Fighting for the Dead (6 page)

‘I know,' Henry agreed, the tip of his tongue still touching the inner mouth cuts and also finding a loose tooth. He felt the side of his face with his fingers, carefully pressing the new swelling under his eye. He'd broken his cheekbone once before and it had taken a long time to heal, and still gave him gyp. He hoped it wasn't bust again, but his face was very tender and sore, reminiscent of the pain from the previous fracture.

He and Baines were standing next to the gurney on which the drowned woman lay . . . or at least the woman who'd been pulled out of the river lay. Only a post-mortem could establish for certain how she had died. And because of the events of the last fifteen minutes, Henry now wanted to be one hundred per cent positive she had drowned.

Suddenly his head went muzzy.

He fought it and leaned both hands on the edge of the trolley, hoping to disguise what was happening to him. He might well have needed to go to A&E, as Baines suggested, but he didn't want to go.

His mind started working again.

The armed men had assaulted Henry probably as a show of their capabilities so no one was in any doubt that they meant business. He hoped it wasn't anything personal, just something to encourage everyone else to follow their orders.

Briefly unconscious as he hit the floor, he hadn't been privy to what happened next. According to Baines and the constable, the men had yelled and screamed and herded everyone at gunpoint into the viewing room. They had made the constable and the mortuary technician drag Henry – one leg each – in with them, then ripped the PC's personal radio off. They'd sprayed the technician when he'd stood up to them.

Henry's blood was smeared across the tiled floor, then along the short carpeted corridor to the door of the viewing room, like a leopard had dragged a gazelle across the jungle.

Then they were all locked in, including the staff who'd been working in the examination room.

Ripping the constable's PR off him had only really been a gesture, Henry thought. The intruders must have realized that at least one person amongst their captives would have a mobile phone. The only thing achieved by grabbing the police radio was that it cut off a direct line of communication to the police control room. Using a mobile phone, even on a treble-nine, would be far slower than a PC screaming for assistance down a PR.

So the men had bought themselves some time. Not much, but presumably enough to achieve their goal.

Which was what? Henry asked himself.

His eyes – one gradually closing to a hazy squint as his cheek swelled – moved to the bags containing Jennifer Sunderland's property that he and the PC had been recording.

They'd been ripped open and the contents tipped onto the floor, and scattered as the men searched through them.

So this was the answer: they wanted something that she possessed, or thought she possessed. And whatever this something was, they were prepared to be utterly ruthless in finding it. Ruthless enough to smash a gun into someone's face. And maybe kill if necessary.

The captives had been released from the viewing room by the first officer on the scene. Now more cops had arrived and were being a bit aimless, like they were playing bumpsy-daisy. They needed some direction, as there wasn't much for them to do here, so Henry took charge and told them all to get back on the streets. The offenders had gone before the first officer had arrived, therefore Henry wanted cops out on the streets pulling any vehicles with two or three men on board. It was more miss than hit, he knew, but he wanted to get things moving and keep the scene of the crime as pristine as possible for the CSIs.

When all the uniforms had dispersed, that left him, Baines and the PC who'd been helping out with the property, as well as the mortuary staff, who had all retreated to a refreshment room, drinking tea, traumatized by the events, unable to do any work in the foreseeable future. They all had to be interviewed and statements taken. Henry also guessed they'd all need counselling, too. Par for the course. He didn't even consider that luxury for himself.

If it hadn't hurt his head to do so, he would have shaken it in despair.

Baines and the PC, however, seemed pretty unaffected by it all, fortunately.

‘Right,' Henry said, ‘let's see if anything's missing.'

Other than having been scattered everywhere, the clothing and possessions were as Henry and the PC had recorded. It seemed the only thing taken was the constable's PR.

‘I suppose it's possible I might've missed something in a pocket,' the PC admitted.

‘Or sewn into a seam,' Henry added – but he knew he and the PC had run their fingers carefully over each item of clothing and unless they'd missed something tiny, maybe the size of a SIM card or smaller, they'd missed nothing. They had searched the property diligently, and Henry assured the PC of this.

They hadn't even taken the very expensive-looking jewellery.

Which was a mistake, Henry thought, because that turned the incident into something more sinister.

If they had taken the jewels, then it was more than likely the police would have looked on it as just a robbery. Leaving the good stuff gave it a whole new twist, which unsettled Henry.

A wave of pain and nausea, beginning at the very top of his head, rolled through him.

He had been squatting down by the property bags, but as he cranked himself up, the sensations hit him. He staggered a little, keeping a grip, then caught sight of himself in a wall mirror and shivered in horror.

His face was a contorted mess. He already knew that, but what made him extra cross was the amount of blood down and over his jacket and shirt, which were ruined.

‘Shit,' he said. ‘I think I'll go and get patched up.'

The first thing the triage nurse did when Henry presented himself at casualty and explained what had happened – and that he thought he'd passed out for short time – was to sit him in a wheelchair and get a porter to push him down to the X-ray department.

Baines accompanied him.

‘All I want is a plaster and some Savlon,' Henry moaned ungratefully as he was wheeled along the corridors.

‘I've been waiting a long time to say this,' Baines chuckled, ‘but you need your head examining.'

‘Ho bloody ho,' Henry grunted as they arrived at X-ray.

Then the waiting began, during which time Baines told him that the doctors would probably want to keep him in overnight for observation. The news cheered Henry no end.

‘I don't have time to spend a night in a hospital. I don't have time for this.' He grumbled a few more things, then looked at Baines. ‘You need to go, too. People to dismember.'

‘They can wait . . . they're dead, after all.'

‘No,' Henry insisted. ‘You have things to do. I'll be OK . . . and I'm not staying the night unless I collapse of a brain aneurysm.'

‘Don't joke,' Baines said seriously. ‘But I will go . . . I've some mouths to look into, but I don't see me doing Jennifer Sunderland's post-mortem until tomorrow at the earliest.'

‘That's fine. I need to speak to the coroner anyway and she needs to be formally identified.'

Baines rose, then hesitated. ‘That was pretty frightening, Henry. Y'know – the guys with the guns thing?'

Henry's good eye squinted at him, which meant both eyes squinted. ‘Soft fucker.'

‘Knew you'd understand,' Baines grinned.

‘I'm sure I would've been frightened too.'

‘If only you'd been awake.' Baines touched Henry's shoulder, in a tender, but still manly gesture, turned and left, passing DI Barlow shoulder to shoulder through the swing doors.

Barlow regarded Henry's bashed-up face. ‘Jeepers – you OK?'

‘Exactly how do you want me to answer that one?' Henry winced.

‘Uh, sorry. Hell of a thing . . . everybody's running around like blue-arsed flies at the moment.' Barlow leaned against the wall. ‘What do you reckon it was all about?'

‘No idea, Ralph, other than to guess . . . and then go and ask the grieving husband what the hell his dead wife had in her possession that it took two armed men to try and find.'

‘Do you think they found what they were after?'

‘Again, I don't know. Maybe.' Henry indicated the file Barlow had in his hand. ‘Is that Sunderland's MFH file?' he asked. Barlow nodded. ‘Does everything match up, file to body, et cetera?'

‘It's definitely Jennifer Sunderland.'

‘Right, we need to speak to hubby, then.'

‘Leave that to me, eh, Henry?' Barlow swept his hand around to indicate their present location. ‘I can sort him.'

Henry glanced at the scrolling LED sign above the X-ray reception desk. It informed him, and the other people in the waiting area, that there was a three-quarters of an hour wait for the next X-ray.

‘No, I'm coming,' Henry said, seeing Barlow's face fall.

‘But, Henry, I'm quite capable of . . .'

‘I know you are. That's not the issue.'

‘What is, then?'

‘I've got a fresh shirt in the back of my car and if I wear my anorak instead of my jacket, I can get away with my appearance.'

‘What's the issue?' Barlow persisted.

‘I want to look Mr Sunderland straight in the eye and tell him we've found his wife – dead. Well,' Henry amended this, ‘look him in the eye as straight as possible in the circumstances. My curiosity has been aroused.'

F
lynn jolted awake, feeling worse than he had done before, cursing for having made the fatal error of falling asleep in the middle of the day.

He groaned, shrouded by the warmth thrown out by the canal boat's central-heating system, which was proving far more efficient than he could have imagined. His eyelids flickered heavily and even though he wanted to wake up, he could not seem to stop himself from dozing, his brain mushed by the mid-afternoon nap.

Combating the urge, he inhaled deeply and forced himself to stand up. He glanced at the wall clock.

‘Oh –
what
?' He could not believe that more than an hour had slipped by.

From their box, he pulled out the sturdy new boots he'd acquired from the chandlery, quickly threaded the laces and slid his feet into them. They were a good, comfortable fit.

‘Shit,' he uttered, extremely annoyed at himself.

He was late for the arranged meeting with Diane, who had enough on her plate to contend with, without an unreliable friend who had promised to help out. He switched the heating off, locked up and jumped off the barge onto the canal side. He jog-trotted back to the shop, his mind still not having woken up fully.

Diane was already there and Flynn entered awkwardly. She was leaning on the counter, looking through some order forms. Flynn crossed the shop floor quickly and said, ‘Sorry I'm late, Diane.'

She raised her eyes at him. They were red raw with tears and she seemed to have aged ten years since he last saw her.

He hardly dared pose the question.

But he did. ‘How did it go?'

Her lips worked soundlessly for a moment as the enormity of the last few hours seemed to hit her like a sledgehammer. ‘I . . . I . . .' she stammered. Then she burst into tears.

Flynn shot around the counter and took hold of her, walking her back into the private office where he kept hold and held on whilst she cried out her emotion with big, gulping sobs and a runny nose and tears. Finally it subsided and she eased herself away from him, looking up through eyes filmed with moisture.

Flynn braced himself for the worst.

She struggled to find the words. ‘I . . . they said . . . oh, God, I don't know . . . they said . . . the doctor said it went as well as could be expected . . .'

Flynn exhaled in relief.

‘They won't know for certain for a while and there's a long way to go and we probably won't know for weeks how successful it was . . . or not.' A long blob of phlegm dripped out of her nose and she wiped it away with a chuckle, but then her lips quivered again, her mouth on the verge of collapse. ‘It was horrible, Steve . . . the worst moments of my life . . . waiting around . . .'

‘I take it you've seen him?'

She nodded. ‘Just briefly . . . I wanted to be there when he came round. He opened his eyes for a few seconds, but that's all . . . and he . . . he managed a smile, then he went back to sleep. They said to get back about five.'

Flynn squeezed the top of her arm, trying to avoid saying any of the trite but reassuring lines people say in circumstances like this. Things like, ‘He'll be fine,' or ‘He's a fighter.' Phrases that seemed meaningless and were often wrong in the end. Flynn knew how serious Colin's condition was and could only hope that the operation had caught the cancer in time, that it hadn't spread, wasn't going to ambush his body three months down the line.

Instead, he drew Diane towards him again and held on to her with another embrace before easing her away and saying, ‘Have you eaten or had anything to drink?'

‘Not hungry.' She blew her nose. ‘Couldn't eat anything. Need a brew, though.' She smiled feebly at him. ‘Thanks for being here.'

‘Least I could do – how about that brew, then?' He picked up the kettle and filled it from the tap in the small loo at the back of the shop. As he plugged it in and switched it on, he said, ‘Had a bit of an adventure myself in your absence.'

‘Oh?'

‘Heaved a dead body out of the river.'

‘You what?' she gasped.

Flynn told her his tale and included how he'd helped himself to a new wardrobe from the chandlery afterwards to replace his soaking wet clothes.

When he'd finished, Diane said, ‘Who was she?'

He shrugged. ‘Cops didn't tell me anything.'

‘Probably Jennifer Sunderland.'

‘Who?'