Justice for the Damned (27 page)

‘I need your services,’ said Doug.

‘I’m looking after my dad.’

‘He’ll have to look after himself for a couple of hours.’

‘I’m sorry, Doug, I can’t leave him.’

‘Bollocks you can’t!’ Doug shot back. ‘This isn’t a request, it’s a fucking order. You get your arse here right now.’

Reece’s forehead wrinkled. He’d heard Doug angry plenty of times before. But he detected something else in his partner’s voice, something unfamiliar – a note of anxiety or warning? He couldn’t be sure. ‘Where’s here?’

Doug gave Reece an address in Crosspool, an affluent suburb on the west side of the city, adding, ‘I’ll be waiting for you a few doors along.’

‘I’ll see you in ten or fifteen minutes.’

Reece hung up. He turned at a sniffing sound and saw that Wayne had followed him into the stairwell. ‘What’s that I can smell?’ asked the pimp, his swollen eyes glimmering with sly amusement. ‘Oh yeah, it’s bullshit.’

‘If a word of this gets back to Doug…’ Reece trailed off, letting the implied warning hang in the air.

‘He won’t hear a word from me, I swear it. Of course, if my payment’s a little short next month, you’ll understand, won’t you?’

Reece eyeballed Wayne a moment longer. Then, with a sigh, he nodded. He turned his back on Wayne’s smug face and headed for his car. He slung the bin liner into the boot, reflecting gloomily that its contents were going to cost him dear, most likely for no return. As he drove out to Crosspool, inner-city terraces and high-rise flats gave way to privet-hedged suburban semis and detached homes. Reece pulled in behind Doug’s Subaru. He got out of his car and ducked into the Subaru’s passenger seat.

Doug treated Reece to a broad grin. ‘Good lad. I knew you wouldn’t let me down.’

‘So what’s the deal?’

‘You want in on the big money, right? Well this is your chance.’ Doug pointed to a modest detached house. Like its neighbours, the house was well kept with a large garden. Unlike its neighbours, the house’s windows were fitted with steel shutters that when closed would make the place practically impenetrable. It also had an alarm box and two security cameras under the eaves.

‘Who lives there?’

‘A family. Husband, wife, couple of kids. Just as you’d expect. Only this family is hiding a big secret.’

‘Which is?’

Doug tapped his nose. ‘It’s a surprise. Don’t worry, mate, you’re going to fucking love it.’

Doug got out of the car. Reece followed him to the boot. Doug took out two bullet-proof vests with ‘POLICE’ stitched on them in white lettering. Reece’s eyebrows drew together. ‘I thought you said a family lived there.’

‘It’s just a precaution. Better safe than sorry.’

They pulled on the vests and zipped up their jackets over them. Doug strapped a Taser to his belt. Then he lifted a black metal battering ram with two handles and a flat circular head out of the boot and passed it to Reece. There was a metallic clatter as he slung a bag over his shoulder. ‘You know the drill. You knock on the door with old faithful. Then we go in hard.’

‘What’s in the bag?’ asked Reece as they approached the house.

Doug grinned again. ‘You’ll find out soon enough.’

There was a sign on the front gate that read ‘THIS PROPERTY IS PROTECTED BY STEEL CITY SECURITY’. Reece sized up the front door. It was windowless with a heavy-duty lock and two deadbolts. Not easy to get through, but he’d taken down similar doors back when he was a PC. The trick was to strike the door as close to the main lock as possible, letting the weight and momentum of the ram do the work.

‘Ready?’ asked Doug, his eyes bright with adrenalin.

Reece nodded. His adrenalin was pumping too, but even so he felt calm. After the emotional tumult of the last few days, it was almost a relief to be doing something that required nothing more of him besides brute force.

Like a boxer about to get into the ring, Doug sucked in a breath and puffed it out in a couple of quick gusts. He unholstered his Taser. ‘Let’s do this.’

Reece swung the battering ram like a pendulum. The door buckled, but the locks held. He struck the door again and it burst open with a splintering crash.

‘Police!’ shouted Doug, charging into the hallway. ‘Nobody move!’

Reece followed his partner into a living room furnished with a white leather three-piece suite, a sideboard cluttered with ceramic pigs and a large plasma-screen television. A heavily built, forty-something man sprang out of an armchair. Although it was early afternoon, the man was unshaven and wearing a vest and boxer shorts. Doug shot him with the Taser. The gun’s two metal barbs sank into his chest. There was a crackle of electricity. The man took a couple of jerky steps towards Doug, before collapsing face first to the carpet. As Doug knelt on his back and cinched his wrists with plasticuffs, a busty, orange-faced blonde in a pink tracksuit dashed into the room through a door at its far end.

‘Leave him alone, you bastards!’ she yelled.

‘Control that bitch,’ said Doug.

His words were unnecessary. Reece was already advancing towards the woman, extendable baton in hand. ‘Calm down, we’re police.’

‘Bollocks you are. Where’s your ID?’

Reece flashed his badge too quickly for the woman to read his name. ‘I need you to put your hands behind your head.’

‘This is bullshit. You can’t come in here without a warrant.’

Reece raised his baton. ‘Hands behind your head. Do it!’

The woman’s eyes flicked frantically towards the cuffed man. As if he’d given a signal, she spun and darted back towards the door. Reece gave chase and caught hold of her arm. But not before she managed to press a red button in a small black box attached to the wall. A piercing alarm began to blare. The woman tried to wrench away from Reece, but he twisted her arm up behind her back and forced her down to the carpet. She screamed, kicking like a crazed animal and twisting onto her back. Reece yanked her hands together and cuffed them in front of her. She spat a glob of phlegm at him. ‘Fucking cunts! You’d better get the fuck out of here or—’

Doug inserted a key into the black box and twisted it, silencing the alarm and the woman. He flashed her a sneering smile. ‘Or what?’ She stared back of him with an expression of shocked realisation. ‘That’s right, bitch. No one’s coming.’

‘You’re not police,’ said the man, his voice tight with pain.

‘As far as you’re concerned right now, I’m God. So you might as well shut the fuck up and let us do what we’re here to do.’

‘Fucker!’ hissed the man. ‘Do you know who I am?’

‘You’re Graham Porter. Bryan Reynolds’s money man.’

Reece darted a frowning glance at Doug upon hearing the gangster’s name, but said nothing.

‘Then you know you won’t get away with this,’ said Porter.

Snatching Reece’s baton off him, Doug strode over to Porter. The handcuffed man cried out and curled into a ball as Doug rained down several ferocious blows on his back and arms. ‘Now are you going to shut your gob or am I going to have to keep on beating the crap out of you?’

Porter nodded rapidly to indicate the former option. Doug turned to Reece and gestured with his chin. ‘Put them on the sofa and keep an eye on them.’

As Reece did so, Doug spread a hand-drawn plan of the house’s ground floor out on a coffee table. Two Xs were marked on the map – one where the sideboard stood and another in the adjacent room. Doug sent the ceramic pigs crashing to the floor with a sweep of his arm, then attempted to drag the sideboard away from the wall. ‘Christ, this thing’s heavy,’ he grunted. ‘Give me a hand here.’

The two men manoeuvred the sideboard into the centre of the room. Then Doug took a Stanley knife, a claw hammer and a chisel out of his bag. He cut the carpet close to the skirting board and pulled it away from the floorboards. He drove the chisel between the floorboards and started levering them up. When he’d removed several, sweat glistening on his broad tanned forehead, he reached down into the gap and lifted out a bulging holdall. He unzipped it, revealing bundles of used tens and twenties, each thick enough to choke a horse.

‘Bloody hell,’ breathed Reece.

Doug waggled his eyebrows at him. ‘Told you you’d like it.’ He zipped the bag back up and headed into the neighbouring room. There was the sound of more carpet and floorboards being pulled up. From upstairs, it was joined by the plaintive coughing wail of a baby.

‘That’s my daughter,’ said the woman. ‘I need to go see her.’

Reece shook his head.

‘Please,’ continued the woman. ‘She’s only eighteen months and she’s got a bad cold. She could be choking on her snot.’

Reece glanced at the ceiling, his forehead furrowed. The coughing grew louder, more painful sounding. He thought of his dad being gradually suffocated by the tumours growing in his lungs. With a warning look at the woman and Porter, he poked his head into the back room. Doug was stooped over, straining to prise loose a floorboard. ‘The woman wants to go see her baby,’ said Reece.

‘Sod the baby,’ Doug retorted breathlessly, without looking up from his task.

‘She says it’s ill. I’m taking her upstairs.’ There was a steely note in Reece’s voice that suggested he’d made his mind up and nothing was going to change it.

Doug looked at him with a little shake of his head. ‘Alright, but bring Porter in here first.’

Reece hauled Porter to his feet and shoved him to the floor in a corner of the back room. ‘Don’t you fucking move from that spot.’

Drawing the woman along behind him, Reece made his way upstairs to a nursery decorated in the same shade of pink as the woman’s tracksuit. A chubby baby was standing at the bars to a cot, cheeks flushed apple-red, tears and snot streaming down its face. ‘Shh, Mummy’s here,’ soothed the woman, stooping over the cot. She made as if to pick the baby up, but her hands went under the mattress and yanked something out. As she whirled to face Reece, he saw a handgun. He made a grab for it. The muzzle flashed. The retort of the gun filled the little room. Then it was like he’d been hit in the chest with a sledgehammer. He staggered backwards and fell to his knees, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, his ears screaming like a hundred babies. The woman rushed past him onto the landing.

Doug’s voice came up the stairs. ‘Reece?’

Reece rose unsteadily and charged after the woman. She was standing on the top step, aiming down the stairs. The gun went off again as his shoulder connected with her back. There was a puff of plaster as a bullet thunked into the wall behind Doug’s head. Reece and the woman tumbled head over heels, landing in a heap at the foot of the stairs. Still fighting for breath, he grabbed the gun and disentangled himself from the woman. Her eyes were closed. Blood was trickling from her scalp down her forehead. Doug stooped to check for a pulse in her throat.

‘Is she dead?’ croaked Reece.

‘No. What happened?’

Reece held up the pistol – a Glock 9. ‘It was in the cot.’

Doug gave another shake of his head. ‘It’s a sick fucking world we live in. You OK?’

Reece’s fingers explored the spot where the bullet had hit his chest. The steel-plating was dented but intact. He nodded.

Doug helped him to his feet. ‘We’d better get our shit together and get out of here.’

They carried the woman into the living room and dumped her on the floor. There was a second holdall next to the first one now. Doug quickly packed away the tools, while Reece retrieved the battering ram. Reece made to pick up one of the holdalls, but Doug shoved the toolbag into his hand, saying, ‘I’ll carry them.’

As they headed out the door, Porter shouted after them, ‘Dead men walking! You’re dead men walking!’

There was no one in the street. The gunshots didn’t seem to have drawn any unwanted attention. Reece reflected that any neighbours who weren’t out at work had probably taken them for a backfiring engine. After all, this was hardly the kind of area where gunshots in the middle of the day, or at any other time, were normal occurrences. They stowed their gear and the holdalls in Doug’s boot, then jumped into their cars and accelerated away. They didn’t drive fast. There was no need. Porter was scarcely likely to call the police to report the theft of his boss’s drug money.

Doug led Reece back down towards the city centre and beyond into Hillsborough. As Reece drove, he kept tightening and untightening his hands on the steering wheel. He’d been stone cold calm during the raid – he mentally corrected himself,
No, not raid, robbery
– but now his heart was beating like it wanted to escape his chest. Porter’s parting words kept echoing in his head.
Dead men walking! You’re dead men walking!

Doug pulled up outside a two-storey sooty brick building tucked down a quiet side street. The front door had a steel-reinforced frame. Steel shutters covered the windows. There was an alarm box and CCTV camera under the eaves. To one side of the building was a yard enclosed by a wire gate and a brick wall with razor wire on top. A sign on the gate read ‘WARNING: GUARD DOGS PATROL THESE PREMISES’. There were no dogs to be seen in the yard. But there was a black Audi.

Doug opened the front door and punched a code into an alarm keypad. Glancing around warily, he removed the holdalls from the boot of his car and headed inside the building. Reece followed him into a room cluttered with cardboard boxes. As Doug locked the door behind them, Reece said, ‘Porter’s right. We are dead men. We’ve just as good as declared war on the number one scumbag in this city.’

Doug eyed Reece with a twinkle of secret amusement. ‘You let me worry about that.’

‘How the fuck am I not supposed to worry? Reynolds is going to be coming at us with everything he’s got.’

Doug laughed his deep, throaty laugh. ‘Trust me, Reece. Everything’s going to be fine.’

‘How can you be so certain?’ Reece’s eyes narrowed. ‘Has something happened to Reynolds?’

‘Maybe. Who knows?
Things
just happen to men like him all the time.’

Reece exhaled an irritated breath at his partner’s cryptic response. ‘Come on, Doug, haven’t I earned a straight answer?’

‘You did good back there. Apart from that fuck-up with the woman. How’s your chest?’