Pretty standard. A work surface immediately to the left of the door, on which he’d foolishly left the shotgun. Then ninety degrees to the sink and draining board, a gap where the back door was, another ninety degrees to another work surface, with cupboards along the walls, the door to the garage, cooker, and a huge fridge-freezer.
So — open the door and diagonally opposite, basically, was the back door.
Flynn felt something around his legs and his heart leapt. Roger, the German shepherd, had nudged him with his forehead. The old dog looked up kind of sadly.
‘I think you’re going to be an orphan,’ Flynn said and patted him.
But then the dog did what Flynn was hesitating to do — simply barged through the door into the kitchen.
Tom fired from the back door, two bullets smashing through the door panel by Flynn’s head. Flynn leapt backwards, slamming the damaged door. Another door closed and he knew Tom had gone outside.
Roger sat at the back door on his haunches, big tail wafting back and forth like a feather duster. Flynn glanced through the door to check that Tom had definitely gone, then ran back into the office to find Henry still propped up by the wall, his shirt unfastened to reveal the nasty-looking wound. He was touching it gingerly with dithering fingers as if it wasn’t real.
He looked up at Flynn, ashen, shaking. ‘I hope you’ve caught the bastard.’
‘Done a runner out back. Got another gun, a pistol of some sort I think.’
‘He seems pretty well armed.’
Callard, propped up on one arm, said, ‘He is.’
‘Is what?’ Henry said.
‘Well armed. That shotgun’s his. He gave it to me. They made me go and try to kill Cain.’
‘Ahh,’ Henry gasped as his finger touched the injury.
Flynn squatted down by him. ‘Phew — lucky.’
‘This is lucky?’
‘Two inches to the right and I’d be taking you to the butcher’s.’
‘Cheers… look, I think you need to find him… no, no, zap that. You don’t have to put yourself in any more danger. Let him go and let’s hope he goes to ground and not on a shooting spree. We’ll get back-up tomorrow, whatever the weather.’
‘I have a horrible feeling he’ll be back.’
‘Do you think you could get Alison back up here?’
‘Yeah, good idea. I think I need her again.’ He touched his ear that had been cut by the shotgun and rubbed the back of his neck where the muzzle had been skewered into his skin.
‘I meant for me… and can you let Karl know what’s going on?’
Flynn grinned, looked at Henry’s shoulder, feigned an ‘Ooh’ of pain. ‘Now do you believe me?’
‘I’d shrug, only it hurts too much.’ Henry winced. Sweat drizzled down his forehead; his face went a grey-blue shade.
‘Whatever,’ Flynn said and headed for the door, where he paused and turned to Callard. ‘Thanks mate — you saved us all.’
‘Unph,’ he grunted. ‘He’d’ve shot me too.’
‘Oh, for definite.’
Flynn left the room and went back into the kitchen, slid the bolt across the outer door, dropped the blinds over the windows. Roger was still there, watching him with interest.
‘If only you could talk,’ he said. The dog responded with a deep bark and a wag of the tail. ‘Maybe you can.’ Flynn patted his head and made his way back into the hall to the front door. He opened it slowly, looking at the snow-encrusted vista, his eyes drawn to Tom’s VW Golf behind Cathy’s Shogun on the drive. The inner light was on.
Then he saw the bob of a head just before the light went out.
‘He’s made it to his car,’ he yelled for Henry’s benefit, before bolting out. The Golf’s engine screamed as Tom reversed down the drive, slewing backwards, glancing off the back of Flynn’s hired car that Henry had parked on the road.
Flynn ran through the snow, unsure of what to do. Leap on the bonnet? Or the roof? The Golf slithered to a stop at an acute angle, then Tom slammed it into first, revved the engine and let out the clutch. The front wheels spun, tried to grip, sending a shower of slush up against the mudguards. The car veered forward as Flynn skated down the driveway and came alongside the car.
Tom raised the pistol and fired. The window shattered but the bullet missed, though only because a split second before Tom pulled the trigger, Flynn had completely lost his footing and smashed down on to his backside in the snow. He was sitting there, his jeans getting soaked, as he watched the Golf eventually get some grip and speed off. He sat there, watching the rear of the car, his mouth popping like Toad of Toad Hall.
He swore and clambered to his feet, brushing himself down in disgust, his eyes on the car as it gathered speed. Too much speed.
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.