Nick Oldham - Fighting for the Dead

A wave of pain and nausea, beginning at the very top of his head, rolled through him.

He had been squatting down by the property bags, but as he cranked himself up, the sensations hit him. He staggered a little, keeping a grip, then caught sight of himself in a wall mirror and shivered in horror.

His face was a contorted mess. He already knew that, but what made him extra cross was the amount of blood down and over his jacket and shirt, which were ruined.

‘Shit,’ he said. ‘I think I’ll go and get patched up.’

The first thing the triage nurse did when Henry presented himself at casualty and explained what had happened — and that he thought he’d passed out for short time — was to sit him in a wheelchair and get a porter to push him down to the X-ray department.

Baines accompanied him.

‘All I want is a plaster and some Savlon,’ Henry moaned ungratefully as he was wheeled along the corridors.

‘I’ve been waiting a long time to say this,’ Baines chuckled, ‘but you need your head examining.’

‘Ho bloody ho,’ Henry grunted as they arrived at X-ray.

Then the waiting began, during which time Baines told him that the doctors would probably want to keep him in overnight for observation. The news cheered Henry no end.

‘I don’t have time to spend a night in a hospital. I don’t have time for this.’ He grumbled a few more things, then looked at Baines. ‘You need to go, too. People to dismember.’

‘They can wait… they’re dead, after all.’

‘No,’ Henry insisted. ‘You have things to do. I’ll be OK… and I’m not staying the night unless I collapse of a brain aneurysm.’

‘Don’t joke,’ Baines said seriously. ‘But I will go… I’ve some mouths to look into, but I don’t see me doing Jennifer Sunderland’s post-mortem until tomorrow at the earliest.’

‘That’s fine. I need to speak to the coroner anyway and she needs to be formally identified.’

Baines rose, then hesitated. ‘That was pretty frightening, Henry. Y’know — the guys with the guns thing?’

Henry’s good eye squinted at him, which meant both eyes squinted. ‘Soft fucker.’

‘Knew you’d understand,’ Baines grinned.

‘I’m sure I would’ve been frightened too.’

‘If only you’d been awake.’ Baines touched Henry’s shoulder, in a tender, but still manly gesture, turned and left, passing DI Barlow shoulder to shoulder through the swing doors.

Barlow regarded Henry’s bashed-up face. ‘Jeepers — you OK?’

‘Exactly how do you want me to answer that one?’ Henry winced.

‘Uh, sorry. Hell of a thing… everybody’s running around like blue-arsed flies at the moment.’ Barlow leaned against the wall. ‘What do you reckon it was all about?’

‘No idea, Ralph, other than to guess… and then go and ask the grieving husband what the hell his dead wife had in her possession that it took two armed men to try and find.’

‘Do you think they found what they were after?’

‘Again, I don’t know. Maybe.’ Henry indicated the file Barlow had in his hand. ‘Is that Sunderland’s MFH file?’ he asked. Barlow nodded. ‘Does everything match up, file to body, et cetera?’

‘It’s definitely Jennifer Sunderland.’

‘Right, we need to speak to hubby, then.’

‘Leave that to me, eh, Henry?’ Barlow swept his hand around to indicate their present location. ‘I can sort him.’

Henry glanced at the scrolling LED sign above the X-ray reception desk. It informed him, and the other people in the waiting area, that there was a three-quarters of an hour wait for the next X-ray.

‘No, I’m coming,’ Henry said, seeing Barlow’s face fall.

‘But, Henry, I’m quite capable of…’

‘I know you are. That’s not the issue.’

‘What is, then?’

‘I’ve got a fresh shirt in the back of my car and if I wear my anorak instead of my jacket, I can get away with my appearance.’

‘What’s the issue?’ Barlow persisted.

‘I want to look Mr Sunderland straight in the eye and tell him we’ve found his wife — dead. Well,’ Henry amended this, ‘look him in the eye as straight as possible in the circumstances. My curiosity has been aroused.’

Flynn jolted awake, feeling worse than he had done before, cursing for having made the fatal error of falling asleep in the middle of the day.

He groaned, shrouded by the warmth thrown out by the canal boat’s central-heating system, which was proving far more efficient than he could have imagined. His eyelids flickered heavily and even though he wanted to wake up, he could not seem to stop himself from dozing, his brain mushed by the mid-afternoon nap.

Combating the urge, he inhaled deeply and forced himself to stand up. He glanced at the wall clock.

‘Oh — what?’ He could not believe that more than an hour had slipped by.

From their box, he pulled out the sturdy new boots he’d acquired from the chandlery, quickly threaded the laces and slid his feet into them. They were a good, comfortable fit.

‘Shit,’ he uttered, extremely annoyed at himself.

He was late for the arranged meeting with Diane, who had enough on her plate to contend with, without an unreliable friend who had promised to help out. He switched the heating off, locked up and jumped off the barge onto the canal side. He jog-trotted back to the shop, his mind still not having woken up fully.

Diane was already there and Flynn entered awkwardly. She was leaning on the counter, looking through some order forms. Flynn crossed the shop floor quickly and said, ‘Sorry I’m late, Diane.’

She raised her eyes at him. They were red raw with tears and she seemed to have aged ten years since he last saw her.

He hardly dared pose the question.

But he did. ‘How did it go?’

Her lips worked soundlessly for a moment as the enormity of the last few hours seemed to hit her like a sledgehammer. ‘I… I

…’ she stammered. Then she burst into tears.

Flynn shot around the counter and took hold of her, walking her back into the private office where he kept hold and held on whilst she cried out her emotion with big, gulping sobs and a runny nose and tears. Finally it subsided and she eased herself away from him, looking up through eyes filmed with moisture.

Flynn braced himself for the worst.

She struggled to find the words. ‘I… they said… oh, God, I don’t know… they said… the doctor said it went as well as could be expected…’

Flynn exhaled in relief.

‘They won’t know for certain for a while and there’s a long way to go and we probably won’t know for weeks how successful it was… or not.’ A long blob of phlegm dripped out of her nose and she wiped it away with a chuckle, but then her lips quivered again, her mouth on the verge of collapse. ‘It was horrible, Steve… the worst moments of my life… waiting around…’

‘I take it you’ve seen him?’

She nodded. ‘Just briefly… I wanted to be there when he came round. He opened his eyes for a few seconds, but that’s all… and he… he managed a smile, then he went back to sleep. They said to get back about five.’

Flynn squeezed the top of her arm, trying to avoid saying any of the trite but reassuring lines people say in circumstances like this. Things like, ‘He’ll be fine,’ or ‘He’s a fighter.’ Phrases that seemed meaningless and were often wrong in the end. Flynn knew how serious Colin’s condition was and could only hope that the operation had caught the cancer in time, that it hadn’t spread, wasn’t going to ambush his body three months down the line.

Instead, he drew Diane towards him again and held on to her with another embrace before easing her away and saying, ‘Have you eaten or had anything to drink?’