‘Fine. See you shortly.’
I spun the car round and headed back to the pay and display. Fortunately, they don’t charge after five o’clock. Different cars with steamed-up windows were parked in the darker corners. There’s a lot of it going off.
The moon had risen, but spent most of its time hiding behind high cloud. I trudged across the grass for the second time that night, wishing I’d heeded my mother’s constant advice and worn something warmer. An animal, a long way off, gave a blood-curdling scream. Probably a rabbit, meeting its end in the jaws of a fox or a weasel. I made a detour round a flock of grazing Canadian geese, and hoped Sparky wouldn’t blunder straight into them and be pecked to pieces. On second thoughts, I hoped he would.
It was a privilege to be there. Scattered around me were some of — arguably — the finest works of art in the world, and I had them all to myself. I wandered around, like a visitor to a new, benign planet, as the moon drifted in and out of the clouds. Lighting by God, I thought, putting on a show just for me. I witnessed a little magic, that night, in that park.
Davis’s house was in darkness. I watched it for a while from across his paddock, wondering if that would have been a better place to meet Sparky. But then we’d have been a long way from the cars.
He should be nearly here, so I strolled back to our meeting place. ‘Serves you right,’ I told St Sebastian as I passed his contorted outline. Spindle Piece is on a concrete plinth, but it was almost as cold as the bronze. I sat on it for a few seconds before jumping to my feet and doing some exercises to try keeping warm. Interlocking Pieces was about two hundred yards away, up the hill. I sprinted across to it, my legs turning to rubber before halfway, and walked slowly back. Now I felt tired and cold.
I was sitting on my heels, like an aborigine, when I heard the footsteps. The sculptures are hollow, and I’d thought about hiding inside one and scaring the shit out of Sparky, but even I know when the fooling has to cease. Well, sometimes. I was peering in the direction I expected him to approach from, waiting for the moon, when I realised the steps were a lot nearer than I expected, and behind me. I turned, slowly lowering myself to the ground.
The bulky outline that approached wasn’t unmistakable as K. Tom, but I was certain it was him, even though his shape was distorted by the long bundle he carried, remarkably similar to the one Sparky had lugged back to the car two hours earlier. A spade and a metal detector, at a guess. He came straight up to the sculpture, the cold night air rasping in his throat as I held my breath, barely ten feet away, with only the Henry Moore between us. I dared to lift my face heavenwards and saw that the moon was well hidden, for the moment.
K. Tom took about fifteen deliberate strides away from me, heading towards the lights of the television mast on the skyline, and lowered his bundle to the ground. The crafty bastard, I thought. He’s moved the gold.
He was almost lost against the trees, but I saw what I took to be the swinging motion of the detector. He paused, removed the headphones and reached down for the spade.
We both heard Sparky’s footsteps at the same instant. Big men are supposed to be light on their feet, but Dave was the exception. He was as graceful as a hippo with bunions. The line dancers probably suffered heavy casualties the night he went along. Davis was stationary, poised in a crouched position. It looked as if we’d have to arrest him, there and then, and finish looking for the gold ourselves. This time I’d bags the metal detector.
The sickening noise of a pump action shotgun being cocked shattered my equilibrium.
Shit, I thought, not even a double-barrelled number. He had seven shots. And, just to make it easier for him, the moon came out to have a look, bathing the park in frail light, as if to give the big lighting man in the sky a better view of the drama.
Sparky was hunched up, hands deep in pockets, his head moving from side to side as if he were whistling or humming to himself. I looked from one to the other, praying that Dave would raise his head and see K. Tom. When the range was less than thirty yards Davis lifted the gun.
‘DAVE!’ I screamed. ‘SHOTGUN!’
K. Tom whirled and loosed a blast off in my direction. The pellets hit Spindle Piece and buzzed off into the night as I dived to the ground. He’d missed me. I jumped up and skipped sideways as he re-cocked the gun, trying to keep one of Henry Moore’s finest between us. I risked a quick glance in Sparky’s direction, but he’d vanished.
That’s when I realised that Henry Moore’s most famous characteristic was also his big failing. All his works have bloody great holes through the middle. They’re useless for hiding behind from mad gunmen. I dodged one way and then the other as soon as I glimpsed K. Tom to the right or left of the sculpture, or through the middle, and all the time I was retreating, up the hill, putting precious yards between us.
But that was another mistake, and K. Tom realised it at exactly the same instant as I did. The further I moved back, the more I had to move sideways to keep that great shapeless useless mass of bronze between us. Suddenly, I’d gone off Spindle Piece.
K. Tom calmly walked round it and levelled the gun at me.
Three explosions burst into the left side of my head. I hit the ground and rolled over, my brain filled with a muffled, screaming silence, and looked for my new adversary.
Nigel was standing there, as immobile as anything in that park. His arms were reaching forward, the hands clasping a big, beautiful, police-issue Smith and Wesson. 38 revolver, silhouetted against a pall of white smoke that drifted off into the darkness.
I rolled on to my knees. K. Tom was on the ground, with Sparky running towards him, then toeing the shotgun away from his body. I stood up and turned to Nigel. He hadn’t moved.
‘Easy, young feller,’ I panted, reaching for the gun. I grasped it by the barrel and pointed it skywards, prising his fingers open. The barrel was warm, and the smell of cordite burnt my nostrils, pungent in the cold air. He suddenly released it and lowered his arms, but remained staring in the direction of the fallen body.
‘You did well,’ I told him. ‘You did well. Come over here.’
I led him by the arm and sat him on the plinth of the sculpture. ‘Just sit there,’ I said and turned to Sparky. ‘How is he?’
‘Not sure, but he’s breathing.’
‘I’ll ring for assistance.’
When I’d finished, Sparky said it was only a shoulder wound, and the patient was conscious. Two bullets had missed. If I’d been there alone I’d have been sorely tempted to finish the job, once and for all.
The adrenaline rush faded with the danger, and reality returned. I had a police. 38 in my pocket, with three spent chambers, and a wounded prisoner. I unloaded the gun and walked back to where Nigel was sitting.
‘You OK?’ I asked.
He nodded. ‘Will he live?’
‘It looks like it. Come for a little walk. I want a word.’
I led him up the hill until we were out of K. Tom’s earshot. ‘Nigel,’ I began. ‘How come you had a gun?’
‘What’s it like when you kill a man, Charlie?’ he asked.
‘You haven’t killed anyone,’ I reminded him.
‘He might die.’
‘OK. It’s not very nice. You have to convince yourself that you had no other option, and learn to live with it. K. Tom might die, but if you hadn’t fired when you did, you’d be going to two funerals next week. Never forget that. Some of us are very grateful you were here, tonight, and did what you did. Now answer my question, Nigel. This is important. Why did you have a gun and where did you get it?’
He brushed his hair out of his eyes. ‘I was waiting in the nick,’ he replied, ‘for Sparky — Dave — to ring me back. I decided to check if Davis is licensed to hold a shotgun. He is. It occurred to me that he might have it with him, so I drew the thirty-eight from the armoury.’