by Leigh Barker
“Yes, I remember you fought for the English, and I’m ashamed of it every waking day. You’re a bloody traitor to—”
Shamus hit him, not a little slap, but a left hook that spun him and dropped him onto the fire, with china ornaments and cups smashing around him.
Shaun’s dream slipped into slow motion as Patrick rolled onto his back and, in blind fury, pulled his gun and pointed it at his father. Shamus reacted as he’d been trained to do all those years before and stamped down on the gun arm, pinning it to the floor. Patrick’s hand clenched and pulled the trigger, the gunshot cracking deafeningly and the bullet imploding the TV like a small bomb.
Shaun’s head was spinning in shock, and he didn’t hear the second shot, so was stunned when his father fell to his knees and then onto his back beside his son, a patch of red spreading over his shirt front. Shaun blinked slowly and looked at the man standing in the doorway, the gun still pointing at the old man. His legs failed, and he fell forward onto his hands and knees next to his father, unable to take his eyes off the crimson bubble fixed on his lips.
Patrick got to his feet, wiped his bloody face on his sleeve, and put his hand on Shaun’s shoulder. “It was an accident, Shaun, you saw it. It was an accident!”
Shaun looked up, and Patrick recoiled from the hate in his eyes.
Shaun woke up with his heart pounding and wiped his damp face on the back of his hand. He frowned and wound down the window. He could still hear the gunfire, but this was no dream, the sound of shooting was coming from the warehouse he’d been watching. He stepped out of the car into the cold night, pulled his SIG P230 from its belt holster, and stepped into the shadows. An idea formed in his mind, and he started to move towards the warehouse, heard a muffled sound behind him, and spoke without looking round. “Did you bring the coffee?”
“Left it by the car. Didn’t think you’d want it right now,” a voice said in the darkness. “What have we got here?”
Shaun stopped and looked back over his shoulder. “I think the girl guides are having a jamboree.” He looked at the darker outline in the shadows. “You’re the detective, Danny boy, what do you think is going on?”
“Action! And it’ll soon be over.” Danny crowded Shaun forward, and when Danny crowded, it was big time. Danny Fouillade was a six foot four French-Angolan and built like the proverbial shit-house.
Shaun bristled at the shove. “Hey, back off.” He shook Danny’s hand off his shoulder. “You can shoot the survivors.”
“Cool.”
“Jesus, man.” Shaun stepped away. “Look, why don’t you go that way and ingress via the side door?”
“Ingress?” Danny sniffed. “Have you been reading those American cop manuals again?”
“All the bad men will have shot each other by the time you’re finished chatting,” Shaun said helpfully.
“Okay, I’m off to ingress.”
Shaun watched him go, smiled, and walked across the open yard towards the big double doors at the back of the warehouse. The shooting had stopped after the initial fusillade, and he sighed genuine regret as he opened the small personnel door and stepped into the light. Shooting a few villains might take the edge off his hangover, and who knows? They might have shot back, and that would have been okay too.
The warehouse was mostly empty, except for a couple of cars, and the bodies bleeding out onto the concrete floor in front of the wide-open roller door leading out on the opposite side of the building. Ah well, you can’t watch them all from one car. But yeah, that was a bit careless, but in his defence, it had been dark when they arrived. True, but a walk round the building wouldn’t have been too tiring.
A movement caught his eye, and he pointed his gun casually at Danny, who stepped in through the metal side door. Harry shook his head sadly and resumed checking the shadows and the small glass office for any movement, but they were alone.
Danny walked up to one of the cars, looked in cautiously, and drew his finger across his throat.
“Why are you doing commando signals? I don’t think the dead guys care, and the shooters are long gone.”
Danny shrugged, walked up to the bodies on the floor, and rolled one over with his foot.
“Hey, SOCO are going to be well pissed off if you start messing with their crime scene,” Shaun said, sounding almost like he gave a shit.
“It’s my crime scene right now,” Danny said, opened the boot of the nearest car, peered in, and said something that was too muffled for Shaun to catch.
Shaun looked at the spreading pools of blood, put his gun away, stepped over the blood, and joined his partner. It took him about two seconds to see what had gone down. “Drug deal gone bad.”
“Wow, did you work that out?” Danny said with mock awe.
“Yeah, you can tell that from the dead guys and the drugs.”
“That’ll be why you’re a detective, then?”
Shaun crossed to the second car and opened the boot. “This one had the money.”
“Any left in there?”
“No, some crook has had it all away.”
“Pity, my rent’s due.” Danny strode up to the little glass office and shaded the glass with his hand.
“Don’t bother,” Shaun said. “If there was anybody in there, they’d have shot you when you fell into the building.”
“Why wouldn’t they have shot you? Is it a black thing?”
“Who’s black?” Shaun said with a puzzled expression.
“Hey, Baxter’s going to be well pissed off when he finds out we were sitting outside while the bad men all shot each other to death and drove away through the other door.”
“You were fetching coffee,” Shaun pointed out helpfully.
“Hey, I was on a break, union rules say I have to have a break.”
“Oh, okay, that’ll satisfy Mr Baxter, sir, dickhead and asshole.”
“Yeah? That’s good, then,” Danny said, returning to crouch down by the bodies. “I was a bit worried there.”
Shaun waited patiently for two seconds. “You see anything odd about these bodies?”
Danny stood up and surveyed the dead. He frowned, pulled his chin, tut-tutted, then nodded. “Ah, one of them is wearing high heels.” He pointed at the little guy wearing thin red shoes, calf-length white trousers and a silver ankle bracelet. Tasteful.
“Oh, steady me,” Shaun sighed, “detective genius at work.”
Danny took a bow.
“Not the one with high heels, Sherlock.” Shaun pointed at the nearest body. “That.”
Danny followed his finger to the other body with two neat holes in the chest. “He’s been shot.”
“Damn, you’re good!” Shaun pointed at the other bodies one by one. “Every one of them got it in the chest, double tap.”
“Military?”
“Yeah, or a pro at least.” Shaun looked up at the sound of approaching sirens. “Our troubles are over.”
Danny crossed to the open roller door. “Blood here. Looks like one of the poor buggers got a shot off.” He looked back at the high heels and ankle bracelet. “Or two shots.”
Shaun pointed at the body holding an automatic. “That’ll be our shooter, looks like he was a bit quicker than the rest.” He frowned. “Odd, though, that none of the others had time to get to their guns.”
Danny came back and bent down to examine the dead man’s gun. “Smith and Wesson forty. Nice piece.”
Shaun closed his eyes and willed his headache away. That didn’t work. “We should go meet our brave armed response boys.”
“Yeah, they’ll just start shooting if we’re still in here.” Danny stopped for a moment in the open doorway and looked again at the blood on the steel runners. “At least there’s some good news.”
Shaun nodded and walked out of the building just as the storm troopers arrived and started screaming and shouting at them to lie on the floor.
“Yeah, right,” Shaun said. “This is my only suit.”
Danny pitched in befo
re he got them both killed. “Hey, we’re SOCA!” he shouted, but they just kept screaming anyway. “Come on, think about it, would we still be here if we were bad guys?”
“On the floor, now!” the same agitated voice said.
“He sounds upset,” Shaun said loud enough for the marksman to hear. “I thought CO19 boys were all cool and stuff.”
“Don’t antagonise them, man, they’ve got big guns.” Danny looked over at Shaun with a worried expression. “We should do like they say.”
“You can if you like, but I’m not getting down there, there’s dog shit and stuff.”
A uniformed officer walked out from behind the car headlights and made a show of checking them out. “Oh, great,” he said and waved a hand to calm the shooters down. “It’s O’Conner. I’d recognise that suit anywhere. Same one you had five years ago, isn’t it?”
“Detective Chief Inspector Gardener, sir, how are you, sir? And how are your darling children, sir? And your lovely—”
“Shut up, O’Conner, or I’ll let Babbler here shoot you anyway. God knows I’d be doing everybody a service.”
“Thank you, DCI Gardner, sir,” Shaun said, standing to attention.
“Shoot him, Babbler.”
“Whoa! Hang on!” Danny stepped forward waving his hands, realised he was between Shaun and the shooter, and stepped out of line.
“Cheers,” Shaun said and tutted. “My friend.”
“Think about it, sir,” Danny said, ignoring Shaun. “You could shoot him, and many people would be grateful…” He could see the DI was thinking about it. “But if you do, you’ll have to buy another bullet, and you know what a pain that can be.”
DCI Gardner was weighing up the pros and cons. Decision made, he waved his hand at the firing squad hidden behind the glare of the headlights. “Okay, but next time…”
Shaun shrugged and trudged tiredly to the side of the building and back across the yard.
“Hey, where do you think you’re going?” DCI Gardner’s voice showed genuine surprise.
Shaun spoke without turning. “I’m going home. It’s been a big day.”
The DCI sighed heavily and gave up — some cases are just hopeless. “I want a full report in writing, on my desk, tomorrow morning. Do you hear me?”
“Yes sir. Report. Desk. Morning.”
Danny caught up. “You’re not going to write the report, are you?”
Shaun shrugged. “What is there to say? Five guys got shot—”
“Six.”
Shaun slowed and glanced at Danny.
“One in the car, remember? Commando signals?”
Shaun nodded. “Six guys got themselves shot. They were bad men.”
“Ever wonder why you’re still a sergeant after twenty years?”
They reached the car, and Shaun opened the driver’s door. “They hate me because I’m Irish.”
“Yeah, right, that’ll be it.” Danny opened the passenger door, groaned, and brushed the junk off the seat into the yard. “You’re a slob, you know that?”
“Hey! There was half a burger in there!”
“Why me, God? Haven’t I always been a good Christian? Don’t I love children and my fellow man? No, don’t answer that.” He took out a perfectly ironed handkerchief and wiped the seat before climbing in reluctantly, as if sitting on a doss-house toilet. Shaun started the car and put on the lights.
“What the hell have you got to smile about?” Danny asked as he tried to fasten the seat belt using just his thumb and index finger.
“I was just thinking about Baxter.”
“And that’s funny?”
“No, but me getting that award tomorrow is going to get right up his nose, and that’s funny.”
“True.”
10
Harry sat on the edge of his bed and massaged his rock-hard thigh muscle. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but it did feel less raw this morning, though that could be the deadening effects of the whisky Frank had poured into him the night before. He lifted his lower leg slowly and was sure the fire blazing in his thigh was less. One of the benefits of getting the hell out of hospital, he supposed. Soon be running up Kilimanjaro. Yeah, right. Okay, maybe not, but one thing was for certain, he’d be thanking that Afghan who’d saved his life some time soon, he swore to that.
To hell with all this sitting around acting like a pussy. He stood up. He sat down. Well, that wasn’t the roaring success it had played out in his head. He stood up very slowly, swayed this way and that, probably because he was mostly standing on one leg, but he was up and took a slow step forward on the shot leg, clenched his teeth, and closed his eyes until the crimson wave had washed over him. Pussy. He took another step and was relieved to find this one was marginally less agonising than the last. A few minutes later, he was walking across the bedroom, like a constipated robot, true, but under his own steam and no damned crutch.
Harvey was the first to look up from the breakfast table as Harry lurched out of his bedroom. Frank and Rocky were preoccupied with a squabble over Harvey’s newspaper and took a moment to register the great event. When they did, all three froze and stared open mouthed.
Frank recovered first. “You’re walking!”
“You’re really old, but you haven’t lost any of your sharps, have you?” Harry said through clenched teeth.
“Cheeky git!”
Full marks for tea and sympathy.
Harvey got up and strode across the big room, took Harry’s arm, and pointed to the chair at the breakfast table. “Come on, for God’s sake, before you fall down.”
“Not planning to do any more falling,” Harry said, quietly grateful to be holding onto something, or someone. Turns out, not being a pussy hurts like hell.
Rocky pulled a grimace. “Err… sorry I wasn’t around when you got in.”
Harry raised a hand. “No probs.” He smiled as he sat down. “I saw the distraction.”
Rocky smiled. “Yeah.”
“Both of them,” Harry added.
“Yeah.” Rocky’s smile widened. “Ain’t being a rock star a bitch?”
Harry raised his eyebrows. “Rock star?” He shook his head slowly. “Pop tells me you just sent in one demo.”
Harvey started to say “don’t call me Pop”, but let it slide, what the hell.
“What’s the plan, then?” Frank asked, piling bacon and eggs onto a plate and handing it to Harry, along with enough toast to choke a horse. “Bit of a jog after breakfast, is it?”
Harry took the coffee from Harvey and drank it in one slurp. “Whew, I needed that,” he said, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand and brushing the toast off his breakfast so he could at least see the food. “Planning,” he said, munching crispy bacon, “to take a little trip.”
Harvey frowned, already ahead of him. A barrister doesn’t get far unless he can read the writing on the wall, particularly if the writing is a foot high. “Afghanistan?”
Frank snorted and choked on his coffee. “What? Don’t be bloody daft!” He wiped his face with an immaculately folded napkin. “He’ll be lucky to get out of the building, the state he’s in.”
“Cheers, gramps,” Harry said with a grin.
“You know what I mean,” Frank said, raising his hand.
“Yeah, I’m knackered.”
“No, no,” Frank said. “Well, okay, a bit knackered.”
“When are you leaving?” Harvey asked quietly, already giving up on any opposition to the plan. Sometimes you’ve just lost before the first bell rings.
Frank glared at Harvey. “Don’t be—”
“Tomorrow, Wednesday at the latest,” Harry said quietly.
“Bro, I think you got shot in the brain too,” Rocky said, before returning to the newspaper’s celeb section.
“Harvey!” Frank said. “He’s your son, you talk him out of this daftness.”
Harvey waved him on. “Be my guest.”
“Like father, like son. I don’t know where you get it,” Frank said
. “Your mother, I expect.”
Harvey and Harry exchanged glances and smiled. Yeah, from Mom. Right.
11
At the same time as Harry swung into the ticket agency on his crutches, Shaun was slipping quietly into the conference room in the town hall, not because he was shy of the publicity or anything like that, he just wanted to see what the turnout was like so that he could pitch his speech at the right level. Yeah, right.
The chief constable had sent his deputy — the miserable sod; there must have been a better media event somewhere else. There were a half dozen journalists hanging around looking bored, and a local new team called Good News, Bad News or No News, or something like that. Okay then, that was cool, he could manage that. What he didn’t want was some up-himself prat out to show the public that he was a serious, investigative reporter with stupid questions like “was it necessary to beat the poor, disabled suspect with a fire extinguisher?”, or something deep and incisive along those lines. Okay, he had hit the suspect with a fire extinguisher, but he wasn’t disabled. In fact, he’d been carrying a sawn-off shotgun, but the prat would probably say it was for the charity clay pigeon shoot in aid of sick orphans. Arsehole. It occurred to him that he was getting wound up by a reporter he’d just invented and kicked it into touch before he fell off the planet completely.
The irony didn’t escape him that he was getting a bravery award for capturing an armed robber by accident. Said robber had shoved a shotgun in a bank cashier’s face, grabbed a bagful of money and run, right into a couple of bobbies who just happened to be in the way, as they tend to be. He’d shot one of the poor sods and hit the other with the shotgun, but it served them right for being in the wrong place.
And Shaun? He’d been staking out a couple of lowlifes and had just stepped into a doorway for a spike from his hipflask when the guy exited the bank. He could’ve just shot him, it would have been all legal and stuff, but he couldn’t be arsed with all the paperwork, so picked up a fire extinguisher from the shop doorway — one of those CO2 things with the black horn and a big yellow instruction sticker — anyway, the cop-shooter came running by, and he hit him in the face with it, a big swinging arc and a very satisfying crunch. No paperwork required.
