the onlookers back.
A little further on, just out of Henry’s eye-line, thick, heavy smoke plumed upwards into the atmosphere, visible even against the dark night. He assumed this was from the remnants of the barge.
He walked towards the ambulance which had its back doors open, activity going on inside. As he got closer he could see two people, a female paramedic, clad in the usual hospital green overalls, and a casualty: Steve Flynn.
Flynn was leaning back on the bench seat inside the ambulance holding an oxygen mask over his face whilst the paramedic squatted in front of him, gently dabbing the side of his face that Henry could not see with an antiseptic cloth of some sort. Henry recognized the paramedic as one of the two who had been at the drowning scene earlier and he wondered quickly what sort of hours they worked.
‘That’s nice — cool,’ Flynn’s muffled voice said through the mask, commenting on the work being done by the paramedic. He didn’t seem to have noticed Henry yet.
‘You really should let us take you to hospital… you need looking after,’ the lady paramedic said. The last four words were spoken with more than an undercurrent of suggestiveness and, maybe, Henry thought sourly, a little unprofessional.
‘You’re doing a great job as it is,’ Flynn said. ‘Lovely touch.’
‘Thanks,’ she gasped and dropped her face so she had to angle it at Flynn with a look of lust tempered with shyness.
Henry, trying not to vomit, cleared his throat.
The paramedic’s head turned quickly, guiltily.
Flynn turned less quickly and Henry realized he’d known he was there all along and was just winding Henry up by flirting with the lady medic. Henry saw the injuries to Flynn’s face and saw they looked similar to his own, though clearly not as serious.
‘What happened?’ he asked.
The blast had ripped the canal boat apart. The roof had been blown off, scattering debris across a wide area, and what remained of the boat, basically just the hull, had keeled over and sunk into the canal, which was about six feet deep at this point. It reminded Henry of the German merchant vessels that had been blown up in Bordeaux harbour in a commando raid in World War Two. The boat had slumped over, torn apart by a ferocious blast, and was obviously beyond any sort of repair.
Henry had listened to the early conclusions of the chief fire officer at the scene, which supported Flynn’s version of events, at least as to the cause of the explosion, if not what happened beforehand.
A combination of accelerant, gas from the bottle underneath the sink and deliberate ignition equalled big BOOM.
And if Flynn’s story was true, he was lucky to have escaped with his life. If he hadn’t regained consciousness in time, he’d have been vaporized.
As Henry surveyed the mess, Barlow came towards him.
‘Boss, I take it you’ve spoken to Mr Flynn?’
‘At the ambulance. You think he’s telling the truth?’
‘Not sure. He wouldn’t tell me much, wanted to speak to you. What did he say?’
Henry pulled a face. ‘Not much, either,’ he replied, uncertain as to why he wanted to keep Flynn’s story under wraps for the time being. Detective habit, possibly. The old-fashioned state of mind, knowledge and power, coupled with the mental jigsaw of bits of evidence and information slowly coming together, gradually forming a picture.
‘Surely he must’ve said something?’ Barlow insisted.
‘Well, yeah, something… just remembers waking up and finding the boat on fire, so he squeezed out of a window. It was a bit jumbled, though. He must’ve cracked his head.’
‘You think it’s something to do with Jennifer Sunderland? It sounds like it was started deliberately.’
Henry shook his head. ‘Nah — doubt it. Why should it be?’
Barlow gave a little shrug and said, ‘Dunno, just a thought. What then?’
‘Don’t know,’ Henry said.
The paramedics could not persuade Flynn to let them take him to hospital, so when another emergency call came up, they had to leave quickly.
Henry witnessed the parting of Flynn and the lady paramedic, heart-rending to nauseating. She was clearly smitten by Flynn, even though he estimated Flynn was at least double her age.
The refusal to go to hospital meant Flynn was left abandoned next to the canal, shivering, with an ambulance blanket wrapped around his shoulders, and no home to go to.
Henry felt no sympathy for him, even if his predicament was not of his own doing.
‘What’s your plan?’
Flynn shook his head. ‘I’ll crash down in the shop.’ He jerked a thumb in the direction of the chandlery.
‘When are you going to tell them about the boat?’ Henry asked, referring to the friends he had come to help.
‘On top of their already massive problems…’ Flynn’s voice faded out and he sighed, deflated. ‘Maybe in the morning… Diane’s spending the night at the hospital.’
Henry regarded him. Already he had briefly considered offering him a room for the night at the Tawny Owl, knowing that there were two unoccupied ones, but he’d dismissed that idea, wanting to keep his distance from Flynn, and also keep him away from Alison. But he could already hear Alison’s voice ringing in his ears if she ever learned that he had left Flynn out in the cold.
With a reluctant change of mind, Henry said, almost under his breath so Flynn might not hear, ‘You’re welcome to stay at the Owl tonight.’ His voice sounded like someone else was saying the words. Henry, doing something nice for Flynn. It was like he’d been taken over by some benign spirit.
Trouble was, as much as it irked him, he knew it was the right thing to do. Even so, it made him shiver with repulsion.
Flynn gave him an incredulous look. ‘Seriously?’
Henry nodded. ‘You want to follow me back in Diane’s car?’
‘Breakfast, too? Full English?’
‘Don’t push it,’ Henry growled.
‘I just need to nip into the shop, though — and liberate some more clothes.’
An hour after arriving at the Tawny Owl with Flynn in tow, and Alison meeting, greeting and fussing over them both (did she fuss more over Flynn, though, Henry wondered), Henry was still up trying to chill out with the help of that third JD, but found it hard as his brain churned over the events of what was now yesterday.
His face pounded with pain, which also served to keep him awake.
Alison — once Flynn had been shown to his room (did she take too much time up there with him, Henry’s suspicious mind asked) — came back down, but was unable to tempt Henry to bed because of the spinning thoughts. Eventually she admitted defeat and left him sitting in front of the fire, glass in one hand, bottle in the other.
The owner’s living room was also the dining room and after a few minutes’ thought, Henry picked up his briefcase and shifted himself across to the dining table.
He clicked the locks open and took out the folder inside, which he opened and tipped out the contents.
This was a copy of the file regarding the unsolved murder of the unidentified young woman he’d been at the mortuary to look at. The murder investigation that had got nowhere almost six months down the line.
He placed glass and bottle on the table, started to read.
Flynn was impressed by the standard of the refurbishment and thanked Alison profusely. He asked her to pass on his thanks to Mr Grumpy, too.
‘Not a problem,’ she smiled.
‘Do you think our lives will be forever entwined, Alison?’
‘They will, but only you and I will ever truly know what happened that night.’
‘You’re right.’ She’d saved him from a killer and he’d saved her from the complexities of an ugly justice system that didn’t always work for real justice. But he also knew that Henry Christie had slotted the pieces together.
Meaning the three of them shared a very big secret.
