‘ Let’s just hope the owner’s set in there for the night… give us a head start,’ Rider was saying.
Henry made a feeble attempt to pull himself together. He sat up, tugged down the sun visor, flicked on the interior light and inspected his ear. What he saw made him whimper.
It was hanging on by a thread of gristly skin, swinging like a sign outside a pub. He moaned. Blood flowed onto his left shoulder and dribbled down his chest.
‘ It’s a fucking mess,’ he blurted out, almost crying.
‘ It’ll be all right,’ Rider comforted him. ‘ So long as you get some medical treatment fairly soon. Better than a bullet in your brain at any rate.’
‘ I don’t mean that,’ Henry said churlishly. ‘I mean everything — the whole fucking shooting match. What the hell are we running for? I’ve done nothing wrong.’ He was rambling a bit as he tried to unscramble his brain. ‘Let’s just give ourselves up, John. We’ve nothing to fear.’
Rider took a left at Three Nooks and headed towards Lytham.
‘ They’ve just tried to kill us, mate — that’s what we’ve got to fear. What we need is some breathing space so we can reorganise ourselves and plan ahead. Presenting ourselves at a police station isn’t the answer, not to my way of thinking. If we do that, they’ll simply say we escaped from custody and we’ll be fucked again.’
Christ, the pain.
‘ Right, OK,’ said Henry in an attempt to be positive. He was thinking now… slowly, but at least he was thinking. ‘We need to get our act together, get the evidence together and then hit the bastards with it. We could go to my house-’
‘ Like fuck we could. They’ll be watching and waiting, just like they’ll be watching and waiting at my flat. I have a better idea — somewhere we can crash out for the night, then see how things look in the morning.’
Henry slumped back in the big comfy seat. ‘Whatever,’ he said dejectedly.
They did more than watch Henry’s house. On the stroke of midnight they raided it.
A mean-tempered Gallagher with a bandage wrapped around his right arm and an ugly-looking swelling by his right eye, banged angrily on the front door.
Tattersall and Siobhan were directly behind him. Three other NWOCS detectives hovered behind them, looking hard and uncompromising, like they’d never smiled since joining the cops.
Kate raced to the door. She and the Donaldsons had been sitting in the lounge, tense, awaiting any developments. Karl stood with her at the threshold.
‘ Is Henry Christie here?’ Gallagher demanded.
‘ No, I-’
Before Kate could say anything more, Gallagher interrupted. ‘He’s wanted for assault, allowing a prisoner to escape and other corrupt practices, including rape and sexual assault. We’re gonna search the house.’
Donaldson stepped forwards. ‘Now hold on a moment, buddy.’
‘ By force if necessary,’ Gallagher warned him.
‘ Where’s the warrant?’
‘ Under English law we don’t need one. Now step aside and let us in, or we’ll gladly kick the fuck out of you.’
The officers poured in to the house. They pushed past Kate and one went straight through to the back door which he opened to allow three more detectives in. They had been watching the rear to prevent Henry escaping out back.
‘ What do you mean, rape and sexual assault?’ Kate cried. She was confused and on the edge of tears.
Gallagher sneered evilly at her. ‘Your husband can’t keep his hands off other women, can he?’ he said with extreme cruelty.
‘ Shut it, asshole,’ Donaldson warned him, and stepped forwards menacingly. Gallagher and he were much of the same height and build. It would have been an interesting conflict.
‘ Go on, do it,’ Gallagher invited.
Donaldson gritted his teeth and held back.
The moment passed.
‘ Now I suggest you get everyone in the house assembled in the living room,’ said Gallagher.
They parked the Granada in a badly-lit street in South Shore, and sat there hoping not to draw attention to themselves.
Henry found an oily cloth in the glove-box and pressed it to his ear. The bleeding had lessened. Coagulation was taking place.
They had another brief argument about presenting themselves at a police station. Henry’s instinct told him this was the way forwards. Rider laughed at him.
‘ That’s what comes of never having been on the wrong side of the law,’ he sneered. ‘You wanna look at it from a crim’s perspective occasionally. When a cop’s out to get you, it’s a godawful feeling when you know you can’t trust anyone. And for some, that’s what it’s like. A police station can be a place where everything you do or say is twisted.’
Which was hard for Henry to perceive. He had always — truly — believed that if he was in trouble he could go to the law and be dealt with fairly and justly. In a matter of days his world had been up-ended. Now he didn’t know who to trust, who to turn to, where to go. The badness of this squad seemed limitless, its influence phenomenal. Who could he go to who wasn’t touched by it?
Sitting there with a bleeding ear, a thumping head, in soaking wet clothes, he felt very much alone. He knew he could trust Karl Donaldson — but how could he get to him? And he knew he had to trust John Rider.
There was a silence between the men, filled by the engine ticking over. Warm air blew out of the vents.
‘ So did you kill Munrow?’
Rider turned his whole body in his seat to look at Henry. A slash of yellow light fell across his eyes. The rest of his face was in darkness. He said nothing.
‘ I thought so,’ Henry concluded.
The search had been thorough. An hour after starting, the police withdrew, taking nothing away with them despite having visited every nook and cranny.
Gallagher looked cheated.
‘ What did you expect to find?’ Donaldson asked him. ‘He ain’t done nothin’ wrong, bud — unlike some people I could mention.’ He looked knowingly at Gallagher then gladly closed the front door behind him.
Donaldson returned to the lounge where the two exhausted daughters had crashed out on the settee and the two weary women, hollow-eyed, looked tiredly at him.
Kate had gone beyond crying.
‘ Is it true?’ she begged desperately. ‘Can Henry really have helped a murderer to escape? And rape? What does it mean?’
‘ You can take it from me that Henry has not raped anyone, nor has he helped a murderer to escape,’ Karl hissed quietly, one eye on the two girls. This was a conversation they didn’t need to overhear. ‘Henry’s as straight as an arrow; he’s just become involved with people who aren’t.’
‘ What do we do now, Karl?’ Karen asked.
‘ Wait,’ said Donaldson. ‘I’m sure he’ll contact us when he can. In the meantime, let’s have a cup of tea and get these little ladies back to their beds.’ He winked at Karen and gestured for her to follow him into the kitchen.
‘ They were after those statements as much as anything,’ Donaldson said quietly to her. ‘What did you do with ‘em, babe?’
‘ They’re down my knickers — almost. As soon as I heard them at the door I grabbed the paperwork and folded it down the front of my jeans.’
Donaldson’s face turned into a wide smile. ‘Now I know why I love you,’ he said. ‘Any chance of me removing them with my teeth?’
She punched him gently on the arm. ‘Every chance.’
Henry was wet and shivering again, the dryness of the car having been left behind ten minutes ago.
He and Rider were, once more, in dark shadow. This time they were fifty metres down the road from the front of Rider’s club, watching the last of the stragglers stagger away from the doors.
At last the place closed up and the lights went out.
The street was quiet. Nothing moved.
Ten minutes later the door opened again and the staff left en masse, a small posse of people probably on their way to a curry house.
The door closed.
‘ Jacko should be leaving soon, then we’ll have the place to ourselves.’