The house was back on the market, being sold by a small chain of estate agents, ultimately owned by one man.
Lenny Dakin.
Chapter Nineteen
‘ Daddy, I know I like it ‘n’ everything, but why are you living over a vet’s?’
‘ Don’t ask stupid questions, Leanne,’ her older sister Jenny admonished her. ‘Mummy and Daddy have split up because Daddy’s become a drunk and an adulterer, and you need to live somewhere, don’t you, Daddy?’
‘ Yes, dear, I suppose that sums it up,’ said Henry, restraining himself from a smile despite the accusations.
‘ Well, I know all that,’ Leanne said dismissively. She was sitting in the back seat of the Metro with a couple of dolls in her lap, and they were all en route to the Lake District. ‘But why over a vet’s?’
‘ Because it’s cheap and interesting,’ he said.
‘ When you get divorced,’ began Leanne, about to pose one of those dreaded questions, ‘will you marry the vet? She seems like a nice lady. I’d like her to be my second mum. I could have all sorts of pets to mend, couldn’t I?’
‘ Whoa, hold your horses,’ said Henry. ‘Your mum and me aren’t divorced yet. We might be getting back together.’
‘ Mum said that hell would have to freeze over first.’ Jenny grinned at her father. ‘But she was in a real bad mood when she said that.’
‘ Oh really?’ said Henry. He felt his guts twist.
‘ And not only that,’ interrupted Leanne again, ‘why are you driving this crappy car?’
Henry burst out laughing.
Henry had rented a log cabin owned by one of his workmates, situated high and lonely in the hills above Hawkshead in an idyllic position. He’d been there on many previous occasions with his complete family and the girls particularly enjoyed it.
The single-track path leading to it was long and arduous. The Metro struggled valiantly over the bumps and up the incline and made it more or less intact. They unpacked quickly — they were only staying the night and had a minimal amount of gear — and Henry assembled his fishing tackle.
‘ Right — you two be OK for a couple of hours while I go up to the tarn to fish?’
‘ Yeah,’ they said in unison.
‘ Good. I’ll be back by four at the latest. Then we’ll go over to Windermere on the ferry for tea. Tomorrow we’ll have a look at Beatrix Potter’s place. OK?’
‘ Yeah,’ they said. ‘Excellent.’
‘ Good.’
‘ Tight flies, Daddy,’ chirped Leanne. ‘Don’t be long.’
With a grin on his face at her child-like mistake, he hunched his equipment onto his back and over his shoulders and headed towards the trees, breathing deeply of the cool, pine-laden air. He felt as if this was the first day of the rest of his life. He’d felt the same way on many other occasions over the last few months though — and most had turned to rat-shit, so he wasn’t foolish enough to totally believe it; yet somehow today did feel different.
He’d made a start by deciding to cut out two things that seemed to cloud his life at the moment — alcohol and women.
He was determined to woo Kate again and get back to a normal happy existence. The bachelor life didn’t do much for him, he had to admit. He longed for the warmth of family life; being with the kids made him miss it even more.
But how to get back into Kate’s good books?
That would take some doing.
Betrayal couldn’t easily be forgotten.
And he knew things could never be as they had been in the past; it was the future that interested him.
Once into the trees, coolness and darkness reigned. The pine tang in the air became almost overwhelming, like a drug. The ground was firmly soft to walk on and he dawdled along, halting occasionally as he spotted some bird or beast. He broke back into open sunlight soon after and pushed on upwards.
He felt glad to be alive.
He’d made a few important decisions and things could be rosy again if he played it right. Once the trial was out of the way, the road ahead would be clear, he hoped.
After twenty minutes’ fairly hard walking, getting up a good sweat, the tarn appeared below him. He trod cautiously down a scree and approached the water, breathing heavily.
A few minutes later he was on the banks.
Looking across the surface of the water he thought, I bet no one’s fished here in an age, and his heart bumped when he saw the ‘blimp’ of a trout feeding on the surface only ten metres out, then another further away. Out loud he said, ‘You little beauties won’t be expecting me, will ya?’
He laughed and the echo of it danced across the water.
An hour and two undersized fish later, he’d drawn his fly line in and was making a couple of false casts when, as he brought the rod up to 90 degrees with the line running out behind him, ready for that final forward cast, the rod snapped in two and collapsed around his ears. There followed an echoing crrack-ack-ack in the air from over the tarn. Just as Henry realised what was going on, the water at his feet exploded violently.
He threw down his tackle and ran, scrambling wildly towards the trees.
Somebody was shooting at him.
He dived full-length onto the ground just as a bullet slammed into a nearby tree. Splinters flew.
Henry’s thoughts whizzed around his head like a silver ball skittering around a pinball machine. If it wasn’t a lucky shot that had broken his rod, his assailant was a fantastic shooter and could easily have taken him there and then — he could have taken his whole fucking head off. Unless he was playing with him… wanting Henry to know he was going to die. My rod! Henry thought savagely. The bastard. My lovely rod. He’s destroyed it!
Anger roared into him, replacing the fear. It was like the devil taking over a human soul.
This was the Mafia way with witnesses. Terrify them, or kill them. He remembered Hinksman’s silent threat on the first day of the trial. Now it was coming true.
That bastard won’t beat me, Henry thought. If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll see him rot in jail. Or preferably get fried in the States.
He made a decision: he was going to win this afternoon, no matter what the cost. And winning, at that moment, meant taking the man with the gun.
Carefully he turned round, crab-like, 180 degrees, keeping low. Having done this without mishap he drew his right leg up, placed his foot on a root, making sure he had good leverage for propulsion. He took a deep breath.
He was ready.
He shoved himself up and ran, zig-zagging, head down like a rugby player going for the line.
The shooter let loose. The air around Henry’s body exploded with the crack! and whizzbang! of the bullets.
He sprinted on. He felt like it was lasting for ever, that he was in some weird sort of time-warp.
He was nearly there, keeping his eyes riveted on the place where he wanted to be, throwing himself the last couple of metres. The gunman kept firing remorselessly. It was while Henry was airborne that a searing hot pain shot up his back.
Oh fuck — he’d been hit.
He landed awkwardly, twisting his left wrist, then life went blank
… The bullets stopped. Their echoes ricocheted around the tarn and drifted away to nothingness, like spirits leaving the world. Silence descended. All birdsong had ceased.
It’s hard enough for a person to get a hand up their own back at the best of times. For Henry, lying on his front, pinned down by a sniper, with a painful wrist and a sore head from his blundering fall, and a bullet wound in the back, it was near sodding impossible.
He probed bravely around to find the wound; it seemed to be a deep groove, about four inches long, in the muscle below his left shoulder-blade. Though there was extreme pain he had no trouble shifting about.
He thought, it hasn’t gone in! It’s nicked me and stings like buggery, but it hasn’t gone in. He laughed in relief. ‘Thank fuck for that,’ he breathed happily.