Backlash

by Nick Oldham

  ‘Mine’s a pint,’ the soldier said.

  Henry looked closely at the image on the screen.

  ‘Straight across, then bear slightly right,’ he said helpfully.

  The machine trundled on, slowly approaching the corner of the room. The soldier made minor adjustments to direction constantly.

  ‘Under that bench, dead ahead,’ Henry said.

  ‘ACC to patrol inspector.’ It was FB on Henry’s radio.

  ‘Shit,’ Henry said. ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Sit rep, please. I’m monitoring.’

  ‘EOD in attendance, wheelbarrow deployed, should have a result soon.’

  ‘Well that’s nice to know,’ FB whined sarcastically. ‘I’d like to be kept informed.’

  ‘Understood,’ Henry said, wondering why FB had not just asked a communications operator because Henry had been relaying a blow by blow account for the log.

  ‘I’ll be in communications if you need me,’ FB transmitted helpfully.

  ‘Thanks for that,’ Henry said. He shook his head despondently and turned his attention back to the monitor.

  The wheelbarrow had moved forward and was now peering under the bench seat at the lunchbox, displaying a very clear image to the monitor.

  Two army types were whispering to the operator. One nodded then turned and introduced himself and his handlebar moustache to Henry.

  ‘Captain Renfrew.’ The two men shook hands.

  ‘Henry Christie.’

  Renfrew did not beat about the bush. ‘Taking all factors into consideration, I propose we blow it up in situ, cover the cost of damage as necessary. No point taking any chances.’

  ‘I don’t have a problem with that,’ Henry agreed. ‘In fact, I think––’ But whatever Henry was about to say was lost forever when the wheelbarrow operator gasped, ‘Oh, fuckin’ Jesus!’

  All heads spun to him, then the monitor.

  ‘I thought the place had been evacuated,’ he said.

  On the screen was the face of a man staring directly into the lens of the camera fitted on the wheelbarrow. He was a big, happy, smiling man who was tapping the lens with his knuckles and saying something – more words lost forever. He looked excessively drunk.

  Henry ground his teeth and the blood drained from his face. He had assured the army guys the place was empty because he had been so assured by a sergeant from the visiting PSU who had carried out the search and evacuation of the premises. Not well enough, it transpired.

  The man on the screen put his tongue out, stuck his thumb in his ears and flapped his hands and blew raspberries. Then he looked in the direction in which the camera was pointing. It was clear he had seen the lunchbox.

  On his hands and knees he got down and reached for it.

  ‘Oops,’ the operator said.

  All eyes turned to Henry as the officer in charge. It was as if the world was holding him in sharp focus. Everything else was blurred and only Henry stood out. He did not know what to do. His mind was a complete blank.

  ‘If there’s an anti-tamper on it and he moves it . . .’ the operator said bleakly.

  Then, for Henry, the world seemed to resume some of its normality. ‘Move the wheelbarrow. Jab him with it. Do something. Try and distract him from touching the bomb – I’ll go and get him out.’

  ‘You must be barking,’ Renfrew said. ‘You can’t go in there now.’

  ‘I’ve been in once and it didn’t explode. If he doesn’t touch it, then it probably still won’t explode.’ Henry’s eyes flashed back to the screen. The man was stretching out towards the lunchbox, could not quite reach it. ‘And if it’s on a timer only, it’s more than likely to be set for a busy period. I’m going,’ he said. ‘Distract him if you can.’

  The operator thumbed the joystick. The wheelbarrow arm extended and pushed the drunken man in the ribcage and knocked him over. He rolled and recovered. The extending arm went out towards him again, attempting to push him over again. The drunk struggled to his feet and lumbered towards the wheelbarrow. The screen got a close-up shot of his fat legs and then the sole of his boot as he tried to stamp on the nasty, horrible thing that had attacked him.

  Henry moved like lightning.

  He ran up the promenade and skidded through the door of the club, hurtling across the foyer and down the steps into the bar. If it hadn’t been so serious, it would have been ridiculous. The fat drunk was laying into the wheelbarrow as though it was an adversary in a street fight. He rained kicks on it, which must have hurt him, because they were having no effect on the wheelbarrow which just stood there placidly absorbing the onslaught without complaint.

  Henry hurried across, shouting, ‘You need to get out of here now, that could be a bomb under there.’

  ‘Eh, what? Fuck off, copper.’

  That was all the negotiation Henry was prepared to do. With strength induced by fear, anger and danger, Henry looped an arm around the man’s neck, grabbed his shirt and started to drag him across the bar using the momentum of the man off balance. He managed to get him as far as the foot of the steps which led up to the foyer. He dropped the gasping man, who landed on the small of his back, legs akimbo. It was only past bad experience that prevented Henry from booting him in the testicles. Last time he’d done that, the recipient of the kick had lost a ball and caused Henry no end of grief.

  Such had been the speed and power of Henry’s attack, there was still a look of utter surprise in the drunk’s face – which Henry tried to use to best advantage.

  He said menacingly, ‘You get the fuck up them steps, or I’ll beat the living shit out of you here and now. There’s a bomb in here.’

  It was as if the man had not heard.

  ‘Fuck you,’ he shouted and dived for Henry’s feet. He got them before Henry could move out of the way. Henry cursed as he fell onto his hands. He kicked back at the man’s chest and extricated himself from the grip.

  Large and drunk though the man was – and the stench of booze on his breath was overpowering – he was moving pretty quickly now that Henry had lost the element of surprise. He threw himself onto Henry’s back and flattened him on the floor. It was like being crushed by a bed and doing a belly-flop at the same time. All the air whooshed out of him, winding him. The man pummelled him, though the punches were not well placed or particularly effective. Henry rolled away, jerking his elbow into the man’s face, satisfyingly connecting with a hard bone somewhere. The man emitted a scream of anguish, but only got madder. He came after Henry with his feet, starting to boot him before he could stand up properly.

  ‘You idiot,’ Henry yelled to no effect.

  He took a kick in the lower stomach and recoiled against a pair of double doors marked ‘Store Room – Private’. The doors did not give even when the back of Henry’s head whacked hard against them.

  The drunk bore down on him, a snarl on his lips. ‘I’ve always wanted to do a cop.’

  Henry’s mind clicked into clarity. He ducked and sidestepped, spun on his heels and drove his fist into the side of the man’s head, hard, right on the ear. The blow had no effect, except to make the guy even angrier. Henry hit him again, hurting his knuckles on the man’s cranium. Still no effect. The man turned like a Challenger tank, roared and grabbed Henry. He wrapped both arms around him, pinning Henry’s arms to his side and squeezing tight. The men were stomach to stomach, chest to chest, both now with red faces: the drunk’s from exertion, Henry’s from his chest being constricted. The man swore at Henry, who felt his feet leave the ground. The drunk started to move in a circular motion, round and round, still trying to squeeze the life out of Henry, to crush him, while bouncing up and down.

  He began to laugh. ‘I’m gonna kill you, cocksucker.’

  Which was OK, but why? Drunks do not reason well and Henry did not want to die by being squeezed to death by a bloated, admittedly strong, inebriate, nor by getting blown to bits by a bomb. This thought gave him a surge of self-survival.

  He braced his arms and, using a
ll his strength, pushed them outwards and upwards and broke the man’s vice-like grip. Henry’s hands went to either side of the man’s head, each grabbing an ear, holding the head steady as he head-butted the bridge of the man’s nose with his forehead. The nose did not burst as expected, nor did the man seem to have an adverse reaction to the blow. He just laughed and tried to grab Henry again. Henry pushed against the man and they crashed back against the double doors. This time, they flew open with a clatter. The men reeled through into a room full of collected rubbish onto which they tumbled. They continued their struggle amongst black bin liners crammed with all sorts of debris which burst open, spilling everywhere as they fought.

  Henry was hitting hard now. Punching, kicking, kneeing, gouging. The rules of restraint deserted him because he was fighting for his life – and the life of an idiot he was duty bound to try and save.

  The fat man was running out of steam. Huffing, puffing. The fight was deserting him. His flab, which had been a weapon in its own right in the first few moments of a confrontation, was now draining him of energy and becoming a useless burden. Henry found himself standing over the man, breathing heavily, knowing he had won.

  ‘You arsehole, have you had enough?’

  Blood dribbled out of the fat man’s nose and bubbled with his breath.

  ‘Yeah, yeah . . . no need for that.’

  ‘There – is – a – bomb in there,’ Henry panted. ‘How the hell did you get in?’

  ‘Whaddya mean? I was havin’ a shit.’

  So the toilets hadn’t been properly searched. ‘Right, we need to get out now, do you understand me? This whole place has been evacuated. Didn’t you think something odd was going on?’

  ‘Yeah, but . . .’ he said inadequately.

  ‘Up, now. Let’s get going.’

  Henry offered his hand. The man reached up and, rather like the Michelangelo painting on the roof of the Sistine Chapel, their fingers never actually came into contact because the bomb exploded.

  It was as though someone had opened a furnace door and at the same time whacked Henry on the shoulder blades with a shovel. He was lifted off his feet by the blast and thrown down into the fat drunk’s arms. For the second time in a matter of seconds, every drop of oxygen was forced out of his lungs and out of his bloodstream.

  Fortunately for Henry and the fat man they were not in the direct line of the blast and it was this that saved them. Before the blast reached them, it had to do a right turn into the store room, thereby losing some of its hurricane-like force. It was fortunate their conflict had rumbled into the rubbish room. Had they been standing at the foot of the stairwell, they would have been hit by a flying wheelbarrow which had been blown right across the bar, through the doors and halfway back up the stairs, accompanied by pieces of chairs and tables, reduced to matchsticks by the explosion and even more insidiously, the thousands of panel pins which the bomb maker had packed into the device.

  The sound of the explosion had been stunning. The loudest bang Henry had ever heard. His brain rang, his ears buzzed and echoed.

  He opened his eyes slowly. Swirling smoke filled the room. Several fires had started in the rubbish.

  Henry was on top of the fat man, lying between his open legs, holding him in an embrace as though they had just made love. He lifted his head and looked down at the face of the man underneath, which was blank with horror.

  ‘Well, no thanks to you, we’re still alive,’ Henry said. He clambered off him, stood up, testing each limb, finding they all worked. He poked his head around the door, wafting the dense smoke away, trying to see into the bar. The smoke was too intense. Flames licked out of it, telling Henry that the next threat was being burned to death. ‘Now can we get out of here without fighting?’

  ‘Ugh, right.’ The man was totally dazed and confused. His drunken state did not assist in his understanding of the situation. Gallantly Henry heaved him to his feet. Not an easy task. ‘What happened?’ the man asked.

  ‘You’ve just survived a bomb blast,’ Henry informed him. ‘Something you’ll be able to tell your kids.’

  ‘I doubt that, unless they start letting gay couples adopt.’

  ‘At least you’ll have something to talk about at dinner parties, then.’

  ‘Eh? So, what’s happened?’ he asked, losing the thread again.

  ‘I’ll tell you later, now let’s just get out of here.’

  The shock hit him about twenty minutes later, sending him into a convulsive, retching fit. It took a large coffee laced with brandy before he returned to anything like normal.

  He relinquished control of the scene to a chief inspector on conference duty because the shakes were approaching fast. He thought it would have been unwise to be a blithering wreck while running the next stage of the response to the bomb. Dermot Byrne had driven him back to the station, deposited him in the inspectors’ office and somehow tracked down the coffee addition from somewhere.

  When Henry picked up the mug, his hand was trembling so much that there was a mini-storm on the surface of the beverage. He had to put the mug back down on his desk, lower his head to it and take the first sip out of it from the desk top.

  Deep breathing and some mental-relaxation techniques he had acquired for his stress, helped calm him down. This tranquil state did not last long. His stress levels rose, pulse quickened, when the office door opened without a knock and FB came in, all of a bluster.

  ‘Hero or fuckin’ arsehole, can’t quite work out which,’ he said.

  By which time Henry had gone well past the caring and sharing stage.

  ‘I’m the hero, you’re the arsehole – I find that quite easy to work out,’ Henry said.

  That stopped FB dead, then a smile flickered onto his lips and grew into a good-natured laugh. ‘Good one, Henry . . . I like it.’ Then his face became deadpan. ‘Hey, you just called an ACC an arsehole.’

  Henry wasn’t for relenting. ‘If the cap fits.’

  ‘Twat,’ FB uttered, but, again, without malice. ‘Right. Actually, well done, Henry. I mean the fat guy should not have been left in there in the first place, obviously, but even so, well done. A bit drastic, a bit foolhardy – but well done.’

  Praise indeed from FB.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Yeah, well, don’t get too cocky. You’ve still got a hundred Asian youths about to land in town intent on causing problems – so don’t even think about going off sick again.’

  ‘What about heading them off at the pass – turning them back onto the motorway at Marton Circle.’

  ‘Under what power, may I ask?’

  Henry had to think. ‘Breach of the Peace. To prevent a breach of the peace – like we did in the miners’ strike.’

  FB thought for a moment. ‘Go for it. You’d better get moving, then come and see me later. We need to discuss the night ahead again.’

  ‘Anything new on Jane Roscoe and Mark Evans?’

  ‘No.’

  Henry slurped his coffee and with mug in hand headed to the communications room for an update on the whereabouts of the Asian youths, wondering if his proposed tactics were actually lawful. Under the circumstances it was arguable, but then again, when had that ever stopped the police from doing something which might just prevent any aggro. Once the Asians got onto Shoreside, there would be real problems.

  His head was spinning by the time he got to communications. He knew he needed time out from all this, but was unlikely to get it.

  At least there was one thing settled for him when he got there: the Asians were almost in town and he was too late to get enough staff together to turn them round and send them home.

  The board displaying the number of officers actually on duty was not much help. Almost everyone was deployed at the scene of the bomb blast, dealing with keeping the scene secure, ensuring emergency vehicles could get to and from it, and also dealing with the growing traffic chaos in town.

  Which gave Henry an idea.

  ‘Where is the convoy no
w?’ he asked a radio operator.

  ‘On the M55 at Wesham, heading towards Blackpool. They’ll be coming off at Marton in less than 5 minutes.’

  ‘How many patrols are with them?’

  ‘Two motorway, two traffic and a couple of motorcyclists.’

  Henry picked up the radio set and called up one of the patrols. He asked, ‘Do you think you could actually keep the convoy on the motorway, stop them coming off at Marton and get them onto Yeadon Way – without putting anyone in danger?’

  ‘We can try and block the exit.’

  ‘Do it – try and keep them coming into town. Shepherd them down Yeadon Way onto Spine Road and onto the main town centre car park at the end.’

  ‘Roger – we’ll try,’ the patrol said.

  Henry smiled at the radio operator, who looked puzzled. ‘You want them to come into town?’ she asked.

  ‘No, I don’t. I’d like them to go home, but I don’t want them to get onto Shoreside, so if they can get snarled up in the town-centre traffic, maybe that will split them up – divide and conquer.’

  ‘Oh. Good idea.’

  Now, he thought, there’s something else I have to do. It came to him. ‘If you need me, I’ll be in the custody office.’

  The custody sergeant was looking tattered and harassed as he booked two prisoners in who were being particularly obnoxious. He acknowledged Henry with a curt nod. At least, Henry thought it was an acknowledgement, it could have been a nervous tick, often found in stressed-out custody officers.

  As the man was busy, Henry did a quick review of what was happening. Only three prisoners in, none requiring his attention. He took out the binder containing completed custody records to see what had happened to Kit Nevison at court earlier that day. The record was marked off as, ‘Released on bail with reporting conditions.’

  Henry could not help but chuckle at the outrageousness of it all. Sometimes magistrates seemed to live in a different world to normal people. There was no profit in getting sore about it, it was just a fact of life. A dangerous man was back on the streets.