‘Just want you to see the truth… I don’t like clouds hanging over me.’
Henry gave him a scornful look. ‘I’ve got clouds queuing up to hang over me.’
‘But you’re still in the job.’
‘Yes, I am,’ he said tiredly and rolled his injured shoulder, which was stiffening up painfully, still weeping blood.
Behind them, the living-room door opened and Alison stepped out.
‘How is she?’ Henry asked.
‘OK — tired, wants to sleep.’
‘I don’t suppose you could…?’ Henry’s voice trailed off.
‘Put her up? I’m afraid we’re full at the inn,’ Alison said biblically.
‘She’ll have to bed down here, then. There’s a guest bedroom made up. Not ideal, but we need to keep hold of her.’
They were talking in hushed tones, but not quietly enough it seemed.
Tom piped up. ‘This is my house. You are taking liberties. This is an invasion of my civil liberties… you cannot do this.’
All three heads turned to him, the withering expression on all three faces identical, though Henry’s suddenly morphed into something much more serious. He stalked over to Tom, who scowled.
‘Henry fucking Christie,’ Tom sneered. ‘I know all about your chequered past, all about your very dicey history of bad judgement calls. I know you’ve been suspended before… you’re a freakin’ legend, mate… and this is all bollocks, it’ll be the icing on your cake.’
‘And yet here you are in handcuffs and I’m a superintendent.’
‘Only because you’re up the chief constable’s arsehole. Everybody knows — everybody!’
‘And yet you’re the one in handcuffs,’ Henry repeated, ‘suspected of murdering your wife, consorting with known OC targets… and much, much more. When the dawn comes, you’ll be fucked and facing justice, Tom. You’ll be going down for life and you’ll never set foot outside again for at least what, thirty years?’ Henry grinned. ‘By which time I’ll be in my dotage, bouncing great-grand-kids on my knees.’
Tom laughed. ‘Don’t think so, Henry,’ he said smugly. ‘You just don’t know who you’re dealing with here.’
‘And plainly, nor do you.’
Henry felt someone grip his arm and squeeze gently. It was Flynn. ‘Henry,’ he said, and did not need to speak another word. Flynn had watched him get sucked into a fruitless confrontation, a tit-for-tat argument, the only winner of which would be Tom because he had nothing to lose.
Henry nodded and withdrew from the room. In the hallway, this time definitely out of Tom’s earshot, he said, ‘Got my goat. I’m just tired and irritable.’
‘Oh I know that, but you know what worries me most?’
‘What?’
‘His confidence.’
‘Mm,’ Henry mused. ‘That phone call.’
For good measure, Donaldson bashed Bispham’s head against the door frame, a blow that caught the edge of his temple against the right angle of the door jamb and instantly split the skin. There was a slight delay, then blood poured out down the side of his face.
Bispham was thin and wiry, built like a scrapyard dog, all bones and bollocks, and he was light enough for Donaldson — much bigger and stronger and fitter — to manage easily. He forced one arm up his back, trapping the hand between his shoulder blades. Donaldson twisted the man’s ponytail around his other fist and could easily have torn it out of his skull by the roots.
Holding him thus, like a Roman shield, he manoeuvred him out of the door into the corridor. Directly opposite was the door to Alison’s bedroom and Ginny, disturbed by the commotion, had emerged sleepily in her jim-jams, her face falling with shock at the sight of Donaldson coming out of her room carrying Bispham in front of him.
‘Night-time visitor,’ Donaldson said, turning left and marching him along the corridor, Bispham’s toes hardly touching the floor. He led him to the door that opened out to the bar and noticed the splintered wood around the lock, answering a question in Donaldson’s head. Bispham had jemmied his way into the living accommodation, naughty man. Donaldson pinned him to the wall and toed the door open. He said, ‘Gonna be a cold, cold night for you, buddy boy.’
The man’s bloodied face was crushed up to the wall and he could not respond. Then, as the door opened, Donaldson reaffirmed his grip on the ponytail and the hand, and pushed him out of the door so they emerged into the pub, the bar to their left.
It was fortunate for the American that he was holding Bispham up like a shield because he was faced with three masked and armed men who, in turn, were surprised by his sudden appearance.
The men were in a V-shaped formation. The lead man, the point of the V, was armed with a pump-action shotgun and he swung it around and pointed it at Donaldson’s writhing captive, who had also seen what was in front of him.
Donaldson had little time to react. Just enough for him to take in the situation — the weapon coming around in his direction — so he drew himself in as tightly as he could behind Bispham and held him forward like an offering.
And the shotgun was discharged from a distance of about ten feet, not giving the cartridge load the space to spread before it slammed into Bispham’s chest, right on the sternum, blowing a fist-shaped hole in him.
Donaldson held on, even though the force of the blast waved through his arms, and Bispham suddenly went limp. Dead.
He heard the cartridge being ejected, the weapon being racked as a new round slid into the breech. He held Bispham slightly to one side, now literally a dead weight, and saw the man racking the shotgun was blocking the way of the other two, causing them to hesitate unless they shot their colleague by mistake.
Using Bispham like a battering ram, Donaldson emitted a warlike roar and charged the intruders, driving the dead man into the shotgun guy before he could fire the next round, then barged on, using all his power to force him backwards, before with one last heave he threw Bispham ahead of him like a demented zombie.
Donaldson knew he had only seconds.
The element of surprise, both ways, had gone.
He turned, moving quickly, and before the men could regroup and work out what had hit them, he threw himself back through the door into the living accommodation, slammed it shut and slid the three big old bolts across.
Ginny was standing in the corridor.
‘Get down,’ he screamed, gesticulating wildly — but she was affixed to the spot, still did not know what had happened. He ran towards her, keeping low, and, being as gentle as he could about it, tackled her and carried her through into her bedroom. The door behind them seemed to explode as two shotgun cartridges ripped into it. But the door was almost as old as the pub, constructed over a hundred years before of thick oak and fitted together by craftsman-made joints and pride. It held well against the shotgun blast and the bolts made the thing virtually impregnable.
He gave Ginny a ‘shush’ gesture and on his belly he wriggled into the hallway and along to the door, keeping to the edge of the corridor, moving like a lizard, or maybe a crocodile.
At the door he stopped, listened hard, but could hear nothing and he knew why.
The intruders were not remotely interested in anything on this side of the door. They had not broken in for him or Ginny.
TWENTY
Entering the Tawny Owl had been easy, simply because the front door next to the revolving door had been left unlocked unwittingly by Danny Bispham, whose mind had been on other things. They had parked their vehicles down the road and run silently through the snow, each of the three men in black, ski masks pulled down over their features, had gone in through the front door and into the bar which was in darkness, other than for the faint glow of some low-level security lighting. The bar itself was secured by a roll-down metal mesh, and all the chairs had been upended on to tables for cleaning purposes.