The First Stella Cole Boxset

by Andy Maslen

  He pulled a tan leather key folder from his trouser pocket, opened it and selected a small silver key, which he used to unlock the cabinet. Like an antiquarian displaying rare books, or a wine freak showing off his most prized vintages, Freddie swung the doors open wide and stood to one side.

  Stella nodded her appreciation. She was looking at half a dozen long-barrelled weapons. Two were rifles, the rest shotguns. The blued, black or polished steel barrels gleamed dully in the neon light; the wooden stocks, in colours ranging from a light, tawny caramel to a deep, dark brown, shone richly like antique furniture.

  “Those two,” he pointed at a matched pair of shotguns next to the rifles, “are Purdey side locks. Thirty grand apiece. We’re not going to take a hacksaw to them. Worth more than your average plod makes in a year. But this,” he said, taking a battered pump-action shotgun out of the cabinet and brandishing it at her, “we can turn into a lupara.”

  As Stella watched, Freddie clamped the wooden fore-end of the gun in a vice bolted to one end of the workbench, first wrapping it in a piece of cloth to protect the wood from the vice’s steel jaws. He reached over the bench to fetch down a large hacksaw from a hook. Turning, he spoke to her.

  “Here you go. Ever taken the barrel off a shotgun?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Ha! Nothing to it, just mark the place with the edge of your thumb and draw the blade slowly towards you to get a guide cut. Once you’ve got that, start going forwards and backwards until you’re through. Come here, then.”

  Like an apprentice armourer, which she supposed she was, in a funny kind of way, Stella took the hacksaw from Freddie and stood at the bench. He showed her how to place her hand on the barrel and hold her thumb out as a guide for the blade.

  She started sawing, tentatively at first, then with growing confidence as the teeth bit into the steel.

  “Like this?” she asked, without looking round.

  “Yeah, like that. When you’re nearly through, stop. You need to switch hands so you can hold the end of the barrel with your right and saw with your left. You want to stop it swinging down or it won’t be a clean finish.”

  After five minutes of rhythmic cutting, Stella saw the slot she’d sawn in the barrel was almost all the way down to its bottom curve. Doing as Freddie had instructed, she changed hands. Sawing left-handed felt awkward but she managed to re-establish her steady back-and-forth rhythm. Twenty cuts more, and the long part of the barrel came free in her hand. She placed it on the bench and turned to Freddie.

  “What now?”

  “You file it smooth, inside and out. Here,” he said, pulling out a drawer from one of the red tool chests and removing a file. The tool had a semicircular cross-section. “Use the round side for the bore and the flat side to smooth off the outside edges.”

  Stella accepted the file from Freddie and went to work on the inside edges of the barrel. She ran her thumb round it from time to time and after a few minutes of steady rasping, pronounced herself happy. The outer edges took another few minutes.

  Freddie stuck his own finger into the barrel and swept it round in a circle, clockwise and anti-clockwise, before repeating the movements on the outside.

  “Nice.”

  Then, moving her to one side, he loosened the vice and turned the shotgun round so that the stock was now protruding to the right.

  “Same saw?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Use one with bigger teeth and it’ll just chew it up. Slow and steady wins the race. OK?”

  “OK.”

  After watching Freddie indicate the position and angle of the cut, Stella went to work on the stock, enjoying the ache building in her right bicep as she sawed through the wood. Repeating the trick Freddie had shown her, she changed hands and lifted the stock clear as the saw’s teeth cut through the final couple of millimetres of wood.

  “Doesn’t look very pretty,” she said, pointing at the flat end of the truncated stock. “And before you say anything, I know it’s not supposed to look pretty. But I don’t want it snagging on anything I’m concealing it under.”

  Freddie nodded. “Smart girl. You ever do any woodwork at school?”

  “I made my dad a pipe rack.”

  He laughed.

  “Fuck! Are they still doing that? I think I made one for my dad.”

  He picked out a small cordless power sander, switched it on and set to work. Ten minutes later, the sharp-edged remainder of the stock was transformed into a rounded stump. Freddie finished by opening a tin of pungent furniture wax, dipping in a folded cloth, and smearing the bare wood liberally with the translucent yellow gunk. He stood aside and handed a clean cloth to Stella.

  “Here you go,” he said. “Just give her a final polish and we’re done. Your very own lupara. You know how to shoot one of these?”

  Stella nodded.

  Standing shoulder to shoulder with one of London’s most notorious gangsters, gazing in companionable silence at a sawn-off shotgun he’d helped her fashion, should have felt odd to Stella. Two years earlier it would have done. Now he seemed like one of the good guys. He was a few years older than her father would have been, she thought.

  “Can I take it out?” she asked him.

  “Well it ain’t going to be much use to you in there, is it?”

  She leaned down on the handle of the vice and broke its grip on the weapon. Using her left hand, she lifted it clear of the jaws, letting the protective cloth drop into the throat between them. Without the barrel and stock, the gun was surprisingly light. She held the pistol grip in her right hand and pulled it back into her hip, aiming at an imaginary adversary.

  “That’s good,” Freddie murmured. “These things have a hell of a kick so you either want to brace it or have arms like a gorilla. Which I notice you ain’t got. Now, we need to get you some shells for it.”

  He moved to the corner of the workshop and stooped to unlock a short, floor-standing cabinet she’d not noticed earlier. He straightened holding a cardboard carton about the size of a shoebox. Placing it on the workbench, he flipped up the lid. Inside, in nice neat rows, were red plastic shotgun cartridges, their brass heads shining. He reached in and scooped out a handful.

  “There’s six there. It holds three. So you can create plenty of mischief without needing to reload. I doubt you’ll get the chance but having three spares ain’t a bad idea.”

  “I’ve got a pistol as well,” she said. “I think I’ll manage.”

  “Aren’t we brimming with confidence,” he said with a smile. “I’m beginning to think I should have had you on my crew instead of batting for the other side.”

  In truth, Stella wasn’t sure whose side she was batting for anymore. Not the Met’s. Not anymore. But not the villains’ either. She was, she supposed, an independent. On the side of justice.

  “Oh, come on,” Other Stella broke in, stalking out of the shadows to stand next to Freddie. “We don’t give a shit about justice. This is all about vengeance. Now, you got what you came for, let’s get going.”

  Stella made no move to leave. Instead she turned to Freddie.

  “What will you do after Ferenczy’s gone?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he said airily, “probably mop up his troops. Put the frighteners on anyone who was thinking of switching sides. Make examples out of the worst offenders, then back to business as usual. Who knows,” he winked, “next time we meet it might not be in such convivial circumstances. So here’s a question for you.”

  “Go on.”

  “How are you going to get into Tirana tooled up like a fucking commando? I mean, the weather’s warm so you can’t wear a coat to hide it under, and you can hardly wander in swinging a sawn-off, can you?”

  She shrugged.

  “I’ll think of something.”

  “Not good enough. If you’re going in, you need reinforcements.”

  “I don’t want other people involved. This is between me and Ferenczy.”

  Freddie put his hands on
his hips.

  “Oh, really. Well, seeing as how I just gave you one of my shotguns, and the information on where to find him, I think I’ve got a say in this operation, too.”

  He had a point. And an Albanian gangster plus muscle was going to be tougher to deal with than a government lawyer or an arrogant barrister.

  “What did you have in mind?”

  He smiled.

  “I’ve been blessed with some diamond grandkids. Orla’s the oldest. I’m going to give her a bell. Oh, and I’ve got something else you might want to take clubbing with you.”

  65

  Time to Run

  “Sir? Collier looked up from his paperwork, a frown clouding his features. What now?

  “What is it, Frankie?”

  DS O’Meara entered his office clutching a small white padded envelope in her right hand.

  “A courier just left this for you at reception.”

  He stretched out his hand, half-dreading taking possession of whatever it was inside the envelope. Although he suspected the DS hadn’t discerned the significance of the blood-red handwriting on the plain white address label, he, unfortunately, had.

  She handed the parcel over, turned on her heel and left, closing the door quietly behind her.

  Collier could feel his pulse bumping painfully in his throat. His breathing had quickened, and he noticed with unease that his fingers were trembling as they worked at the sealed flap.

  The adhesive gave way with a faint tearing sound. As he had done before, he upended the envelope into his cupped palm. And out slid a Patek Philippe watch, the glass protecting its face smashed, and the hands stopped, permanently, at 8.31 on the 17th.

  He turned it over. On the back of the gold case, engraved in a beautiful copperplate script, was the message Collier knew he would see:

  To Charlie,

  on your taking silk,

  Mum & Dad

  17 Jan 06

  “Fuck!”

  66

  Clubbing

  The club’s security was no more than you’d see outside any big city nightclub. Two shaven-headed heavies in shiny, black nylon bomber jackets, black jeans and boots. Not monsters, but not ninety-eight-pound weaklings, either. Stella pushed down on the grey rubber tyres of the wheelchair to propel her new transport towards Tirana’s front door. She was surrounded by seven young women, aged from nineteen to twenty-three, all dressed to the nines in club gear, which for them meant skimpy dresses that ended midthigh, if that, and with steeply plunging necklines. The heels were high, the hair long and blonde, the makeup applied to dazzling effect. The leading girl was Freddie McTiernan’s granddaughter, Orla. Her flame-red hair blew about in the breeze that had sprung up so that it appeared her head was ablaze.

  Stella’s appearance was somewhat less vivacious. Together with Orla, she’d hatched out a plan that relied on a mixture of distraction, embarrassment and pity. Orla and her girlfriends would provide the distraction; Stella would handle the other two emotions. Her face was devoid of makeup, except for some artfully applied pale foundation that gave her skin a sallow cast. No wig today, either. But her head wasn’t bare. She’d covered her hair with a “chemo cap,” usually worn by cancer patients to mask their baldness, but in her case, improvised from some pale-yellow floral fabric in Orla’s mum’s sewing room. Her legs were covered by a blanket.

  Also covered by the blanket were the lupara and the gun she’d come to think of as her trusty Glock.

  And whereas the “pussy posse,” as Orla’s mate Daisy had christened them, were dressed to kill only figuratively, Stella was dressed to kill, full stop. Boots and black jeans under the blanket, black T-shirt and biker jacket.

  It was ten in the evening and the queue to gain admission to Tirana was forty yards long. Over good-natured grumbles from the hipsters and party people in the line, Orla led her gang right past them, all the way to the roped-off door.

  The nearest bouncer looked them over, his mouth set in a half-smile.

  He moved towards Orla and the two lieutenants flanking her and hiding Stella from view.

  “You all look fit, and you can definitely come in, but you don’t just barge your way past the other punters.”

  The three girls split apart in a choreographed move to reveal Stella at the centre of the gaggle of teetering young women.

  “Don’t be like that, darling,” Orla said in a flirty voice that still carried a hint of authority. “Look, it’s our mate’s first night out after starting chemo. She feels like shit most of the time but she said she reckoned she could come out with us tonight.” Then, louder, “She ’as got cancer, you know.”

  The bouncer took in the wheelchair and the chemo cap but Stella was gratified to notice that he avoided looking at her directly. So it’s true what they say, then. People think cancer is contagious. And apparently through eye contact.

  “Come on, mate,” a man called out from the front of the queue. “Let her in. If she’s got the bottle to come out then you owe her.”

  A chorus of male and female voices joined in, and under the onslaught, the bouncer just unhooked the rope from its brass-topped pole and waved Stella and her minders inside.

  The DJ was doing a good job – the dance floor was heaving. The music was loud, but not deafeningly so. Orla leaned down and spoke into Stella’s ear.

  “We’ll get to the bar, then it’s phase two, all right?”

  Stella nodded. Reaching under the blanket to check her two weapons once more, she looked up at Orla.

  “You sure you don’t mind? I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Half of it’s just screaming anyway and the rest’ll be cured with a few more shots or a quick line in the toilets. Now, if you don’t mind—”

  Followed by the rest of her posse, Orla pushed Stella straight at the dancers on the edge of the illuminated floor and, at the top of her voice, shouted a warning.

  “Coming through! Cancer victim coming through!”

  The dancers looked round, scowling, then saw Orla coming at them and parted like the Red Sea before Moses. Although this Moses was wearing a considerably skimpier garment than the original.

  Reaching the bar, Orla positioned Stella at the far end, in a shadowy corner near a door marked, “Staff Only.”

  “Ready?” she asked.

  Stella took hold of the Glock and the lupara’s pistol grip, and breathed in deeply, before letting the air out of her lungs in a rush.

  “Ready.”

  “Right, girls,” Orla announced to the two nearest her. “Let the wild rumpus start!”

  She marched up to the nearest woman, spun her round by grabbing her shoulder, and shouted in her face.

  “Don’t call me a cunt, you bitch!”

  For good measure, she delivered a ringing slap to the woman’s left cheek. To her right and left, her posse were mounting surprise attacks on more clubbers. Within seconds, the space in front of the bar was a roiling mass of bodies, both male and female, as friends leapt to defend friends, and more and more people became enmeshed in the ruckus. The bar staff, two boys and a girl, were transfixed by what was happening not ten feet from their polished-zinc counter, and so were the other clubbers waiting to be served.

  Stella flipped the blanket off her lap and stood, before making her way through the staff door, tooled up like one of Freddie’s old-time armed-robber pals, the Glock stuck in her waistband, the lupara held down by her right thigh.

  Freddie’s words came back to her now.

  “I’m not saying we were planning to take him out, but I like to have intelligence on my competitors. So here’s what I know. Weeknights he likes to be at the club. He runs his business out of an office upstairs. Not very original, but that’s the Albanians for you. They all spent too much time as kids watching those shit American gangster films.”

  The hallway she found herself in was quiet, lit by wall-mounted lights every six feet or so. No artwork on the walls, just plain grey paint, spotted
here and there by mildew. Holding the Glock out in front of her body, she traversed the twelve yards on the balls of her feet. At the far end was another door. She turned the knob and went through, into a stairwell. Stella paused, cocking her head and straining to detect any noise from further up the stairwell, voices especially. Nothing. It was silent. Or silent apart from the muffled screams and thumps emanating from the wall between her and the bar.

  She started climbing. In her mind’s eye, she was envisioning the confrontation with Ferenczy. He’d be telling her about how much he loved his little brother and she’d counter with her own story of her friend Vicky Riley, whose godparents didn’t deserve to die. Then reality intervened, in the form of a heavyset man coming down the stairs towards her.

  “Who the fuck are you?” he said, reaching inside his bomber jacket.

  67

  Gang Violence

  Stella didn’t think. “Thinking’s too slow; you have to react,” Rocky had made her repeat, over and over again like a mantra during their training sessions. Instead, she reacted. In a fist fight, it would have been a blow to the throat or a knee to the groin. But this was a gunfight. So she swung the lupara up, gripped the fore end with her left hand and pulled the trigger.

  Ferenczy’s man had no time to pull his pistol from its shoulder holster. The buckshot from Stella’s gun reached him while his hand was still fastening round the grip. At this range, every single pellet hit the target, and although his momentum carried him on towards her, he was dead on his stumbling feet, blood and soft tissue spraying from the horrific injuries to his torso. The noise in the concrete-walled space was immense, and Stella’s ears were ringing as she stepped round the body and rushed up the remaining stairs to the upper corridor. She scanned the doors punctuating the wall. Ferenczy’s office was easy to spot. It was the only door of varnished timber. All the others were painted the same shade of grey as the walls.