Siobhan said, ‘Whatever the circumstances, we’ll fit a story to answer the evidence. What it boils down to is that both of you are due to die.’ She spoke with glee and a sneer.
‘ Like all the others?’ Henry demanded.
‘ Exactly like the others,’ she confirmed.
‘ Derek Luton had you sussed, altering those statements. Which one of you killed him?’
Tattersall gave Henry a friendly wave and a smile through the cage door.
A lurching sensation went through Henry.
‘ And Geoff Driffield? What about him?’
‘ Team effort,’ Gallagher said. ‘He thought we were going to catch that gang of gypos, poor sucker. We turned up instead. Just unfortunate they hit that shop up the road at more or less the same time as we hit dear old Geoff.’
‘ And what had he done to you? Looked at you wrong?’
‘ Got caught collecting evidence against us. He had to go.’
‘ You know other people are involved with me — people like the FBI?’
‘ We’ll deal with them as and when we need to. Anyway, I’m sick of talking now,’ said Gallagher, ‘getting pissed wet through. What I want you both to do is climb out of here nice and slowly, walk up to that factory wall and put your noses up to it, OK? I see you’ve taken his cuffs off, Henry, but it makes no odds. If you piss about, we’ll shoot you anyway, so it’s as broad as it’s long. If you want it over quick and clean, just follow orders.’
Henry and Rider exchanged glances.
‘ Is that FBI shit true?’ Rider asked.
‘ Yeah,’ Henry squeaked.
‘ Well, that makes me feel a whole lot better.’
Henry’s throat felt like his windpipe had been constricted by a boa and despite the cold, a clammy sweat had formed under his armpits.
Siobhan smacked the release catch and the locking bar sprang open.
The three armed detectives took a few paces back and covered Henry and Rider as they slowly descended out of the van. Henry saw Siobhan was holding some kind of machine pistol and looked very confident with it.
‘ Up to the wall,’ Gallagher reiterated.
Henry’s heart-rate was incredible. He thought it had reached his limit. A myocardial infarction was more likely to be the cause of death than a bullet.
He and Rider walked side by side to the wall. By the time they reached it they were both drenched.
‘ Right up to it,’ snapped Gallagher.
Henry stood with his nose pressed up to the bricks. His hands hung loose and weak. He closed his eyes despairingly and let his forehead drop onto the wall.
‘ Who’d like to be first?’ Gallagher offered the choice.
Rider said, ‘Kill the cop first. At least it’ll give me some pleasure before I die.’
‘ But you’re both in this together,’ Siobhan argued. ‘We’ve listened to your little chats.’
‘ Just shoot the cop first,’ Rider insisted. ‘He’s still a cop, isn’t he?’
‘ Thanks,’ breathed Henry.
Gallagher stepped forwards and placed the muzzle of the revolver at the back of Henry’s head at the point where vertebrae and cranium met.
‘ Don’t worry, Henry, you won’t feel a thing.’
Terror welled up inside him and made him want to shit and vomit and scream and cry and wake up from this fucking nightmare of nightmares.
Rider looked at Henry. ‘Always wanted to see a cop get blasted away. I’ll die happy now…’ and on the H of Happy his open-palmed left hand shot out with the intention of smacking the revolver away from Henry’s head before Gallagher fired.
Except Gallagher was ready for this manoeuvre. He stepped smartly back a stride, pulling the gun away.
Rider slapped thin air and found himself staring down the barrel of the revolver.
‘ You idiot,’ Gallagher laughed. ‘I was hoping you’d try that, because I wanted to kill you first anyway.’
Henry’s mind clicked into gear at that moment. His right hand swung to the leather pouch on his belt which held his extendable baton. He thumbed up the catch and drew it out, making his movements smooth and unhurried.
‘ You’re too slow,’ Gallagher taunted Rider. ‘Do you want to see if you can bat it out of my hand now, before I blow your head off?’
Hoping Gallagher wasn’t too far behind him, Henry swivelled at the hips and in one flowing motion pirouetted and released the catch on the baton which extended with a whoosh and a click. He turned 180 degrees with the baton swishing through the air like a sword and slammed it against Gallagher’s right forearm with all the force he could muster. Had it been a blade, Gallagher’s hand would have been sliced off.
Gallagher screamed. The gun jumped out of his grip, skittering away into the darkness.
Coming back round for a second time, Henry whacked the baton against the side of Gallagher’s head; it connected against his eye-socket with a satisfying jolt.
Neither Siobhan nor Tattersall, standing behind their DI, were able to shoot for fear of drilling holes into his back.
In that moment of confusion, Rider grabbed Henry’s jacket and dragged him bodily into the van’s headlights, shouting ‘Run!’ For a second both men were completely exposed. Two shots were hurriedly fired… then they were beyond the headlight beams and had launched themselves into the total wet blackness of the night.
Siobhan was in time to glimpse Henry’s disappearing back. She flicked the safety off the machine pistol and riddled the night with bullets.
Blindly, Henry pitched himself headlong onto the ground, landing clumsily and jarring his sore chest and dropping the baton. He ignored the pain and forced himself to roll along the hard ground for about twenty metres, feeling the spray of bullets passing only inches overhead.
He righted himself onto one knee, aware fleetingly that his clothing was now in an abominable state. His trousers were tom, jacket sleeves ripped.
And besides hurting his chest, he had also caught his ear, which felt as if it had been ripped away from the stitches. The pain was dreadful. But Henry pushed himself on. Where was Rider? Had he been hit?
Henry scrambled up and ran into the further darkness, not knowing what sort of terrain lay ahead. Next thing he tripped. He went head over heels down a steep grassy bank, expecting to roll and tumble into something awful. He came to an unexpected stop. More bullets cracked above.
Henry stopped breathing. Tried to listen. The heavy sleet deadened everything.
Voices. They were searching. Can’t make out the words, but there’s annoyance there.
Keep still. Don’t move. Odds are against them finding you. My ear, my fucking ear!
The engine revving, the beam of headlights lighting up the land to his left… getting closer, the van crawling closer. More voices — Siobhan’s — and some shouts.
The headlights swept to the spot where Henry lay.
He knew they would see him. He was briefly reminded of those World War II POW escape films. He knew that if they saw him, he was dead.
The lights passed over him. The engine grew fainter.
Henry breathed out cautiously, but didn’t move. It could be a ploy to flush him out. He was wet and cold, but fuck that. Hypothermia was better than lead poisoning. He gritted his teeth at the pain in his ear.
Ten minutes passed.
A hand clasped his shoulder. ‘You OK?’ It was Rider. He had been lying up only feet away.
‘ No, not really.’
‘ They’ll bring other cops in to search. We need to make some progress, Henry.’
‘ Let ‘em,’ said an exhausted detective. ‘We can give ourselves up.’
‘ Are you fucking thick, or what?’ Rider was incredulous. ‘You’ll be an accomplice to me. You’ll get convicted of that and all the other shit, and probably end up murdered in prison. We can’t give ourselves up yet anyway, not until it’s safe — not until we’ve decided on a way out of this crap.’
‘ So what do you propose?’ Henry couldn’t have given a toss at that moment. Everything was too much for him.
‘ First things first. Let’s get out of here and stay free.’