by Nick Oldham
Contents
Cover
Recent Titles by Nick Oldham from Severn House
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Recent Titles by Nick Oldham from Severn House
The Henry Christie thriller series
CRITICAL THREAT
SCREEN OF DECEIT
CRUNCH TIME
THE NOTHING JOB
SEIZURE
HIDDEN WITNESS
FACING JUSTICE
INSTINCT
FIGHTING FOR THE DEAD
BAD TIDINGS
JUDGEMENT CALL
LOW PROFILE
EDGE
UNFORGIVING
BAD BLOOD
The Steve Flynn thriller series
ONSLAUGHT
AMBUSH
BAD BLOOD
A Henry Christie thriller
Nick Oldham
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
First published in Great Britain 2016 by
SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of
19 Cedar Road, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM2 5DA.
First published in the USA 2017 by
SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS of
110 East 59th Street, New York, N.Y. 10022
This eBook edition first published in 2016 by Severn House Digital
an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited
Trade paperback edition first published
in Great Britain and the USA 2017 by
SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD
Copyright © 2016 by Nick Oldham.
The right of Nick Oldham to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8680-4 (cased)
ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-783-8 (trade paper)
ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-852-0 (e-book)
Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.
This ebook produced by
Palimpsest Book Production Limited,
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For Belinda
ONE
It was an idyllic day for a killing.
Although the shadows had grown long as the sun began to set, visibility and all other attendant conditions – such as hardly a wisp of a breeze, a superb line of sight (albeit from 1,000 metres) plus an unsuspecting target who was just literally standing there, half-drunk, waiting to have his head blown apart – were excellent.
And blown apart it would be.
The man holding the Accuracy International sniper rifle, peering through the Carl Zeiss telescopic sights, knew the damage the hollow-point .338 Lapua Magnum shell would cause. He had seen such damage, had indeed inflicted such damage to the human head many times. He knew the resultant injury to the target’s head – based on the fact that the bullet would enter the man’s forehead one inch above the bridge of his nose, then exit through the back of his skull – would be catastrophic and that death would be instantaneous and the man, the target, would know nothing about it.
He would be alive one minute.
One second later – or less – he would be dead.
There wouldn’t even be any pain, just instant blackness.
He would not know what had hit him, or even that he had been hit. He would not know that a massive round had been fired and entered his skull at a velocity of almost 2,000 metres per second (so, in parallel calculations, the sniper knew that from discharge to impact would take less than half a second) and would exit at a slightly lower speed having destroyed his brain on the way through (and in another concurrent thought, the sniper visualized a man armed with a panga slicing his way through thick jungle because that was how he saw a slowed down version of the path of the bullet ploughing through the brain) and completely shut down all bodily functions.
He would crumple, be dead, and there would be a lot of blood and brain and spray and bone matter on the door of the pub behind him.
The man aiming the rifle was settled in a warm, comfortable hollow beside an oak tree. He had been there for two days, applying all his long-acquired skills and knowledge to the task in hand, particularly the skill of being ready and willing to pull the trigger at exactly the right time.
The right time being now.
His breathing was controlled.
His heartbeat was also under control because he had learned how to do this, to consciously slow it down to the exact pace required in the moments before squeezing the trigger. It was a skill few assassins could master.
He blinked once more, then refitted his eye to the telescopic lens, perfectly adjusted to his exacting standards.
Then, for the last time, he took his right forefinger off the trigger, then carefully slid the tip back into position and began to exert the tiny amount of pressure required to fire the deadly weapon.
The target was still standing there for the taking.
The crosshairs of the sights were on the exact killing spot.
2,000 metres per second. Half a second away from death.
‘Shit,’ he breathed, and removed his finger from the trigger but continued to look through the sights whilst grinding his teeth and feeling his heart start to beat faster.
Someone had stepped into his line of fire.
The name of the man standing one kilometre away from the sniper, whose forehead was in the centre of the telescopic sights, was Henry Christie.
He was standing on the front steps of a country pub/hotel called the Tawny Owl situated in the centre of the tiny village of Kendleton in the wilds of the far north-east of Lancashire, essentially the middle of nowhere.
He was exhibiting all the stereotypical outward signs of a drunken man.
In police parlance – words Henry Christie had used often in the early part of his career when he had been a keen uniformed cop dutifully chasing drunks around town centres – he was unsteady on his feet, his eyes were glazed, his breath smelled strongly of intoxicants and his speech was slurred. Add to that the almost empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s hanging loosely in the grip of his left hand, the square whisky glass in his right, his tie askew and a stupid expression on his face, he was the epitome of the happy inebriate.
‘Well?’
Henry’s eyes dropped and looked at the woman suddenly standing in front of him.
A moment be
fore he had been staring across the car park at the front of the Tawny Owl towards the thickly wooded area on the far side of the village green, just beyond the stream, and although he had been enjoying the view, he was also revelling in the last few minutes of direct warmth caressing his face before the sun sank below the horizon.
He was standing there in a lazy, relaxed posture, left shoulder lower than the other, in the hand of which was the aforementioned bottle of JD he had secretly liberated from the stock room unbeknownst to the lady who had taken up the challenging position in front of him. At least he thought he had snaffled it without her knowledge, but she clearly knew – and could see it, of course – because as his watery eyes levelled with hers he saw her glance at the bottle, which he tried to hide behind his back.
‘Stealing from your employer again?’ she teased.
‘Caught red-handed,’ he admitted. ‘Fingers in the till, so to speak.’
The woman reached across and peeled a piece of pink confetti from Henry’s shirt collar with her fingernails. She rolled it into a tiny ball and flicked it away.
‘You could get sacked for that,’ she smiled.
‘I won’t make a habit of it,’ he promised.
‘No you won’t,’ she said, but not in a serious way. Henry now half-owned the business and the woman standing in front of him, who had unknowingly saved his life, owned the other half. A flicker of a half-smile played on her lips, a sexy look Henry had come to love, along with the rest of this lady.
‘Anyway,’ he said, attempting to marshal his disconnected thoughts. ‘Well what?’
She shrugged her slim shoulders. ‘Good day?’
‘The best, I would say,’ he replied, although the word ‘say’ was pronounced with a noticeable ‘sh’.
It had been the first wedding at the newly refurbished and extended licensed premises and it had gone extremely well, hopefully a portent of things to come as another four were booked over the next few weeks, plus a big twenty-first party, and this was pretty much a dry run. It was also another milestone in the resurgence of the Tawny Owl following an inauspicious beginning when it had been taken over several years before as a run-down business on its last legs. The woman in front of Henry had transformed its fortunes.
‘Maybe we should book our wedding now?’ she suggested primly.
Her name was Alison Marsh, she was Henry’s fiancée and just to prove it she held up her left hand and displayed the shiny ring on her finger for him to try and focus on.
‘Only if we get it at cost price,’ Henry said, still slurring his words.
‘I think that can be arranged … boss says yes,’ she laughed brightly, her eyes sparkling, although she had yet to drink any alcohol that day.
She went onto tiptoes and kissed Henry.
‘Next Monday let’s book in to see the registrar in Lancaster and pick a date,’ he said, amazing himself.
She stood back slightly, unsure whether or not to believe him.
‘Honestly?’
‘Honestly,’ he said.
‘Not just the drink talking, making you brave? I know what you’re like when you’ve had a few, all lovey-dovey and full o’ bull.’
‘I mean it,’ he said earnestly.
And he did. He was now completely ready to move on with Alison. His wife, Kate, had been dead for over four years now and whilst her memory was still very much alive inside him, he knew it was time to seal her in his heart and surge forward with Alison and a new life, retired from the cops and with the excitement of a new business venture with the woman he loved and who loved him back. He wasn’t desperate but he did have the feeling that Alison was his last chance for a wonderful shared life and he wasn’t about to lose her.
She kissed him again and he felt tears welling in his eyes as she stood back and regarded him.
‘God, I’m a soft-arse,’ he said.
‘What’s going on here?’
Henry and Alison spun at the voice to see Alison’s stepdaughter Ginny emerging from the pub door. She was in her early twenties, the daughter of Alison’s deceased husband, and with whom she had moved to the Tawny Owl to rebuild their lives. She was a willowy, beautiful young lady who worked and lived in the pub with Henry and Alison.
‘Hi, babe,’ Alison greeted her. ‘Just fixing up a date for a marriage.’
Ginny’s face broke into a wide grin. ‘Hurray!’ she said. She came up to Henry and Alison and they embraced as a trio. ‘About time.’ She gave Henry a peck on the cheek, then hugged Alison. ‘Can I be your chief bridesmaid?’
‘There is no one else in the world,’ Alison told her genuinely. The two had stayed together since Alison became a widow and she an orphan and were very close.
‘Thank you.’ Beaming, she looked at Henry. ‘Does this mean you’ll be my stepdad?’
‘I have no idea what it means other than I’ll always be here for you and Alison.’ He swayed slightly, as if in a breeze.
Once more, assisted by alcohol, Henry found himself on the verge of blubbing and his bottom lip actually started to tremble.
Ginny saw it and hugged him tightly until he needed to breathe.
‘Love you both, need to get back in.’
She detached herself and went back inside the pub, leaving Henry and Alison alone, again. Henry placed the bottle and glass down on the low wall by the front steps and held open his arms to Alison: more huggy time.
The sniper, 1,000 metres away in a direct line of sight through the trees, observed the touchy-feely performance through the telescopic lens.
As he watched, his jawline hardened, tensing as his back teeth grated together with a rising inner fury. He found he could no longer control his heart rate, which rose and pulsed against his ribcage; his breathing became ragged and his whole being lost the required physical and mental state to accurately fire a killing round into Henry Christie’s head.
First he had seen the woman step into the line of fire.
Then the girl had appeared, followed by the group hug.
‘Happy families,’ he had spat at that point.
Then the young women had gone back into the pub, leaving Christie and the woman.
The sniper tried to make himself calm again, refitted his eye to the scope, placed his finger on the trigger and focused, this time on the back of the woman’s head as she kissed Christie once more.
The sniper’s rage turned ice-cold.
‘Move,’ he urged her, ‘move away.’
She did, once more revealing Christie’s head.
Ripe for a bullet, ripe for splitting like a melon.
He settled quickly: heart rate, breathing, psyche.
Killing time.
He watched through the scope as the woman – he knew her name, Alison Marsh – placed the palm of her hand tenderly on the man’s cheek, then the ever so touching scene as she walked away from him, slid her hand all the way down his arm until their hands were palm to palm and then just their fingertips touched and they shared a sickly, loving look as she walked back into the pub and Christie watched her all the way to the door where she turned coyly, blew him a tender kiss which he pretended to catch on his lips, then she was gone back inside and he was alone with a stupid, crooked smirk of superiority across his self-satisfied, drunken face.
The sniper forced his heart rate to slow even further.
Henry Christie staggered back a few drunken paces, then regained his balance.
The sniper swore contemptuously under his breath as he realigned and sharpened his aim through the crosshairs, seeing Christie take a swig from the last dregs of the bottle he had picked up again.
‘Piss-head,’ the sniper mumbled.
His finger curled on the trigger.
The target was now standing relatively still.
‘Got you now,’ the sniper whispered, imagining the furrow the soft-tipped bullet would plough through Christie’s alcohol-filled brain cells.
It was almost a pity he would die instantaneously with no knowledge of h
is own death.
To make him suffer would have been much more satisfying. To peel his skin from him, to make him die very slowly.
But this would have to do.
His body had now stabilized again.
Christie’s head was in the sights. The pad of the finger lay across the trigger.
The trigger began to move backwards.
And suddenly the view down the scope went black as a huge shape traversed his line of sight and completely obscured the target.
‘Fuck.’
The sniper raised his head angrily to see that a magnificent red-deer stag had stepped right in front of him, maybe twenty metres beyond the treeline. He was a beautiful specimen, ripping muscles and not black as he had first thought but a stunning golden brown, the colour of a lion’s mane.
The stag was looking directly at the sniper who believed their eyes met and locked for an instant.
Then, with a haughty shake of his head, the stag plunged down a steep hill and disappeared into the woods.
Quickly the sniper refitted his eye to the scope but all he saw was the pub door closing as Henry Christie walked back inside to safety.
The sniper began to cry.
TWO
The newlyweds that day were Rik Dean and Henry Christie’s sister, Lisa. They were the first ever couple to get married at the Tawny Owl, which now had a licence to hold ceremonies.
The day had gone extremely well for a first attempt.
Rik was now a detective superintendent in joint charge of Lancashire Constabulary’s Force Major Investigation Team, otherwise known as FMIT. He had taken over, stepped into Henry’s shoes on his retirement some months previously. Although Rik was a protégé of Henry’s to some degree – Henry had backed him many years before to get him on to CID – and a friend and now his brother-in-law, Henry was secretly pleased he wasn’t finding the job quite as easy as he had anticipated especially following Henry’s own muted departure from the force which wasn’t accompanied by a fanfare.
That said, Henry was happy for them because he thought they were well suited to each other – ‘Mad as hatters,’ he called them – and because they were the guinea pigs by being the first couple to get hitched at the Tawny Owl, although Henry’s family connections did not mean they got a reduced price.
