by Nick Oldham
The moment he spun into the alley, a couple of things happened simultaneously. A belated radio message announced, ‘Patrols beware, suspect is armed, suspect is armed.’ And Henry saw that Crane had already reached the driver’s door of the Cosworth, which was open.
About twelve feet separated the two men.
Crane instinctively jerked the shotgun up. The cartridge which was now in the breech was not for punching holes in doors; it was meant to blow away other human beings, as were all the remaining shells.
Henry saw the gun rise and threw himself to the ground a split second before the discharge. Even though Crane missed, Henry felt the whoosh of the shot blast past him. He rolled behind the cover of the opposite wall whilst fumbling desperately for his own gun, painfully aware that he had never yet drawn it in anger.
Then Terry moved into the alley, his gun drawn, in the classic combat position.
Henry wanted to shout, ‘No, you stupid git!’ The words stuck in his mouth as Terry screamed, ‘Armed police! Drop your weapon!’
Crane sneered, pumped the action and swung the shotgun towards Terry.
Both weapons roared as one. Both parties were flung backwards.
Terry’s gun flew out of his hand as he stumbled, clutching his left shoulder, then fell over, hard. Disregarding the possible danger from Crane, Henry’s first instinct - and act - was to leap up and run across to his friend, bawling, ‘Officer down! Officer down!’ into his radio.
Terry’s right hand could not stem the flow of blood from the wound. ‘Shite, shite, shite!’ he breathed on inspecting the damage. It looked a bloody, mangled mess.
‘Terry, Terry,’ Henry said desperately, kneeling down next to him.
‘I’m OK,’ he lied bravely, keeping his cool. ‘I’ve got another shoulder. I think I hit matey - you go and see, Henry. I’ll be fine.’
Henry nodded and drew his gun, twisting away from Terry. His heart beating fast, he crept towards the Cosworth, aware that at close quarters a shotgun was lethal every time; a revolver had to be lucky.
The driver’s door was still open. There was no sign, or sound, of Crane, making Henry think he was either dead or well wounded. Henry Christie believed himself to be a moderately brave person. He was no coward, nor was he particularly heroic, but as he approached the stolen car, the wisdom of choosing - nay, volunteering - to carry a firearm reared its ugly head again.
He decided to ease himself at a crouch down the passenger side of the car and come around the back end quickly and decisively, gun at the ready and in the right frame of mind to discharge it if necessary. It seemed like a long journey, bent double, moving inch by inch, holding a weapon suddenly weighing half a ton with slippery hands, sweat dribbling down his face and into every crack and orifice in his body. He took a deep breath, counted three, pivoted round into the weaver stance and shouted ‘Armed police!’ for some reason he would never be able to adequately explain. The words simply sputtered out on a surge of adrenaline.
There was no one there for them to have any effect on.
Crane had gone.
Had the man who had been arrested in the police car park with a mouthful of flesh missing from his thigh and a series of puncture marks in his right arm, been arrested two years earlier in 1984, he would probably have been flung into a cell and only been allowed to see a doctor when the custody staff decided he could, a lot depending on their mood.
The arrival of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act changed all that. So now, handcuffed securely to Rupert, the prisoner was put into the back of a police van and whisked immediately up to the Casualty Department at Blackburn Royal Infirmary as soon as he had been booked into the custody systems and searched. Custody Sergeants did not want injured people in their cells any more - at least not until a medical practitioner had stated they were fit to be detained.
Ten minutes after his arrest, the man who had blown up three police vehicles was face down in a treatment cubicle, with his jeans and underpants rolled down exposing a very nasty-looking gash on his right thigh. A nurse was dabbing it with antiseptic; the patient jerked each time the cotton wool ball touched the wound. Rupert Davison stood by and watched, feeling queasy. He was astonished to see what damage a dog could do.
A very frustrated Danny Furness, who had actually made the arrest, was pacing to and fro outside the cubicle. She was desperate for a cigarette. The dreaded smoking habit had come quite late into her life, but now she was a nicotine addict - who needed a fix. What was particularly frustrating her was that she wanted a chance to get into the ribs of this prisoner as soon as possible, before anyone else got the chance; ‘anyone’ in this case being the CID. She was aware that the two night-duty detectives were hovering like hungry vultures back at the station to deal with him when he arrived back. But she wanted him. It was her job. Hers and Rupert’s. And she was not going to let it slide through her fingers.
In her brain she was already making plans to out-fox the detectives. Which was where a nicotine stick would have come in useful. It would have helped her to think.
Another frustration was that - by law - she was not allowed to question the prisoner here at the hospital. Not officially, anyway. Pity really, she thought, hearing him squeal in agony behind the curtain. A few probing questions in his present state might get good results. On the other hand, courts took a dim view of torture and intimidation.
From where she was standing Danny had a clear view along the corridor to the ambulance bay outside; as she stood there, an ambulance came roaring up and screeched to a halt in the bay. Its rear doors were flung open and several Casualty staff nurses, porters and a doctor - raced out of the hospital, obviously pre-warned of the arrival. A body was stretchered out, accompanied by a uniformed police officer who, Danny observed, was openly armed.
What the hell’s all this? she thought, her attention suddenly riveted. She looked quickly down at her personal radio, checking it was still on and working - it was - and wondered if she had missed something. She was pretty sure she hadn’t.
The person on the stretcher was wheeled hastily past her, surrounded by medical staff, to the emergency treatment room.
With some shock, Danny saw it was a cop and that he looked very poorly. She did not recognise him, but she did know – by sight - the armed officer who was with him. He was called Henry Christie. Danny knew he presently worked on the Headquarters Support Unit and that he was a very highly thought-of cop who might just go far if he applied himself. She had never spoken to him, but they had occasionally caught each other’s eyes and she fancied him like mad even though she knew he was married. Having said that, Danny was going through a phase of fancying several men. At the moment she was having discreet liaisons with two - both detectives - both, coincidentally, on duty that night. Not an ideal situation, but one Danny was happy to deal with.
As Henry Christie pushed past her that night, their eyes did not connect. His worried face was completely focused on his partner on the stretcher. Danny glimpsed a good deal of blood soaking through the sheets and clothing around the man’s left shoulder and upper chest as he was wheeled past.
Danny watched as the stretcher disappeared into the ETR. She thought it was a really weird kind of a night.
Billy Crane stumbled and fell heavily. He picked himself up with some difficulty and rolled over a low garden wall where he laid himself out, making an attempt to control the shaking which raked his body. Dragging the Balaclava off his head, he threw it away.
The bullet fired by the cop had ripped into his neck muscle just above the collar bone and exited straight through, drilling a perfect hole. Crane knew it was a perfect hole because he had been able to insert his forefinger and push it out the other side.
Under normal circumstances this would not have been a life-threatening wound, but because of his predicament - on the run from the cops, having just peppered one of them with a shotgun - it could easily prove to be so. A lot of blood had been lost and he needed medical attention quickly. Bu
t medical attention meant cops.
Unless he got it on his own terms.
His breathing came in short jerks. A wave of nausea rippled over him and he gripped the shotgun tightly in front of him as he lay there behind the garden wall.
A car pulled up nearby. The engine kept running. A door opened, the sound of voices drifted across to Crane’s ears. Despite the burning surge of agony which came with movement, Crane raised himself high enough to see over the wall.
Not many yards away from him, a car was stationary. Someone - a man - was leaning in through the passenger window, talking to the driver. A young woman stood nearby on the pavement. Crane blinked and shook his head. A few seconds passed before he realised he was seeing someone paying off a taxi.
He forced himself up, staggered over the wall and lurched towards the rear door of the car which he wrenched open. He threw himself across the back seat, much to the surprise of the driver and the man who was paying him.
‘Sorry pal,’ the Asian taxi driver said over his shoulder. ‘Got a fare already booked. I can fit you in in half an hour if you like. See ya mate, thanks.’ The last four words were directed at the man who had just paid and turned away to his girlfriend.
The taxi driver looked over his left shoulder.
What he saw would remain with him for the rest of his life.
A reincarnation of the devil, hunched up in the back seat. An indescribable, terrifying look across the countenance. Eyes sunken in their sockets, hair in disarray, blood gushing from the neck - and a shotgun aimed squarely in his direction.
Crane growled, ‘Take me to the hospital now or I’ll kill you.’
Henry Christie was shooed out of the ETR. He retreated with reluctance, wanting to be with his friend throughout this ordeal.
‘Go on, go and get a cup of tea,’ a nurse told him firmly.
Henry turned and walked back down the corridor, rubbing his face and shaking his head, muttering to himself He almost collided with Danny who pushed a plastic cup towards him. It contained hot, sweet tea.
‘Oh, thanks,’ he said gratefully, eyeing Danny up and down. ‘I need it. I’m parched.’ He took a sip, which tasted wonderful. He noticed there was a faint trace of lipstick on the other side of the cup. She had given him her drink.
‘What the hell’s going on, Henry?’ Danny demanded to know. ‘That’s a cop in there, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah, yeah it is.’ Henry chewed his lips. He looked at Danny again, impressed by what he saw, as he always had been. A slim, slightly gangly girl with a figure worthy of worship, and fantastic Oriental-style eyes, a seductive shade of green. ‘RCS job,’ he went on. ‘A burglary at a Building Society just off Preston New Road.’ Then realising he’d better not say too much to Danny in case she was interviewed later about what he’d told her, he shrugged and muttered angrily, ‘Obviously a cock-up.’
‘Is he your partner?’ She nodded towards the ETR.
‘Yeah.’
‘How is he?’
‘He - we - both thought he’d just taken a shot in the shoulder, but it looks a lot worse than that now. He’s hurt pretty badly, I think.’
‘God, I hope he’s OK.’
‘So do I.’ Henry took a ruminative sip of tea. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Caught some guy blowing up police cars in the yard at Northgate. He got dogged; half his back leg bitten away.’ A smirk of evil crossed Danny’s face which made Henry smile. ‘He refused to give his details to the Custody Sergeant.’
‘Blowing up cars, you say?’
Danny nodded.
‘I wonder if he’s connected to the burglary? The guy we were after tonight is known to use diversionary tactics to keep everyone busy while he does the business.’
‘We’ve had a few hoaxes tonight - big ones.’
Henry said sagely, ‘I’ll lay odds he’s involved.’
‘Ahhhh - you bitch!’ came a scream from behind the cubicle curtain.
Danny drew the curtain back to reveal a female doctor suturing the dog-bite on the patient’s leg.
The man’s mouth clamped tight shut when he saw Henry Christie.
‘Well, hello there, Callum, me old mucker - and just what the hell have you been up to tonight?’ Henry asked, approaching and leaning towards him in an intimidating manner. He had recognised the prisoner immediately. ‘But more to the point - who have you been working with?’
The taxi pulled up in the hospital car park within view of the Casualty Department.
‘Switch the engine off and get out of the fucking car,’ Crane ordered the Asian who was trembling so badly that control of his bodily functions was now becoming an issue.
‘But boss, I ain’t done nothing. I won’t tell no one, honest!’
‘Just get out, you little turd.’
The taxi driver, whose name was Jyoti, got out, covered all the while by Crane’s shaking shotgun. Crane was becoming weaker by the moment; his head was starting to swim, his vision misting over. He willed himself to get a grip. ‘Now, you bastard, you walk into the Casualty Department just in front of me and you stay with me all the way. You try to get away and I’ll shoot your stinking head off. I’ve already killed a cop tonight, so a Paki won’t mean anything to me - got it?’
They walked the fifty or so yards to the entrance. Crane slid the shotgun out of sight underneath his zip-up jacket.
At the counter the receptionist looked up with a professional smile into Jyoti’s troubled face. Crane leaned over his shoulder. ‘I want to see a doctor now,’ he insisted.
‘Well, there’s a wait for an hour for non-urgent cases. I’m afraid you’ll have to take a seat. Could I have your details, please?’
Sheer anger surged through Crane. Mustering all his strength he propelled the little taxi driver away, sending him sprawling across the tiled floor. He slammed the shotgun on to the counter. ‘Is this fucking urgent enough?’
He pulled the trigger.
Before Henry could settle down to have an unofficial chat with Danny’s prisoner he was beckoned out of the cubicle by the nurse who had shooed him out of the ETR.
‘Your friend needs to go to surgery immediately.’ There was a very concerned expression on her young face. ‘We think one of the pellets may have ruptured an artery in his upper chest. He’s bleeding very badly internally and externally. And before you ask - he’ll be OK. That’s a promise. It just needs to be sorted now.’
‘Thanks for that. Can I see him before he goes?’
‘If you’re very quick.’
Henry strode towards the ETR behind the nurse.
But then there was the shout. The scream. And the ear-splitting noise that Henry had already heard once that night.
The roar of a shotgun discharging.
He spun, hand going straight to the butt of the revolver at his waist, and raced towards Casualty reception, Danny right behind him.
Crane was slumped like a drunk over the counter, his right hand holding the shotgun. Blood gurgled out of his neck wound across the plastic veneered surface of the counter. The receptionist was curled up, terrified, on the floor. The plasterboard wall behind her had a hole punched right through it by the shotgun blast. The taxi driver still lay on the floor whimpering. The other waiting patients were scrambling away to safety or prostrating themselves in fear.
Crane reacted instantaneously to the arrival of the two cops. He swung the shotgun round in their direction, but as he did so, he lost his balance and staggered back along the counter, trying to regain his footing. The rogue shotgun pointed upwards and Crane pulled the trigger yet again, this time bringing down huge chunks of the suspended ceiling crashing around his ears.
Seeing his chance, Henry launched himself into Crane. In those days he was fit, fast and a rugby player. His six-two, fairly muscled, thirteen-stone body powered into the injured criminal, driving all the air and fight out of him, flattening him painfully on to the cold, hard floor. The shotgun clattered harmlessly away.
There
was no resistance from Crane. He had passed out. Cautiously, Henry disengaged himself and rose to his feet, wondering once again, if he was the right man for this job.
‘Well, that certainly was an interesting tour of duty,’ Rupert Davison remarked to Danny. It was 8 a.m. and they had worked a couple of hours overtime to tie up the loose ends concerning their prisoner from the police car park, who had become the responsibility of the Regional Crime Squad, despite Danny’s initial protests. However, by the end of her shift, she could no longer be bothered. Let them have the little prick, she thought. What she wanted was her bed.
As she and Rupert walked out of Blackburn police station, they were greeted by bright sunlight. It was a fine Saturday morning.
Rupert touched Danny’s arm and stopped her. ‘Danny, do you want to come back to my place for a drink?’I he said awkwardly. ‘Perhaps we could get to know each other a little better.’
She blinked rapidly at the proposal, amused and a little shocked.
‘I really fancy you,’ he went on, bolder now. ‘I want to make love to you.’
Danny burst out laughing, turned away from him and strolled to her car. She had to stop to let a plain police car drive past. Henry Christie was at the wheel. He gave her a quick wave and was gone. It would be many years before Henry would even have a conversation with her again. Henry, Danny thought wistfully at that time, if only you’d asked me that question.
PART ONE
HARD PENETRATION
Chapter One
Twelve years later, June 1998
Even as the passengers filed on board the aircraft, the cabin crew knew exactly who was going to cause them trouble on the four-and-a-half-hour flight ahead.
It was a young couple, boy and girl, late teens. As they shuffled into the plane past the Chief Stewardess, she could smell the alcohol on their breath, see from their demeanour that they were ill-tempered and irritable - and drunk. They careened down the aisle, bumping into other people, not apologising, having to grip headrests and occasionally missing their hold and falling across passengers who were already seated.
