The Last Big Job

by Nick Oldham

Danny’s bleak thoughts concerning the whereabouts of Henry Christie were way off the mark. Not only was he not in bed with his wife Kate, he had not slept on the marital bed for almost two weeks. At that moment in time he was leaving a very sophisticated night club in Manchester’s city centre, with his arm thrown around the shoulders of one of the biggest and most feared villains in the North of England.

  Jacky Lee believed himself to be one of the elite hundred or so men in the country who were considered by the cops to be the top of the tree, crime-wise. One of those crims who lead flash lifestyles, drive big cars, own big houses, screw second-rate models, knock about with footballers and pop stars, and who have no visible means of support. The police know their way of life is financed by crime, but because they cleverly distance themselves from the sharp end, they are rarely caught.

  However, Lee’s belief had been somewhat dented six years earlier when he found himself in front of a Crown Court jury in York, facing drugs importation charges for which he subsequently received eight years in jail. Good behaviour got him out in four, when he immediately slotted back into business.

  Lee and Henry Christie stumbled out of the club, down the steps. A Roller had pulled up, a black BMW behind it, all tinted windows and menace. Lee and Henry clambered into the back of the Rolls, laughing and joking drunkenly.

  Lee was definitely the worse for wear, well inebriated. Henry was stone cold sober, but acting pissed. Inside himself he was worked up like a coiled spring and needed to keep his wits firmly about him. He was operating in dangerous territory.

  Lee leaned over the driver’s shoulder and gave him instructions to take them to his apartment in the city - a penthouse down south. Then he slumped back next to Henry and gave a deep sigh of contentment.

  ‘Jesus, it’s good to be back with you,’ he said to Henry, slapping the policeman’s knee in a manly way. ‘I really missed our crack when I was inside that fucking place, you know.’

  ‘I missed you too, Jacky,’ Henry said. ‘We had a scream back then, didn’t we?’

  ‘Aye lad, we fuckin’ did that - and did some good business too.’

  A change suddenly came over Jacky Lee. He became silent, pensively watching the lights of the city flash past from the Rolls. His expression was hard and he no longer seemed drunk.

  ‘Y’know,’ he said at length, ‘I fuckin’ thought and thought about why I ended up in the slammer. I truly believed my operation was watertight.’

  Something in Henry’s throat constricted. A peculiar feeling - nausea combined with dread - grumbled in the pit of his stomach.

  ‘I been over it all again and again, boy. Workin’ it all back in my mind. Retreading everything I’d done, who I’d met, who I’d dealt with, and I really, really struggled to see why the cops moved on to me. I even got a private detective to go over all the witness statements against me to see if there was any clue in them as to who might’ve dropped me in it with the cops, and to check out people I know. Just out of curiosity, like.’

  Henry’s controlled outer-body language did not betray his inner turmoil. He feigned a stifled yawn of indifference and belched. He folded his arms and allowed his head to drop back on to the soft white leather headrest. ‘Any conclusions?’ he asked Lee laconically, closing his eyes.

  ‘Oh yeah, too fucking true.’ Jacky Lee’s eyes bored across at the side of Henry’s head. Henry opened his own slowly and clicked his tongue as though there was a nasty taste in. his mouth. Actually there was. It was a taste called terror. But even so, if Lee thought he was going to rattle Henry into spouting a confession of some sort, he was wrong.

  ‘And?’ Henry asked.

  ‘I thought about you. I thought you could’ve been the one.’

  Shit. Henry’s mind raced whilst his face remained impassive. So this was it, he thought. The time of confrontation. The moment Henry dreaded happening. He knew that his reaction to Lee’s statement was crucial as to whether he, Henry, lived or died. The significance of the following BMW struck him at that moment. The hit team.

  Henry eyed Lee narrowly for a few tense seconds. Lee was waiting, testing.

  Henry’s mouth kinked into a grin and his eyes flushed with humour. The grin evolved into a smile which became a chuckle and a head-shake of disbelief. Lee responded with a giggle.

  ‘I had to think about you, pal. I had to think about every cunt,’ Lee explained when the mirth had subsided. ‘But you - I knew it couldn’t be you. You’ve put too much bent gear my way for it to be you.’

  Henry’s mind breathed a sigh of relief.

  ‘Yeah, you know me too well, Jack,’ Henry said, remembering how he had once spent a whole Christmas with Lee and his family up in the North-East - mother, sisters, granny, nieces and nephews and even had a holiday in Spain with the guy once. They knew each other very well. ‘I’m just like you. Making a living. Buying and selling. Just a commodity broker.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re right. That’s all we are - commodity brokers, market traders without a pitch. Just selling on goods. I like that - commodity broker.’

  The Rolls drew to a halt outside an apartment block. New, swish with good security, overlooking one of the basins of the Ship Canal. Lee had built the whole complex, financed it one hundred per cent. The eighty apartments he’d already sold had netted him somewhere in the region of six million.

  ‘Love to invite you up, pal,’ Lee said, ‘but I got some hot totty waiting up there. Gagging for it, she is.’

  ‘Hey, no problemo.’

  ‘Good. So - see ya.’ Lee opened his door but crimped back suddenly to Henry before getting out of the car. ‘The issue we’ve just been discussing, by the way. . .’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Y’know, the grass?’

  Henry waited.

  ‘Sorted it,’ Lee said with a wink. ‘Fish food. No more problems for Jack. See ya.’ He got out, slammed the door and slapped the roof and strode briskly, if unevenly, to the apartment block.

  ‘Where to, sir?’ the driver asked through the intercom.

  Henry told him the name of a hotel in the city centre. The Rolls pulled quietly into the night. A quick glance over his shoulder confirmed that the BMW was staying with him all the way.

  He sank into the comfortable seat and tried to control his pulse-rate, careful not to let the mask slip because the driver was constantly monitoring him in the rearview mirror. Henry was actually elated by the way things had gone. Without any pushing or probing, which could have put Lee on his guard, the crim had begun to talk about ‘having sorted his problem’ and once people like him began to brag, the rest was usually easy.

  Soon, Henry was sure, he would have Jack in the bag.

  Of course the refrigerator had gone. Because Jack Sands’s brains had been handily collected in it, there had been no need to bag up the bits and pieces. The fridge door had been closed and the whole thing accompanied the body to the mortuary where the pathologist had simply helped himself to particles of the skull and brains as required during the autopsy. Like he was raiding the fridge for a snack or something.

  But Danny could still see the scene, clear and graphic as ever in her mind’s eye.

  She remembered opening the kitchen door, full of apprehension . . . And there he was. Jack Sands, former lover, lying with his head in the fridge, his legs and arms were splayed and twisted gruesomely. The single-barrelled shotgun lay by his right side. Danny had to step right into the kitchen to actually see his head.

  Or what was left of it.

  The shotgun had literally blown it right off.

  Somehow Sands had wedged the muzzle underneath his chin, in the cleft of soft skin in the ‘V’ of the lower jawbone, angled it slightly, stretched forward and pushed the trigger back with his right thumb. His long arms had easily reached down the length of the barrel.

  All because she had ended a relationship between them that was going nowhere, doing no one any favours.

  Danny had reeled away in horror back into the hallway and hurled up the contents of her stomac
h. She remembered little else about the next few minutes until the cops and ambulance people arrived on the scene.

  Now she stood and looked at the box-shaped space where her Zanussi had been positioned. She wondered how she should be reacting. Although the scene was still there with her, she found she actually felt very little now. As if it had all been a terrible dream.

  Certainly there was nothing here - now - in physical terms. No tangible memories of Jack. Indeed, prior to his suicide, Danny had emptied the house of all memories of him in a fit of pique.

  So there was nothing. Every last speck had been cleared away. All the mess which had managed to seep out of the fridge had been sponged away by Henry Christie and some other colleagues.

  Danny sighed, walked across the kitchen and plugged the kettle in. A nice, hot cup of tea, without milk, was a good enough homecoming.

  In his rage, Billy Crane had gone a whole lot further than he’d intended. He found himself possessed by some uncontrollable inner demon to punish Loz for the lack of judgement that had cost fifty grand.

  He’d dragged Loz down to the ground and forced the screaming man’s hand into the lion’s cage through the food-tray flap. Nero, his wild instincts fired up by the events outside his cage, leapt towards the hand. His two massive front paws smashed down on to it, talons extended, and his mouth opened wide, revealing his fearsome array of teeth... at which moment Crane realised that Nero was about to rip Loz’s arm off. With a curse on his lips, Crane tried desperately to extract Loz from the lion’s clutches.

  Nero responded by holding tighter, pulling harder and sinking his claws into the hand.

  The initial, searing pain had been incredible for Loz: the puncturing of the skin by those dirty, germ-laden claws. Then, mercifully, endorphins and other body chemicals kicked into Loz’s system and it all became unreal for him. A blur. He went limp and allowed it to proceed, unable to put up any fight or struggle.

  With one last almighty wrench, Crane managed to drag Loz to safety, though Nero’s talons dug deep, leaving lines of ripped flesh in the back of the little man’s hand.

  Deprived of his kill, the lion roared terribly, throwing himself against the cage in a frenzy. For a while Crane was fearful that Nero had the power to pull the structure down. But it held. Just.

  Twenty minutes later Crane had calmed down, smoked his fourth cigarette. He sat on a chair, elbows on knees, deep in thought.

  Loz cried softly on the rooftop, holding his injured arm between his knees. He rocked like a baby, in a pool of his own blood. The arm was in a terrible mess.

  ‘Help me,’ he whined. ‘Billy - help me, man.’

  Crane stood up, tossed his cigarette down and stamped it out. ‘I’ll get a doctor,’ he announced, turned and left Loz lying there.

  Nero, now also calm, having devoured the remaining contents of the coolbox, sat regally inside the cage, eyes focused on Loz.

  Chapter Three

  The next day started in a haze of confusion for Henry Christie. He woke groggily to the sound of not one, but both his mobile phones ringing. He rolled across the expansive double bed and sat up, rubbing his eyes.

  Then, a little more focused, he blinked down at his phones which seemed to be in competition with each other as to which one could produce the more ludicrous ringing tone. Which was which? Henry had to stop and think for a moment. God, he wasn’t used to this crap. He was out of practice and that could become a problem. A fatal problem if he wasn’t careful.

  Which was business? Which was private?

  He plumped for one of the phones - it didn’t help that they were exactly the same make and model, either - and stuffed the other one underneath a pillow to drown out its chirping. Then he pressed one of the buttons to receive the call.

  ‘Frank Jagger,’ he said. Already his heartbeat was on the increase.

  The Russian had been on the road for two hours. He had driven north from Portsmouth, picked up the A34 and skirted around Oxford before joining the M40 northbound towards Birmingham.

  Before setting off on his journey, he had quickly but expertly checked the car, firstly for any explosive devices and secondly for any tracking or surveillance equipment. He found neither. Then as he drove, he had remained cautious, always keeping an eye on the rearview mirror, noting and remembering vehicles behind and in front (he had a prodigious memory for car numbers, makes and colours), carefully watching those overtaking, those allowing him to overtake and those parked in lay-bys. By the time he was driving down the motorway slip road north of Oxford, he was almost sure - he never allowed himself to be a hundred per cent certain - that no one was following him. The Russian had been at this game for a long time and was proud of his professionalism. This is what had kept him -alive and put others underground.

  In the world of counter- and anti-surveillance, the Russian was classed as a trained agent - which he was. Surveillance subjects fall into three categories: the type who are totally unaware; those who are crude but aware - and this refers to people who are expecting to be followed and who indulge in anti-surveillance methods to try to detect whether they are under observation. And lastly, as mentioned, the trained agent who is subtle and sophisticated and could easily be taken by watchers as someone who is totally unaware.

  The Russian hardly ever indulged in obvious anti-surveillance tactics. He usually discovered if he was being followed using the one, two, three method; one sighting of a person or vehicle is acceptable; two sightings is coincidence. . . three means someone definitely has him under surveillance. Only then would he take some form of action, probably evasion - unless he wanted to kill his followers.

  As he drove on to the motorway, he was feeling content. Six miles down the motorway, having travelled at a respectable speed, even slowly overtaking a cruising police Range Rover at one stage, he was even more sure - not a hundred per cent, of course - that no one was with him.

  At the second motorway service area he came to - Warwick - he exited. He needed food. He had left Portsmouth without eating breakfast. He also needed to use the toilet.

  The service area was nicely set away from the noise of the motorway.

  The Russian parked, got out of the car and leaned against it whilst he smoked a cigarette. He watched arrivals and departures and listened to the sky. Not for a helicopter, but a plane. More difficult to spot - impossible when driving - and he knew the British security services often used light planes to tail suspects on the move. . . but there was no sign or sound of anything.

  Satisfied, he inhaled the last of his cigarette and went for breakfast.

  Henry Christie pressed the ball of his right foot on to the accelerator pedal. The big Jaguar XJS surged away from the lights, leaving everything else standing. It was the only perk of the job, he was thinking. Being able to pose around in this motor - just like the flash crim he was. He could think of nothing else that was as good as he hung a left and found himself driving alongside the Manchester Ship Canal towards the apartment block where he had left Jacky Lee the previous night. He pulled into the visitors’ parking bay and left the Jag there. Locked up and alarmed, of course. The Firm wouldn’t be very pleased with him if thirty-odd grand’s worth of car got lifted by a Mancunian car thief.

  He swaggered cockily to the front entrance, fixing the unnecessary Ray-Bans on to the bridge of his nose, and was buzzed through into the reception area. A security guard observed him suspiciously as he walked to the desk. Henry cast the man a quick, supercilious look of contempt, achieved by a slight raising of the nose. He thrust his hands into the black leather reefer jacket and leaned against the reception counter.

  ‘Mr Lee’s expecting me. I’m Frank Jagger.’

  The pretty woman looked up and Henry acknowledged her by lifting up his sunglasses and giving her a quick wink and a smile. She pressed a button. The lift doors to her right hissed open. ‘Top floor,’ she said sweetly, returning the smile.

  ‘Cheers,’ said Henry, repositioning the sunglasses with his forefinger.<
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  He entered the lift and pressed the required button. The doors slid to quietly. Even though he was alone, Henry did nothing other than to lounge against the side of the lift, - fold the sunglasses into his jacket pocket, yawn and rub the stubble on his chin. Frank Jagger yawned a lot and tended not to shave. Two of his character traits.

  Henry was also aware there was a CCTV camera installed in the top corner of the lift and that - most probably - his progress through the building was being monitored by Lee or his men. Henry could not afford to let anything slip at any time, or under any circumstances. It all had to be perfect. He was dying to scratch the small of his back where the wire was strapped on with sticky tape.

  The Russian made good progress after leaving Warwick. He skirted around Birmingham to join the M6 with surprisingly little delay and kept travelling north, up into Lancashire, remaining constantly vigilant.

  His next stop was at Lancaster motorway services, northbound, at Forton. Here he employed the same checking procedure as at Warwick, and once again saw no one, heard nothing to rouse his suspicion. He used the toilets, had a quick cup of tea and a sandwich and returned to his car. Deciding it was about time he inspected his hardware, he opened the boot and pulled back the spare wheel cover. Inside the hub of the wheel was a plastic package bound by elastic bands. The Russian removed the package, re-covered the spare and slammed the boot shut.

  Without opening the package, he slid it underneath the front passenger seat. A few minutes later, after refuelling - cash only - he was back on the motorway, coming off at the next junction 33 - where he joined the A6, back-tracked a couple of miles south towards Garstang and found a quiet lay-by.

  Here he unwrapped the package and peered inside. He was reassured to see he had been provided with what he had requested. Firstly, the American Arms Spectre auto loading pistol, 9mm, thirty-shot magazine capacity with one extra in the chamber; six-inch barrel, 72 oz in weight, adjustable sights with a blue finish. Secondly a Browning BDM pistol, 9mm, capacity of fifteen plus one, with a 4.73-inch barrel, adjustable sights and, again, a blue finish. Spare magazines were also included. He folded the package and replaced it under the seat.