by Paul Finch
‘Gail,’ Heck said under his breath.
He shifted position, conscious to avoid making noise, though once again cans and bottles rolled, fragments of glass tinkled together – and yet none of that mattered because suddenly there came the distinctive boom! of a Smith & Wesson .44.
‘Gail!’ Heck said, louder this time.
Throwing caution to the wind, he scrambled to his feet and tottered across the trailer to its nearside, peeking out through the ragged curtains. Manko was standing in front of him, about five yards to the right. He was staring southwards down the Southern Approach, which was scattered with more wreckage than it seemed possible for any road surface to accommodate. He’d clearly recovered some of his composure, because he stood in swaggering posture, machete resting on his shoulder, peering along his Magnum’s nine-inch barrel, regardless of the fast-approaching sirens, unconcerned that from somewhere in the sky came the reverberation of rotor blades.
Heck followed his gaze, and saw a figure scurrying for cover.
Boom! – Manko fired again, the massive recoil kicking his forearm upwards.
A street sign Gail had just ducked behind folded under the impact.
She scrambled away, diving and rolling across the tarmac.
Manko took aim a third time, this time very carefully, eyes squinted, steadying his arm – so focused that he didn’t notice Heck alight from the trailer behind him, grab a shovel, and stealthily approach. The first time the gang-banger realised someone else was there was when the shovel was hurtling down at his gun hand. He twirled to face this new opponent, but it was too late – the steel blade struck the Magnum handgrip hard, slicing flesh and bone in the process. The gun went clattering to the ground, detonating one final time, a slug careening from the tarmac, missing Heck by inches.
Manko lurched backwards, braying with agony.
Fleetingly he was distracted from Heck by the sight of his bloodied right hand, from which a number of digits hung at impossible angles. Then his scream became a roar, and his face a picture of gore-patterned fury. He rounded on Heck, raising his glimmering blade and slashing down with it. Heck parried with the shovel’s handle, though the wooden shaft was sheared clean through. The second blow came equally fast, but Heck was able to weave backwards and evade it with ease – and he quickly realised why. Manko was right-handed; that hand now a useless knot of flesh and mangled bone. He couldn’t even gain balance from it. The third swipe, a massive backhander, overreached itself. He tottered, and the toe of Heck’s right training shoe impacted in his groin. Manko stumbled away, half-doubled with pain, his eyes rolling.
‘Put the blade down, sonny,’ Heck snarled. ‘You’re nicked.’
Manko bared his teeth before turning to run – only to find Gail, wet-faced with sweat as she slid to a halt in front of him. Somewhat ridiculously, she’d armed herself with a traffic cone – and yet it sufficed. Manko went straight at her, attempting to stab rather than hack or slash. Gail hefted the cone, trapping the weapon in its funnel-like interior. With a deft twist she broke Manko’s grip on the hilt, and suddenly he was unarmed. The gang-banger turned again, but he caught a right hook from Heck on his cheekbone. It sent him staggering back against the artic – only for him to roll athletically backwards into the trailer’s interior and scramble through it to the other side. Heck vaulted up in pursuit. Gail threw the cone down and hurried round the front of the vehicle to try and head him off. But Manko was already accelerating away, sprinting through those sections of roadworks not yet demolished. He might have been hurt, he might have been bloodied – but he was clearly fit. Cackling, he threw a mocking glance over his shoulder. And thus didn’t notice when he barged through another barrier of tape, struck an outer rim of breeze blocks, and found himself sprawling face down into an oblong cavity that seemed to cross the entirety of the road. Shouting unintelligibly, he plummeted four feet before splurging full length into a bed of wet cement.
Heck and Gail covered the last few yards at a walk, breathing slow and hard as their sweat cooled. When they came to the breeze-block rim, Heck lifted a visi-flasher, casting a dim yellow radiance into the shadowy pit. Manko had managed to roll over onto his back, but now lay twisted, half-submerged in the grey sludge, which had clumped in his hair and on his clothing, coating his cheeks and caking his limbs. He was a muscular lad, but now he might as well have been a worm in glue.
‘Get … get me out of here, man!’ he jabbered in his curious south London patois. ‘Telling you, man – gemme the fuck out of here!’
Heck spotted a long metal pole propped against a tarpaper shed. He brought it over to the pit, where he braced one foot against the breeze-block rim and cautiously poked it downwards. Manko was so buried that he could barely reach up to grab it, but that didn’t matter because Heck lowered it until its cylindrical tip was pressed against his breastbone – at which point he leaned forward, pressing his whole weight down, slowly but surely shoving the wriggling hoodlum deeper into the mire.
‘What are you doing?’ Gail said.
‘Usually it’s our lot who get buried in the foundations of bridges,’ Heck said. ‘Not today.’
‘What the fuck you doing, man?’ Manko shouted. ‘Respect man, respect … yeah? Lemme out of here – cool it, yeah?’
‘Heck!’ Gail protested.
‘Today Julius Manko is really going to learn the meaning of hardcore,’ Heck replied. ‘He’s gonna be breathing it!’
‘No!’ She grabbed the pole, but Heck shook her off.
‘Okay man, I’ll talk, yeah!’ Manko screamed. ‘I’ll fucking talk!’
‘Oh, I know you will.’ Heck leaned as hard on the pole as he could. With a gurgling slurp, Manko went several inches deeper into the cement, which drew an even shriller shriek from his constricting chest. ‘But I’m not sure it’ll be good enough, Wanko … you see I want the entire criminal history of you and your crew … and every toerag you know who isn’t crew … every single crime you and your boys have ever committed. You feel me, bro?’
‘Yo man, stop this crazy stuff! Hey lady, stop him, yeah – I’ll tell you everything!’
‘Everything? You gonna tell me everything, Manko, or just what it suits you and your boys in da hood – or is it da block? Sorry, I never know.’
‘Yeah man, sure thing …’
‘Nah!’ Heck leaned on the pole all the harder. The half-sunken form was now almost completely submerged, heavy wet muck surging up over his throat and under his chin.
‘I said I’ll tell you everything!’ Manko’s voice was a falsetto shriek.
‘About the murders?’ Heck queried.
‘Yeah man, about the murders.’
‘I can’t hear you, bro!’
‘About the murders!’ Manko howled. ‘About the murders!’
Directly overhead now, by about fifty feet, a Metropolitan Police helicopter hung motionless, its blades cutting the air in a steady monotone, its two searchlights creeping along the wreckage-strewn approach road. At any second the first beam would alight on Heck and Gail, and their hapless captive.
Almost reluctantly, Heck withdrew the pole. ‘Telling you, Manko man – you don’t know how lucky you are today. You really don’t.’
Chapter 24
Julius Manko was only booked into Brixton Police Station after first being taken to University Hospital Lewisham. On arrival at the Custody Suite, he had stitches over his left eye, and his right hand was encased in plaster. But despite this, and despite having a very long chat with his solicitor first, and even though it was now nearly two in the morning, the gang leader was apparently eager to talk. There was stuff he needed to clear up, he said.
This amounted to a virtual laundry list of criminal activity, not to mention full details of all those Snake Eye members who’d participated.
Heck and Gail watched patiently through a two-way mirror while Bob Hunter and one of his sergeants led the interview. Various others occupied the observation room with them, including a detective chie
f superintendent from the Flying Squad, and two senior members of the CPS, the latter sallow-faced and rumpled as they’d been dragged out of bed. Manko, who looked distinctly less menacing in his paper Custody suit, was a trifle pallid too, but still talking animatedly.
Heck, who’d also called in at Lewisham A&E and whose hands and forearms were covered in sticking plaster and antiseptic, listened carefully. He wasn’t sure what kind of off-the-record discussion had taken place between Manko, his solicitor and the various legal bigwigs now assembled here at Brixton, but it seemed most likely the hoodlum had negotiated a ‘some kind of reduced sentence’ deal in return for turning Queen’s Evidence. It wasn’t as if the hoodlum would have had much choice; the pub robberies and the attempted murder of the detective at the Heart of Stone would have secured him a life sentence on their own. By the same token, while Manko was undoubtedly a player and it would be a real feather in the Flying Squad’s cap to put him behind bars, in exchange for his cooperation they were getting the names and addresses of an awful lot of other active criminals, and by the looks of it would be clearing up a vast number of unsolved crimes.
And so it droned on, the prisoner laying endless charges against his fellow gang-bangers: robbery, burglary, car-jacking, arson, assaults on rival crews, possession of weapons, possession of drugs with intent to supply and so forth. Manko wouldn’t have it that he himself had ordered or involved himself in any murders, but explained that certain members of his crew – and again he named them – had probably acted unilaterally.
‘Christ’s sake,’ Gail groaned, glancing at her watch. ‘Are we going to get a chance to talk to him, or what?’
‘Probably not tonight,’ Heck replied. ‘To be honest, I’m wondering if there’ll be any point.’
‘Why?’
He nodded at the door, and they stepped out into the corridor.
‘He didn’t recognise me,’ Heck said. ‘I could see that in his face. When I got out of that lorry, picked up that shovel, and came at him, his expression was like “Whoa, who the fuck is this guy? What’s this guy’s problem?”’
Gail shrugged. ‘Anyone would under those circumstances.’
‘Not someone who’d tried to assassinate me the day before yesterday.’
‘You mean the bridge at the farm?’
‘If that trap was deliberately set for me, it’s most likely because whoever’s perpetrating the crimes in Surrey knows I’m onto them. Stands to reason, yeah?’
‘Well …’ She shrugged again. ‘It was another staged accident, I’ll admit that.’ But she didn’t look totally convinced. Gail had an irritating habit of starting to doubt their leads very quickly.
‘The point is,’ Heck said, ‘that incident at the bridge couldn’t have been anything to do with Manko. He’s never once mentioned me by name. He doesn’t know who I am, Gail. Not from Adam. And there’s something else. All the time I’ve been back in London, I’ve kept SCU busy. Soon as I learned we were looking at the Snake Eyes, I asked them for some DNA work. I requested all the members of the crew we’ve already got on record, which is probably most of them, be cross-checked with the blood we found in Harold Lansing’s tooth. While I was in A&E, I received this text from Eric Fisher – he’s our main analyst.’ Heck held up his phone.
DNA done. All neg.
Gail regarded the message with growing weariness and frustration. ‘What about the murders Manko mentioned when we were arresting him?’
‘He didn’t say which murders, and by the sounds of it he’s dobbing his mates in for quite a few. But not ours … sadly.’ Heck yanked at his collar with a thickly plastered forefinger. ‘Anyway, we were never totally sold on the idea that our murders were down to the Snake Eyes themselves. Just that if the van was pinched on their manor, they might be connected to them.’
‘So, after all this, we’re not going to talk to them at all?’
‘We’ll see what opportunities there are with the rest of Manko’s crew in the morning. It’s a bit late now.’
Gail looked more than peeved. ‘And in the meantime, the bloody Flying Squad get the lot and we get nothing?’
‘Everything that’s happened tonight has happened with the cooperation of the Flying Squad – and that doesn’t come easy. It’s only because of them that we’ve even got near Manko’s mob. In return for that, the least we can do is let them reap the reward for the months of work they’ve put into this firm.’
‘Heck, we’re working important cases too.’
‘Gail, get real.’ Heck led her away from the door to the observation room. ‘Manko’s empowering himself while he’s in there. Wheedling his way into the Squad’s confidence by helping them clean up hundreds of outstanding crimes. He’s their new best pal. We go in next, the guys who broke his fingers with a spade and tried to drown him in cement …’
‘We?’
‘All right, me: I go in there. He’ll just clam up. There’s no need for him to talk to me, because he’s getting the deal he wants right now. But listen, by tomorrow everything’s going to be different. Manko will have delivered his mates, and all bets will be off. No one in the Snake Eyes will know who to trust, so they’ll all be ready to talk. That’s when me and you go in.’
‘Okay, okay.’ She nodded, hearing this and perhaps, deep down, grateful that they were finally calling it a day. ‘So – what do we do next?’
Heck gave it some thought. ‘We’ve given our statements and arrest reports. Might as well have a drink.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Don’t worry, you’ve earned one.’
‘I know I’ve bloody earned one. But it’s two o’clock in the morning, and I haven’t even got a pad to crash in tonight.’
‘I’ve got a bed and brekkie off Clapham Common. There’s easily room for two. Anyway, I’m only talking a quick nightcap. And the Squad have invited us, so it’d be rude not to go.’
Gail pondered this, clearly not appreciating the idea. ‘Seems wrong … after all that carnage on the road.’
‘You didn’t cause it.’
‘I know that, but—’
‘You maintained a safe distance while you stayed in contact with the target vehicle, on the orders of a senior officer?’
‘Yeah, course.’
‘Manko only crashed because he tried to run you off the road?’
‘Suppose so.’
‘There you are.’ He headed for the exit. ‘Some professional standards arse-wipe asks questions, that’s what you tell them. Bob’ll certainly back you up.’
‘How can you be sure?’ she said, following.
‘He’s the bloody Sweeney. That’s what they do.’
The quick nightcap turned into several.
The Squad gave them directions to a backstreet nightclub in Wandsworth where, despite their dirty and ragged state, their warrant cards were all they needed to gain admission through the back door. Beyond that, a burly black bouncer directed them up a rear staircase bathed in aqua-green light to a private bar overlooking a dance floor crammed with revellers and ablaze with stroboscopic disco lights, but insulated from the noise and heat by floor-to-ceiling two-way mirrors.
Various other members of the Flying Squad were already in there, either lounging around tables or seated at the bar. Heck exchanged a few words with them, to muted laughter, then crossed the room to the crushed-velvet sofa where Gail was seated and handed her a bottle of lager. He slumped into the facing armchair and pulled gratefully at a bottle of his own.
‘This place has got to be owned by a gangster of some sort,’ Gail said.
‘I’d imagine it is,’ he replied.
‘And don’t tell me … he’s grateful to the Squad for wiping out his competition tonight?’
Heck chuckled. ‘Maybe – or maybe something similar sometime in the past. I think this is a regular haunt of theirs, to be honest.’
She glanced around at the slick, modernist décor, the low-key lamps, the plush carpets and wall-hangings. Belatedly, she seemed to
become self-conscious about her less-than-glamorous state, trying to straighten and comb her hair with her fingers.
Heck was about to comment on this when he was called over to the bar by a couple of Squad members. He swapped some banter with them, and there was more ribald laughter. When he returned, he was carrying a tray with a bottle of champagne and two flutes perched on it.
Gail eyed this curiously. ‘You didn’t give the impression you knew these fellas before?’
‘I don’t know them,’ Heck replied, sitting again. ‘Well, I know Bob because he used to be SCU. A couple of the others by name and reputation, but that’s all.’
‘So what is it – you guys in the Met, you just party on down every chance you get?’
‘I’m not in the Met.’
‘No, of course. National Crime Group.’
‘Don’t pretend you’re not impressed.’
She arched an eyebrow. ‘With what exactly?’
‘With all this. With what you’ve participated in tonight.’
‘We were almost killed.’
‘Yeah, but we hooked a big fish. Thanks to us, half the tearaways in south London are about to go down.’
She sipped her lager. ‘I’ve caught murderers before.’
Heck relaxed into the upholstery. ‘I knew there had to be a reason why you stayed on Manko’s tail. It’s the buzz, isn’t it? The thrill of the chase?’
‘I was more concerned for you, if you want the truth.’
‘Yeah, I heard that.’ He grinned. ‘What was it you said? “You will do no such thing. He’s armed and you’re not.” Did I detect a bit of partnerly concern there?’
She shrugged. ‘You were a fellow officer in danger. Plus, we’d just seen him cut the throat of another fellow officer.’
‘Yeah.’ Heck twisted the champagne cork. ‘That’s why I wanted him too.’
‘How is that guy … what was his name, Breedon?’
‘Adam Breedon. He’ll be okay apparently, but he’ll have a nasty scar.’
Gail watched absently as he yanked the cork free. ‘Why would he strike out so violently? Manko, I mean. Why would he slash a guy’s throat, drive like a madman, knocking other road users out of his way? Any number of people could have died.’
