Flynn had delivered his fair share of head-butts in his time, mostly well aimed and timed, and, of course, in his younger days when he was faster and sharper.
So even though this head-butt was powerfully delivered, the man underneath saw it telegraphed and dinked his head sideways. Flynn connected with fresh air, missed him completely. This man was faster. Big realization.
By this time, still only a few seconds into the conflict, the man behind who had kicked Flynn into the boat was moving quickly to help his mate and Flynn lost his advantage — the advantage he had hoped to achieve by showing them this was no pushover and they’d bitten off more than they could digest.
Flynn’s head came back, and, angled slightly so that his face gave a perfect target, the men made up for their earlier mistake of not putting him down straight away. Something hard, heavy and metallic was smashed down hard across his head. It was like being hit by a frying pan — in fact, it could have been a pan from the galley. Flynn tumbled sideways off the man, who spun and rolled up onto his feet with ease, whilst Flynn’s brain was sent into free-fall by the blow.
Then the blows began to connect.
He rolled into a foetal ball, forearms covering his head, trapped tight against a bench seat, unable to do anything now but cower and try to protect himself.
They hit him hard, one with a baseball bat, the other with the butt of a gun.
Then they stopped. Next thing Flynn was hauled roughly into a half-seating position and the barrel of the gun — it was a machine-pistol of some sort — was rammed underneath his chin, then forced upwards so he looked along it, along the hands and arms of the man holding it, who squatted in front of him, up to his ski-masked face.
The ski mask. One of the simplest forms of terror inducement that existed. A hood with eye holes and a mouth hole. An innocent garment that, worn under the right circumstances — usually during a violent robbery — was so terrifying that it immediately gave offenders a massive psychological advantage over victims and witnesses.
The eyes behind the mask. The obscene mouth.
Flynn’s head was swimming from the blow, but he also felt fear.
‘Jeez… what… hell!’ he gasped, trying to give the impression of total incomprehension, although he was trying to work out the angles and odds now.
The man pushed the muzzle of the gun deep and hard into the soft flesh under the V of Flynn’s jaw.
‘OK, tough guy, you finished fighting?’
‘Yuh,’ he said and his brain clicked: accent.
‘Good.’ The man’s head moved closer to Flynn’s face. Flynn could smell his breath and sweat and cheap deodorant. An unpleasant combination.
Flynn looked to his right and saw the other man standing there slapping a baseball bat into the palm of his hand, a corny but effective gesture.
‘Now… where is it?’
‘What? Where’s what?’ Flynn sneered.
‘Whatever you took from the dead woman. We want it.’
‘I didn’t take anything.’
The gun was jammed further into his throat and in a concurrent line of thought, Flynn worked out that if the trigger was pulled, the bullet would rip up through his tongue, behind his teeth, up through the roof of his mouth. His brain would be removed, the top of his skull would explode outwards and there would be a hell of a mess inside the boat.
‘You did. Do not lie!’
‘I’m not in a position to lie,’ Flynn protested. Then he lurched forward instinctively and grabbed the man’s ski mask and ripped it off, and stared directly into his face.
The man laughed harshly, said, ‘Fool,’ and slammed his weapon sideways across Flynn’s face with such force that it had the instantaneous effect of knocking him into oblivion.
Henry shifted on the settee, settled, closed his eyes — then almost leapt out of his skin when his mobile phone, left in his trouser pocket, vibrated as a text message landed.
It was unexpected because he’d forgotten the phone was there and with the signal in this area being so poor and unreliable, it was rare for anyone to get through anyway.
He pulled it out and slid it open, peering at the screen. He visualized the text having been sent, then loitering in space for a while before suddenly seeing a chance to swoop down to his phone. This was the same person who was convinced that a text could be sent with a nifty wrist-flick of the phone, like throwing a Frisbee, but not actually letting go of the phone. Henry had a fairly childlike view of the new age of technology.
The sender was Professor Baines, the Home Office pathologist. It read simply, ‘Call me.’
Henry had been on the verge of serious slumber. The ice-pack had helped stem the expansion of his swelling and the painkillers plus a second JD had made him sleepy.
He forced himself into a sitting position, picked up the landline phone and dialled Baines’s number, gently touching his face as the call connected.
‘So they didn’t keep you in overnight?’ Baines said immediately.
‘No, I’ve got my own nurse, free, on tap, works behind a bar… all the best attributes of a good health-care worker.’
‘Lucky you… how are you feeling?’
‘Grog and cross,’ Henry muttered. ‘What can I do you for?’
‘Well, I haven’t done any post-mortems yet, but I have found something that might be of interest to you.’
‘Are you still at the mortuary?’ Henry asked incredulously, his eye glancing towards the fireplace clock.
‘Death never sleeps,’ Baines said mysteriously. ‘Yes, I am still here, surrounded by the dead — and from the looks of the mortuary assistants, the undead too. But needs must.’
‘What have you found?’
‘As you know, I’m a tooth man. I look at dead people’s teeth for various reasons, mainly selfish.’
‘Hence the OBE.’
‘And maybe a knighthood, if rumour is to be believed.’
‘Don’t hold your breath.’
‘OK — banter over. These days I tend to head straight for the mouth first. Which is why I had a peer into the mouth of the woman who was pulled from the river, who has now been identified, I believe. Post-mortem now scheduled for ten-thirty tomorrow, by the way.’
‘Great.’
‘She’d had some bridge work done, some fillings.’
‘Not unusual.’
‘Not in itself, but what I consider to be unusual is that there are now two dead bodies in this mortuary who have had work carried out by the same dentist.’
Henry waited.
‘The work done in the mouth of… ahh… Mrs Sunderland was done by the same dentist as the work carried out in the mouth of the unidentified girl, the murder victim we looked at earlier. Now what do you think about that?’
Flynn was woken by a combination of two things — smell and heat.
The smell was that of petrol.
The heat was from the fact that the petrol had been set alight and flames were whooshing up, along and around the interior of the canal boat.
Flynn was face down, cheek pressed into the wooden floor.
The smell was horrendous, invading his nostrils.
He moved his head, opened his eyes and looked down the length of the boat, burning with intense heat, bright flames crackling and heading quickly in his direction.
He attempted to raise himself, but slid back down on weak, rubbery arms that would not hold his weight.
‘Bastards,’ he groaned.
They’d set the boat alight with him still in it, unconscious.
Flynn pushed himself up again, head swooning, disorientated slightly, but knowing he had to crawl backwards to the door.
Then his brain cells started working again and he realized that he hadn’t been left in the position where he’d been bashed unconscious. The men had dragged him through the galley area, along the floor, through the living room, the full length of the boat and into the bedroom where he’d been dumped. Then they’d doused the boat in petrol and lit it.
Leaving him trapped by the flames.
To get out of the door would mean running through a tunnel of fire, thirty feet long, which was now fearsomely hot and would roast him instantly.