouth turning down at the corners with distaste.

Beckham leaned forwards, elbows on knees, glass gripped between his palms. ‘Through no fault of yours, two officers who believed they were investigating a domestic murder, and then you yourself, stumbled into an Islamic terrorist plot. Those two officers paid with their lives and you almost paid with yours, and would have done if not for the intervention of a sharp-witted American agent who saved your life.’

‘Granted,’ Henry said.

‘Since we last saw you, as you can imagine there have been numerous meetings in order to decide the correct way ahead for all concerned, and this is how it will all play out.’

‘Why do I feel suddenly even more uncomfortable?’

Beckham went on, ‘As regards Mansur Rashid, he will be circulated as wanted for the murder of your two colleagues, and on suspicion of murdering his wife and that private investigator, Daley-’

FB cut in there. ‘We found Daley’s computer and mobile phone in the house in Balaclava Street and a firearm which is currently being examined, but could well be the one Daley was killed with. We’ve also started raiding his business premises and found credit-card cloning machines in them, so it looks like he’s been defrauding his customers to gather funds for AQ. Also in one of his garages there is evidence of combustion, which could be where he killed his wife. Forensics will tell in due course. You uncovered a very bad man, Henry.’