They scrabbled wildly for the door handles. Outside, they rolled onto their feet and sprinted up the banking to a height where they felt reasonably safe.
‘ You okay?’ Henry gasped.
‘ My thumb hurts,’ said Terry. He showed it to Henry. Already the joint was swelling. ‘You’ve cut your head,’ he observed.
‘ I know,’ said Henry. He touched the open wound gingerly.
‘ And you screamed.’
‘ I thought so,’ Henry admitted.
‘ We got off light,’ commented Terry as they surveyed the scene.
The motorway was in chaos. Both carriageways were blocked by a mangle of vehicles of all descriptions — a total of seventy-two, reports would say later. Bodies were strewn about. Some moved and twitched, others did not move at all. Many were torn into bloody pieces. People were wandering around stunned. Others, uninjured, offered what assistance they could in the circumstances. On the northbound side the blue flashing lights on the first police Range Rover approached the scene.
‘ Buggerin’ ‘ell!’ said Terry, taking it all in. It was the strongest expletive he ever used.
‘ Improvised explosive device,’ said Henry.
‘ Eh?’
‘ It was a bomb.’
Terry nodded. He was holding his thumb.
They turned and looked at each other. Henry’s face was covered in blood; blood in his eyes, nose and mouth.
Both remembered, visualised the blast.
‘ That Minibus!’ bawled Henry. He set off running towards the river. Terry, pain forgotten, ran behind him.
Hinksman checked his watch and smiled with a degree of satisfaction. A good job, half-done. He finished his lukewarm coffee, folded up the newspaper and went to the payphone in the lobby. He inserted the phone card and dialled an international number. While waiting for it to connect he hummed and gazed round.
Two men in suits entered the hotel. They looked flustered. Hinksman immediately identified them. Cops. He watched them stride across to Reception.
Puzzled, he put the phone down just as it rang and walked casually towards them.
They leaned on the desk, all bluster, business and tension.
His intuition proved correct as one of them flashed a warrant card and introduced himself. Hinksman heard the name — McClure — but not the rank. His sharp eyes caught the glimpse of a revolver in a holster at the man’s waist, hidden by the jacket. Hinksman thought, An English cop armed?
He clearly heard the name and rank of the other policeman as he spoke to the receptionist, ‘… and I’m Special Agent Donaldson from the FBI — in America.’ He showed his shiny badge of office — a badge Hinksman hated. He couldn’t see a gun on him.
‘ We’d like a word with the manager,’ McClure said. ‘Quickly, please.’
Hinksman, trying to act naturally, turned and headed towards the exit. As the automatic door hissed open, knowing he shouldn’t but unable to stop himself, he turned for one last look.
His third mistake of the day.
The American detective was leaning with his back on the desk, supporting himself with both elbows, fingers interlocked across his chest.
His eyes met Hinksman’s briefly. It was almost nothing — but in that almost nothing there was the glimmer of something as the detective’s eyebrows furrowed.
Recognition?
Hinksman went through the door. This time he didn’t look back.
The ambulanceman draped a blanket over Henry Christie’s wet, exhausted body and ushered the shivering detective towards the back door of the waiting ambulance.
Henry resisted. He turned to look back across the river, which was deep and fast-flowing, having been in full flood only twenty-four hours previously. The Minibus was still lying where it had landed — three-quarters submerged, the side uppermost with all its windows intact.
A police diver surfaced and signalled to his colleagues on the riverbank. Negative. Thumbs down. He refixed his face mask and disappeared under the water again.
Henry gritted his teeth. He looked up at the grey sky.
‘ C’mon, mate,’ the ambulanceman said gently, trying to steer him away. ‘You’ve done all you can here.’
Which, in the end, was nothing, the young detective thought bleakly.
‘ We need to see you’re all right now.’ He indicated Henry’s head. ‘That cut’s a bad one. It’ll need stitches. And if you don’t warm up soon you’ll catch your death.’
Henry wiped his face and looked at his hand. Blood, mud and water mixed in a paste. He sighed with resignation and nodded numbly. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a TV news crew heading purposefully towards him. A reporter holding a microphone was followed by a cameraman, lighting and sound man and a woman carrying a clipboard.
The reporter was talking excitedly into his mike as he approached. Henry recognised him from TV. The crew stopped in front of Henry and the ambulanceman, blocking their way.
The reporter spoke dramatically into the mike. ‘Detective-Sergeant Christie, you and your partner struggled in vain to rescue the children trapped in the Minibus. How do you feel, knowing that they’ve almost certainly perished?’
He thrust the mike into Henry’s face.
How do I feel? Henry asked himself. He explored his body and mind for an answer. Numb. Frustrated. Useless. Emotions tumbled through him like a pack of cards being shuffled and suddenly they all welled up into one: anger.
His eyes blazed. ‘Parasite!’ he yelled, knocking the mike out of the reporter’s grasp and lunging at him. He grabbed him in a clinch, as if they were dancing partners and shoved him backwards down the riverbank.
The reporter tried desperately to balance himself… but failed. He teetered, then fell into the mud with a loud scream.
Henry turned to the cameraman who had recorded the incident. The man backed off.
Henry was about to say something, but in a flash of clarity he recognised the stupidity of his actions and the possible future repercussions.
Silently he walked over to the ambulance and was helped inside.
Hinksman held the phone away from his ear. Over 3000 miles separated him from the voice on the end of the line, but Corelli still managed to boom with a force that could burst an eardrum.
Hinksman let him shout. Mr Corelli was entitled. He was the boss.
As the tirade began to subside, Hinksman re-entered the conversation. ‘The FBI are here too, for some reason — and I don’t like it,’ he said.
‘ I’ll look into it,’ Corelli promised, which meant he’d get some information from his highly placed, and highly priced, mole at the Bureau.
‘ So what do you want me to do?’ Hinksman asked finally, although he already knew the answer.
‘ I paid you to do a job. You ain’t done it yet. So go finish it, Sonny.’
Chapter Two
Following the bomb on the motorway, the casualty bureau at Lancashire Constabulary’s force headquarters near Preston was staffed to its maximum and working at full stretch. A barrage of phone calls from all over the
