Nick Oldham - Fighting for the Dead

In spite of the beer and whisky, he became alert, although he had no reason to suspect this was anything other than the work of kids. He placed his beer bottles on the deck and walked to the door. He did not expect anyone to be inside but if there was he had already alerted them to his presence when he came noisily aboard.

Three steps led down to the door. He went sideways down them and pushed the door away from him. Although the interior of the boat was in darkness, Flynn’s eyes were fairly well adjusted from having strolled back from the pub and he could immediately see the disarray inside. Galley cupboards were open, pots, pans and utensils were scattered around, and the furniture overturned.

Flynn swore. He bowed his head and ducked in order to get inside and fumble for the light switch that was somewhere to his right. His fingers ran down the wall, his arm stretched out.

It was at that moment the two men moved in for him — one from behind, one from the front.

Flynn saw the blur of movement ahead of him. A dark shape, a hooded man moving quickly, and also the swish of something moving through the air, a stick or a bat, perhaps. It connected to his outstretched forearm, smashing against his ulna, sending a jarring spasm up past his elbow to his shoulder.

He didn’t see the man behind him, just felt the flat-footed kick against the base of his spine that jerked his whole body and catapulted him onto his knees down the steps, crashing hard on to the wooden floor, where he sprawled out at the feet of the man in front of him.

The mistake the attackers made in those first, brutal moments was that they didn’t hit him across the head, to at least disorientate him, so by the time Flynn hit the floor, he was retaliating.

Using the forward momentum of being kicked down, he went for the man’s legs in front of him, finding purchase with his own foot against a cabinet and propelling himself forwards.

He grabbed the legs and in a moment the guy was toppled over onto his back and Flynn was scampering across him, chin in, head down, working on his strategy as he went.

There wasn’t much choice in the matter. It had to be this one, then the other. The one on the floor had to be dealt with instantly, then maybe used as some sort of shield against the other.

Flynn dropped on him, chest to chest, face to face, combining the fall with a powerful head-butt. Head-butts were not the best means of attack. There was no escaping the fact that the move entailed the clashing of two heads and if the deliverer of the blow didn’t connect accurately — forehead to bridge of nose — both parties suffered.

Flynn had delivered his fair share of head-butts in his time, mostly well aimed and timed, and, of course, in his younger days when he was faster and sharper.

So even though this head-butt was powerfully delivered, the man underneath saw it telegraphed and dinked his head sideways. Flynn connected with fresh air, missed him completely. This man was faster. Big realization.

By this time, still only a few seconds into the conflict, the man behind who had kicked Flynn into the boat was moving quickly to help his mate and Flynn lost his advantage — the advantage he had hoped to achieve by showing them this was no pushover and they’d bitten off more than they could digest.

Flynn’s head came back, and, angled slightly so that his face gave a perfect target, the men made up for their earlier mistake of not putting him down straight away. Something hard, heavy and metallic was smashed down hard across his head. It was like being hit by a frying pan — in fact, it could have been a pan from the galley. Flynn tumbled sideways off the man, who spun and rolled up onto his feet with ease, whilst Flynn’s brain was sent into free-fall by the blow.

Then the blows began to connect.

He rolled into a foetal ball, forearms covering his head, trapped tight against a bench seat, unable to do anything now but cower and try to protect himself.

They hit him hard, one with a baseball bat, the other with the butt of a gun.

Then they stopped. Next thing Flynn was hauled roughly into a half-seating position and the barrel of the gun — it was a machine-pistol of some sort — was rammed underneath his chin, then forced upwards so he looked along it, along the hands and arms of the man holding it, who squatted in front of him, up to his ski-masked face.

The ski mask. One of the simplest forms of terror inducement that existed. A hood with eye holes and a mouth hole. An innocent garment that, worn under the right circumstances — usually during a violent robbery — was so terrifying that it immediately gave offenders a massive psychological advantage over victims and witnesses.

The eyes behind the mask. The obscene mouth.

Flynn’s head was swimming from the blow, but he also felt fear.

‘Jeez… what… hell!’ he gasped, trying to give the impression of total incomprehension, although he was trying to work out the angles and odds now.

The man pushed the muzzle of the gun deep and hard into the soft flesh under the V of Flynn’s jaw.

‘OK, tough guy, you finished fighting?’

‘Yuh,’ he said and his brain clicked: accent.

‘Good.’ The man’s head moved closer to Flynn’s face. Flynn could smell his breath and sweat and cheap deodorant. An unpleasant combination.

Flynn looked to his right and saw the other man standing there slapping a baseball bat into the palm of his hand, a corny but effective gesture.

‘Now… where is it?’

‘What? Where’s what?’ Flynn sneered.

‘Whatever you took from the dead woman. We want it.’

‘I didn’t take anything.’

The gun was jammed further into his throat and in a concurrent line of thought, Flynn worked out that if the trigger was pulled, the bullet would rip up through his tongue, behind his teeth, up through the roof of his mouth. His brain would be removed, the top of his skull would explode outwards and there would be a hell of a mess inside the boat.

‘You did. Do not lie!’

‘I’m not in a position to lie,’ Flynn protested. Then he lurched forward instinctively and grabbed the man’s ski mask and ripped it off, and stared directly into his face.

The man laughed harshly, said, ‘Fool,’ and slammed his weapon sideways across Flynn’s face with such force that it had the instantaneous effect of knocking him into oblivion.

Henry shifted on the settee, settled, closed his eyes — then almost leapt out of his skin when his mobile phone, left in his trouser pocket, vibrated as a text message landed.

It was unexpected because he’d forgotten the phone was there and with the signal in this area being so poor and unreliable, it was rare for anyone to get through anyway.

He pulled it out and slid it open, peering at the screen. He visualized the text having been sent, then loitering in space for a while before suddenly seeing a chance to swoop down to his phone. This was the same person who was convinced that a text could be sent with a nifty wrist-flick of the phone, like throwing a Frisbee, but not actually letting go of the phone. Henry had a fairly childlike view of the new age of technology.

The sender was Professor Baines, the Home Office pathologist. It read simply, ‘Call me.’

Henry had been on the verge of serious slumber. The ice-pack had helped stem the expansion of his swelling and the painkillers plus a second JD had made him sleepy.

He forced himself into a sitting position, picked up the landline phone and dialled Baines’s number, gently touching his face as the call connected.

‘So they didn’t keep you in overnight?’ Baines said immediately.

‘No, I’ve got my own nurse, free, on tap, works behind a bar… all the best attributes of a good health-care worker.’