Nick Oldham - Backlash

The estate was scarred by a night of rioting.

Four cars, including Dave Seymour’s, had been burnt out, leaving shells of blackened and twisted metal, two of them overturned. The street lights were all out having been systematically smashed. Debris, consisting of bricks, stones, rocks from garden rockeries and broken bottles, was scattered all over the roads. A youth club made of Portakabins had been razed to the ground, but little damage had actually been caused to domestic properties. This made Henry think that the leaders of the riot had briefed their foot soldiers well and that the show had been well orchestrated. Something about the whole thing made him feel uncomfortable, but he kept his thoughts to himself for the time being.

And the police had had no real success. True they had been taken by surprise, but Henry had managed to bring in assistance pretty quickly and after a tough couple of hours of face-to-face confrontations, guerrilla-like skirmishes and running around like idiots, order had been restored. Or so it appeared. However, only two people had been locked up, both stupid juveniles out for the crack.

At least Mo Khan’s shop was still standing, even though the destruction caused to the interior was considerable from smoke and fire damage. Four cops in a carrier were guarding the premises until a decision was made about the way forward. The Khan family had been taken safely to Blackburn where they owned a large house.

Byrne drove past the shop, stopping briefly to exchange a quick word with the officers detailed to protect it. They had seen nothing; it was peaceful, they reported. Byrne gave a quick wave and set off again, past Dave Seymour’s burnt-out car which would soon have to be recovered and brought in for forensic examination.

‘Seems to have died a death,’ Byrne commented on the rioting.

‘Yeah — let’s go in.’ Henry decided on this for purely selfish reasons. Since starting his shift he had not eaten or drunk anything and his body ached for sustenance. He looked over his shoulder and asked the two officers if they wanted to stop anywhere on the way to the station to pick anything up. Both blurted out the name of a well-known kebab shop which served the best in town and offered a police discount.

‘Sounds good,’ Henry said. Byrne turned away from the Khan shop and headed towards the main road. As he rounded a sharp right-hand bend they saw two people in the middle of the street, caught like rabbits in the glare of the powerful headlights, carrying a milk crate between them. The men stopped dead and Byrne slammed on the brakes.

These were not two milkmen on an early morning delivery round. The ski masks covering their faces helped to establish this fact. Their black clothing and gloves were also a bit of a give-away for any bright cop, and the rags tucked into the necks of the bottles in the crate completed the picture.

They were two very guilty people carrying a stash of petrol bombs — about twenty-four of them.

Even before the carrier had lurched to a halt, Henry was opening his door, a shout of ‘Stop — Police!’ on his lips. The constables in the back were only a nano-second behind him.

The hypnotic effect of the headlights didn’t last long and the two men dropped the crate with a crash and sprinted away in opposite directions. Very fast.

Henry knew this was an important one. Capturing at least one of these guys could lead to further information about who was behind the troubles and maybe to the persons responsible for attacking Dave Seymour.

As soon as he had seen them, Henry had locked onto the person nearest to him — and he was determined not to let the bastard get away. He hit the ground running, but his adversary was fast and lithe. Henry powered after the figure, driving himself hard despite his heavy clothing, lack of energy and general lack of fitness.

In his prime, many moons ago, Henry had been a passable rugby player and had possessed a sprint which could, on occasion, leave others standing. Back then he had been unencumbered by heavy clothing and life-long excess and encroaching middle-age, but he wasn’t going to let something like a two-ton pair of overalls and a predilection for lager stop him now. He imagined himself going for that great try in the sky, envisaged himself in rugby boots, shorts and shirt. Told himself he was tough, mean and very quick. . and that if he hadn’t caught this villain within a hundred metres, he would call it quits. His arms pumped like pistons. His legs pushed and drove him.

The figure in front of him was moving like the wind. He dodged into one of the many alleys connecting one part of the estate to another by means of a double dog-legged passageway, one of those ideas which looked so good on an architect’s jotter, but in reality was a superb place for drug dealers and muggers to loiter in.

Henry’s ears pounded. As his heavy boots crashed to the ground, jarring his bones, his whole body rattled. Christ, this was hard work.

The figure ahead of him twisted round the first right-angled corner and disappeared from view.

He cursed under his breath. That was bad, losing sight of the toerag. As he ran, Henry’s mind fast-forwarded to the trial, he could hear the sneer of the defence solicitor. ‘Ahh, officer, so you lost sight of the person you were chasing? In that case how can you be a hundred per cent certain my client is actually the person you were pursuing?’ Pause. ‘You can’t, can you?’

Henry had given identification evidence in so many trials that he knew the words off by heart.

He increased his pace and skidded round the same sharp bend, just in time to see his quarry disappear round the next corner. Out of sight — again.

Now his heart felt as though it was on the verge of bursting out of his chest like something from a horror movie; his lungs were stretched to their absolute limit, ready to pop. But he wasn’t going to give this one up. He made one last surge as he came flying out of that second corner.

The man was barely ten feet ahead.

‘Got you!’ Henry shouted. He hadn’t, but that didn’t matter. He was going to collar the guy. ‘Cunt!’ he added for good measure. He was in the bag. Henry could feel it. A prisoner coming up.

Without warning the man stopped dead in his tracks, spun on his heels, a thick stick of some sort in his right hand. Henry could not tell for sure what it was exactly — except that it was swinging towards his head and he was running right into the blow. Henry’s left forearm shot up in defence. The stick crashed down against his forearm. Like a matador, the felon pirouetted out of Henry’s way as Henry stumbled past, driven on by his own propulsion.

The blow hurt his arm, but he had managed to glance off most of the force of it.

He was still on that imaginary rugby pitch. Wrong footed by an opponent, but recovering instantly. He veered round sharply and launched himself, low and hard, head tucked into his chest, anticipating and ducking in under the second intended blow which swished harmlessly less than an inch above his head. He slammed himself into the man’s lower abdomen with all the power and violence he could muster, colliding hard with the masked figure.

Henry had expected to come into contact with something firmer, more resilient, more muscled. Instead he was amazed to find out how easy it was to bowl the figure over; there seemed to be very little weight in the body mass. Even so, Henry was remorseless, driving the man to the ground, forcing all the wind out of his diaphragm, while reaching out for the hand which held the stick, grabbing it, cutting his fingernails into the narrow wrist and whacking the hand onto the ground, ensuring the weapon was released.

Even as Henry grappled with the masked figure something did not seem right. The realisation dawned on him that he was fighting a woman. Her free hand went for his face and tried to gouge lines down his cheek with her fingernails.