Henry continued to power into Freddy, his senses continually aware of the knife, trying to keep it in vision or at least be spatially aware of where it was, whilst trying to pin Freddy down somehow. The men bounced off the vending machine, then slammed against the wall like two wrestlers.
Suddenly, up close, Henry realized what a well-built man Freddy was. He’d been strong and stocky as a lad, but the years had filled him out with muscle and real strength.
Henry saw the knife rise in the periphery of his vision as the duo rolled across and over a row of seats. He went for the arm and caught it between his hands as it arced towards him. Henry then wrenched Freddy’s wrist and smacked the knife down onto the floor as they crashed onto the tiles.
But then Freddy’s left arm encircled Henry’s neck and drew him up tight as Henry writhed and corkscrewed, still holding the knife-bearing hand, feeling Freddy’s hot, rancid breath against his face. Then Freddy inserted two fingers into Henry’s eye socket.
Henry squirmed for room. It felt like those thick, sausage fingers were going to pop out his left eye and probe up into his brain, giving him a free lobotomy.
With strength Henry didn’t know he had, he spun round and found space for his right hand to shoot up between them, the heel of his hand connecting with Freddy’s lower jaw like a jackhammer. Henry heard the hollow click as Freddy’s teeth snapped shut and his head jerked back. Henry dropped into a sideways roll and came up onto his feet, his breath rasping, and in a parallel world of thought he wondered what had happened to Christmas Day. Pear shaped? Banana shaped? Shit shaped? Tits up!
Freddy didn’t give him time for much cogitation, but went for him straight away, diving for his legs. He moved faster than Henry, driven by inner demons.
Henry went over again and Freddy clambered over him, and for the second time in his life, Henry found himself being strangled by the same individual.
But this time it wasn’t the kid version, although that had been pretty bad. Now the bulk of years and experience and weight and sheer madness were thrown into the mix that was Freddy Cromer. A whole lifetime of mental instability and paranoia were focused on the thumb pads that started to press into Henry’s Adam’s apple, which constricted under the pressure. His vision blurred, seeing Freddy’s features start to become hazy, like looking into a fog.
Then the pressure was released as Freddy seemed to leap sideways off him.
Oxygen and blood, cut off in both directions, started to flow and Henry rolled away, clutching his neck, coughing and gasping.
He clambered up to his knees and saw Freddy was lying on his back, holding his head and groaning, and that Janine Cromer was standing over him like some female Colossus, having given Freddy a flying kick in the side of his head to dislodge him, similar to the one delivered by FB years before.
Henry got unsteadily to his feet to see Janine glaring scornfully at him.
‘I take it you haven’t been on a hostage negotiator’s course?’
‘I have — actually,’ he spluttered. ‘You’re supposed to build up a rapport. But there wasn’t a lot of time for that, was there?’ Henry had to raise his voice because the alarm in the vending machine was still sounding.
Freddy sat up, holding his head miserably between his hands and looking up at Janine like a thrashed puppy.
Henry sneered and pulled his rigid handcuffs out from his waistband at the small of his back. He stepped behind Freddy, forced him face down onto the floor and, without any resistance, cuffed his wrists behind him, using the stacking method — the only way rigid cuffs could be used behind a suspect, one hand higher than the other.
Freddy lay there compliantly, his cheek pressed flat on to the floor, making a strange humming noise.
Henry breathed heavily, hands on hips, and regarded Janine, his chest rising and falling, his heart pounding a little too erratically for comfort and a dithery feeling enveloping him.
Janine’s scornful look turned into a grin. ‘You getting past it?’
‘Definitely.’ With a surge of rage, Henry turned and kicked the vending machine, and suddenly the alarm stopped, leaving an echoing, ringing sound in the room. ‘Thank God for that,’ he said. He made his way to the nurse who was still cowering in a corner, squatting down almost in a foetal shape with her head between her knees and both hands clasped over her head. ‘It’s OK,’ he said gently, lowering himself alongside her and placing a hand between her shoulder blades. Her whole body trembled underneath his touch. ‘It’s OK, it’s over.’
She looked at him through her fingers.
‘It’s OK,’ he said again, not sure whether she believed him. He was about to say more, reassuring, banal words, when he heard something not too far away that he recognized instantly.
Two dull thuds — thck-thck.
Gunshots.
The door to the waiting room clattered open, and a worried-looking porter crashed through and gasped, ‘Men with guns. In the corridor. Shooting each other.’
Henry cursed.
Another shot was fired.
There was a slight pause, followed by the sound of bullets being discharged by an automatic weapon, a short burst. Then a scream.
A nurse, another porter and the Asian doctor ran into the waiting room, closely followed by another porter clutching his shoulder as blood blossomed under his hand. He fell to his knees, his face white and horrified with disbelief, staring at the blood. He swooned. His eyeballs spun and he fainted, crashing face first into the hard floor and splitting his forehead open.
Henry watched all this unfold in a matter of seconds.
Then he heard another shot being fired. He dashed to the door, peering out through the porthole, flattening the side of his face to the glass in an attempt to see down the corridor outside. It was impossible, because the door was set into the wall. restricting his view.
‘Two guys walking towards us,’ one of the porters explained over Henry’s shoulder. ‘Then there’s two more guys behind them. One shouts, the first guys spin round, then all hell shits itself. Bullets everywhere.’
Henry nodded and glanced at Janine, then at Freddy — who was still humming tunelessly to himself. He caught Janine’s eye, and could tell that she too knew this was no coincidence. But also, from the look on her face, he could see she was bewildered by the turn of events.
‘Where are they now?’ he asked the porter.
‘They all legged it in the direction of A amp;E. . which is where Derek needs to be. . one of the bastards shot him.’ He pointed at his wounded colleague.
Henry scooped up his PR from the floor and cautiously eased a gap in the swing door, one centimetre at a time, edging himself out without completely exposing himself to the possibility of taking a bullet. He might have been wearing a stab vest, but it didn’t stop slugs.
The corridor was empty. The two trolleys used by the porters to block it off were still there, abandoned.
He called up Blackburn comms and succinctly brought them into the picture, adding, ‘Where’s that ARV unit?’
‘Should be with you. .’
‘Echo Romeo Seven interrupting,’ Henry heard the call sign of the Armed Response Vehicle patrol butt into the conversation. ‘I’m on the corridor walking towards the X-ray department.’
Henry recognized the gruff tones of PC Bill Robbins, a firearms trainer and a man he knew well.
‘Bill,’ Henry cut back in, ‘Henry Christie here. . just take care. . there’s been some sort of shooting incident along that corridor, offenders still on the loose.’
‘No problems.’
Henry took a chance to peer down the corridor — still empty. So he stepped out, sniffing the whiff of cordite in the air, seeing a line of four bullet holes in an arc on the wall, made by the automatic weapon he’d heard. And splashes of blood on the wall and floor from the porter’s shoulder wound.