by Ben Cheetham
The scene outside the car was instantly familiar. A police car was parked in front of a café. A woman was smoking a cigarette at a table on the pavement. The shotgun-wielding figure calmly crossed the road, putting up a hand to halt oncoming traffic. Catching sight of what was heading her way, the woman sprang up, overturning the table and chair in panic. She fled, leaving behind her handbag.
A man’s face could be seen through the glint of the low winter sun on the police car’s windscreen. He looked young, fresh-faced, like he hadn’t been in the job long. As the figure levelled the shotgun at him, he ducked out of sight. There was an echoing boom and the windscreen exploded in a puff of shattered glass.
“Run!” Jack urged futilely as the masked figure moved in closer. Instead, the policeman started the engine. The car bunny-hopped backwards, crunched into another car and stalled.
The shooter took aim again – this time from directly beside the car – and blasted the second barrel through the passenger window. There was a muffled scream. As the shooter turned to run back across the road, the footage abruptly ended.
The reporter reappeared saying, “That shocking footage was sent to us anonymously a short time ago along with this chilling message, ‘An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, blood for blood’. The injured officer, Police Constable Tim Finch has since been taken to hospital. We’re awaiting an update on his condition.”
“I’ll give you an update,” Steve put in, his voice clogged with emotion. “He died on the way to hospital.”
“The Mahon brothers just declared war on us,” said Jack.
“Yeah well if they want a war, they’ll fucking get one. And maybe sooner than they realise.”
“Sounds like we’ve got a lead on their location.”
“When those morons sent that footage they didn’t conceal their phone number. We’ve traced the phone’s location. The fucker’s are hiding out in Carrington.”
“Carrington,” echoed Jack. Carrington was a village to the west of Manchester best known for its close proximity to Manchester United’s Trafford Training Centre. Steve – a diehard Red Devil’s supporter – had taken Jack by the training ground once when they were out that way. It had heavy security and a regular police presence.
“The firearms lads are on their way there – along with half the other officers in Manchester – and they’re out for blood.”
“Seems like an odd choice for a hideout. Small place, but with lots of journalists and TV crews always hanging around. Do the brothers have relatives or known acquaintances there?”
“No. We think they’re holed up in a warehouse on Carrington Business Park. It’s a big site. Way bigger than the village. Loads of empty buildings. I’d say that’s a pretty good place for a hideout. Listen, I’m only a couple of miles away from you. Do you want me to pick you up?”
“No. I’ll go in my own car.”
“OK, see you there. Remember to bring your truncheon. If you’re lucky, you’ll have a chance to use it.”
Jack couldn’t tell whether Steve was serious. Steve was mostly bark and not much bite, but there was a different note in his voice, an edge of raw hate, an eagerness to do violence. Jack wondered whether Steve’s anger was about more than wanting to avenge a fallen comrade. When people became police officers, they accepted that they could be killed in the line of duty. But those children up in The Lakes had accepted no such risk. They’d been led to their deaths by the very people they should have been able to trust most. And Steve had had a front-row seat to the slaughter. No one – no matter how thick-skinned – could walk away from something like that unscathed.
“And you remember that there’s a missing baby out there,” cautioned Jack.
“Oh I haven’t forgotten that,” Steve growled.
“Well let’s just hope we get a chance to talk to the brothers, because I get the feeling they’re looking to go down in a blaze of glory.”
“In which case I’ll have to be satisfied with pissing on their corpses.”
Steve hung up, leaving Jack with a knot between his eyes. He was worried about Steve, but more than that the entire turn of events troubled him.
“What’s wrong, Jack?”
He turned at the sound of Laura’s voice. “An officer’s been…” Glancing past his sister towards the kitchen, he lowered his voice, “shot dead. I’m sorry for dropping this on you, Laura, but-”
“Of course I’ll look after Naomi,” she pre-empted his request.
With a faint smile of thanks, Jack went to Naomi. Looking up at him with big eyes, she said, “Something bad’s happened, hasn’t it?”
Jack nodded. There was no point trying to say otherwise. The truth was written all over his face. “I have to go out for a while.” He stooped to kiss her soft hair. “Be good for your aunt.”
“She always is,” said Laura.
“Be careful, Daddy,” said Naomi as he headed for the front door.
He smiled back at her. “Don’t worry, sweetie, I won’t be in any danger.”
Laura and Naomi followed him to the door. They waved as he got into his car and sped away.
Chapter 30
Jack headed west out of Chorlton. In the distance he caught snatches of sirens – a lot of sirens. A hurricane of anger was racing towards the Mahon brothers. His frown intensified as he thought about the footage they’d sent to the media. Ryan – Jack would have put money on it being the older brother – hadn’t panicked when the first shot missed its target. He’d calmly adjusted his aim for the kill shot. The Mahons were stone-cold professionals, but not concealing their phone number was an amateur’s mistake.
Something occurred to him. Perhaps Steve was right about Carrington being a good choice for a hideout, only not in the way he’d meant. Carrington was on almost the opposite side of Manchester to North Manchester General Hospital. And very soon so too would be a large percentage of the city’s police.
They take pride in their work. They never let a customer down. Leah Mahon’s words rang through Jack’s mind like an alarm. He braked hard, forcing a car to swerve around him. What if the phone number hadn’t been a mistake? What if Steve and all the rest of them were heading towards a warehouse with nothing but a phone in it? Perhaps the Mahons were creating a diversion so that they could get to–
“Butterfly,” he breathed the name like a warning.
He did a U-turn and floored the accelerator, reaching for his phone to call for backup. He hesitated as something else occurred to him. This was no longer about Butterfly and her baby, it was about Glenn Mahon. Ryan and Gavin wanted revenge for the killing of their dad. They were challenging the police to a fight. That was why they hadn’t concealed the number. They wanted the police to find them. He’d said it himself, they were looking to go down in a blaze of glory.
He eased up on the accelerator, but didn’t alter course again. He wouldn’t be missed in Carrington. Butterfly needed him. And, he realised, with a strange lightness in his head, he needed her too. He needed to look into her eyes, feel her touch, hear her voice. But above all he needed to know she was safe.
Jack skirted the city centre, leaving behind the sirens. The rush-hour traffic had slackened off. The last glimmers of twilight lingered on the steel and glass towers flanking the road. It was the type of crystal clear evening when he would have loved to ramble through the gentle East Sussex countryside with Rebecca and Naomi. Those days were gone forever, lost at the bottom of the English Channel along with Rebecca. But perhaps one day Naomi, Butterfly, her baby and he would stroll through Chorlton together. Not long ago the idea that he would ever again be part of a ‘complete’ family would have seemed like an impossible dream. All he had to do was get through this day and maybe, just maybe, it would become a reality.
Keeping an eye out for anything remotely suspicious, he parked near the hospital’s main entrance and hurried through the automatic sliding doors. A series of seemingly endless corridors led to Intensive Care. He felt a loosening in his chest at
the sight of the armed constable – Craig – outside Butterfly’s door.
“No one is to be allowed onto the ward without my being consulted first,” Jack told the nurse on the duty desk. “Not even your colleagues.”
Eyeing him grimly, Craig said, “I thought you’d be heading to Carrington, sir.”
“I’m of more use here.”
“I wish I was there.” The constable’s voice was strained. “Tim was a mate of mine. I only spoke to him the other day.” He shook his head as if struggling to get to grips with knowing he would never speak to his friend again.
“I know it’s difficult, but I need you to stay focused.” Jack’s tone was sympathetic, but firm.
Craig frowned, glancing at Butterfly’s door. “You don’t think the Mahons might still come after her, do you, sir?”
“I doubt it, but I wouldn’t put it past them. They’re crazy enough.”
Craig’s hand moved to his holstered pistol. “Just let them try.”
Jack caught a tremor of bravado in the young constable’s voice. Ten years earlier he might have said something similar himself, but that was before Naomi’s birth and Rebecca’s death had beaten the bravado out of him. “If the Mahons do come here, you’re not to engage them unless absolutely necessary. The ward is on lockdown, so whatever happens we’ll be safe until backup arrives.”
Craig nodded and Jack entered Butterfly’s room. A smile flickered across her pale lips. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to make Jack’s heart pound. Seating himself at her bedside, he somewhat self-consciously reached for her hand. She curled her callused fingers into his, saying softly, “Hello.”
Her voice made the hairs on his neck prickle. “Hello.”
They looked silently at each other. There was no longer any pretension in Jack’s eyes. His need was laid bare. Did he see the same in Butterfly’s deep-set brown eyes? He felt afraid to ask. His talent for reading people had failed him when it came to Rebecca. It had been like reading instructions in a language he couldn’t quite understand. He’d grasped the basics, but the subtleties always seemed to elude him. What if he was reading Butterfly wrong?
He told himself that this wasn’t the time to ask her those kinds of questions. But he knew it was an empty excuse. This was exactly the time to ask. If the Mahons really were on their way, then there wasn’t a second to spare. The same applied if they weren’t on their way. That sense of having time was an illusion. The time was always now. Rebecca had taught him that.
“There’s something I need to say,” Jack began. “I like… No, like’s the wrong word. What I mean to say is, I…” He had the right words – I want to be with you. I want us to be together – but before he could get them out, there was a bone-shaking crunch like a wrecking ball had hit the building. The room shuddered, the lights flickered, then all hell broke loose.
Chapter 31
“What was that?” gasped Butterfly, staring bug-eyed at the door.
“Stay there!” Jack said needlessly. He sprang to his feet and opened the door a crack, ready to slam it shut if need be. Thick white smoke with a zingy metallic flavour was billowing along the corridor. Someone was coughing. Someone else – maybe more than one someone else – was crying out in pain. An alarm was emitting a shrill, intermittent whine.
Craig was squinting into the smoke, gun drawn and at the ready.
“What’s going on?” Jack shouted over the alarm.
“I don’t know. Sounded like a bomb went off,” Craig yelled back, breathless and shaky.
“Have you radioed for backup?”
“No, sir.”
“Then do it now!”
As Craig reached for the radio handset in his chest rig holder, there was a flash of reddish-white light ten or fifteen metres away to the left. The concussive boom that accompanied the flash set off a high-pitched squealing in Jack’s ears. Craig went down as if he’d been poleaxed, screaming and clutching his face. Through the smoke, Jack made out two bulky figures as black as silhouettes. He ducked to grab Craig’s arms. There was another flash and boom! The doorframe above Jack’s head disintegrated in a shower of broken plaster and splintered wood. He jerked backwards, hauling the injured constable with him. Blood was streaming between Craig’s fingers. Jack got a stomach-churning glimpse of shredded flesh and shattered teeth.
“It’s them!” cried Butterfly. “It’s the men who took my baby, isn’t it?”
Jack thrust the door shut. He dragged Butterfly’s bed in front of it and kicked on the brakes. As gently and quickly as possible, he lifted her off the bed and carried her to the far corner of the room. Taking care not to dislodge the tubes attached to her, he laid her on the floor tiles. He ran to fetch the mattress. The door handle turned. The door opened a sliver and clunked against the bed. As Jack lugged the mattress to Butterfly, from behind him came the thud, thud of someone trying to batter their way into the room. He propped the stiff orthopaedic mattress against the wall in front of Butterfly, then darted back across the room to hook his hands under Craig’s armpits. The constable was silent and limp. That wasn’t good. The Mahons seemed to have given up on attempting to bludgeon their way in. Jack wasn’t sure whether that was a good or bad thing. The answer came as he was manoeuvring the unconscious constable towards the mattress.
A second explosion shook the room. The shock-waves knocked Jack flat onto his back. There was a whoosh like air being expelled from a pressurised container, then came the clatter of debris raining down. Something flat and jagged – possibly a large fragment of the door – landed on Jack’s chest, forcing out what little breath was in there. His mouth working like a fish out of water, he heaved the object away and struggled to sit up. The room was lost in suffocating smoke.
“Butterfly,” he wheezed, scrambling to the mattress.
The mattress was dusty and torn, but had withstood the blast. Jack ducked into the triangular space between it and the wall. It was gloomy in there, but less smoky. “Butterfly,” he said again, feeling for her hand.
“Jack,” she replied tremulously.
Her voice sounded far away to his ringing ears. “Are you OK?”
“Yes. Are you?”
That was a good question. Was he OK? He didn’t know. People in shock often didn’t realise they’d been injured until someone pointed it out to them. There was no chance to check himself over though. He had more immediate concerns to deal with. He peeped from behind the mattress at the wreckage of the room. The smoke had cleared sufficiently for him to see that the lower half of the door was missing. The ragged, scorched upper section dangled from its hinge like a broken pub sign. The trolley bed had been thrown across the room and lay upside down. It and Craig had served to partly shield Jack from the blast. The constable was face down on the floor, limbs flung out at ominous angles. Somehow one of his shoes had been blown off. There was seared flesh and bone where his toes should have been.
Where were the brothers? Had they left, assuming the job was done? A figure kitted out in a balaclava and body armour ducked into the room. The brothers had assumed the job was done once before. They would not make that mistake again. A shotgun butt was pressed to the masked figure’s shoulder. A second, identically dressed figure was close behind, handgun at the ready.
Jack jerked back out of sight. Shit, shit! How the fuck was he supposed to tackle two armed men with his bare hands? A strange sense of calm settled over him as he thought, You’re not getting out of this one, Jack. Naomi’s beautiful, worried face rose into his mind. With it came a piercing sadness. I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m so–
A sound broke into his thoughts – a repulsively gurgling, incoherent yell. Jack risked another glance at the room. Craig was alive! He was clutching at the lead figure’s ankles. The figure staggered and tried to shake him off, but the downed policeman clung on like a limpet.
This is your chance! Even as the thought rang out in Jack’s mind, he was springing forwards. He propelled himself past Craig and the lead figure. The second fi
gure just had time to get off a shot. Jack staggered as if he’d been punched in the shoulder. A numbness instantly paralysed his left arm, but it didn’t stop him from thundering onwards. An Oof! whistled through the balaclava as Jack tackled his target to the floor. The handgun skittered away towards the doorway. Instead of trying to overpower the figure beneath him, Jack scrambled for the gun.
Behind him another deafening blast went off. He half-expected to feel shotgun pellets tearing into him, but nothing happened. Then his hand was on the pistol and he was rolling onto his back and taking aim. Smoke was curling out of the shotgun’s muzzle, which was aimed point-blank at where Craig’s head should have been. The blast had all but decapitated the armed officer, leaving behind a mess of shattered bone and mangled brain-matter. There was no time for anger or revulsion. The shotgun-wielding figure was raising the gun barrel in Jack’s direction.
