Ambush

by Nick Oldham

  Flynn strode over the unconscious man, his posture filling out threateningly.

  The first guy had dragged the screaming hostage up tight against him like a shield. He jacked his forearm across her throat like an iron bar, squeezing her windpipe.

  The girl on the till had her hands to her face, peering out through splayed fingers.

  Flynn, keeping his eyes blazing at the robber, jerked his thumb at her. ‘Go.’

  She fled, leaving Flynn to face the guy he had first glimpsed in the doorway, with the woman pinned between them.

  From the wild, wet eyes and hateful expression and the running nose, Flynn could tell the guy was drugged up after all. Speed, coke, a combination, whatever … it meant his metabolism was running at perilous levels, as was his mental state, making him dangerous and unpredictable.

  ‘What’re you? What’re you?’ the guy demanded of Flynn, waving the gun, which looked heavy and old but nonetheless lethal. ‘Some kind-o fuckin’ hero?’

  ‘Put the gun down, let the lady go,’ Flynn said calmly. The woman’s fingers gripped the man’s forearm at her throat as she gagged for breath. ‘This doesn’t have to get worse,’ Flynn added, although he was pretty sure it would. He used his large hands with nice slow placating downward gestures, not aggressive.

  Instead of taking Flynn’s advice, the guy skewered the muzzle of the revolver into the woman’s neck, twisting it painfully as if he was trying to drill it into her. She screamed. Flynn could see the whites of her eyes, her terror-stricken features.

  At the same time, from the expression on the guy’s face, he could see the myriad of thoughts crashing through his head as panic began to rise when his eyes lit on the sight of his partner in crime splayed out, laid out, blood gushing, bleeding profusely by the suntan display and the big, unafraid, menacing man who had done that.

  He pulled the gun away from the woman’s neck and aimed it at Flynn. The barrel wobbled unsteadily.

  ‘Even under ideal conditions most folk can’t hit a barn door at six feet, especially with one of those heavy things,’ Flynn advised – not completely truthfully.

  ‘Fuckin’ good job you’re bigger than a barn door, then,’ the guy snarled, adjusting and readjusting his aim. Then he jammed the gun back into the woman’s head. ‘Won’t miss this bitch, then, will I?’ he threatened. Flynn again saw the wild eyes, the bad teeth and gums, the terrible complexion as pock-marked as the moon, the snivelling nose.

  ‘Put the gun down,’ he said, soft and firm. In the distance he heard the approach of sirens, cocked his head and flickered his eyebrows meaningfully. ‘Two minutes, cops’ll be here, and if that’s still in your hand, you’re a dead man,’ he promised.

  Indecision.

  Flynn nodded to confirm his prediction. Behind he heard footsteps running up to him. He did not turn but kept his eyes firmly on the robber and the gun. He sensed it was Santiago behind him. The guy’s eyes swivelled to the new arrival on the scene.

  ‘Bastard!’ He shoved the woman forward, propelling her with the flat of his hand at the centre of her back. She stumbled against the checkout counter with a scream, then crashed to her knees, dragging an e-cigarette display over with her. Then the guy aimed unsteadily at Flynn again, holding the weapon sideways, parallel to the floor, like all misinformed villains who had no idea how to hold a handgun properly. Flynn gritted his teeth and clenched his stomach muscles, bracing himself for the impact of the bullet. The man pulled the trigger back.

  Flynn’s world slowed down nauseatingly. He saw the hammer move back, the cylinder start to rotate; he could also see the tips of the bullets in their chambers, deadly missiles in their silos. With the exception of one. The chamber that was next to align with the barrel.

  It was empty.

  The hammer slammed down and the firing pin hit thin air and nothing happened.

  Flynn’s sickly world of treacle suddenly became one of ridiculous speed.

  He saw his chance, reacted and launched himself at the guy, who was momentarily stunned by the misfire.

  The guy looked beyond the gun as Flynn hurtled towards him.

  In further panic he yanked the trigger back again.

  This time the gun fired. But it was badly aimed, essentially pointed at the ceiling above the front door. The round tore into the brittle polystyrene tiles above Santiago. She ducked instinctively as the ceiling disintegrated and fell like dirty snow. At the same time the bullet, by chance, sliced through a coil of electrical cable and instantly plunged the shop into darkness.

  Flynn tripped on something – a mop resting against the checkout – and slid sideways, missing the man, who sidestepped and leapt across the aisle to the opposite side of the checkout. He sprinted for the door.

  Though covered in dust, Santiago unhesitatingly stepped into his path, holding out her hands, palms out, to stop him.

  But he was thin, wiry, and had momentum and drugs on his side and probably a lifetime of evading capture. He zigzagged under her grasp, leaving her clutching air, and was gone like a wisp. She turned as Flynn, recovered from his slip ’n’ trip over the mop, went after him, oblivious to Santiago’s shouted plea to let him go, let the cops have the problem when they arrived.

  Flynn was furious and focused. Not least because he’d been shot at. He knew from experience of chasing villains on foot that if they got out of sight there was every chance of not seeing them again, and Flynn had no intention of allowing this man to keep his liberty.

  As he swung out of the shop door, using the frame to propel himself, he saw the guy leg it diagonally across the narrow street and swerve into the Passeig de s’Alamera, the wide, picturesque avenue running down to the sea front. Flynn upped his pace. He was too big to be a fast runner, but his advantage lay in stamina and tenacity. He ran with the lope of a hunting dog, knowing that if he kept his prey in view he would eventually wear him down because, with few exceptions, guys like this robber were usually unfit. Flynn had caught up on many people coughing up their innards, clinging to walls and pleading for a cigarette.

  The guy was out of sight for a couple of seconds but as Flynn turned into the avenue he was still there ahead, racing down the middle of this pretty feature with its beautifully lit multi-coloured fountains down each side and market stalls in the centre selling mainly jewellery, clothing and bric-a-brac.

  It was still quite busy, although some of the stall holders were starting to pack up for the night.

  The robber glanced desperately over his shoulder, spotted Flynn.

  Recklessly, he fired the gun. The sound, though a little like a car backfiring, was unmistakably that of a gun being discharged.

  Reaction was instant as people ducked, dived for cover and screamed.

  It was a badly aimed shot, on the run, over his shoulder. It missed Flynn, who prayed it hadn’t hit anyone else by mistake. Flynn took a hurried glance and saw no one had obviously fallen, at least not within his line of vision.

  It also meant there were, at most, three rounds left in the revolver.

  The robber ran straight into a woman. He threw her sideways, then grabbed the awning of one of the market stalls and dragged it down. The stall, flimsy at best, collapsed and the man ran on.

  Flynn kept going, not nimbly but managing to veer around the scattered goods consisting of loofahs, wrist bands and tacky jewellery. He was still behind the guy, who dodged between strolling people, screaming at them and brandishing the gun, until he emerged on to the promenade, skittering and accelerating left, still throwing frantic backward looks, horrified to see that his pursuer was a relentless bastard.

  Flynn pounded on, a half-smile playing on his lips. This was an easy run for him. He jogged four miles minimum per day anyway. He could tell the guy was flagging, even after only a couple of hundred metres.

  It was just a matter of time – and dodging bullets.

  The guy ran towards the port with one of the largest marinas in the Balearic Islands. It had over 750 berths, mainly for luxury
boats, yachts and cruisers.

  Flynn got the impression that there was no strategy in the guy’s addled mind, simply the forlorn hope that his hunter would either lose him or give up; neither was going to happen.

  He ran around the headland close to the ferry terminals, down the steps and through the tables set outside the Mirage Restaurant, which occupied a corner plot by the marina. The tables were packed with customers enjoying food and drink and a two-piece rock combo belting out a variety of Sixties classics.

  It was then that the man’s legs seemed to become increasingly heavy, like tree trunks. He crashed into one table, overturned another, scattering a family of four. Then he staggered, breathless, his lungs working ineffectively, towards a row of cars parked on the marina edge, one being a banana-coloured VW Beetle emblazoned with the logo of a well-known Ibizan nightclub and clothing range. He fell against this car and slithered to his knees, his smoke-ravaged lungs rasping for breath as he clung to the vehicle.

  As Flynn approached with caution, the guy slumped on to his backside, wheezing and devoid of strength, unable to raise the gun. Flynn came at him from the side and quickly wrestled the revolver out of his grasp by the barrel.

  The guy’s head lolled with exhaustion but his eyes glowed malevolently at Flynn, his lips in a snarl.

  ‘Up,’ Flynn ordered him, not remotely out of breath, even though blood pounded through his veins. He flipped the gun into his right hand, thumbed the cylinder release and let the shells fall out into his left palm. Two discharged, three remaining.

  The guy swore, too shattered to move.

  Flynn pocketed the ammunition, grabbed the guy’s hoodie by the collar and easily hauled him to his feet, holding him like a marionette. He was nothing more than skin and bone.

  At the far corner, where the port road did a ninety-degree left turn, a police car with blue lights flashing careered around, scattering holiday makers, and accelerated towards Flynn and the robber.

  Still keeping a tight grip on the man, Flynn bent over and laid the gun on the ground, then carefully placed his right foot on the barrel. He raised his left hand to show he was unarmed and dangled the man from his right so that he was on tiptoes, as if hanging from a hook.

  Once more the man looked malignantly at him. He said, ‘I know you, don’t I?’

  FOUR

  It had been a long day for DC Jerry Tope over 1,000 miles away from Ibiza, up in deepest Lancashire.

  Tope had been one of the officers involved in the drugs raids overseen by DCI Craig Alford that day, but Tope’s involvement, like Alford’s, had been for much longer than the day itself.

  Tope was an intelligence analyst. It was a job he loved because it meant he could sit in front of a computer all day and delve. For the last three months he had been part of the Aquarius team, painstakingly assembling what amounted essentially to a 5,000-piece jigsaw of information and intelligence which, with other Aquarius data, culminated in that day’s coordinated raids, seizures and arrests. Even so, Tope did have the feeling that not all the pieces were in place; he just could not find the missing ones.

  But anyway, it had been a very good day indeed.

  Although it was very much unlike him, Tope had been one of the officers dancing a jig with Alford around the new contact centre, much to the dismay of the communications operators.

  He had left work a few minutes after Alford, following the senior detective’s route for part of the journey – up the A59, under the bridge, then back towards Preston. Whereas Alford went north of the city, Tope cut west to his home in the suburb of Lea where he arrived home to an empty house, his wife Marina being away visiting her mother in London. He’d had two days of bachelor living and, weary though he was, he felt the need to get out for a drink. After a quick shower and change of clothes he jumped back into his car and headed for the Sitting Goose, a pub out in the countryside which he frequented, where he settled back with a pint of lager and a tub of salted peanuts and began to chill.

  On his third sip his mobile phone rang.

  ‘Where are you?’

  Tope frowned as he recognized the voice of Detective Superintendent Rik Dean, one of the three detective supers heading the Force Major Investigation Team (FMIT), based at police headquarters. The remit of FMIT was to investigate and run inquiries involving murder and other very serious crimes such as stranger rape and armed robberies. Dean was quite new in post, but Tope knew him well.

  ‘Pint, peanuts, pub. Some sort of European footy match on big screen TV,’ Tope answered.

  ‘I need you to turn out now, Jerry.’

  ‘Me?’ Tope was a desk jockey of the highest order. His forays into the real world of front line policing were few and far between, something to be avoided if at all possible unless it involved a jolly. ‘I do intel,’ he said, but realized that a direct call from an FMIT superintendent was unusual.

  ‘How much have you drunk?’ Dean asked.

  ‘Third of a pint. Just sat down.’

  ‘Leave it … I’ll reimburse you out of my own pocket. This is urgent, all hands on the tiller and all that shit.’

  ‘OK, what is it?’

  Fifteen minutes later Jerry Tope knew exactly why he did not like turning out to jobs. He had made his way straight from the Sitting Goose to Craig Alford’s house on the A6 with a terrible churning sensation in the pit of his guts. There was a row of police cars, all makes, liveries and departments, parked on the roadside and a police crime scene tape stretched across the entrance to Alford’s driveway.

  Tope parked about quarter of a mile distant so as not to get in the way, then walked back with growing trepidation, his legs feeling like sloppy jelly.

  He registered his name with the uniformed PC at the gate, the one recording all the coming and goings and preventing any unauthorized access. He was directed to the Scientific Support van, where he was issued with a white forensic suit with elasticated slipovers for his shoes, a hood and a surgeon’s mask and latex gloves; basically he was covered from head to toe. He was ready to enter.

  He had never been to Craig Alford’s house, although he had known the guy for the best part of fifteen years. Alford had been an ambitious detective with his eye, ultimately, on becoming a superintendent whereas Tope was content to search around computer databases and analyse information. Also, Tope was not the most sociable of men; nerds like him rarely were. And although he had been invited to a couple of ‘bashes’ at Alford’s over the years, he had never quite made it to the door, even though he quite liked the man and knew that his wife, Carrie, was also a detective. Tope had worked with Alford on a few protracted, high-profile investigations over the years.

  His walk up the driveway seemed to take for ever until he finally reached the front door. Across this there was more tape, but at a height that made it possible to duck underneath easily enough.

  Tope stopped on the top step and looked through the open door.

  A besuited crime scene investigator was peering closely at the frame of the lounge door to the left, his powerful digital camera hanging from his neck. Incredibly, he was using a magnifying glass.

  The CSI stood aside and allowed someone to come out of the lounge, also in one of the forensic suits.

  Rik Dean pulled the hood from his head and breathed out long and slow.

  Even in those few moments, Tope saw that Dean was deeply affected by whatever horror was in the room he’d just stepped out of – a room Tope now did not wish to enter.

  Dean wiped his brow with his forearm, then clocked Tope on the doorstep on the other side of the tape. He made towards him.

  Tope watched him approach – another detective he had known for a good number of years. Rik Dean had begun his service, as all cops did, as a uniformed PC, having joined from the Customs and Excise people, as they then were. He had been a brilliant thief taker, his skill recognized, and he was headhunted on to the CID. Here he blossomed and, proving that as well as being an exceptional detective he was also a good manager and
leader, worked his way up the ladder of rank to become a superintendent and a Senior Investigating Officer (SIO) on FMIT. Tope knew, though, that Dean was not finding the new job easy, having underestimated how tough it was at that level.

  ‘You were quick,’ Dean said to Tope.

  ‘Came straight from the pub.’

  ‘This is a bad one,’ Dean said bleakly.

  ‘Uh – why am I here?’ Tope asked. Analysts usually came into their own later.

  ‘Because I want you here from the get-go. I want you to feel part of this, not even slightly detached from it, OK?’

  Tope nodded.

  Dean raised the tape, Tope ducked under. He traipsed behind the superintendent down the hallway to the lounge door.

  Tope’s experience of terrible crime scenes was mostly from CSI photographs and videos, which did give a certain detachment; to be at an actual scene was something very different.

  ‘You were with DCI Alford in comms, I believe?’ Dean asked.

  ‘All day,’ Tope confirmed.

  ‘Were you there when he left for home?’

  ‘I was … I left a few minutes after him, just after eight.’

  This snippet of dialogue took place in the hallway just in front of the closed lounge door and before Tope was given a view of what lay beyond.

  The bloodbath.