He needed to establish a very visible police presence on Shoreside to dissuade Terry Cromer from attempting anything. He also had to get a few detectives together and come up very quickly with a well-structured plan. And he needed resources. He needed a lot of things.
So he backed away, stepped over a drunken body that had slumped down behind him and retreated down the driveway.
As he guessed, no one moaned and begged him to stay. One kid told him to fuck off again. Another spat at him, though most of the spittle dribbled down the kid’s chin.
He started to walk back to his car, pulling out his PR and calling Blackpool comms.
‘Any uniformed officer on any non-urgent call needs to be immediately redeployed to Shoreside,’ he instructed. ‘Tell them to meet me where the shops used to be on Fairview Road for a quick briefing. I need a hi-viz presence here as of now, not just one lone patrol, everyone in yellow jackets, please.’ He waited for the patrol inspector to pipe up and whine, which he did. Henry listened to him, stopping in mid-stride as he explained firmly what he needed.
He stopped on the corner of the road close to where he’d left his car and the uniformed officer. He gave the PC a wave as he talked to the inspector, and as he turned, he looked back towards the Costain house.
‘I know it’s an imposition,’ Henry was saying, trying to schmooze the guy, who was rightfully miffed about someone else deciding how his officers should be deployed. ‘But one cop won’t be enough.’ As he said the last word, a feeling of dread coursed through him. In disbelief, he pulled the PR away from his mouth as he saw a car turn into the road about two hundred metres away, its headlights doused as it did so. ‘Shit,’ Henry said. He was unable to see the occupants clearly, though there were two of them; they were just black shapes.
The car stopped momentarily.
Transfixed and slack-jawed, Henry watched the car. It was nothing special. A normal, mid-range saloon. Henry thought it was probably Japanese.
Then he saw something poke out of the front passenger window.
Something like a pipe, or a broomstick handle.
Something like the barrel of a gun.
Henry started to move, a roar on his lips. Reprisal time’s here, he thought.
The car suddenly surged forward from a standstill.
Henry ran into the centre of the road, screaming at the people outside the house to get down, waving his arms desperately. No one took any notice of him.
The car’s speed increased.
The second salvo in a drugs war, the first one having been fired in Blackburn.
Henry was fifty metres short of the house when the car, hurtling in his direction, drew level with the house.
Over the scream of the engine, Henry heard gunfire. He counted. Six shots, quick succession, as the car shot past the house and then bore down on him.
Part of him was aware of the screams from the partygoers. The images of some of them simply watching the car drive by, mouths open, uncomprehending. Others throwing themselves to the ground, at least one person in his view catching a bullet and spinning backwards like a corkscrew.
And the car coming towards him.
Only metres away. Two seconds at most before impact.
He knew it would strike him about knee level. He half imagined the joints being snapped backwards and the rest of his body smashing onto and splaying across the bonnet, maybe his face hitting the windscreen and then the whole of his body being flipped up and cartwheeled over the car.
He was incredulous at himself for thinking he could have prevented a shooting with a combination of the sheer force of his personality and by waving his hands about. It was never going to work.
He moved — with incredible speed. He vaulted sideways out of the path of the car onto the grass verge, executing a graceless double roll and coming up onto his knees in the starting position. As the car shot past he whipped his head sideways, hoping to focus his eyes on the driver. Just give me that one second, he prayed, just imprint the profile of that man into my brain.
His eyes locked on. They were still good and sharp. But it didn’t matter, even though the driver turned and looked directly at him.
He was wearing a balaclava with eye holes. And he had the audacity to flip his middle finger at Henry.
Henry would be able to describe that to a T to a police artist.
He said ‘Shit’ again but then his eyes zoomed onto the rear number plate. He memorized the registration instantly, even though the car’s lights were out. He continued to watch the back of the car and also the PC, who had been waiting around the corner, drawn out by the sound of shooting and general mayhem. Henry hoped he wouldn’t be as foolhardy as Henry himself and jump in front of the car, but, wisely, the officer, in a sort of dynamic pose, watched the car flash by and disappear around the next corner.
Henry shouted into his PR, ‘Shots fired Fairview Road outside the Costains’. A drive-by shooting, one vehicle, two male occupants, a Nissan saloon, registered number PK05. .’ He reeled the number off and gave the direction of travel the car had taken. ‘Possible gunshot injuries at the house,’ he went on, ‘just going to check.’
Henry’s hunting instinct was to run back to his car and give chase, but that would only enrage the comms room operators and probably end up being classified as a non-authorized pursuit. It might all go wrong, and if it did, he wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. All vehicle pursuits were carefully controlled and monitored by the radio operators, and the FIM and vehicles involved were supposed to be liveried and driven by trained pursuit drivers — and despite his driving qualifications, Henry wasn’t one. Such regulations hadn’t stopped him in the past. . but with age came a bit of discretion.
Based on the fact it was now the early hours of Boxing Day and there were almost no cops on duty on the ground, he kissed bye-bye to the Nissan — literally puckering his lips as he ran across the road to the house, telling comms he wanted an ambulance turned out and insisting they rouse the police helicopter.
Next thing on his mind was the possibility of this getting out of hand as a public order incident. A matter like this could easily escalate into a riot and with no cops to quell it, that was not a happy prospect.
A group of drunks gathered around the writhing body on the front lawn. Henry shouldered his way through them, smelling alcohol and weed. He knelt down next to a youth of about nineteen he didn’t recognize. The lad was wearing what had been a white T-shirt and had clearly taken a bullet in the right shoulder, his top now soaked red. He writhed and moaned, unable to comprehend what had just happened to him. The people surrounding him were doing nothing to help. They were all drunk or drugged, some of the girls becoming hysterical, and it must have been very weird for them, some sort of psychedelic nightmare.
Henry glanced briefly at their faces.
A girl burst through the circle, the one Henry had seen on the stairs a few moments earlier with a lad’s hand down her knickers. Her hands flew to her face and she screamed, ‘Donny, Donny, oh my God!’ Then she fell backwards in a faint and hit the back of her head on the front doorstep.
‘Hey — what the fuck did you do that for?’ a young lad demanded of Henry.
‘Do what?’
‘Push her over, you pig-twat.’
‘Fuck off,’ Henry said and turned his attention to the wounded boy, who was shaking uncontrollably.
‘Fuck you too,’ the lad shouted. He kicked out at Henry, who saw the foot coming. Though he was squatting he managed to catch it at the heel and twist, flipping the drunk off balance. He gave a push, let go, and the lad staggered backwards. The can of beer he was holding flew away and he landed diagonally across the girl who’d fainted.