Nick Oldham - Critical Threat

As he rounded the corner of the block, he ran into Dave Anger emerging from the front door, pulling on his jacket. They almost collided face to face, but managed to stop a foot apart.

Henry’s heartbeat moved up a pace.

‘Henry,’ Anger said. At least the guy looked as rough as a dead badger, with dark circles under his eyes, his skin a deathly pallor, his lips drawn and scrawny.

‘Dave.’ Henry didn’t bother with a ‘sir’ or anything approaching respect. ‘I’ve just been to see the chief.’

‘I know — that’s where I’m going now.’

‘To discuss yours truly?’

‘Don’t think you’re that important, pal,’ he said. ‘Maybe we’ll get round to you if we need a laugh.’

‘Funny about those tapes going missing,’ Henry said.

Anger’s eyes narrowed behind his small round glasses. ‘Nothing to do with me,’ he said with a twitch of his shoulders which looked like someone had just walked over his grave.

‘Course not.’

‘Anyway — excuse me.’

‘Certainly.’

Anger grimaced a tight smile and eased past Henry on the narrow path.

‘By the way,’ Henry couldn’t resist calling. Anger’s shoulders drooped visibly. He turned, a hateful expression on his face.

‘What? You want to rub it in? How good she was?’

Henry crinkled his nose. ‘Nah … I don’t even remember it … is that worse?’ he asked, although he was fibbing. One could hardly forget having sex with a randy young policewoman on the bonnet of the commandant’s car at the regional training centre. Not an experience easily erased from the mind. ‘No, it’s not about that.’

‘What then?’

‘D’you think I’d be daft enough not to have a copy of the tape?’ With a smirk of triumph, Henry continued his journey back to the classroom, hoping Anger would stew, even though it was a lie. He didn’t have a copy.

The graphic details of the sex change operation — including a toe-curling PowerPoint presentation — made Henry squirm and cross his legs like most of the other guys in the room. The ladies seemed to be revelling in the male discomfort, whilst the speaker, the one who had undergone the op, was very blase about the whole thing.

When the lunch break came, Henry knew there was no way he could ever eat anything after watching such a gruesome spectacle, so he decided on a stroll around the grounds.

He mulled over whether his career as a detective was truly over as he walked past the slimy duck pond in the direction of the huge building which housed the firing range. The deal he had hatched with the chief was that if Henry quietly let the Dave Anger ‘thing’ drop, there would be an extra pip on the way and a transfer. That latter bit needed to be worked out, as most of the chief inspector roles within force were filled. FB said he couldn’t promise a detective role immediately and left it at that. Still, Henry thought philosophically, two years more on a chief inspector’s wage before retirement; maybe he could hack it anywhere they put him and then do a runner with the enhanced pension and substantial lump sum he would receive.

Walking past the rear of the training admin building, Henry bumped into an old colleague of his, a guy called Bill Robbins, a PC who was a firearms instructor. Bill had about the same length of service as Henry and they had worked as constables together in the early eighties. Bill was a cool, laid-back sort of bloke who played a mean bass guitar in a rock band in his spare time, a gift Henry envied. He was also a brilliant shot.

However, today he looked out of sorts.

After a bit of mutual back-slapping, they both commented on how miserable each other looked — ‘you look like you’ve seen your arse’ being the exact phrase Henry used to describe just how morose Bill was looking.

‘I can’t believe it,’ he moaned. ‘I work here training all the time and now they also want us to go out on bloody shifts, like we don’t have a day job! They wring every last drop out of you these days …’ He shook his head in disgust. ‘You look like you’ve seen my arse, too.’

‘Is it that one with a big black hole in it?’

They chuckled, then Bill looked slyly at Henry. ‘How do you fancy a bit of a blast, shake some cobwebs off?’

It was totally against procedure, but what the hell. Henry fancied living dangerously for once.

He had a pair of ear defenders around his neck, a pair of protective goggles covering his eyes.

Similarly attired and standing next to him, Bill held up the weapon for Henry to see. He recognized it instantly. ‘Smith and Wesson, 44 Magnum,’ he gasped. ‘Hell.’

‘The very one,’ Bill said. ‘Handed in at the recent firearms amnesty and strangely enough, no criminal history to it.’

‘Aren’t you supposed to destroy stuff that’s handed in?’

Bill smiled conspiratorially. ‘Always keep the cream of the crop — for educational purposes only, of course … and to play with.’

He handed the revolver to Henry with the cylinder open and empty. Henry took the heavy beast into a sweaty palm, feeling the weight pull his hand down. All thoughts of FB, Dave Anger and other associated things were suddenly banished from his mind. That is what handling a gun does — purges everything.

It was a wonderful piece of equipment, substantial, black and dangerous looking.

‘It came with two hundred rounds of Magnum ammunition. I’ve tested it already,’ Bill said. ‘It’s wick.’

‘OK.’

‘Want a go?’

‘Yeah, I could do with the release.’

Bill gave him two speed loaders, six thick, chunky bullets in each, which looked capable of taking down brick walls.

They turned to face down the firing range, which was fifty metres long.

‘How about a walk through? Keep it simple, but fun?’

The range lights dimmed to recreate conditions a firearms officer might have to face in a building in real life. Right at the end of the range, fifty metres away, were four targets turned facing him, the classic combat target of the charging armed man with the rings centring on his body mass. Ten metres in front of him, jutting out of the right-hand edge of the range, was a waist-high mock brick wall made of hardboard; ten metres further, on the opposite side, was another wall; then ten metres further a stack of old car tyres and an old fridge.

Henry stood ready at the fifty-metre mark, jacket off, ear defenders in place, safety goggles secure, feet shoulder width apart, the heavy weapon held in his right hand, left hand clamped underneath it for support, the muzzle pointing downwards to a point about three feet in front of him. Six bullets had been loaded. The tip of his right forefinger rested on the trigger.

He was suddenly extremely nervous. His mouth had dried up, his legs gone slightly weak with excitement. He had given up breathing.

Bill, positioned a pace behind Henry, placed a hand on Henry’s shoulder. ‘Be ready for the recoil,’ he warned. Henry nodded, focused on what lay ahead. ‘Are you ready to shoot?’

‘Yes.’ He was a hundred per cent aware of how his body was feeling.

In his hand Bill held the remote control, no larger than a TV remote, which controlled everything in the range from the movement of the targets to the lighting, to background music if necessary.

There was an interminable pause — probably no more than two seconds although it seemed for ever — giving Henry the chance to scan the range ahead and take in the obstacles.

Bill pressed a button on the remote and all four targets spun out of sight.

Henry swallowed nothing.

‘As discussed?’ Bill asked — because as against procedure as this little foray might have been, he had gone through a thorough, rigorous pre-shoot safety briefing with Henry.