by Nick Oldham
A few legitimate customers came and went.
Fifty metres down Deansgate, a car stopped and the pockmarked man who had just been in the bar got out. He leaned back into the car and conversed with the driver before slamming the door shut. The car set off, then turned down by the Printer’s Arms, disappearing up the poorly lit side street. It was being driven by Aggie’s pimp.
The small man walked to the door of the pub.
Verner walked back across the road, coming up behind the small man, who was no wiser that he had been across the road, watching.
‘This way.’ He indicated to Verner that he should follow him down the side street.
‘Can I trust you?’
The small man sniggered, but said nothing.
Verner followed. Within metres, the brightness of Deansgate had been replaced by the dark of the narrow street, the sound of vehicular and pedestrian traffic just a background murmur.
He led Verner to a small car park at the rear of what could have been an office building. There was one car on it, the one Verner had seen drop the small man off a few minutes earlier, the one driven by Aggie’s pimp. Verner’s senses were acute. He could sniff the danger in the air and was ready for anything, supremely confident of his abilities, no matter what might come his way.
‘Stop here,’ the small man said. He took a small torch out of his pocket and flashed it a couple of times, then said, ‘Come on.’ He walked towards three huge metallic dustbins on wheels on the car park, pushed right up to the building. They were due to be emptied soon. The smell said that.
As they approached the bins, the black pimp, together with another man, a white one, stepped out and revealed themselves.
Verner took stock of the situation.
‘I thought you might be able to help me,’ he said to the pimp.
The black man’s wide smile flashed in the darkness and Verner almost giggled at the stereotype.
‘What have you got?’
‘Come over here, back here.’ The black man took a pace backwards and to one side. He also had a torch in his hand, which he flashed down to the ground. There was a large piece of oily rag spread out, once part of a blanket, with two pistols on it and four magazines. Verner recognized the makes and models immediately.
One was a mass-produced Eastern Bloc monstrosity, the other a reasonable-looking Glock.
‘How clean are they?’
‘Does it really matter?’
‘To me it does. How reliable are they?’
‘Sold as seen,’ said the black man.
Verner felt the presence of the other two men who had quietly moved round to be behind him.
‘Ammunition?’
‘Two spare magazines with each. Forty-five rounds in total.’
‘How much?’
‘The Glock is five hundred; the other is two.’
‘Not cheap.’
‘I guess a man like you needs a gun,’ said the pimp, ‘and would be prepared to pay whatever the cost.’
Verner nodded, knowing full well he would not be paying a penny for either gun. Had it been a straightforward, trustworthy transaction, he would have bartered and gladly paid, but he instinctively knew this was going to turn sour. ‘But you’re wrong, actually, the gun isn’t for me. I need to make a call to my boss, just for the nod.’ He already had his mobile phone in his hand, one bullet left in it.
‘I don’t think that’ll be necessary,’ the pimp said. He nodded to his compatriots.
Suddenly Verner’s arms were pinned to his side by one of the men behind him. Not the small guy, because he came around the front and yanked open Verner’s jacket.
Verner let it happen, still holding the mobile phone in his hand.
‘Just chill, pal,’ he was told by the small man with the complexion like the face of the moon, ‘and it’ll soon be over.’ His hand went into the inside pocket which Verner had shown him contained the money. Except now there was a bar of soap in it with razor blades stuck into it. The small man’s hand grasped what he thought was going to be a wad of cash. He screamed and pulled his hand away, blood dripping.
Verner stamped his heel down the shin of the man holding him and finished the movement by smashing his heel down hard on the man’s toes. He dug his right elbow back into his ribs, then his hand shot up and he stabbed the antenna of the mobile hard into the man’s eye. He shook the man off, who staggered backwards, holding his injured face.
‘Jesus, Jesus,’ the small man yelped, nursing his lacerated hand between his knees, just in the exact position Verner needed him. He grabbed the back of his head and pounded his face down on to an upcoming knee, bursting his nose beautifully.
Verner pushed him aside, spun quickly on the man who had been holding him – who was tending his injured eye. Verner leapt at him and head butted him hard and accurately on the bridge of his nose.
Broken nose number two.
Like a cat, he turned low, back to the pimp, who had watched Verner’s sudden and unexpected display of violence with shock. But he was a man of the street and was recovering fast. His hand went inside his well-cut jacket.
Verner pointed the mobile phone at him. Just one left. It had to count because the pimp was pulling out a handgun.
There were perhaps four metres between the men. Verner knew that phone guns were pretty inaccurate even over close ranges, so he had to get close enough to ensure it was effective.
He took a step forward, decreased the gap.
The handgun in the black man’s hand was almost out.
Verner aimed the mobile-phone gun at the man’s chest. Go for the large body mass. It might not be fatal, but whatever happened, the man had to be put down. He pressed the button on the keypad. There was a crack and a kick and the bullet fired into the pimp’s wide chest, knocking him down on to his arse. He rolled over and came back up, his own gun now out and in his hand. Verner powered in and kicked the gun out of his hand, then, twisting so he was side on, kicked him flat-footed in the face, sending him rolling across the car park.
Broken nose number three. A record for one night.
This time the pimp did not get up.
Verner picked up the gun, which had skittered away a few feet, then went to stand over him.
He thought about ending the life of all three men there and then.
The black man clutched his chest, trying to stem the blood gushing out from the bullet hole just above his heart.
Verner weighed it up quickly. If he killed them, the cops would dig the bullet out of the pimp’s chest and soon make the link to the ones they had pulled out of two dead cops and a nurse in Preston. But if the pimp and his little gang stayed alive, there would probably be little chance of them going to the cops to report the incident. The problem would be if the pimp died anyway.
‘That’ll teach you a lesson, amateur,’ Verner said. He pointed the gun at him, almost pulled the trigger, decided not to.
He scooped up the Glock and the spare magazines, pocketed them and threw the pimp’s gun into one of the rubbish bins.
He returned briefly to the Radisson, collected his belongings and left. It would have been more than foolhardy to stay there, so he walked down the street and got a room at the Travel Lodge, paid cash, locked himself in, dropped on to the wide double bed, aching and sore.
Time for some recuperation.
He slept for ten hours.
Next morning he walked to Piccadilly Railway Station, grabbing an Egg McMuffin on the way for breakfast. He was in luck – and smiled at the thought of luck – when he gazed up at the departures board. A train for Blackpool was soon to be leaving, calling in at all manner of romantic-sounding places on the way. He noticed that the last-but-one stop was Poulton-le-Fylde. He knew he would not be getting off there. He bought a one-way ticket and found himself a seat in a sparsely populated carriage towards the front of the train.
He enjoyed train travel, liked the perspective it gave on places. He settled comfortably for the journey.
<
br /> It passed uneventfully and, sooner than he thought, he was alighting in Blackpool. As he emerged, the chill wind of the coast slapped him in the face. He had never quite known anything like it. Bracing, he thought.
He strolled slowly into town and found a nice-looking guest house near to the centre which would be a useful base for a few days. He did not expect to be staying for long. He intended to get his job done quickly and get away. He spent the rest of that day browsing, shopping, and being a tourist.
He even walked past several foot-patrol coppers, but not one gave him a second glance.
Fourteen
‘Sit.’
Verner waved the pistol, indicating Henry should do as he was told. Nervously he moved across to the kitchen table and sat next to John Lloyd Wickson. Tara remained slumped on the floor, whimpering into her hands covering her tear-stained face.
‘Shut it,’ Verner said to her, getting annoyed by her snivelling.
Unlike Henry, she took no notice. Her world had crumbled, was destroyed, and nothing Verner could say or do would make anything worse for her.
‘Henry, shut her up, will you?’
‘It’ll mean me getting up again and going across to her.’
‘Do it, then – but don’t do anything stupid. I know you too well. You’re a bit of a hero, aren’t you?’
Henry stood up slowly, went and bent down next to Tara. He took her shoulders and shook her gently. ‘Tara, you need to be quiet . . . please . . . this man will do something stupid if you don’t.’ She did not respond. He could tell his words had not penetrated at all. He shook his head at Verner, who, he saw, had picked up the shotgun in his left hand, the pistol now tucked into his waistband.
‘Get back to your chair,’ he told Henry. When Henry was seated, Verner inspected the shotgun. ‘Nice weapon. Devastating at short range.’ He glanced at Coulton and laughed. ‘But you already know that, don’t you?’ He began to empty the shotgun. The cartridges dropped out of the weapon on to the work surface he was next to.
Henry saw a chance. Verner was holding an empty gun and he had the pistol in his waistband.
‘Don’t,’ Verner said, anticipating the possible move. ‘You’d be dead before your ass even left the chair.’
Henry settled down, obviously having telegraphed his move.
Verner reloaded the shotgun: three cartridges, racking one into the breech, then letting the gun hover at a point equidistant between Henry and Wickson. He kept it aimed there, covering the both of them, and moved across to Tara.
‘I told you to be quiet,’ he said. With one lightning, stunning and expertly executed blow, he hit Tara with the stock of the shotgun across the side of her head.
Tara toppled over, unconscious and bleeding.
Both Henry and Wickson rose from their chairs, but Verner was already covering them again, a look of dare on his face.
‘There was no need for that,’ Henry said.
‘I make the rules, Henry.’
Both men sat back down, horribly aware of Tara bleeding heavily from the deep wound inflicted by Verner’s blow.
Verner circled away from them to the opposite side of the table.
Coulton had stopped moving now. There was no more twitching and dancing.
‘Good shot, eh?’ Verner commented. He pulled a chair out, spun it round and sat on it, resting the shotgun across the back of it.
‘Cops’ll be here soon,’ Henry said.
‘And that’s supposed to give me the frighteners, is it?’
Henry shrugged. ‘Just stating a fact.’
‘Thanks.’ Verner turned his attention to Wickson, who was probably having the quietest, most withdrawn period of his life. He was terrified and it showed. ‘Now then, Mr Wickson. You have deeply upset the people who employ me. I don’t know much about it, to be honest, not my business, but I do know they helped you out of some financial difficulties and now you want to turn your back on them.’ Verner cleared his throat. ‘Not acceptable. You owe them and you want to welch on payment.’
‘I owe them nothing,’ Wickson whispered.
‘Tell him, Henry. He doesn’t seem to have grasped the concept.’
Henry tried to play it dumb, wanting to string this out for as long as possible. ‘I assume that the people who employ you are the Mafia?’ Verner nodded. ‘In that case, John,’ Henry said to Wickson, ‘once you’re in debt to them, they don’t let go.’
‘Exactly.’ He winked at Henry. ‘You know your stuff, don’t you?’ To Verner, he said, ‘All they want to do is share in your business. Only a small percentage.’
‘Fuck ’em,’ Wickson said.
‘No. Nobody ever fucks with us. Look, all they want is a few measly per cent of your legitimate business, which, as we know, has great expectations.’
‘What’re those?’ Henry said, latching on with interest.
‘The future of Blackpool,’ Verner said. ‘The Las Vegas of Europe. Big plans for this place . . . and Mr Wickson, as we know, will be very much involved in the demolition and reclamation of buildings and land when all the new casinos go up along the sea front. He’ll make about fifty million, rough estimate – won’t you?’
Wickson stayed immobile and said nothing.
‘But he would never have been in a position to do that had my employer not assisted him to remain solvent in the first place, isn’t that the case?’
‘I helped you out once, paid my debt to you and found other ways of keeping my business afloat until the Blackpool dream comes true.’
Verner laughed uproariously. He turned to Coulton. ‘Did you hear that, Jake? The Blackpool dream!’ The dead man did not respond.
‘It doesn’t work like that, John,’ Henry said. ‘I presume you mean the fuel laundering out back?’
Wickson nodded glumly.
‘No doubt they want a piece of that, too,’ Henry said. He was looking at a desperate man, someone who had steered his business into deep trouble and in an effort to save it had turned to the wrong people, people who would never let go. They had saved him from bankruptcy and then he had found a new, illegal way of keeping going – by laundering fuel. It all fell into place for Henry now. The dilapidated farm buildings at the back, the articulated fuel tanker Henry had dodged the other day.
Wickson had obviously seen fuel laundering as a way to make quick money. Henry knew the profits from it could be immense. It was a relatively new type of illegal activity in the UK, becoming more and more prevalent. It involved the conversion of red diesel into a fuel which appeared to be normal diesel. The excise duty rate of just over three pence per litre on red diesel (which contains a red chemical dye) contrasts with a rate of almost fifty pence levied on ordinary diesel fuel. This equates to a profit somewhere in the region of £14,000 per tanker of fuel. Good money by anyone’s standards. ‘How many tankers a week leave here?’ Henry asked.
‘Four.’
‘Bloody hell,’ said Henry, doing a quick add-up in his head. Over £50,000 a week. ‘You know that they’d never let you give that up, don’t you? Even when you’re making legitimate money from the Blackpool dream, they won’t even allow you to stop laundering fuel. You naïve arsehole.’ Henry shook his head.
Wickson’s face screwed up as though he was about to vomit again. He started to retch, then hurled up on to the kitchen floor, which was covered with a variety of substances which it had never thought it would have on it. His head went down between his knees, then came back up. He wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his dressing gown.
‘Well – cosy chat over,’ Verner announced brightly. ‘I’ll let you into a secret,’ he went on conspiratorially, tapping his nose. ‘I don’t always kill people with bullets. I like to vary things if I get the opportunity – like tonight, Henry and John. That’s why we are now going for a short stroll. I have an excellent idea for the both of you, which in terms of evidence left behind, will be nil. Up and out of the kitchen door.’ Verner waved the shotgun. ‘Don’t do anything foolish or I’ll rev
ert to type and blow you both to . . . heaven . . . or, in your case Henry, hell. It’s not too late for your souls to catch up with Mr Coulton’s here. Wonder which way he went? Up or down?’
‘You’re mad,’ Wickson said.
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Come on, John,’ Henry told Wickson. He stood up on very shaky legs, but Wickson could hardly move. Henry assisted him to his feet and Verner directed them outside the house. The door opened on to a patio. ‘We’re going to the stables, which, incidentally, I burned down. But I bet you already knew that.’
‘And mutilated a horse?’ Henry stated questioningly.
‘And that,’ he confirmed. ‘Shoulda seen his eye pop. Go on, get walking. Keep together and keep your hands on the top of your heads.’
Henry and Wickson walked ahead of him.
‘Why are we going this way?’ Wickson asked.
‘You’ll see, you’ll see.’
They emerged from the back of the house and went down the short lane to the stables. The rain had stopped but the ground was wet.
Henry looked ahead and said, ‘Jesus,’ under his breath. He realized why Verner was taking them this way. ‘Jesus,’ he said again.
‘OK, you two, stop here.’ They had only walked a few feet. ‘Step apart, now . . . bit more . . . say five feet apart . . . that’s it, good . . . now, whilst we are going to walk to the stables, we are going to do it three in a line, shoulder to shoulder. I’ll be in the middle. Henry, you’ll be on my left, John you’re my right-hand man.’ The two captives looked puzzled. ‘Just good practice,’ Verner said. Henry understood. He was covering himself. If he had walked behind them, he would have been exposed, but by walking between them it gave him a degree of safety. Henry also understood why he had been chosen to walk on Verner’s left. Verner did not see Wickson as a threat. He was just a blubbering idiot, whereas Henry was a danger. Keeping Henry to the left meant that, being right-handed, Verner could keep the shotgun pointed at him naturally as they walked. ‘Right you guys, by the left . . .’
Henry needed to know some things before he died, just for peace of mind in the afterworld.
‘Did you kill the undercover FBI agent and Marty Cragg?’
