The Last Big Job hc-4

by Nick Oldham

  ‘ You let a professional killer go loose, probably to kill again.’

  Henry blinked. He gave a sidelong glance at Terry who was sitting there shaking his head. He could not believe what he was hearing, either.

  ‘ So be it,’ Henry said. ‘I’ll live with it. At least I’m not at the shitty end of another PCA enquiry or civil litigation, having to justify even drawing breath, let alone firing a non-police-issue firearm. Yeah.’ He folded his arms defensively. ‘I can live with that.’ He was thinking about an on-going enquiry, in which he was deeply embroiled, following the shooting incident several years earlier when he had been obliged to put a bullet into a professional hitman. Things like that did not go away. They scarred for life.

  ‘ You have less of a conscience than I do, then,’ Davison said.

  He and Henry stared impassively at each other. Henry was determined he would not be the one to drop his eyes. Instead, he raised his eyebrows.

  After leaving the scene of Jacky Lee’s murder — in keeping with the characters of their legends — he and Terry had immediately contacted Davison and filled him in on what had taken place. As a result of their information, details of the getaway car had been circulated, but as yet — 11 p.m. — it had not been found. Davison had hastily arranged to meet the two U/C officers for a debrief and statements from them.

  This process was taking a long time. They had been at it four hours. Henry and Terry were worn out and needed some serious kip. Davison’s attitude did not help either; he was annoying both detectives immensely.

  ‘ You’re criticising me for not shooting someone — is that what I’m hearing? I hate to think what you’d be saying to me if I had pulled the trigger.’ Henry snorted and let it drop. He needed a bed. He thought briefly about Kate and wondered if she was asleep or not. ‘I guess that’s it,’ he said with a touch of finality. ‘Job’s over. Jacky Lee’s met a sticky end. You’ll probably never find out for sure if he killed that guy in the canal, and we’ve done our work.’

  ‘ No, you haven’t.’ Davison shook his head.

  Henry and Terry looked up together.

  Davison held up the witness statements they had written. ‘I am now the SIO on the murder of Jacky Lee. I will not be making these statements available to the investigating team, though I will let my deputy know about them, of course. As far as you are both concerned, you are being hunted down by the police as witnesses to the murder, possibly even suspects. I haven’t revealed to any of my team that an undercover operation was up and running as regards Lee. It is not my intention to tell them an undercover operation is up and running to find Lee’s murderer.’

  ‘ What are you saying?’ Terry demanded.

  ‘ That I want you’ — he pointed at Henry — ‘to stay undercover, and I don’t want the Murder Squad to know about it, with the exception of my deputy SIO. I want you to get into the ribs of Lee’s minders and gather evidence for us… then when you’ve got it, I’ll pull you out.’

  ‘ That will be so fucking dangerous, it’s not worth talking about,’ Henry pointed out forcefully. ‘There’s a good chance I’ll get iced as well as Lee. It is not a good situation. In fact, it’s a dark, murky one. These people don’t mess around, you know. They don’t like you, or don’t trust you, they kill you. They’re not like you and me.’

  ‘ I want you to go back in and find out who killed Jacky Lee, then withdraw. Piece of piss for a guy like you.’

  Henry remained tight-lipped. ‘Does Fanshaw-Bayley know about this?’

  Davison nodded. ‘And approves.’

  Henry’s lips reverted to tight, cynical. He looked at Terry. Each man knew what the other was thinking. It was an exciting prospect, yet appalling at the same time. Henry loathed himself for what he said next.

  ‘ OK, I’ll do it. But everything is down to me. Every detail. Everything. Even the merest hint that Thompson and Gunk are unhappy with me, I’m out like shit off a shovel.’

  ‘ Fine.’

  ‘ And the first thing is, for the sake of realism, Frank Jagger would definitely lie low for a few days before slithering out of the woodwork, so that’s what I’ll be doing. Not least because I haven’t spent enough time at home for a while.’

  They left the classroom a short while later.

  In the very basic bedroom that had been provided for him at the Training School, Henry settled on the bed after a long, hot shower. He got to thinking about Rupert Davison. He remembered him from years before. Recalled what a prick the guy had been as a Constable. A real loose cannon. Obviously the intervening years had not changed him much. He had been unpopular way back then and as Henry dozed off he tried to remember why. Then it struck him. Davison did stupid things, always seemed to put other people in danger and always emerged unscathed himself. The thought made Henry sweat.

  ‘ Look up, you bastard,’ Crane ordered Spencer. All bravado gone, the teenager was sitting back on his reeking chair, doubled forwards, trying to nurse the terribly broken arm. The pain was excruciating, burning up from his elbow to his shoulder and across his chest. He rocked in agony, trying to handle the sickening waves which pulsated through him. However, he responded to Crane’s harsh voice and raised his chin.

  Cheryl was standing up, naked, petrified. Hawker was behind her, holding her arms, preventing her from moving.

  Crane stood next to her, swinging a solid metal pipe in his right hand. It was about half the length but of a similar diameter to the thick end of a snooker cue.

  ‘ Watch this,’ he said to Spencer.

  ‘ Oh God,’ screamed Spencer as Crane’s body twisted at the hip and knee. The pipe arced through the air. He put his whole weight behind the movement and smashed the pipe against Cheryl’s left shin.

  She screamed and fell clutching her shattered leg, fractured by the blow.

  Crane surveyed his handiwork. Above the sound of Cheryl’s moans he announced, ‘This is what you get when you cock up with me. Grief.’

  Then he thought the couple had suffered enough. He waggled his fingers at Smith who had watched the whole episode whilst leaning against the wall. He handed a revolver to Crane.

  ‘ Enough of this shit,’ Crane said. He reached out and grabbed Spencer’s hair, yanked him up off the chair and dragged him to the edge of the vehicle inspection pit where he forced him on to his knees, overlooking the edge. Very quickly, without preamble, Crane pressed the muzzle of the gun against the back of Spencer’s head and pulled the trigger. The bullet lifted him into mid-air and into the inspection pit. He smashed to the bottom of it and twitched only once.

  Crane repeated the procedure with Cheryl. Her body landed on top of her boyfriend’s.

  When the echo of the gunfire had died away, Crane looked at Smith. He was breathing heavily, chest rising and falling, but his expression was exuberant, as though he’d just won Gladiators.

  ‘ You said you had something else for me.’

  Chapter Seven

  At 10 a.m. next day, Danny walked up the concrete steps of the block of flats where Cheryl lived. She strode over pools of urine and spew and avoided broken needles. At the first landing she turned left on to a walkway. A small group of youths were gathered outside the doorway to one of the council flats. Danny had to walk past them to get where she was going.

  All eyes turned to her; conversation ceased as they immediately clocked her as a cop. A lone cop at that. And a woman. They purposely edged away from the door into her path to obstruct her.

  She approached them with the impression of streetwise confidence, but underneath she was quaking. She had no business with these guys and did not want to have, but people like this always wanted to know what the authorities were doing on their territory. Danny guessed the oldest of them was about fifteen. Even so, they were all mean and potentially nasty.

  Their chins — marked with zits and tufts of adolescent bum-fluff — lifted. Sneers appeared on their faces. They were like a pack of wild dogs responding to an intruder… in this case, Danny.
>
  ‘ Excuse me, please,’ Danny said politely.

  ‘ Why? What’ve you done — farted?’ one giggled.

  ‘ Just excuse me,’ she insisted.

  One of them drew himself up to his full height. He stepped directly in front of her, challenge written across his face. Danny was tall, but he wasn’t far off.

  ‘ What’re you doing here?’ he wanted to know.

  Danny sighed. ‘Just let me through, please, OK?’

  There was a second or two’s hesitation; those tense moments when one or the other had to give ground. It wasn’t going to be Danny. The youngster lost his nerve and stepped reluctantly aside. A path opened and she passed through with relief.

  ‘ Bitch,’ one of them hissed.

  ‘ Twat,’ said another.

  ‘ Show us yer cunt… I can smell it already,’ another added bravely, sending them all into fits of hysterical laughter.

  Danny chose not to respond, acknowledge them or turn round. She simply sighed and thought, Ahh, the youth of today, the leaders of tomorrow, and walked to the end of the landing, turning left out of their sight.

  The flat was number 23. She stopped outside it, saw the obscene graffiti scrawled on the door, the window pane boarded up with cardboard and the damage halfway down the door which looked as though someone had kicked it in.

  She raised her knuckles, but did not knock. The door was slightly open. She pushed gently with a finger. It swung open with a creak of the hinges, revealing a short, empty vestibule.

  ‘ Cheryl?’ Danny called. ‘It’s me, Danny Furness.’

  Danny’s cop instinct — honed by eighteen years of entering premises — told her straight away the flat was empty. Something about the atmosphere. The stillness. The way the sound of her voice was not absorbed by human flesh, just bounced off the fixtures and fittings. The hairs on the back of her neck rose, making her shiver.

  She crossed the threshold and turned into the living room. She surveyed the empty room, listened and sniffed, catching the tangy mixture of cigarette and cannabis smoke, and beer; some cans of lager were open on the carpet in front of the electric fire which burned bright red, hot enough to make toast.

  The room was sweltering. The heat hit Danny immediately.

  The TV was on, too, the volume low; a morning chat show hosted by some celebrity on the way down career-wise. Incest being the topic up for discussion. Danny crossed the room, a quiver of apprehension inside her. She bent down, flicked off the TV and then the electric fire. The three bars faded immediately as though happy to be relieved of their task. Next to the fire was a half-smoked joint in an ashtray and next to that a clear plastic bag containing herbal cannabis. Danny recognised the illegal substance, as any cop worth their salt would have done. Alongside this was a packet of cigarettes, the lid tipped open, revealing the contents — about a dozen remaining from the original twenty. Then there was a set of keys, one of which looked like it was probably the front-door key.

  Danny sighed through her nose, stood upright and considered the rest of the room.

  Clothes were scattered around the floor, male and female. A pair of skimpy knickers, a dressing gown, a pair of jeans, a T-shirt. Cold remnants of a fish-and-chip supper were all over the settee and carpet, beginning to stink.

  Danny checked the small kitchen, the bathroom, the untidy bedroom.

  A very bad feeling made her swallow.

  Earlier that morning she had checked the signing-on book at the front desk of the police station. She had seen that Cheryl, as well as missing last night’s rendezvous at the cop shop, had also missed this morning’s. Having a professional interest in the case, she decided to pay Cheryl a visit and give her the hard word, intending to warn her that next time she failed to sign on she would be thrown back in front of the court with the recommendation that bail be rescinded, and get locked up.

  But Cheryl was nowhere to be found.

  Danny actually wanted to believe that she had done a midnight flit, yet the state of the flat was unsettling. People who do runners usually take their fags and dope with them. Their lifelines. They don’t leave stuff like that behind.

  As Danny went back on to the landing, she again noticed the damage to the door. She paused, patted her pockets and located her ciggies. She lit one, breathed smoke in deep and bent down to inspect the door. She exhaled through the side of her mouth. Had something happened here? she speculated. Some form of retribution because of the drugs? She pulled the door to behind her and made her way back to the car, going in the opposite direction to the teenage gang around the corner, thinking, Time will tell.

  Where interpersonal relationships were concerned, Henry Christie was a coward at heart. Because he and Kate had parted on such sour terms and he had made little effort to keep in contact with her, he thought it was going to be very hard for him to present himself on the front doorstep and announce, ‘Honey, I’m home!’

  He drove back from Manchester that morning, planning what he was going to say. One of his main problems was that he had thrown himself on to her mercy too many times in the past. Even for Kate, the most patient and forgiving of people, there must be a point at which enough was enough. Henry prayed she had not reached it.

  On the M61 he stopped at Bolton West services. After a cup of tea, he bought several bunches of flowers and combined them into one big one, a box of chocolates and a pop music tape each for the girls… peace offerings. He had the sneaking suspicion this would not be nearly enough to appease Kate, probably rightly so.

  As Blackpool drew nearer, he caught sight of the Tower. His intestines lurched. In ten minutes, or less, depending on the traffic, he could be home. He knew today was Kate’s day off — she worked part-time — and that on a day like this, glorious sunshine, she would probably be gardening.

  He came off the motorway at Marton Circle, where he should have left the roundabout at the three o’clock exit. His nerve failed him. Instead, he looped right round and rejoined the motorway into Blackpool, deciding to bob into the station instead. Just to catch up on work. See what was happening in his absence. Give him a little more time to think about himself, Kate, their daughters and the future. And maybe see Danny Furness.

  Colin Hodge, the driver for the security firm, was completely in control of the situation. He felt it, believed it, and was experiencing it right at that very moment as he walked into Thomas Cook’s Travel Agency on Fishergate in Preston. He said very firmly to the lady behind the counter, ‘I want you to book me on a flight to Tenerife as soon as possible.’

  She smiled nicely. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  Hodge sat down on the comfy chair, leaned back, smiled complacently to himself. Yes, he was very much in charge of the whole shebang. Otherwise, why would those two stupid bastards have immediately bunged two grand his way, told him to take his annual holiday and get down to Los Cristianos where he was to go to a certain address and wait to be contacted? The contact, he had been assured, would be very soon. In the meantime, he should chill out, have some fun. If he wanted anything ‘extra’ he only needed to call a number he was given and his whims would be attended to. Hodge had already memorised the number.

  The travel agent tapped some details into her computer. There was a delay of a few seconds before she turned the screen so that Hodge could see what was available. ‘There’s one tomorrow, if that’s any good,’ she said.

  At the same time, Billy Crane and Don Smith were at Manchester Airport looking up at a departures screen. The flight to Lisbon was due to take off in three-quarters of an hour. Crane would be on it. He rarely travelled direct from the UK to Tenerife if he could avoid it. He wasn’t too concerned about making it difficult for people who might be tracking him, but did not want to make it too easy.

  The two men regarded each other affectionately.

  ‘ It’s been a good break, lots achieved,’ Crane said.

  They shook hands, patted each other’s shoulders.

  ‘ I’ll do some digging on Hodge,
’ Smith said, ‘then I’ll be out to see you in a couple of days. I know a guy who can do it for me, discreet like. Someone who’s good.’

  ‘ Fine, but remember this — I haven’t said I’m in this for definite. I’m just sniffing a dog’s arse at the moment, that’s all,’

  The departures screen rolled out instructions for the Lisbon flight: passengers to make their way to the boarding gate now. The two men parted and anyone observing them would not have been able to guess from their demeanour that both had been involved in murder only hours before.

  Because of his dislike of airports, the Russian left it to the very last minute before arriving and checking in at Manchester. He walked briskly away from the BA check-in desk towards Passport Control, dropped his hand luggage on to the conveyor belt which trundled it through the X-ray machine, stepped through the metal detector without incident, collected his bag and presented his passport to the Customs official at the desk. The document received only the most cursory of glances. He might as well have offered his real one. Once in the International Departure lounge he turned into W.H. Smiths and bought a morning newspaper which he tucked under his arm and made his way to the boarding gate.

  He stepped on to the first travellator at exactly the same time as another man of much the same age and build as himself. They ignored each other. The Russian stepped

  slightly ahead and came off at Gate 21.

  Billy Crane carried on towards Gate 33.

  At the boarding gate, the Russian was slightly aggrieved to see there was a delay of a few minutes on the Paris flight. He chuntered and sat down to read his newspaper, annoyed that he was actually sitting in an airport and not touring naval dockyards on the south coast as planned. But that was the nature of his occupation. He was very much in demand, well paid for what he did and never turned anything down.