‘I wrote it down with my crayon,’ Flynn said, making his point.
Henry said, ‘OK, I need to make some calls, see some people across the way.’ He jerked his thumb in the direction of the headquarters building of Lancashire Constabulary.
‘And then will you tell me what the fuck is going on?’
Henry made a helpless gesture with his arms. ‘As if I know,’ he said. ‘Lots of things have happened and they keep freakin’ happening before I can do anything about the last thing.’ He stood up.
It was just over two hours since Flynn had called him and Henry had immediately decided he could not afford the luxury of sleep. Although the travelling distance had been a pain, he’d also decided that it would make more sense to convene at HQ, just to the south of Preston, rather than up at Lancaster nick. Apart from anything else, this was his own environment, a place he controlled, amongst people he knew, and where his office was, in what had once been a block of student accommodation at the training centre on the site. The whole building had been commandeered years before to house the SIO team, which subsequently became FMIT. His office was on the middle floor of the three-storey block and had been two bedrooms, now knocked into one decent-sized office. On some training courses way back when, Henry recalled he had slept in one of the bedrooms, although the term ‘sleeping’ could only be loosely applied. He’d sneaked a nubile and very willing policewoman into the room once — an act, then, against all the rules — and had a glorious but necessarily silent sexual encounter. Unfortunately he’d followed this by honking up in the washbasin, then later peeing in it because he couldn’t be bothered to traipse down to the toilet block at the end of a cold corridor.
So his present office had some pleasing personal history for him, which always made him glow fondly as he sat there lording it as a superintendent — a rank he never thought he would achieve in a million years of police service.
‘Do you want to grab a brew in the training-school dining room? Give me about half an hour and I’ll come and collect you?’
‘OK,’ Flynn said dourly. He hadn’t actually expected to be invited across to the main HQ building but walking over to the training centre was fine.
Henry walked Flynn out of FMIT and they went their separate ways. Henry turned left and headed across the sports field to the front of HQ, sailing in past reception and up to the first floor on which were the offices of power — the chief constable, the deputy and two assistant chiefs. Henry turned right into the carpeted corridor, through a set of double doors and then the door leading to the office that housed the chief constable’s admin staff, and staff officer.
They all looked at him, shocked by his battered appearance.
The staff officer was a female chief inspector. She gestured for him to go straight in to see the chief, who was expecting him after an earlier, urgent phone call. He went through the solid mahogany doorway.
He then spent about fifteen minutes briefing the chief, before emerging, giving the still stunned admin staff a jaunty salute and leaving for his next port of call down on the ground floor.
He walked through the less than salubrious corridors to the intelligence unit, tucked away in one corner of the building. He entered by keying in a code and scanning a thumbprint, stepping into a long, narrow office, desks arranged in two rows. The office of the DI in charge was at the far end behind a lot of glass, but just in front of that was Jerry Tope’s domain, the man he had come to see.
Henry walked down the centre of the office between the desks, his bashed-up appearance drawing looks of horror. Part of him wanted to drop into the lope of the Hunchback of Notre Dame, cover his ears and proclaim something about ‘the bells’, but he was a superintendent and had decorum.
Tope did not see him coming. He was in deep concentration at his computer and it was only as Henry dragged a spare chair and positioned it alongside the gable end of Tope’s desk and plonked down on it, did Tope glance up.
‘Holy cow, Henry!’
Henry gave him a crooked smile — which was the only smile his face was capable of cracking anyway. Anything normal hurt bad.
‘Now, then, before our phone call was rudely interrupted last night, you were about to tell me something which wasn’t suitable for Steve Flynn’s ears — am I right?’
He then spent a further twenty minutes with Tope and emerged from the conflab disquieted but also determined.
He walked slowly back across the sports field, deep in thought, as well as making a phone call on the way. He went straight past the FMIT block and to the training-centre dining room where he found Flynn nursing a half-drunk cup of coffee and an empty plate that had been filled with breakfast.
Henry gave him a ‘follow me’ gesture. Flynn stood up, swilling back the coffee, and he and Henry then made their way down the outside of the training-centre admin block, past the gym to the new, but not so recently built, firearms range. This time Henry did not have access codes and had to ring the bell before being allowed entry, and had to vouch for Flynn even though he was wearing a visitor’s badge.
Once inside they could hear the dull ‘bam-bam’ of gunfire in the range, making Henry wince at the recent memory. They entered the actual range — at the safe end — to see a demonstration being carried out by an instructor for the benefit of a few would-be firearms officers.
Suitably kitted out in dark blue overalls, a ballistic baseball cap, boots, goggles and ear defenders, and holding a Glock17 pistol in his hands, the instructor made his way down the range, accompanied by another trainer at his shoulder.
It was a simple, no-nonsense walk-through.
At various points targets appeared at the far end of the range, mostly the obligatory charging soldier ones, but occasionally different ones, such as a mother holding a baby, or a mother holding a baby and a gun, just to test the reactions of the shooter.
He had to make several split-second decisions, not knowing in what order the targets would spin into view, nor what was on them. This was done randomly by computer.
It was basic stuff for firearms-officer training, but absolutely vital.
Henry, who had been a firearms officer in his time, remembered shooting dead a vicar on a similar exercise.
The instructor worked his way down the range, watching and responding, double-tapping the appropriate targets brilliantly, and reloading swiftly without the aid of a speed-loader. When he reached the end of the range, he showed his empty gun to his colleague. Then the students, who had watched from the safe area, were beckoned down to witness the results, which were highlighted in chalk on the target. Even from the other end of the range, Henry and Flynn could see it was a 100 % shoot. The murmur of approval from the students confirmed this.
‘Nice shooting,’ Flynn said. Henry nodded.
The students were ushered back down the range by the trainer who had been observing, and once the other instructor had holstered his weapon he wandered back up the range, removing his safety goggles and ear defenders, revealing that he was PC Bill Robbins, long-time firearms instructor and an old friend of Henry’s who had fairly recently assisted him on a few investigations.
‘Boss,’ Robbins smiled, then acknowledged Steve Flynn, who he recognized as an ex-cop, noticing the injuries that both of them sported. ‘Flynnie!’ he said and shook hands with him. He turned his attention back to Henry. ‘You don’t half both look a mess… is there something I can do for you — like kill the bastards who did this?’
Flynn and Henry exchanged a nervous glance.
Henry coughed. ‘Bill, I’ve just been to see the chief and I’ve convinced him to let me have your services for a while, if that’s OK with you? I’m not sure what it might entail, going to have to suck it and see.’
‘Fine by me, but I’ll have to run it past my boss… I’m just about to start running an initial firearms course — hence the superb demo. Any idea how long you’ll want me for?’