‘Over here,’ he said, then louder, ‘Steve, over here.’
ELEVEN
Flynn stared incredulously at Henry. They were standing either side of the body in the snow and Flynn could not quite believe the words that had just spilled from Henry’s cold-hearted mouth.
‘Let me put this in simple terms,’ Flynn’s voice rose angrily. ‘I owe you at least one good punch in the mouth for the way you stitched me up way back when, and I’m damn sure I can get away with it out here. So, if you do what I think you want to do, I won’t hang back.’ He paused. ‘No way on earth is this body going to stay out here.’
Henry allowed Flynn his little rant and could not resist saying, ‘And when I hear shit like that coming out of your mouth, I realize Lancashire Constabulary is a much better organization without people like you in it.’
Flynn bridled like a prodded Rottweiler.
Henry went on quickly, sensing Flynn’s inner burning. ‘All I’m saying is that if we start messing around here and moving the body, we’re likely to lose evidence. You don’t get a second chance…’
‘At a crime scene,’ Flynn completed the sentence sourly for him, quoting the Murder Investigation Manual. ‘I know all that, but by implication you are actually suggesting that somehow her body should be left here until you can get the circus out to it. That could be… fuck knows when!’
‘I’m simply considering all the angles, pros and cons.’ Henry had to raise his voice against an ever strengthening wind. He jabbed his finger downwards at the body between them, already re-covered in snow after Henry had brushed some of it away only moments before. ‘She’s been murdered and I don’t want to lose any evidence that might help catch a killer. Especially as she’s a colleague.’
‘And that would mean leaving her here?’ Flynn demanded.
‘In an ideal world, yes. If the weather was fine and we could actually communicate with someone and I could get the circus out and I could protect it and leave it guarded — that’s exactly what I’d do.’
‘But none of those things apply.’
‘I know — but what I need to do is find out the true situation, OK? Our mobiles don’t seem to work out here, but are we actually cut off by road yet? Until I get to a landline and put a call through to headquarters I won’t know for certain. Can I get a helicopter up? Can I get a team here? Until I get those questions answered I won’t make a decision.’ Henry’s jaw jutted challengingly.
Flynn relented slightly. ‘Tell you what, you go to the village, use my motor, and see if you can contact your precious HQ and find out what the score is. I’ll lay odds nothing’s moving, not in this neck of the woods anyway. I’ll stay and cover the scene — if you’ll allow me to sit in the Shogun.’
And then there was the other aspect: Henry was also suspicious of Flynn, as he would be of anyone so closely connected to a murder victim. Did he do it?
As if Flynn could read Henry’s mind, he said, ‘No — I didn’t.’
They weighed each other up for a few moments, then Henry nodded and said, ‘Start the car to keep warm, but don’t touch anything.’
‘I was a cop for twenty years,’ Flynn said. ‘I know what to do.’ Henry handed him the torch. ‘And if you can’t get anyone out, this body is being moved, whatever the hell you say or want.’
Unfazed by Flynn, Henry said, ‘I’ll be making the decisions.’
Flynn watched Henry stumble back past the Shogun to the hire car, shaking his head at the detective’s back, somehow stopping himself from jerking a middle finger up at his back. Then he looked down at the body at his feet, squatted down and shone the torch beam on to her distorted face, or at least what was left of it. The top right-hand quadrant had been effectively blown off, undoubtedly from a shotgun blast at close range. The right eye had also been removed, but even though the force of the blast had caused the remaining three-quarters to be hideously misshapen, the lips baring the teeth, the cheek distended, Flynn could still clearly recognize Cathy James.
‘Oh babe,’ he whispered, trying to hold back his anguish, ‘who the hell did this to you?’ But even as he asked a dead body, Flynn was pretty positive that the husband had some very difficult questions to answer.
Henry dropped heavily into Flynn’s hire car and dragged the seat belt cross his chest.
‘What’s happening?’ Donaldson’s weak voice came from the rear. He was lying in a foetal position across the back seat, knees brought up tightly to his chest.
‘Tell you later. I’m going to get you down to the pub, then I need to get back up here.’
‘You found a body or something?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Oh,’ he said with little interest, showing how poorly he was.
Thick snow covered the windscreen, heavy and wet. The wipers had to work hard to clear the glass before Henry put the car into first and slowly eased out the clutch.
‘How’re you feeling?’ he asked. The car crept forward, off the forest track, on to the road. He turned left into the gradient and instantly the front wheels failed to grip. The car slewed in slow motion across the snow. Henry wrestled with the wheel, turned into the skid and corrected it. He realized that although there was only a couple of miles or so to go, it was going to have to be a slow journey.
‘Jeepers,’ Donaldson said, grabbing the back of Henry’s seat to stop himself pitching off his own seat into the footwell.
‘Sorry,’ Henry said.
‘And in answer to your question, not good. Ankle’s throbbing like it’s on a hotplate and the insides are still churning. Should I elaborate?’
‘No.’ Henry leaned forward as he drove, his chin almost on the rim of the steering wheel, nose nearly touching the screen as though this position made it easier to see ahead and control the car.
‘Who was that guy anyway? Why — how — do you know him?’
‘Ex-cop,’ Henry said. ‘I gave him a helping hand in the ex department.’
‘Ahh.’ Donaldson’s stomach cramped tightly. ‘Need a restroom,’ he said, and added, ‘pretty urgently.’
‘I’m going as fast as I can,’ Henry said, trying to concentrate on the road and not put the car into a ditch. Going at this snail’s pace required all his skill and focus, even though several other things were tumbling simultaneously through his mind, mainly the dead body of a cop and the presence of Steve Flynn, with whom he had crossed swords five years earlier and who had reappeared the previous year in connection with a case Henry had been investigating — a case that had links with the reason Flynn had left the police.
In respect of the body — the important thing — Henry knew the scene had to be protected, hence his quandary about how to proceed for the best. Despite being en route to check it out, he was as sure as Flynn that because of the atrocious weather, there would be no chance of turning anyone out to assist him. His call to HQ would serve no purpose other than to alert the powers that be that a colleague had been murdered and a team had to be on standby, ready to deploy as soon as the weather allowed. He really wanted to leave the body in situ, and the evidence-gathering part of him was convinced this was the sensible thing to do, for the reason he’d lectured Flynn: no second chance at a crime scene.
But Henry knew this was unlikely to be an option, either practically — who would guard the scene on the worst night of the year? — or from a humanitarian point of view. And because of the weather, evidence would be destroyed anyway. Based on that, Henry knew that, somehow, he had to recover the body and try to maintain the integrity of the scene at the same time.
As he corralled the car down the hill, Henry was suddenly confronted by the appearance of a black Range Rover coming up in the opposite direction, headlights blazing on full beam. Henry squinted and flashed his own lights, but the big car continued to hog two-thirds of the road and forced the smaller car on to the grass verge. Henry just managed to keep control.
He cursed, flicked the wheel this way and that, and the two cars passed within centimetres of each other. He added a few more colourful phrases, but the incident passed without anyone dying, so Henry stuffed it out of his mind and continued on, very bloody annoyed by everything: the adventure — two mates on a well-deserved walking break — had gone boobs-up and now he had to put on his Senior Investigating Officer cap when all he wanted to do was chill out and recover. He knew that this day was far from over.
