Nick Oldham - Facing Justice

He was heading towards a mild right-hand twist in the road. Under normal circumstances it was nothing more than a kink, hardly even noticeable. But in the present weather conditions, combined with travelling too quickly, not concentrating properly as a result of all the other things that must have been swirling through Tom James’s mind, he yanked the steering wheel down, expecting the car to go where instructed. It did no such thing. So he slammed on and exacerbated the situation.

The car mounted the kerb with a sickening thud and smashed head first into the lamp post on that ever-so-slight curve.

Actually, he wasn’t travelling that quickly, maybe had got up to twenty-five miles per hour, but as he wasn’t wearing a seat belt, was only holding the wheel with one hand, a gun in the other, he could not even brace himself firmly for impact.

He was tossed forward in his seat and his lower face impacted on the rim of the steering wheel.

Then the crash was over.

Flynn made his way carefully to the car, approaching the last few yards at a crouch, coming in behind Tom’s right shoulder. Tom was slumped over, but moving, and just before Flynn got there, he opened the door and swung his legs out of the car. He saw Flynn, raised the gun, before his whole being turned to mush. He sagged, sank to his knees, still waving the gun, which he then dropped.

Blood oozed from a cut around his chin. He spat out a gobful of it on to the white snow.

‘I’m hurt,’ he said plaintively.

‘Tough,’ Flynn responded. He kicked the gun away into the snow, grabbed Tom’s bloodied shirtfront and pulled him roughly to his feet, then frogmarched him back to the house.

As Henry sat miserably on the side of the bath, stripped to the waist and shaking, Alison dabbed his wounded shoulder, squeezing out the disinfected cloth into the bloodstained water in the wash basin. Henry tensed himself for each touch, but the pain was less than it had been, thanks to some powerful, quick-acting analgesics Alison had produced from the medical kit she had liberated from Dr Lott.

Most of the time, Henry had his eyes closed. He didn’t mind the sight of blood, unless it was his own. Since first checking the wound he’d studiously avoided looking at it.

Alison had hurried back to the house on receiving a phone call from Flynn and had gasped when she’d seen Henry slumped by the wall in the office, blood running down his chest, splattered on the wall behind him. He’d tried to give her one of his famous — at least to himself — lopsided grins and tried to act brave, but it was a thin veneer. She had helped him up to the bathroom, where she had cleaned the wound after administering the painkillers.

She did a last wipe with an antiseptic pad and stood back. The pellet holes wept and seeped blood like a series of mini-taps, but it didn’t look as bad as at first. He could still move his shoulder and it seemed that the shot may have only entered the fleshy part and not penetrated the joint. It was not serious — at the moment — but still required proper hospital treatment, as at least half a dozen pieces of shot were embedded in him and Alison had no way of removing them. She was about to bandage the shoulder.

‘The sooner you get to a hospital the better,’ she told Henry. ‘There’s a real chance of infection and one way or another, you need to get there in the morning at the latest.’

‘Weather dependent.’

‘Stuff the weather,’ she said.

‘Yeah, OK. Thanks,’ he said pathetically.

‘It’s a good job Dr Lott was still in the pub. I was just about to shout last orders and clear the place when Steve phoned.’

‘Why didn’t he come, Dr Lott that is?’

‘It’s his weekly inebriation. He’s fit for nothing except dealing drugs. He just handed his whole kit over.’ She started to bandage the wound.

‘You’ve seen worse than this, then? Ow!’

‘Much. This is nothing, so stop being a baby.’

‘OK, nurse. What’s happening down at the pub, by the way?’

‘I’ve left Ginny to lock up, et cetera. She’ll be all right, she’s done it before.’

‘And Karl?’

‘Sent to bed. He wanted to come, but he’s really ill. He needs more TLC than you.’

‘And your guests, the ones in my rooms?’

‘Causing no trouble at all.’ She pulled the bandage tight, Henry juddered. ‘There, how does that feel?’

He gave her sad, puppy-dog eyes, although the pathos of his expression was tempered with the heavy bags of an old bloodhound, which probably spoiled the overall effect. She pecked him on the cheek, stood back and looked tenderly into his eyes, then with an even sadder inflection said, ‘I wish,’ and sighed.

Henry swallowed — which actually hurt. He hadn’t realized that his throat had a direct connection to his shoulder.

Flynn barged in, holding a tea towel to his ear. ‘What’s your plan of action, Henry?’ he demanded, then his face fell as he realized he had stepped into a moment. He said nothing, but his demeanour changed.

Henry inhaled deeply. A shiver of pain arced through his shoulder. He tried to ignore it, and applied his mind to more pressing matters.

Alison busied herself by swilling out the blood-splashed wash basin.

Henry wanted to go to bed, too. Instead of admitting that, he got up stiffly and reached for a clean shirt Alison had liberated from Tom’s wardrobe, easily big enough to fit Henry. He carefully slipped his arms through the sleeves.

‘First things first. I need to tell Tom formally that he’s under arrest for the attempted murder of you and me. Then I’m going to break the news to him about Cathy, although I suspect he knows we’ve found her. I’ll arrest him on suspicion of that.’ He turned to Alison. ‘We’ll need a statement from Ginny, by the way, saying she saw Cathy and Tom drive past, then only Tom came back.’ Alison nodded. Henry went on to Flynn, ‘I want to start a custody record, too.’

‘Locked up in his own home,’ Flynn quipped.

‘You’ve heard of house arrest, haven’t you?’

‘The cells are certainly filling up. Then what?’

‘Hold on to him until the cavalry arrives. I won’t be questioning him, or Callard. They’ve got some connection over the shotgun, if what Callard says is true about Tom giving him the gun…’

‘Which also connects Tom to Jonny Cain?’

‘It hadn’t escaped me.’

‘Let me talk to him,’ Flynn suggested.

‘Talk or torture? Anyway, you’re not a cop now.’

‘I never tortured anyone, not even close.’

‘Let’s not go there, eh?’ Henry buttoned up his shirt.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Flynn said.

‘Forget it.’ Henry tried to walk past him, his legs unsteady. But Flynn didn’t budge, blocked the way threateningly.

‘I said…’

‘Steve,’ Henry said tiredly, ‘when I investigated you, I turned over lots of stones.’ He arched his eyebrows pointedly. Flynn’s lower lip tightened. ‘OK,’ Henry relented, and glanced over to Alison, who was transfixed by the interaction. ‘The broken jaw of a witness against you in Rossendale?’ Henry held Flynn’s stare. ‘The drug dealer held over a balcony in Morecambe?’ Still they remained eye to eye. ‘A sock full of pennies on the guy in Preston… need I go on?’

Flynn’s expression changed subtly. His eyes dropped and, defeated, he stood aside for Henry to pass.

‘Now then, let’s have speaks with Tom James, soon to be ex-detective of this parish.’

As he was a man of action, being debilitated was driving Karl Donaldson crazy, especially with all the excitement going on at the police house. It was almost destroying him that he hadn’t been there in amongst the thick of it backing up Henry who, he had come to realize over the years, usually needed all the help he could get. He hoped that Steve Flynn was as handy as he appeared to be.