Kiss of Death

by Paul Finch

  Heck and Gail were appropriately ‘scruffed out’ in jeans, sweatshirts and trainers. They’d also brought along lightweight anoraks in case it rained, but that possibility had dwindled while they’d been here, and the unused waterproofs lay on the broken stones alongside them, along with a small haversack containing their radios, a flask, some sandwiches, a torch, a CS canister and a pair of expandable batons.

  Heck fitted his Canon XF100 night-vision camera into a niche between the dislodged bricks, and lay full length to peer through it, adjusting its super-zoom lens until it was squarely trained on the parking bay opposite.

  As he did, the phone began to vibrate in his pocket. On seeing that the caller was Gary Quinnell, he put it to his ear. ‘Gaz?’

  ‘How’s it going?’ the jovial Welsh voice asked.

  ‘We’ve got a sniff of something,’ Heck replied. ‘I think.’

  ‘How’s your new sidekick coming on?’

  ‘We’ve had some differences of opinion …’ Heck glanced at Gail, who stuck her tongue out. ‘But, at present, common sense is prevailing. How’s everyone else doing?’

  ‘Not good, from what I’m hearing. Reed thinks he’s got a lead, but no one’s holding their breath. Sounds like he’s in High Wycombe, pressuring Hallahan, the McDonald’s shooter’s estranged daughter … even though she hasn’t spoken to the bastard for years.’

  Heck wasn’t sure whether it was right to feel smug about that, or not. Patrick Hallahan had killed three people during his attempted robbery of a Slough fast-food outlet some four years ago. Bringing that piece of scum to justice was surely a higher priority than seeing Jack Reed with egg on his pretty face, but sometimes you couldn’t help your inner feelings.

  ‘How are you getting on in Shropshire?’ Heck asked.

  ‘Odd one, really.’ Quinnell sounded bemused. ‘John Stroud’s girlfriend, Darlene Stewart’s been helpful … because she reckons she’s worried about him.’

  ‘She should be. He’s facing two life sentences minimum … assuming something doesn’t happen to him on the way to court.’

  Heck was only half-joking. In 2013, one-time gangster and escaped convict, John Stroud had ambushed and shot dead two police officers who’d originally given evidence against him; among members of Operation Sledgehammer, and the wider police family, he was easily one of the most hated targets on the list.

  ‘I don’t mean like that,’ Quinnell said. ‘She’s admitted he stayed with her for a while when he was on the run. She also claims to have been the last one to see him, except that there was some bloke looking for him around the same time, who wasn’t a copper.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Heck was briefly distracted by what might have been the rumble of an engine somewhere close by. He listened out, but it faded again. ‘Did she give a description?’

  ‘Fair hair, late thirties or early forties.’

  ‘Piece of piss finding him, pal.’

  ‘It’s vague, I know. But Stroud had apparently been crashing in the back room of some snooker joint that her brother managed. Sounds like he was sleeping under one of the benches. It wasn’t ideal. The local fuzz were poking their noses around. Kept missing him by inches, by the sounds of it.’

  ‘Great work, West Mercia.’

  ‘Anyway, one day she takes some stuff round for him, clean undies and that – and this blond fella’s sat down and chatting to him.’

  ‘Did Stroud make an introduction?’

  ‘Nah. She glimpsed them through the door, but didn’t go in. Said they were like old mates … said she hadn’t seen John looking so relaxed in months.’

  ‘I’m so glad,’ Heck said. ‘Always cheers me up to know a cop killer’s feeling good about himself.’

  ‘Yeah, but the thing is … next day he wasn’t there.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Gone. No trace of him.’

  ‘So he got his ticket out.’

  ‘Yeah, but Darlene doesn’t know where to. She’s het up about it. Says he didn’t leave her a note or a forwarding address, or anything … says that would be very unlike him.’

  ‘She is aware we’re talking about a suspect in the murder of two police officers here? And that she could get seriously done for her involvement in harbouring him?’

  ‘Oh yeah, but like I say, she’s really worried. I mean seriously.’

  Heck was about to pass another disparaging comment about the inability of a certain type of deluded person to see any evil at all in the deeds of their loved ones, when something struck him that gave him pause for thought.

  ‘When was this?’ he asked curiously.

  ‘Middle of last Feb. Says she hasn’t seen the blond bloke since.’

  Heck didn’t get a chance to question him further, because now he heard that engine again, and this time it didn’t fade. Gail glanced around, trying to locate it in the twilight.

  ‘I’ve got to go, Gaz.’

  ‘Yeah, all right. Take care, boy.’

  ‘Speak later.’ Heck shoved the phone into his pocket, pushing all other thoughts aside.

  The rumble was growing louder, the vehicle responsible clearly approaching. Heck and Gail dropped from sight, scrambling to the crevices they’d selected as vantage points.

  Half a second later, a white Audi A4 cruised slowly by.

  Heck waited until it had passed and vanished along the barren shore.

  He stuck his head up. ‘By anyone’s reckoning, that’s got to be Jackson?’

  ‘Isn’t it a bit early?’ Gail asked.

  ‘He’s making a drive-by. Checking there are no odd-bods around.’

  She glanced over her shoulder, feeling vulnerable and wanting to ensure that none of Jackson’s associates were encroaching from the rear. But the only movement came from a coastal breeze rippling through the straggly vegetation.

  They waited a little longer, keeping low as a distant hum gradually resolved itself back into the rumble of the engine. As they watched through their respective crannies, the white Audi returned, this time wallowing into place on the parking bay, and halting. With a clunk, a handbrake was applied, and the engine was turned off. In the rapidly dying light, only the vague outline of the driver was visible, despite him powering down his window.

  Heck pressed a button, and the camera began to record.

  ‘Got your pocketbook?’ he whispered.

  ‘My pocketbook?’ Gail whispered back.

  ‘You need to take notes, Gail. Contemporaneous … everything that happens, OK?’

  ‘Aren’t we filming this?’

  ‘Yeah, but notes taken at the time are the best corroboration there is. Don’t worry, I can countersign them later. So that’ll be two witnesses as well as the footage.’

  She slid over the stones and grass to the bag, groped inside and brought out her pocketbook and a pen. Another three or four minutes passed, dusk entering its final stage, the blue-purple twilight dissolving into the full blackness of night.

  ‘Won’t be able to see much,’ she muttered.

  ‘I think we can see enough,’ Heck replied. ‘Our pal, Cyrus, isn’t as cautious as he should be. That motor stands out a mile.’

  This turned out to be truer even than Heck expected, because almost immediately after that something happened which took them both by surprise. A figure on a mountain bike materialised from nowhere, hurtling up to the car from behind and skidding to a halt alongside the open window, framing itself perfectly on the white bodywork.

  Heck leaned down, to get a better view through the night-vision lens.

  The cyclist looked like a kid, or, at the most, a teen. His features were hidden beneath a cagoule with the hood pulled up, but he was small in stature and lean of build.

  As they watched and filmed, he produced what was quite clearly a substantial wad of cash, wrapped together with elastic bands, and offered it to a hand that had half-emerged from the window. The cash disappeared, but, just as quickly, the hand reappeared with a smaller roll of notes, which the cyclist sh
oved into one of his cagoule pockets. Words were exchanged at a mumble, before the hand appeared a second time, this time with a plastic bag of grassy-looking resin. The cyclist thrust it into another capacious pocket and pushed himself away from the Audi, scooting into the blackness.

  ‘I take it we got all that?’ Gail said.

  ‘We got it, all right,’ Heck replied. ‘Quick and efficient, this operation … but we got it.’

  They waited another minute or two, and the same thing happened again, a young cyclist appearing along the road from the rear of the car, handing over a pile of money, receiving payment for himself and then another portion of product, which he pocketed before pedalling off into the night.

  It happened a third time as well.

  And then a fourth.

  ‘Amazing, the villainous use pushbikes can be put to, eh?’ Heck said.

  ‘Never have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes,’ Gail replied. ‘Can it really be as simple as this?’

  ‘Simplicity’s good … if you want to get up close and personal.’

  He pulled his anorak on and zipped it, before crawling to the haversack, taking one of the expandable batons out and shoving it into the back of his jeans. Rising to a crouch, he scampered away.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Gail hissed.

  ‘Stay here. Keep clocking everyone who comes.’

  ‘Heck, you’re not doing anything stupid!’

  ‘Just do your job, DC Honeyford. Let me do mine.’

  Still keeping low, he shuffled further and further from the obbo point, until the Audi was some distance behind him, at which point he rose up and moved at a stooping run along the edge of the road, weaving around clumps of vegetation, vaulting fragments of dockside architecture. With no streetlamps around, he was navigating by starlight, just about able to distinguish the pale ribbon of tarmac denoting the road, and the flat sweep of the river beyond that. Eventually, when he’d put some three hundred yards between himself and Pier No. 6, he halted and squatted beside a brick post.

  He waited, breathing hard, mopping sweat with the sleeve of his anorak. His blood began to slow, his heartbeat to recede.

  And then he heard it: the approaching whirr of bicycle wheels.

  He couldn’t see it as it sped towards his position, which was a problem; it meant that he’d have to judge purely by sound, and he’d need to be accurate. If he timed this thing incorrectly, his one chance of getting something useful out of Cyrus Jackson without the entire Humberside Police breathing down his neck would be gone. He jumped to his feet, perambulating out into the middle of the road.

  As he did, a blurred form emerged from nowhere.

  Heck glimpsed a figure slouched back in the saddle, pedalling fast but casually, one hand gripping a pair of extended handlebars.

  He jammed his left arm out, muscles tensed, fist clenched.

  When the cyclist spotted him, it was too late.

  The impact caught him across the chest. By his high-pitched yelp, he really was young; maybe no more than sixteen or seventeen. He catapulted backward, the bike flying out from under him, clattering away along the aged tarmac.

  By the brutish exhalation of air as the kid hit the deck, he was badly winded.

  Heck ran up to him.

  ‘Fucking little shit!’ he snarled in his best ‘nasty bastard’ voice. ‘Gimme the cash, or I’ll rip your fucking gonads off. Every penny … you fucking little shit!’

  Wheezing with pain and fear, the kid crab-crawled away, and then jumped up to his feet and started running.

  ‘Your boss is nothing!’ Heck growled, chasing. ‘Nothing, you get it! He’s lying back there in an open grave … which is exactly where you’ll be! Gimme the fucking money!’

  At least the kid was loyal. He didn’t give up the money as he ran, though that could easily have been because he was already thinking two steps ahead – if Cyrus really was dead and some other firm had moved in, some right set of bastards, he might need to go to ground, and for that he’d need some green. On top of that, he was swift on his toes.

  Heck landed one swiping kick on his backside, eliciting another yelp, before the youngster put his burner on and accelerated into the night.

  Satisfied, Heck slowed to a halt, turned and headed back to look for the bike. He found it lying half over the kerb. In the dimness, he couldn’t tell whether it was damaged or not, but when he pushed it forward and leapt into the saddle, it rolled freely enough.

  His feet caught the pedals, and soon he was pumping back along the riverside road.

  In no time, the sleek white shape of the Audi slid into view.

  Heck braked and pulled up next to its open window. With no headlights or interior lights switched on, Jackson would be blind as to who exactly this was, though, in return, Heck couldn’t see much of the drug dealer. Thanks to the faint red glow of the dashboard clock, he thought he could picture an immense barrel torso, a short-sleeved Hawaiian-patterned shirt, the glint of neck chains, the black bush of a beard.

  But Heck wasn’t really looking at the driver. What he was looking for, he found straight away: the keys dangling from the ignition. Jackson said something, but Heck wasn’t listening. Instead, he reached down and snatch-grabbed the keys, shoving them into his anorak pocket.

  ‘Hey …?’ the dealer blurted, only for Heck’s hand to reappear with a wallet in it, which he flipped open, showing his warrant card.

  ‘You’re locked up, pal. Suspicion of possessing drugs with intent to …’

  With a roar of bestial rage, the driver kicked his door open.

  It slammed into Heck’s side, and as he was still astride the bike, he toppled over, landing full length on the road. Jackson, who was spry for such a big man, sprang out after him. Heck glimpsed a huge, bowling-ball-shaped figure, immense shoulders, but also a hefty gut straining under that luridly patterned shirt. Before he could see more, Jackson landed on him with both knees. The guy weighed twenty stone at least, so it was a crushing impact, impressing the frame of the bike into Heck’s left leg with such force that he thought it would cleave straight through. A heavy punch from a ham-fist descended. That might have done equal damage, had Heck not deflected it with his right forearm and tried to grab the bastard by the beard. Jackson tore himself loose and, with another animalistic roar, stumbled away across the road as he sought an escape route. Heck saw that he was carrying some kind of sports bag, which he’d presumably taken from the front passenger seat. But panicked though he was, the dealer slid to a standstill, one meaty forearm jammed across his eyes, when dazzling torchlight blazed into him.

  ‘Serial Crimes Unit to Bravo Comms,’ Gail shouted into her radio. ‘Immediate support required at Pier No. 6 off Clive Sullivan Way. Officer down and injured, suspect resisting arrest, over.’

  Heck kicked the mangled frame of the bike away as he extricated himself. As he did, he saw more of Cyrus Jackson. The big man was swarthy-skinned, as though of Mediterranean or Middle Eastern origin, and truly enormous. His neck barely existed, his huge, shaven bullet-head sprouting straight from his ox-like shoulders. When he turned to run the other way, Heck saw wild eyes in a sweat-soaked face, the lower half of which was covered by a black beard worthy of an Old Testament prophet.

  The giant lumbered back towards the car, perhaps thinking he could stomp Heck some more and retrieve his keys to affect a higher-speed getaway. But Heck was now back on his feet, albeit wobbling on his left leg, which was fleetingly deadened. He snapped the baton open and assumed the posture.

  ‘Give it up, bonehead!’ he shouted.

  Swearing hoarsely, Jackson veered left, tottering around the Audi’s front end. Heck threw himself across its bonnet to try and snag him, but again, the guy was faster than he looked, evading Heck’s reach by several inches.

  They crossed the parking bay together, Heck only a couple of feet behind but still limping. Jackson turned, swinging the sports bag like a wrecking ball. It struck Heck on the right shoulder and sent him reeli
ng left. Jackson ran on, only to again find the bright spear of Gail’s torch penetrating to the backs of his eyeballs. She’d circled around the rear of the Audi, and now he was cut off: a cop in front, a cop behind.

  Only one option remained.

  With panting grunts, he cleared the chain-link fence in a single clumsy stride, his footfalls resounding like drumbeats as he thundered away along the derelict pier. Thirty yards further on, almost as an afterthought, he flung the bag over the side, sending it cartwheeling into the darkness.

  ‘Shit!’ Heck shouted, straddling the chain. ‘Gail … something tells me we need that bag more than we need Jackson.’

  ‘You can’t tackle him on your own.’

  ‘Just get the bag.’

  He lurched along the pier, feeling it quaking beneath him, planks cracking and slipping as he trod on them. He slowed to a walk, not so much because of this, but because the further he drew from shore, the more the dim light faded. Soon, there was no sound either, save the hiss of a stiffening coastal breeze.

  At forty yards, Heck stopped altogether.

  The silence seemed ominous.

  It meant the guy could be very close, lying flat perhaps, or crouching beside one of the two barriers, hoping not to be noticed but ready to launch a vicious attack if he was.

  Heck advanced again. Even the distant south shore, a line of lights previously, was now partly blotted out. He hadn’t noticed it earlier, but midway along the pier there was a structure of sorts, something like an old boatshed. He edged towards it, and when he drew close, saw a square of deeper blackness in its wooden, weatherboarded front. An open door – which might explain how Jackson had suddenly disappeared.

  Heck closed on it quickly, but before he’d gone a couple of yards, a missile came twirling out and struck him on the left side of the chest.

  A heavy spanner clattered to the planks.

  The point of impact was cushioned by Heck’s undershirt armour, though it was still sufficient to hurt him and send him toppling sideways.