Bad Blood

by Nick Oldham

  In fact, Henry had gleefully enjoyed taking several thousand pounds from Rik for the ‘Summer Glade’ wedding package.

  As Henry wandered unsteadily back into the pub from the front steps and the setting sun, he had just glimpsed a red-deer stag in the distance, just in front of the woodland on the opposite side of the village, but the magnificent beast he had christened ‘Horace’ was there and gone in a flash – as usual (he had seen him many times) – and he entered the premises with that daft smile on his face, realizing how lucky he was all over again.

  Yes, it was a deep sadness that his wife, Kate, had died so tragically from cancer, but also a source of great joy that Alison had come into his life and they were now moving forward together and he was determined to grasp that life ahead with both hands and make a success of it and the Tawny Owl.

  What could be better, he often asked himself. Getting married to a gorgeous woman who was also a landlady and living in a beautiful country pub in the bargain with the big plus that he loved her to bits. He knew life as a landlord was no easy option – and the addition of the wedding business made it all the more tough – but certainly at the moment he was revelling in it and not even remotely hankering for his past life in the cops or with Kate.

  There were around ninety guests at the wedding and the DJ in the function room was doing a sterling job of getting everyone up to dance. Henry came in just as the newlyweds were about to begin their first dance together, twirling gently to an Ed Sheeran song all about getting old and staying in love.

  Henry watched from the back of the room.

  Soon it would be him and Alison. He was actually looking forward to the day.

  The entertainment licence allowed the bar to stay open until one am by which time there was no sign of Rik and Lisa anyway. They had sneaked off to the bridal suite an hour before where champagne and strawberries awaited them (all part of the package) and by one fifteen a.m. the guests who were not staying had left and the ones with rooms in the new annexe were drifting off contentedly, if unsteadily.

  Henry was leaning on the bar, having collected many empty glasses which would be washed in the morning.

  He had not had a drink for about four hours and whilst he would never have claimed to be sober, a lot of the alcohol in him had dispersed in the usual ways.

  The security shutter clattered down, pulled and locked by Ginny. The DJ finished packing and hauling his gear and shouted a farewell before heading out to his van and away.

  Finally, all that remained were Henry, Alison and Ginny.

  ‘Well done, guys,’ Alison said. She hugged Ginny, who plodded weakly away towards the private quarters at the rear of the pub where her bedroom was located.

  ‘Nice one,’ Henry said thickly, suddenly very tired.

  ‘It went well – thanks,’ Alison said. ‘I think we’ve got the makings of something special here.’

  ‘Us or the business?’ Henry asked.

  ‘Both.’

  ‘Night cap, security check, bed?’ Henry suggested. ‘In that order.’

  ‘OK, sounds good.’

  They walked down to the main bar at the front of the building. Alison unlocked the bar and poured them each a tot of Talisker Skye single-malt whisky and they went to sit on the bench in the front bay window.

  Henry was glad it was only a sip. He’d drunk enough that night and anything more could have reignited his inebriation.

  They clinked glasses, said, ‘To us.’

  Out of the corner of his eye, Henry caught sight of a movement on the car park, a dark shape crouched between the cars belonging to the guests who were staying over. At first he wasn’t certain if he’d actually seen anything or that maybe it was a fox, but when his head quickly cricked around he was sure. It was a man who knew he’d been seen and who darted behind the bulk of a Jeep Renegade.

  Henry placed his glass on the copper-topped table.

  ‘Someone out there.’

  Alison peered out, could not see anything. ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yeah – could be nicking from the cars.’

  Henry stood up and twisted around to the front door, stepping out into the night.

  The security light came on, activated by his movement, but only illuminating the very front of the pub and steps, not beyond. Henry had to shade his eyes to see into the car park, where about twenty cars remained, including his, Alison’s and Ginny’s.

  He trotted down the steps, beyond the light.

  Alison watched from the door and called, ‘Be careful.’

  Henry made his way directly towards the Jeep, which he knew belonged to his American friend Karl Donaldson who, with his wife Karen, was up from near London to attend the wedding.

  Henry was positive he had seen a man between the cars.

  ‘I’ve seen you,’ he called to that effect. ‘Cops are on their way,’ he added, lying. The nearest cop was the village bobby, Jake Niven, who had been at the wedding and would be tucked up in bed asleep in his home, which was the police house on the other side of the village. The nearest serviceable cops would therefore be in Lancaster, almost a dozen miles distant.

  So, with Alison bringing up the rear, Henry was alone.

  In his short tenure at the Tawny Owl there had never once been a theft of or from a vehicle on the car park. He did wonder if the wedding had attracted thieves into the village. There had been a lot of cars parked up earlier and were relatively easy targets for crims coming in from Lancaster, and in a parallel line of thought, Henry was already considering the need for better security than just a pretty weak light around the doorway.

  He paused, listened.

  There was a scuffling noise, then he saw a shape flit from behind the Jeep, keeping low, taking cover behind another car.

  Henry sprinted between the two cars, shouting, ‘Oi!’ as he ran and having to gag himself from shouting, ‘Police, stop,’ which was on the tip of his tongue.

  He skidded to a stop on the thinly gravelled surface just as the figure rose in front of him in a blur of speed and the next thing he recalled was that he was sitting on his backside, having been punched hard in the face by the man who, as Alison ran down the front steps screaming, vaulted over the low wall and ran across the village green and disappeared without a sound.

  Henry swilled his face delicately in the warm water, raised his face and winced at his reflection in the mirror above the sink. His cheekbone was red and swollen, but fortunately he had been punched on the side that had not been previously broken and had taken so long to heal properly. He was fairly sure that other than a bruise under the eye there would be no permanent damage – other than to his pride.

  But it did hurt, in a dull throbbing sort of way. He scoffed two paracetamol caplets and washed them down with a couple of handfuls of water from the cold tap.

  He was naked now.

  Alison came into the bathroom and stood behind him. She had a worried look on her face.

  She was in her nightie – quite a short one that displayed her shapely legs – but unlike Henry, who threw off his clothes at any opportunity when he and Alison were alone together, she was shy and conservative around the bedroom, except of course when they made love, when all the barriers came down with abandon.

  ‘How is it?’ she asked, looking over his shoulder at his reflection.

  ‘OK, I think.’ He touched his face carefully.

  ‘What did the police say?’

  Henry had taken the trouble to phone them and eventually connected with the newly opened Contact Centre at police headquarters in Hutton, near Preston, which now dealt with all incoming calls and subsequent deployments for all of the force. With his eyes rolling, he had spoken to a comms operator who had no idea where Kendleton was, let alone the Tawny Owl. Henry’s boast of being an ex-detective superintendent was met by a belittling moment of contemptuous silence, which immediately let Henry know that an ‘ex’ anything meant nothing to a twenty-year-old comms operator who probably only knew how to follow a satnav
and had no idea what an actual map looked like.

  After admitting the offender had legged it and that, no, he did not need an ambulance, it was clear the young lad had no interest and Henry was informed that all Lancaster patrols were too busy to drive out to the sticks and that a message would be left on the local bobby’s scratch pad for attention when he next came on duty.

  ‘Forget it,’ Henry had said at that point and hung up with a heavy heart. ‘I’ll tell him myself,’ he muttered.

  In response to Alison’s question, he said, ‘They were as much use as a chocolate fireguard.’ He turned slowly and displayed his injury to her.

  ‘That’s going to be a shiner,’ she commented.

  ‘Well, what’s a wedding do without at least one black eye?’ he said, then added, ‘It could be loved better.’

  She sighed sternly at him and simply and firmly said, ‘No,’ a decision he accepted gracefully.

  The sniper gained control of his breathing once more as he settled in the deep grass on the far side of the village green, watching the ridiculous prancing about of Henry Christie as he called the police on his mobile phone, following the altercation on the car park.

  The sniper cursed himself for being spotted, but the plus side of it was the feel of the impact of his knuckles on Christie’s face, though it was tempered by the regret it wasn’t the best punch he had ever delivered. That said, it had tasted sweet and just confirmed one thing – it would be a great pleasure to kill the man.

  Finally Christie finished poncing around and he and Alison Marsh retreated into the pub, locking the big double front doors behind them.

  The sniper eased himself into a sitting position.

  In his mind he could not erase the view down the telescopic sights of Christie and the two women, the vomit-inducing family hug.

  There was also another urge inside him, almost as strong as the one to kill the ex-cop and which might give him the possibility of killing two birds with one stone and achieving his overall ambition in a more convincing manner.

  After they had gone back into the pub, the sniper returned to the location in which he had lain prone for almost two days and settled down for another hour, keeping watch on the Tawny Owl in the company of a snuffling badger and then a fox that walked by unconcerned. He inhaled the close-up reek of both beasts, each distinctive and pungent. In fact he could probably, blindfolded, have identified the scent of fifty different large animals, from a camel to a lion, from all the different places he had lain in wait to kill all over the world. He had even once been eyeball to eyeball with a curious leopard whilst waiting for the appearance of a murderous West African warlord he had dispatched with a single bullet to the skull as the man drove home from his boyfriend’s house in an open-topped Land Rover. The man had been singing away as if he had no cares in the world, a man who had butchered thousands, raped, tortured and mutilated hundreds of young girls and boys, all in the name of his religion. The world had become – for a short while – a much better place for that man’s death. Something the sniper had been proud of.

  And the leopard had padded away, unharmed.

  This was a whole different thing, though, much more to it than just a killing.

  It was an obsession.

  The Tawny Owl became black and silent, all lights extinguished, all movement ceased.

  The sniper rose and edged through the shadows to the front of the pub, then around to the side, where, on a previous visit, he had arranged an easy way into the premises.

  THREE

  Henry had never believed alcohol delivered a good night’s sleep. That night he was proved right as he lay alongside Alison with a dry mouth from the night’s intake and his face pulsing from his encounter with the masked man in the car park, though he was pretty sure that a combination of paracetamol and alcohol was helping with the pain.

  Alison had gone to sleep quickly. She always did, but she was particularly exhausted that night after the weeks of build-up, prep and finally running the wedding day to perfection. She deserved a long sleep and a long lie-in, but Henry knew that would not happen.

  The working day at the Tawny Owl always began around six a.m. and Alison would be up, fresh as a daisy, pushing things along from breakfast onwards. Henry would be around, too, though his first hour or two was usually spent in a haze, or at least until he’d had sufficient coffee to kick-start a bit of life into him.

  He usually managed a half-decent night’s sleep, five or six hours, but he knew that was not going to happen tonight.

  So far, he’d had none.

  Alongside him, Alison made a little buzzing sound.

  Henry folded his arms across his chest, annoyed with himself, unable to get properly comfortable, but he closed his eyes and tried to sleep by listening to the building.

  He had grown accustomed to the noises the old pub made. It wasn’t a silent building by any means, especially this part, the original bit, as opposed to the newly built annexe connected to the back of the pub by a beautiful glass-roofed conservatory in which morning coffee and afternoon tea were served.

  Henry listened.

  Everything creaked. The old hardwood windows, the doors, the central-heating pipes, the timber floorboards, all contracting and expanding. It was like living inside the wheezing chest of an old man.

  He had grown to love the sounds. Even those emanating from Alison who, although Henry never mentioned it, had a very wide repertoire of snores.

  Finally he was beginning to fall asleep. He recognized he was in that strange, twilight zone, the moments between wakefulness and proper sleep, when dreams and ridiculous thoughts unconnected with anything, began to mingle and tumble around in his brain.

  Until his eyes shot open – and he knew.

  He lay there, straining to hear, because he had heard something different, the sound of a footfall. Unless Ginny was up and about for some reason, no one should be walking around this part of the pub, the private, owners’ accommodation, only accessible through doors Henry knew he had locked. Only he, Alison and Ginny were resident that night.

  He held his breath as a strange feeling of dread zipped through him.

  He knew Ginny’s habits. They very much reflected her stepmother’s. She was a deep sleeper, who went out like a light as soon as her head hit the pillow, and she rarely woke until her alarm came alive next to her ear. She had an en-suite shower room and toilet, but Henry had never heard her use it during the night and he had never known her go walkabout, so unless things were different that night, he knew someone else had entered the private area.

  He swallowed dryly, then sat up slowly on the edge of the bed, swung out his legs. He always slept naked but with a pair of shorts and a T-shirt within reaching distance just in case one of the residents needed something or there was a fire alarm or other emergency.

  He slid the shorts on as he stood up, still trying to listen above the thump of his heart and the rise and fall of his lungs. He pushed his feet into his slippers and walked to the bedroom door. In the corridor outside he knew that if he turned right then went through the first door on the right he would end up in the expansive lounge, dining room and kitchen area.

  Directly opposite was the door to the rarely used main bathroom, then further along to the left was Ginny’s bedroom.

  He opened the door and stood quietly on the threshold, allowing his eyes to adjust to the lack of light in the corridor, and looked along it both ways. To his left, at the far end, was a set of alarmed fire doors which were closed and locked as they should be. They led out to the yard at the back which was surrounded by a high wall. The door at the opposite end of the corridor was the one leading back into the pub just by the side of the main bar.

  All looked OK from his position at the bedroom door, with one exception.

  The corridor lights were off completely, but Henry knew he had dimmed them low, the last thing he always did before entering his bedroom.

  ‘Henry?’ Alison called sleepily from the bed, si
tting up and squinting at him. He did not turn, simply held up his left hand in a gesture for her to remain quiet. ‘What is it?’ she hissed.

  This time he turned and placed a finger on his lips: ‘Shhh.’

  She frowned. Henry turned away, every nerve now on full alert.

  He stepped into the corridor, then took one stride to the bathroom door, which he opened slowly and looked inside. The light was off, the room empty. He closed the door, reversed back into the corridor by which time Alison had scrambled out of bed and was at the bedroom door tightening a dressing gown around her.

  ‘What is it?’ she whispered.

  ‘Thought I heard footsteps,’ he whispered back.

  ‘You sure? Not a guest upstairs?’ she asked. On the floor above were the original bedrooms, old, but beautifully refurbished, including the bridal suite.

  Henry knew the difference between the footsteps of the guests up there and someone at ground level. He shook his head and pointed to the floor. Alison nodded.

  Their heads swivelled to Ginny’s door.

  Henry shrugged and walked towards it, Alison a step behind him, now wide awake.

  Henry rarely entered Ginny’s room. It was her secret lair and she often spent the night in there with her boyfriend, but she had recently split up with him, so Henry knew she would be alone. The door did not lock from either side, none of the private rooms did. Henry curled his fingers around the door knob and placed his ear to the door itself, his face strained as his eyes narrowed and he concentrated hard, but heard nothing.

  Alison clamped her hand around his bicep, dug her nails in, making him jump, sensing his trepidation and also believing his senses. Then she released him.

  He turned the knob very slowly and stealthily, then finally believing the tension was going to give him heart failure, he shoved the door open.

  Ginny was in bed, her long hair splayed out across her pillow, asleep.

  And the man in her bedroom had one knee on the bed and the corner of the quilt in the grasp of his fingertips, about to draw it back from her.