A Time For Justice (57 page)

‘
Oh, I doubt it,’ said Henry. He started to sit up.

Hinksman took a step backwards. His foot sank in the mud and
he nearly overbalanced. ‘Don’t you fucking try anything, or I’ll
just kill you now!’ he warned.

‘
All I’m doing is sitting up, OK?’ Henry said. ‘Y’know, I
really do think you’re afraid of me.’

‘
In your dreams, chum. You couldn’t scare a kid
shitless.’

Henry looked across the river to Glasson Dock. He could see
the tiny figures on the dock wall. Help seemed a long way
away.

‘
They can’t do nothing for you, Henry. It’s just you and me –
and our common interests.’

‘
We’ve nothing in common,’ Henry stated. He drew his knees up
and folded his arms around them. He was really shaking now, both
with cold and fear. His voice had begun chattering as he
spoke.

Henry felt his gun hanging in the holster under his left
armpit. For the first time he realised it was still there and
Hinksman obviously didn’t know about it.

‘
Oh, but we do. For example, we’ve both fucked the same woman.
Kate. Lovely lady. Lovely, lovely lady.’

Henry’s chill disappeared, to be replaced by a burning heat
throughout his lower abdomen. The look in his eyes changed from
fear to anger, then to danger.

‘
She’s putting on a bit of weight around the thighs and
midriff. But she’s a nice, really nice woman. At least she was
until she met me, then she became debauched, a real animal. Do you
know, I couldn’t believe you’d never had anal sex before. That
really surprised me in this day and age.’

‘
You bastard,’ Henry hissed. Very deliberately he laid the
palm of his left hand over his right bicep and jacked up his right
fist.

‘
I know, I admit it. I’ve done a lot of very bad things to
her, Henry. Very bad indeed ... but your colleagues in that big
blue van have done something even worse, by ramming me off the
road.’

‘
How do you fathom that?’

‘
They killed her,’ he said with a fake note of surprise in his
tone.

‘
You see, she was in the back of the van. You mean you didn’t
know? Trussed up like a chicken, naked as a jaybird an’ all that,
but definitely alive - until they forced me off the road, that is.
I gotta quick glance at her before I climbed out. Real mess. Head
all smashed in. She looked pretty dead to me, pretty fuckin’ dead.
And your pals did it. Not me, not me, Henry.’

‘
You liar.’

‘
Now why in hell would I lie at a time like this?’

Henry thought numbly, And I told them to ram him off the
road.

Shoot the one who’s standing up,’ Donaldson said to the
marksman. ‘That’s Hinksman, I’m sure of it. One hundred per
cent.’

‘
How do you know?’

‘
I know. Trust me. Shoot him.’

‘
No, I can’t,’ stuttered the marksman, cracking under the
pressure of a real-life situation. ‘It wouldn’t be reasonable
force. I’d have to justify it in court.’

‘
So? Fuck me! He’s pointing a gun at your colleague. Last time
he did that he pulled the trigger and killed the poor son of a
bitch. Now shoot him before he does it again.’

‘
No, I won’t.’

‘
What is it with you English cops, for Christ’s sake?’
Donaldson screamed through the torrential rain. ‘A pal of yours is
being threatened by a maniac with a gun who’s killed before and
you’re discussing what you might have to say in court. I don’t
believe this! Just pull the fucking trigger.’

‘
No, I can’t. I couldn’t guarantee a hit at this range and in
these conditions anyway.’

Donaldson looked down pityingly at the marksman and made a
decision. ‘Sorry about this, pal,’ he sighed and looked at the
point just behind the man’s right ear.

‘
In fact, I’ve changed my mind, Henry. I’m going to let you
live. Killing’s too good for you. If I kill you, you’ll only suffer
for a few more seconds and I’d rather you suffered for the rest of
your life, knowing that the police killed the one you loved
-
after
I’d raped
her, that is. So stay where you are, Henry, and don’t come after me
otherwise I will shoot you.’

He turned and began to walk across the mud towards the road.
Henry felt for his gun under his anorak. As he drew it he rose to
his feet. He pointed it at the back of Hinksman’s head, steadying
it on the palm of his hand.

‘
Stop there. You’re under arrest again. Drop your weapon -
NOW!’ Hinksman froze. Then turned slowly around, gun in hand. When
he was half-facing Henry, a smile broke out under the facial
mudpack.

‘
I should never have underestimated you,’ he admitted, shaking
his head.

‘
No, you shouldn’t. You should’ve killed me when you had the
opportunity, because I wouldn’t have ever given up on you. I’d have
chased you to the end of the earth, and we’d have ended up in this
position again.’

‘
I believe you, Henry.’

‘
Now drop the gun and put your hands up. As you can see, my
gun isn’t shaking this time, and if you give me any cause
whatsoever, I’ll shoot you dead and feel good about it.’

‘
Well, you’ve certainly got the drop on me this time.’
Hinksman’s gun came up quickly.

Henry was hoping it would. He was ready, didn’t hesitate. He
fired a double tap.
Bam-bam!

At the same time as his two bullets drilled into Hinksman’s
neck and chest, the large-calibre bullet from the rifle entered his
face just below his right eye, removing the whole of the back of
his head.

It seemed a long time before the
crack
of the shot caught up with the
bullet from across the river.

The Bucar was discovered at 9 a.m. two days later, parked on a
grassy knoll alongside a lake near to the main entrance to Florida
International University, about ten miles from downtown
Miami.

A campus cop had driven slowly past it a couple of times on
his rounds and eventually decided to ticket it for being illegally
parked.

He strolled up to it, unfolding his ticket pad whilst
whistling and chewing. He had almost completed writing the ticket
before he actually glanced inside the vehicle. Something unusual
caught his eye: a hand on the passenger seat. On closer inspection
he saw that the hand was attached to the arm of a body which was
doubled up into the front passenger footwell, as though neatly
folded into place.

The cop stopped whistling, dropped his pad and his gum fell
out of his mouth. Then he saw the other two bodies laid on top of
each other behind the front seats.

He did what a good cop should have done: sealed the scene and
called for backup - after he’d finished vomiting.

The first detective on the scene was Ram Chander.

He strolled up to the Bucar and looked inside at the three
bodies. ‘I got a gut feeling about this one already,’ he admitted
to the campus cop. ‘I bet we get nowhere with it.’

Epilogue

Amongst his many failings, Henry Christie acknowledged that
his greatest was that he was not a romantic at heart. In all his
married life he had never regularly bought flowers, gifts nor cards
for Kate, other than at her birthday or Christmas. Valentine’s Day
merely passed him by; their wedding anniversary was just another
date on the calendar. He had expected her to take his love for
granted and that, he now saw, was probably one of the many reasons
why their marriage had run into difficulties.

Now he was making up for lost time.

Whilst Kate had been in hospital he had showered her with
flowers, cards and gifts, and continually let her know what he felt
about her.

She had spent four weeks in hospital, the first six days in
intensive care with major, possibly life-threatening
injuries.

On her discharge she’d spent further weeks convalescing at
home in Henry’s care. He had taken special leave and with the
assistance of Jenny and Leanne - whom he allowed to stay off school
for the purpose - and a district nurse, Henry gentled her back to
health.

When she was fit enough, he did what he thought was the most
romantic thing he’d ever done - booked a second honeymoon and
arranged for the kids to stay with their grandparents.

They watched the blazing sun disappear quickly into the
Mediterranean. There was no moon, just blackness and a warm breeze.
Both were dressed in shorts and T-shirts, nothing on their feet but
the fine golden sand which filtered through their toes. They held
hands.

The beach was deserted.

Henry felt euphorically happy.

They hadn’t said anything for a while, but it was a contented
silence.

‘
That was a beautiful sunset,’ Kate said.

‘
I cannot disagree.’

She squeezed his hand. He bent over and kissed her briefly on
the lips, but the brief kiss became a lingering, wet, exploring
one, sending a charge of excitement through both of them. It was
like their first real kiss.

When they broke apart, Henry said, ‘I love you.’

‘
Mmm,’ she murmured happily, a wide grin on her
face.

They began to walk slowly down the beach towards the
hotel.

‘
I don’t want this to end,’ she said. ‘It’s been lovely, but I
do miss the girls.’

‘
Me too - on both counts.’

They walked a little further in silence.

‘
So, is it all over, Henry, this Corelli business?’

‘
For us, I hope so. Corelli’s still operating and I’ve no
doubt he’ll team up with some other big-time British criminal to
import drugs ... but it’ll take some time, I expect. I think we put
a pretty big dent in his operation when the Navy pulled that
freighter in the Irish Sea ... but, from our point of view, I think
we’ve probably seen the last of him.’

‘
Good, I’m glad. It was his evil that cast a shadow on us all,
wasn’t it?’

‘
Yeah ... everything started with him.’

Kate interlocked her fingers into Henry’s.

‘
Kate, I thought I’d killed you. If you had died, it would’ve
been my fault. You see, I told that personnel carrier to ram
him.’

They had stopped and were facing each other, still holding
hands. ‘You weren’t to know where I was,’ she said softly. ‘Don’t
feel guilty. I’m alive, you’re alive, we’re back together and we’ve
got a future ... and that’s all that matters. Us and the
girls.’

Henry looked sullenly at his feet as he poked around in the
sand with his toes.

‘
What’s the problem?’ she asked.

‘
He told me everything he did to you. Everything.’

‘
Henry, he hasn’t done anything to me. He might have hurt me
physically, but I detached myself from what he was doing. He might
as well have done it to a piece of meat. He didn’t touch me here.’
She laid his hand over her heart. ‘Only you can touch me
there.’

‘
You’re very strong and I feel so weak and
pathetic.’

‘
Don’t. What happened between him and me means nothing. It’s
taken a while for it to work out, but I’ll tell you one thing,
darling...’

‘
What’s that?’

‘
It’s about time you did touch me.’

‘
I didn’t want to rush anything.’

She slid her T-shirt off and allowed her shorts to fall to the
sand. ‘Here?’ he asked incredulously.

‘
Here and now,’ she ordered him. She reached out, unfastened
his shorts, pulled them over his thighs, down to his ankles. He
pulled off his shirt and threw it to one side.

‘
Are you sure you’re ready?’ he asked. ‘I don’t want
to-’

His words were cut short by the forefinger she placed on his
lips. She moved up close to him, skin to skin. It felt like the
most sensational thing in the world. Her hard nipples pressing into
his chest, her moist bush pressed around his thigh and his hard
penis pressed against her soft belly.

‘
I wonder if it’s true what they say,’ he said, as he gently
lowered her down.

‘
What?’ she mumbled.

‘
That sand gets everywhere.’

Corelli enjoyed Cuban food. One of his favourite restaurants
was the Versailles which was in SW 8th street, just to the west of
Little Havana on Calle Ocho. It had one of the largest Cuban menus
in Miami and he could fill himself for around ten dollars on steak
with plantains and rice. Even though he was extremely wealthy he
still liked a bargain - and the Versailles was a
bargain.

It was just on noon, and the restaurant was already very
crowded. Nevertheless he had been shown directly to a table in one
corner where he could sit, Mafia-style, his back to the wall, with
an advantageous view of everyone coming and going. He had no
particular reason to be worried, but old habits die hard, and you
could never be too sure.