might have said, but to Henry the words sounded ominous: whose bodies?
They walked out of the office and down the corridor. Henry saw Barlow drop the boot into a waste bin, something else so disrespectful to the dead that a shiver of horror went through him. Then they exited through the enquiry office door.
Once in the foyer, Barlow spun to the lady behind the desk who was now dealing with a member of the public.
‘All quiet, love?’ he asked her.
‘No sign of the yellow peril,’ she confirmed.
Henry went ahead of Barlow out to the car and walked around to the driver’s door, where he paused and leaned on the roof with his forearms.
The Mercedes was still there. Barlow gave the occupants a quick nod and said to Henry, ‘Get in.’
Henry stared in the direction of the Mercedes. Someone sounded an angry blast of a horn further down the street and it looked as though a car had pulled up without warning in front of another car, causing a problem.
Henry got in, as did Barlow.
‘That was nice ’n’ easy, wasn’t it, Henry?’
‘Jack Drummond wasn’t happy. He’ll be making phone calls now, you know. He’s not stupid.’
‘Fuck him. Drive,’ Barlow ordered and drew the gun out of his pocket. ‘Head north.’
Henry started the car, checked his mirrors and over his shoulder and set off. The Mercedes moved out to follow.
Flynn drove off the mortuary car park and onto the A588, where he turned left up to Pointer Island. The traffic seemed worse than normal, irritating him. He couldn’t remember the last time there had been a traffic jam in Puerto Rico, although it did have its moments.
His mobile phone rang and he answered it, securing it between his right shoulder and ear.
‘Flynn, it’s Rik again. Have you made contact with Henry yet?’
‘Tried but failed. I think he’s gone AWOL.’
‘Shit.’
‘Why? Is there a problem?’
Flynn edged forwards in the car and was two cars away from the roundabout. It was then he saw a car he knew pull onto the roundabout from the A6 and sail past him, some fifty metres away and then onto South Road towards the city.
Flynn said quickly, ‘Isn’t that DI Barlow supposed to be in custody?’
‘Ahh… why do you ask?’
‘Answer the question, Rik.’
‘He got released first thing this morning, as did Sunderland. Nothing to do with Henry. A done deal. Again, why?’
The word Fiasco rang in Flynn’s ears.
‘Because Henry’s just driven past me towards Lancaster — and Barlow’s sat right beside him. What going on, Rik?’
‘Double murder in Bispham,’ Rik said succinctly. ‘Two females, one of which is Joe Speakman’s daughter, Melanie. The other is her friend. Both shot in the head — and Henry’s warrant card was found at the scene.’
Flynn reached the roundabout, zipped around a more sedate driver and gunned Alison’s car down South Road, but was immediately caught up in more snail traffic at the red lights outside the front of the hospital — and he had lost sight of Henry.
He still had the phone to his ear. ‘You still there, Rik?’
‘Still here.’
‘I’ve lost him.’
‘Shit — try the nick.’
‘Will do. Oh, by the way, don’t know if this is significant, but Alison’s gone missing this morning. Henry’s Alison, that is. Done a disappearing trick. I’ll call you back.’ He cut the connection.
The lights seemed to stay on red for ever, but it was far too busy for Flynn to do anything rash, like race down the wrong side of the street against two lanes of oncoming vehicles.
Instead, he had to wait. Then they changed and he tailgated the car in front through the lights, veered into the outside lane on King Street, and then bore right into Penny Street and next sharp right into Marton Street where he almost ran into the back of a black Mercedes parked illegally on the double yellow lines on the left. He swerved, drove on and saw that Henry’s classy pool car was parked just as illegally on the double yellow lines outside the police station.
Flynn winced, not quite able to make a decision, but by the time he did he was at the junction at the one-way system again and because of vehicles behind him, he had nowhere to go but forward and edged out into the traffic stream again.
He cursed and picked his mobile phone up from the dashboard, where it was wedged. He didn’t have Rik’s number, so he had to go through the rigmarole of finding the ‘ recently received ’ calls menu to unearth it, then call him back. By which time he had moved a good twenty metres. Progress was not good.
‘Yeah, Flynn,’ Rik answered quickly.
‘The pool car’s parked outside the nick… I couldn’t find anywhere to park up, so I’m looping back round to see if I can on this run.’
‘Right… Flynn, what the hell’s going on?’ Rik asked.
‘That question gives me a feeling of deja vu,’ Flynn said. ‘I don’t know, is the answer… but nothing pleasant, I suspect. Why the hell would he be with Barlow?’
He was back at the junction with King Street again, and moving slowly north, into Sun Street, then ninety degrees right into Marton Street again, at which point the motorist in front of him jammed on his brakes and came to a sudden, unexpected stop, obviously unsure where he was going. Flynn almost upended Alison’s car as he slammed the brakes on.
Up ahead he saw Barlow and Henry emerge from the police-station door and go to the pool car. Henry walked around it and leaned on the roof, talking across to Barlow, looking back down the street in Flynn’s direction.
Flynn honked his horn at the guy in front, who still hadn’t made up his mind. The man’s arm appeared through his window and he gave Flynn the middle-finger salute. Flynn pipped again.
The car edged forwards and Flynn could not decide what the bugger was up to — and then it kangarooed to a stalled stop.
‘I don’t believe this,’ Flynn said and he saw now that Henry had got into the car with Barlow and was moving off and joining the traffic Flynn had just left. And behind was the black Mercedes.
Flynn was trapped. He crunched the car into reverse, lurched backwards, stopping only an inch from the car behind, which honked with an angry warning. He gave a ‘sorry’ wave, spun the wheel, mounted the footpath with two wheels and passed the dithering car driver.
By the time he reached the junction, Henry was just turning right, heading north up through the city.
Flynn pushed the nose of the car into the junction, but no one was willing to give way, so he simply barged out, causing a concertina of braking cars and a cacophony of horns which made it sound more like Rome than a Lancashire town.
Even though he had forced his way in, he was still restricted by the sheer volume of traffic. The only way he could have made quick progress would have been to get all four wheels on the footpath this time and mow down a bunch of pesky pedestrians.
Instead he had to seethe.
There was no way, either, that Henry could rush through the morning traffic, and its slowness was compounded by a set of roadworks on the one-way system that for about a hundred metres reduced two lanes into one and almost brought everything to a halt.
Not that he was rushing. He was purposely going as slowly as he could, not taking any advantage of gaps, but crawled deliberately, feeling a surge of positivity in him because he had seen Flynn in Alison’s car and for a moment longer than necessary he had kept his face turned towards him in the hope that Flynn would see him. Surely he had.
He checked his rear-view mirror. The Mercedes was right behind now and he tried to see inside it, but all he
