the time I was retreating, up the hill, putting precious yards between us.
But that was another mistake, and K. Tom realised it at exactly the same instant as I did. The further I moved back, the more I had to move sideways to keep that great shapeless useless mass of bronze between us. Suddenly, I’d gone off Spindle Piece.
K. Tom calmly walked round it and levelled the gun at me.
Three explosions burst into the left side of my head. I hit the ground and rolled over, my brain filled with a muffled, screaming silence, and looked for my new adversary.
Nigel was standing there, as immobile as anything in that park. His arms were reaching forward, the hands clasping a big, beautiful, police-issue Smith and Wesson. 38 revolver, silhouetted against a pall of white smoke that drifted off into the darkness.
I rolled on to my knees. K. Tom was on the ground, with Sparky running towards him, then toeing the shotgun away from his body. I stood up and turned to Nigel. He hadn’t moved.
‘Easy, young feller,’ I panted, reaching for the gun. I grasped it by the barrel and pointed it skywards, prising his fingers open. The barrel was warm, and the smell of cordite burnt my nostrils, pungent in the cold air. He suddenly released it and lowered his arms, but remained staring in the direction of the fallen body.
‘You did well,’ I told him. ‘You did well. Come over here.’
I led him by the arm and sat him on the plinth of the sculpture. ‘Just sit there,’ I said and turned to Sparky. ‘How is he?’
‘Not sure, but he’s breathing.’
‘I’ll ring for assistance.’
When I’d finished, Sparky said it was only a shoulder wound, and the patient was conscious. Two bullets had missed. If I’d been there alone I’d have been sorely tempted to finish the job, once and for all.
The adrenaline rush faded with the danger, and reality returned. I had a police. 38 in my pocket, with three spent chambers, and a wounded prisoner. I unloaded the gun and walked back to where Nigel was sitting.
‘You OK?’ I asked.
He nodded. ‘Will he live?’
‘It looks like it. Come for a little walk. I want a word.’
I led him up the hill until we were out of K. Tom’s earshot. ‘Nigel,’ I began. ‘How come you had a gun?’
‘What’s it like when you kill a man, Charlie?’ he asked.
‘You haven’t killed anyone,’ I reminded him.
‘He might die.’
‘OK. It’s not very nice. You have to convince yourself that you had no other option, and learn to live with it. K. Tom might die, but if you hadn’t fired when you did, you’d be going to two funerals next week. Never forget that. Some of us are very grateful you were here, tonight, and did what you did. Now answer my question, Nigel. This is important. Why did you have a gun and where did you get it?’
He brushed his hair out of his eyes. ‘I was waiting in the nick,’ he replied, ‘for Sparky — Dave — to ring me back. I decided to check if Davis is licensed to hold a shotgun. He is. It occurred to me that he might have it with him, so I drew the thirty-eight from the armoury.’
‘How, Nigel?’ I insisted. ‘How did you withdraw it?’
‘Inspector Adey was on duty. He signed it out for me.’
‘Off his own bat?’
‘No. He rang Force Control. The officer in charge sanctioned it.’
‘You’re sure about that?’
‘Yes. It’s all right, Charlie. We did it by the book.’
‘Thank Christ for that,’ I sighed. Good old Nigel had played it by the book. I should have known better than to imagine he’d do it any other way. Suddenly, I felt weary. I sat down on the grass and stretched out, lying on my back staring at the moon. I could have lain there all night, except the revolver was sticking in my kidneys, and the helicopter was chomping in over the treetops, flashing and banking like something out of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
K. Tom survived. Considering the range, and the bad light, it was good shooting by Nigel, but outside the normal parameters for taking out an armed assailant. By the rules of the game Davis should have been dead. I spent Tuesday morning giving evidence to the investigating officer brought in from another division to look into the shooting. He shook his head once or twice, but nothing worse.
After that I needed a cup of tea and a pork pie, badly. I was running down the stairs when I met Inspector Adey.
‘Hi, Gareth,’ I said as I passed him.
‘Everything OK, Charlie?’ he called after me, concerned.
‘I think so,’ I shouted back over my shoulder.
‘Charlie!’ he yelled.
I stopped and looked up at him.
‘Thought you might like some good news,’ he said.
‘That would be most welcome. What is it?’
‘This morning Fingerprints rang us about a match they’d made. We’ve just arrested a youth for killing the swans in the park, thanks to that beer can you found there.’
‘Hey, that’s great. Is it anybody we know?’
‘We don’t know him,’ he replied, ‘but apparently he’s an old friend of yours.’
‘Oh,’ I said, taking a step back up towards him. ‘I think you’d better tell me all about it.’
In the afternoon Superintendent Les Isles and I held a case review meeting in his office. Makinson was with us, too, but he didn’t have much to contribute. K. Tom Davis was in Heckley General, under armed guard. He was sitting up and had been charged with attempted murder.
‘First of all,’ Les began, ‘let me tell you about Michael Angelo Watts. I have a miracle to report — his memory has returned. We fed it to him that Davis had been arrested and the remainder of the gold recovered, and he decided that it might be helpful to us if he made a statement. The gist of it is that he’d left his portable telephone — more correctly, his father’s telephone — at K. Tom Davis’s house on the Wednesday before Lisa was killed. I asked him if there was anybody who could corroborate that and he suggested Mrs Davis. I told him that was a no-no. She denied ever seeing the phone, and he looked uncharacteristically glum. He brightened a little when I disclosed that I had a witness who might help him.’
‘Me,’ I said.
‘Mmm,’ Les continued. ‘I told Watts that you had made a statement saying how you saw him visit Davis at the appropriate time, and suggesting that his behaviour indicated that he had taken the wrong phone with him. In other words, you’d got him off a murder rap.’
‘Did he express his gratitude?’
‘Not exactly — don’t forget you had helped put him behind bars for dealing. I made it plain that we’d been fair with him, and that making threats against your girlfriend was bang out of order. I’d be lying if I said he looked sheepish, Charlie, but I think he took it onboard.’
‘Great,’ I said. ‘That’s good news. It was worrying me.’
‘I’ll bet it was. Now let’s have a look at Davis. I’m afraid the outlook is not so rosy from now on. We’ve only recovered the one bar of gold, for a start. Either he spread it around, or that’s all there is left.’
‘Twenty kilograms, or one hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds’ worth, out of ten million quid. That’s not bad going.’
‘These drugs barons have expensive tastes. Mr and Mrs Davis — K. Tom and the desirable Ruth — have had sudden pangs of remorse, too, and they have both decided to fully cooperate with us. Their tales, sadly, differ in one important area. He says that he stayed in on the night Lisa was killed, but that she stormed out in a paddy. Ruth Davis says more or less the opposite.’
‘What are the stories?’ I asked.
‘Well, according to K. Tom, Lisa rang him about her business, as previously stated. Ruth was insanely jealous, he claims, convinced they were having an affair. After the second call she dashed out of the house, saying
