had volunteered to help.
‘Not when there’s a chance of getting my guts blasted.’
‘Ahh,’ Alison said knowingly. ‘You used to be a cop, too? That’s how you know each other. I wondered.’
‘Now you know,’ Flynn said.
‘Amazing.’ She shook her head.
‘OK, then, that’s what we’ll do,’ Henry said. ‘I don’t think the guy’s clocked us, so we’ll go to the front of the bar, you give us a coke each and we’ll take it from there, Alison.’
She went behind the bar whilst Henry and Flynn leaned on it, pouring them two colas from the soft drinks dispenser. They turned, elbows on the bar, and watched Callard.
‘Be careful,’ Alison said. Both men nodded.
‘If he’s right handed and he’s got a big pocket inside his jacket to hide the thing, then it’ll be on his left side. Not rocket science,’ Henry said. Flynn nodded. ‘So keep an eye on the right hand and let’s see how close we can get to him.’
They pushed themselves off the bar and weaved, pretending to chat, through the few customers towards Callard, who didn’t look up once. The brass-topped table next to him, and the two chairs with it, were unoccupied.
‘Mind if we sit here, pal?’ Henry asked.
Callard’s watery eyes angled up slightly, his face a deep-lined, vicious scowl. He said nothing, turned his eyes back to his drinks, his shoulders turned away from the two men. Henry saw a deep, recent cut on his head, still weeping blood and a bit of slime. Looked like he’d been hit hard or caught his head on a lorry door or something.
‘Obviously not,’ Henry muttered. The two of them manoeuvred around and seated themselves on the low stools. Henry was about four feet away from Callard, who was on his right-hand side. Flynn slid his chair around so he was sitting opposite Henry across the table. When they were settled, Henry said, ‘A hell of a night,’ directing his voice at Callard.
The man’s head stayed low, he did not acknowledge Henry.
‘I said-’
‘I heard you,’ Callard growled, jerking his head round and staring venomously at Henry. ‘Just piss off, OK?’
Henry nodded slightly and tried to give the impression he was offended by the reaction. ‘OK,’ he said, between unmoving lips. He glanced at Flynn.
‘So much for a nice conversation,’ the ex-cop commented. ‘I thought this was a welcoming village… no strangers here, just friends we haven’t met.’
‘Obviously doesn’t apply to all members of the indigenous population.’ Henry scanned the customers at the bar. Don Singleton and Dr Lott were still just about propping up the bar. Both gave him a knowing nod from their unsteady perches. The young woman who’d been in the bar when Henry first arrived was still in the same spot. Henry caught her eyeing him and Flynn and his brow creased. She was definitely out of place. Maybe she’d been stood up. But it was only a transitory thought because Henry’s problem was how to deal safely with a suspected armed man without getting anyone else — or worse, himself — injured. He sighed down his nose and spoke close to Flynn’s ear. ‘You get on his other side and grab his arm if necessary and I’ll speak into his…’ Henry was going to say ‘shell-like’, but the truth was that Callard’s ears were an amalgamation of cauliflower florets and walnuts. ‘Lug hole… see if we can charm him.’
Flynn nodded, took a few steps and quickly seated himself on a stool on the opposite side of Callard as Henry shuffled his own stool up to Callard’s left-hand side. He held out the palm of his left hand in the gap between Callard’s face and his drinks on the table. In the hand was Henry’s warrant card and county badge.
‘Detective Superintendent Christie,’ he said into Callard’s ugly ear. Callard’s face jolted around, his whole being tensed up instantly. ‘And that’s my colleague.’ Callard took a quick look at Flynn, then back at Henry, remaining hunched over his drinks. ‘Now then, Larry — it is Larry, isn’t it? I don’t want any aggro here, understand?’ Callard’s eyes widened at Henry’s use of his name. Henry decided to keep it more formal than chatty, so there would be no misunderstandings. ‘I have reason to believe you are carrying a shotgun under your coat, Larry, and what I want you to do is simple. Put your arms around your back and link hands, then let me and my colleague escort you out, each of us holding one of your arms, yeah? Then I’ll search you outside.’ Henry’s voice was soft, firm, yet audible.
Callard’s tongue stuck out between his lips. ‘Dunno what you’re talking about.’ He looked into Henry’s eyes with defiance. But from the expression in the eyes, Henry saw that the allegation was true. Callard did have a weapon on him, Henry would have placed a month’s wages on it.
‘If you’ve got it for a legal reason, then it’s not a problem — but we both know that guns and booze don’t mix, so let’s do this nice and slowly and compliantly.’ Henry arched his eyebrows. ‘Don’t even think about kicking off.’
Callard’s thick neck rose and fell as he swallowed, his eyes taking in Henry, then cautiously moving to Flynn. All three of them were big men. Flynn six-four, lean, muscular, with broad shoulders and strong legs from years of hauling in big fish for wimpy clients. Callard was smaller, stockier, but had the power that came from driving big wagons and helping to move heavy loads. Henry at six-two was the eldest of the three, but although he did not have the developed muscle of the other two, he was as fit as could be for a man in his early fifties. If they came to blows, it would be an interesting contest, Henry visualizing that tackling Callard would be like fighting an ogre.
Callard wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He sat slowly upright, still gripping his pint glass, weighing up the situation.
Henry’s heart rammed against his ribcage as adrenalin spurted into his system. He could taste it.
Gut feeling told him that this encounter was not going to turn out well. Sometimes you could just tell. There was something desperate about Callard, like a wild animal trapped.
Callard looked across the room.
The door to the steps leading up to the first floor accommodation opened and a man appeared, glancing around the room. Henry recognized him as one of the three who had arrived earlier with Jonny Cain. The henchman looked back up the stairs and made a thumbs-up gesture and a moment later, the man himself appeared, leather jacketed, looking cool. And it was this appearance that ignited Callard. Just for the briefest moment Henry and Flynn had lost their concentrated focus on Callard because of Jonny Cain, and Callard, despite the amount of alcohol in his system, acted with incredible speed.
His right hand, the one in which he was holding his pint, flicked upwards and sideways at Flynn, covering him with almost half a pint of bitter, then in the same movement he opened his fingers and let the glass go. It flew into Flynn’s face, bouncing off the side of his head, just above the right eyebrow. Callard had thrown it hard and although it did not shatter as it connected with Flynn’s face, the rim of the glass split Flynn’s skin like a knife, causing him to flinch backwards.
The glass crashed to pieces on the wooden floor of the bar.
Callard rose with a roar like Samson breaking off his shackles. The hand that had thrown the glass went inside his unfastened donkey jacket, reaching for the weapon he had concealed in the inner pocket. His fingers grabbed the butt and his forefinger slid into the trigger guard.
At the same time, he backhanded Henry with his left hand, a fierce, hard blow which, had it connected cleanly, would have easily pulped Henry’s nose. As it was, Henry was already reacting to Callard’s sudden surge. He saw the hand coming in a blur, ducked instinctively, but in so doing moved away from Callard and unbalanced himself temporarily.
With Flynn flinching in one direction and Henry the other, this opened up a route for Callard and gave him time and space, the extra microseconds he needed, to draw the weapon from beneath the jacket.
Henry was dimly aware of screams and shouts of warning coming from the other customers, but it was just white noise to him as, horrified, he saw the shotgun emerge. It was only inches from him. He could see every minute detail of it. The ends of the barrels that had been roughly sawn off, then filed down, the double-cocked hammers, the taped sawn-off butt, Callard’s calloused hands and the fat tip of his forefinger on the double triggers.
It was as though Henry had stuck his head in a tumble drier. A roaring, pounding noise in his cranium. Then nothing, just his reactions, him operating.
