‘You smell wonderful tonight,’ Flynn said. ‘All feminine.’
Henry ignored him. ‘How are you feeling?’ he asked Donaldson, who had also changed after his bath and looked much better. His right foot was strapped up and propped on a dining chair.
‘Bit better. Guts still churning,’ he said, giving Henry a sit-rep. ‘But I’m hellish hungry and need some nourishment. The foot is very sore and swollen, but I don’t think it’s broken. Alison got the doctor to check it.’
‘Could he focus on it?’ Henry asked, settling at the table. ‘I see you two have met.’
‘Yep. You’re old friends,’ Donaldson said with irony.
‘Old somethings,’ Henry said.
Flynn eyed him malignly. ‘Whatever, he’ll always believe I took that million, won’t you, Henry?’
‘Until you can show different, I’ll find it hard to move on.’
‘You know it was my partner, Jack Hoyle.’
‘So you say.’
‘And I found him living the high life in the States.’ He exchanged a look with Donaldson. ‘Skippering a fishing boat out of Key West,’ he explained.
‘But yet, somehow he wasn’t to be found when the cops arrived to question him, detain him, whatever,’ Henry pointed out. ‘A real will o’ the wisp.’
‘Not my fault if the forces of law and order move with the speed of a tortoise.’
‘Whoa, guys! Knock it on the head, as they say,’ Donaldson interjected. ‘Leave it for another time.’
Henry shook his head despairingly.
A door opened and Alison came through balancing three plates on her arms, each with a succulent serving of beef steaming thereon. She placed one in front of each man, instantly picking up the tension. ‘I’ll be back shortly with the veg,’ she said and withdrew, but not before she caught Henry’s eye with a questioning frown, an exchange both Donaldson and Flynn noticed. They waited until she’d gone before speaking.
‘Nice woman,’ Flynn said.
‘Pity about the rooms,’ Henry said. ‘Don’t really fancy bedding down here for the night.’
‘Judging from that look, it’s only something me and Steve here will have to worry about.’ Donaldson arched his eyebrows.
Henry shot him a withering look. ‘I won’t be taking a leaf out of your book,’ he said, seeing Donaldson redden at the under-the-belt jibe at his recent indiscretion. Henry instantly regretted the dig, but at least it ended that line of conversation.
Alison reappeared with a couple of stainless steel serving dishes, crammed with steaming vegetables, and a gravy boat. ‘Help yourself, guys.’
They fell like ravenous wolves on the food.
Henry felt its immediate effect, warming him from the inside and meeting up with the outside warmth from the bath. Energy returned to him and though he was still shattered from the day’s exertions he felt more capable of dealing with the night ahead, which he knew might be very fraught and long.
They ate heartily and in silence, the main course being supplemented by a dessert of sticky toffee pudding and custard that had Henry purring with delight.
Once the food was over, Alison brought in coffee and Henry got down to business.
‘OK, Steve, let’s hear your story — all of it.’
Flynn squinted thoughtfully, arranging his brain, and began to relate everything from start to finish. From receiving Cathy’s frantic phone calls, the unpleasant encounter with Tom James, finding Henry and Donaldson and then Cathy’s body. At least that was his plan, but just as he opened his mouth to speak, Alison burst in.
‘I need some help,’ she said, clearly distressed. ‘There’s trouble in the bar.’
FOURTEEN
‘ Him there,’ Alison whispered. She had led Henry and Flynn through to the bar. She pointed out a big, unruly- looking man sitting in the far corner of the room at a brass-topped table, diagonally opposite where Henry was now standing by the side of the bar.
Henry looked at the guy, dressed in a heavy, mud-stained donkey jacket, jeans, steel-toecapped work boots with the caps exposed. He was a big, broad man, looked like he could be a handful, with thick, calloused hands and a brooding, menacing expression enhanced by heavy eyebrows. Henry put him mid-forties and in manual labour.
He had one big hand wrapped around a half-drunk pint of beer, next to which were a couple of empty whisky tumblers. He was hunched over the table, staring, deeply thoughtful — troubled, Henry surmised — into what remained of the beer.
‘What’s he done?’ Henry asked.
‘Nothing so far, but he’s obviously been drinking before he came in, and he was really nasty to Ginny, who was too scared to refuse him a drink.’
‘Then what?’
‘He went and sat at that table.’
Henry considered this, tried to assimilate what she’d just told him. A pissed-up guy comes into the pub, orders more drinks, is offhand with the staff, then goes and sits down with his drinks and, basically, does nothing.
‘I think I’m missing something here,’ Henry said. ‘I take it you want him ejecting, is that it?’
‘No… no… yes… but…’
‘But what?’
‘He’s got a gun.’
One of the things Henry had loved most about being a uniformed cop — back in the day — was dealing with pub brawls and incidents in licensed premises. Bread and butter stuff for uniforms, and Henry had been witness to, or involved in, many disturbances that wouldn’t have been out of place in Dodge City. He had also been called out to a few reports of people in pubs carrying weapons, firearms or knives. The customer who had tried to conceal something that someone else had spotted, such as this man.
These incidents were fraught with much more danger and unpredictability than good old-fashioned fisticuffs, with many awkward questions zooming through a cop’s head as the suspect was approached. Not least of which was, ‘Am I going to be the one the weapon gets used on?’
Henry said, ‘You sure?’
‘Yes, well, Ginny said she saw what looked like a double pipe thing inside his jacket.’
‘A sawn-off shotgun?’ Flynn said. He, too, had attended numerous pub fights when he’d been a uniformed constable on the beat, and had revelled in the excitement as well as the opportunity to land punches of his own in the melee.
‘We think so,’ Alison said.
Ginny was still at the bar, serving a new customer. The place was getting a little busier, a few more locals braving the weather to get stiff drinks inside them in the warm atmosphere. There was a pleasant buzz about the place, people coming together to face the adverse weather and all that. There was, however, a space around the sullen man, rather like a no-fly zone.
‘Is he local?’ Henry asked.
‘Yeah, Larry Callard. Local tough guy, or so he reckons. He’s one of Jack Vincent’s drivers. Was in here yesterday, pissed up.’
The mention of Vincent gave Henry a jolt and he flicked a glance at Flynn, who had listened to all this eagerly. Henry sensed he wanted to get involved. ‘Not your call, Steve, no need to pitch in.’
‘Not much chance of that,’ Flynn responded. ‘I’m here, mate.’
‘What do you think, then?’
Flynn pouted. ‘Play it cool, get a drink at the bar, gravitate to him, sit down, strike up a pleasant conversation. See where it leads.’
‘I thought you’d be for the more direct approach,’ Henry said cynically, but was secretly pleased that Flynn
