Nick Oldham - Facing Justice

‘Don’t suppose there’ll be much point in pursuing it,’ she said.

‘Probably not. Mine’s a hire car, so I’ll have to pass on details to the company and report it to the police. It was a hit and run after all. Anyway, if I give you my details and you give me yours, maybe we could be witnesses for each other if it comes to it? Whether you want to tell your insurance company or the cops is up to you, but I don’t want to get saddled with a bill I can’t afford to pay. What d’you say?’

‘Good idea.’ She fished out a pad and pen, handed it to Flynn. He jotted down his details and the registered number of the Range Rover. He gave Faye’s address as his own. Didn’t want to get too complicated by bringing Gran Canaria into the equation. He handed the pad back and she wrote down her name and a mobile number. Moments later both vehicles were back on the road.

Flynn discovered that Kendleton was actually not much more than a hamlet. As he drove into it he guessed there was probably no word to describe something that fell between a village and a hamlet. ‘A hamage?’ he mused. Whatever, it was a picturesque little place. To its credit, it had a nice-looking pub called the Tawny Owl which advertised en suite rooms, but as he drove past, he saw a ‘No Vacancies’ sign propped up in a window. There was a shop-cum-post office, a few houses scattered around a tiny village green and a babbling brook fed by water coming down off Great Harlow, the hill that dominated the village to the south. There was also a butcher’s shop and amazingly, a red telephone box that looked as though it had not been vandalized.

Within seconds he had driven through, then the road rose steeply again and after about half a mile, he came to the red-brick detached police house/office in which Cathy James lived and from which she performed her role as rural beat officer for the area.

Flynn remembered a conversation he’d had with Cathy years before in which she had declared her undying passion for animals and nature. Her ambition was either to be a dog handler or a member of the mounted branch, or a wildlife officer, or, failing all of them, a rural beat officer. She had become a dog handler quite early in her service but it had been her failed marriage to another dog handler that put paid to her career in that department. His mates on the branch had given her an underhanded hard time and eventually she’d had enough and managed to move on to the mounted branch, where she had a few good, enjoyable years with a massive piece of sweaty flesh trapped between her legs. Lucky horse, Flynn thought dreamily, pulling up outside the house.

Following mounted she had got the job as rural beat officer here in Kendleton, the biggest beat in Lancashire, covering a wild, sparsely populated area. Her job included a lot of wildlife conservation and enforcement. Poachers, she’d once told Flynn, were a dangerous menace.

Flynn opened the car door a crack. The harsh wind from the upper moors rushed in and almost ripped it out of his hand with its strength. There was more snow in the air now, beginning to fall thickly with the possibility of sticking. Flynn put his jacket on and was about to open the door again, but a sixth sense made him check over his shoulder just in time and slam it shut again as the same black Range Rover that had ripped off his door mirror shot past less than three feet away. It carried on up the hill and disappeared over the crest into the encroaching weather.

‘Gonna get you,’ Flynn promised grimly. This time he made sure nothing was coming before getting out and walking up the driveway, past a selection of bushes and trees, to the front door of Cathy’s house. From inside he heard the sound of a barking dog.

‘Like I said before, it’s as broad as it’s long,’ Henry apprised Donaldson. ‘Now it’ll take us just as long to get back to where we started from as it will to where we’re going.’

‘Basically we’re in the middle of nowhere,’ Donaldson concluded morosely.

‘Pretty much,’ Henry agreed. He looked to the north-east again. The view was quickly disappearing as the black, snow-laden clouds moved quickly towards them, a bit like the devil in the film Night of the Demon, Henry thought. The film had scared the living daylights out of him whilst watching it on TV once, when he was a home-alone teenager. He swallowed nervously and cursed the weather forecast. There had been the possibility of snow, but it had definitely shown just a light dusting down the Northumberland coast, at least a hundred miles away from his present location. Something had gone seriously wrong in the stratosphere, he thought bleakly. A north-easterly which had probably begun life somewhere over the steppes of Russia was now blowing bitterly, and was bringing a huge blanket of snow with it.

He saw Donaldson wince again as a severe griping pain creased his guts. He had been to the toilet again — ‘Shitting a fountain’ had been his wonderfully evocative description of the act — and it was now apparent he was suffering from something far worse than a hangover. Diagnosis: food poisoning. Something he laid well and truly at the door of the landlord of the Tram amp; Tower, and its chicken-based menu to be precise.

‘Musta been that chicken,’ Donaldson said.

‘I had chicken too,’ Henry said. ‘I think I’m OK.’

‘Not the same dish,’ Donaldson pointed out. ‘Sorry pal, I need to go again.’ He shot behind a rocky outcrop, out of sight, and yanked his trousers down with a long groan.

Henry’s jaw rotated thoughtfully as he glanced at his mobile phone. Still no signal, which seemed ironic being at such a height above sea level. If it was food poisoning, the journey ahead was going to be tough. Henry knew how debilitating it could be, even the mildest dose. To have been stuck out here even on a sunny day would be bad enough, but, as his eyes took in the approaching weather front, this was going to be extra, extra difficult.

The snow, which had started as a sprinkle, had become much heavier, something Henry hadn’t seen the likes of for twenty years.

He glanced down at his map and compass, the only items he’d thought he would need for the walk, and cursed. He had a GPS at home, thought it would be unnecessary, now wished he’d brought it along.

Donaldson emerged from cover, gave Henry a sheepish smile. ‘Feel slightly better.’

‘OK to push on?’

‘No choice, is there? Can hardly stay up here.’

A sudden gust of wind caught the two men, almost knocking them over with its ferocity. It carried sleet with it, slashing across Henry’s exposed face as though he was being pebble-dashed. It hurt. He tugged his bob cap down over his ears and pulled his jacket hood over too. He turned so his back was against the wind. Ahead was a sheep track, heading due north.

‘Need to be going in that direction.’ He pointed.

‘Yeah, let’s go, pal.’

Flynn knocked. The dog barked louder. He knocked again, bent down to the letter box and flipped it open to peer through. The whole of the rectangular gap was filled by the snout and menacing, bared, snarling teeth of a very large German shepherd dog. Flynn jumped back with a little squeal as the dog snapped nastily at him.

‘Nice doggy,’ he said. He took a couple of steps backwards and checked the front of the house. It had probably been built in the 1960s and was of typical design for a police house of that era, with the exception that it had been extended on one side for the office and on the other by a double garage with a bedroom above. Flynn knew that the force had done its best to get rid of all the rural beats covering far-flung countryside areas where nothing much seemed to happen and the cost of policing was disproportionate to the results achieved. The powers that be had managed to close a lot of the rural stations, but Kendleton had remained open because of vociferous public and parish council pressure. And the fact that Cathy did a fantastic job. She had been single — newly divorced — when she took up the post before the cost-cutting started. Within a year she had wormed her way into the heart of the community and got quantitative results as well as the touchy-feely stuff. When the force tried to close the beat down, there had been severe ructions from the tribal elders and they had to back down.