My first thought was, irrationally, “Oh, no. He’s missed.” But then I recalled that missing, or certainly not killing me was what I wanted. Then I realised that my shirt was wet with a red liquid that I, for some crazy reason, didn’t recognise as my own blood. My upper left arm was bleeding profusely.
Shorty yelled out: “Christ! Somebody’s shooting in those bushes. Get down!” and he summarily shoved me to the grass.
Then I heard Ben’s voice commanding someone to “Drop that gun or I’ll kill you!” and I saw Wesley and David running up to see what all the fuss was about.
“My God, what’s going on? That’s your boy, isn’t it, Jim?” Shorty asked.
“Yes. It is.”
Ben and Shorty clearly had control of the tattooed man who had fired the shot, Ben pointing a gun straight at his chest, with the man’s gun on the grass, where Shorty had kicked it out of his reach.
David looked at my shoulder and said: “You’re losing quite a lot of blood there; I’ll have to use your shirt sleeve as a tourniquet. He tore at the garment, and the daft thought passed through my mind that Judith would be most annoyed with him or me as it was one of my ‘Sunday best’ shirts.
David asked: “Has anyone got a mobile phone? Call an ambulance, please.” Wesley immediately obeyed. “And ask to put me through to the Police,” Shorty added.
“I can explain some of it, I think,” I said. “What are you doing here, Ben?”
“Protecting you from this killer,” he answered.
“But how? Why? What do you know? What are you doing?” I was thoroughly confused.
“I can account for what I’ve done, dad.”
“Look,” I said after some thought. “There’s an explanation for all this. It’s just that none of us know the full story. Before anyone takes any precipitate action, let’s just hear what everyone has to say.”
“Well, this is most irregular,” Shorty objected. “Police matter. May be valuable evidence in the undergrowth.”
“Is there anyone else involved?” I asked the tattooed man.
“Only—” but I quickly cut him off.
“Anyone else?” I made it clear to him that Spud was not to be brought into the discussion.
From the bottom of the previous column
“No. I’m acting alone.”
Eventually the case against the tattooed man came to Court. He was initially charged with attempted murder, but later the charge was reduced to grievous bodily harm, as I made it clear through Wesley that I would not cooperate with the prosecution unless this were done. Shorty, of course, was not involved in any of the Police investigations, as he had been a material witness at the scene of the crime. He had his suspicions of the tattooed man, who he thought was involved with ‘Spud’ Battersley and the robbery near Gatwick; however, he didn’t believe he was Mister Big.
In Court, I told all I knew, backed up by David as regards the medical side. Ben filled in his part of the story, though he was rather reticent to admit hacking into my computer, but I forgave him that. Spud was not mentioned except as ‘an unnamed intermediary,’ nor were the actual amounts of money involved.
The man was found guilty of GBH and sentenced to five years. However, I made it clear that he would get his fair share, as agreed, of the money for the job.
Initially the police had wanted to charge Ben with illegal possession of a gun, but the decision was dropped as they didn’t believe any jury would convict him; at most he might get probation or a suspended sentence. He’d missed his A-levels with all this business, but was able in due course to get a place at Brighton University, studying Chemistry, and later joined a large pharmaceuticals company.
I retired soon after the trial, with a comfortable pension, and Claude became Manager of the Bank in my place, as he had effectively done that job for the previous six months.
Have you read my other stories: “The Green Flash”, “Millennium” and “The Plutonian”?