The Last Big Job (13 page)

The Russian withheld a guffaw. ‘You do not trust
us?’

No reply.

The Russian sniffed, considered matters with a slow,
thoughtful nodding of the head. He came to a decision. ‘I, as an
act of goodwill, will show you that we still have faith in you. The
job will be done, but I wish you to know that if you had done this
in Moscow - turned up with more people than expected or arranged -
you would both be dead now.’ He blinked underneath the stocking.
‘That is no boast. That is the reality of the Russian way of life.
I would have killed you both without question. But as we are in
England, a more civilised and forgiving society, I shall let it
pass. . .
this time.’
The last two words were spoken with a stone-cold certainty.
‘Now tell me about the target.’

Thompson nodded towards the briefcase on the dressing table.
‘There’s a couple of photos in there. Recent ones.’

The Russian pulled them out. ‘He looks a tough
man.’

‘
He is, so be careful. Do you think you can handle
it?’

‘
I’ve handled you two without too much difficulty, haven’t I?’
he responded coolly. ‘Right - I need you to keep me informed of his
whereabouts over the next few days, his plans, his intended
movements. Are you able to do that simple thing, follow that simple
instruction?’

‘
We live in his pocket, so it’s not a problem. We’ll contact
you here.’

The Russian shook his head and pointed to a piece of paper on
the bedside cabinet. ‘There is a mobile phone number on that. I
will not be remaining here.’ He stood up. ‘It’s probably better you
don’t know where I am. . . if only for your own safety.’

‘
OK. Now, you going to let us go, or what?’ Thompson
asked.

‘
You are responsible for your predicament.’ He reached for the
door handle.

‘
You chickenshit bastard!’ Gunk screamed.

The Russian’s hand hovered over the door handle. He crossed
back into the room and stood by the bed. He raised his Browning and
pointed it at Gunk’s head. The skinhead’s face contorted horribly
at the prospect of a bullet. Thompson cowered away too.

Suddenly the Russian slid the gun into his jacket pocket and
as he pulled his hand out, he slashed across the air to Gunk’s
face. The stiletto shot down into his palm and he sliced it across
Gunk’s earlobe, almost cutting it off with the deadly sharp
blade.

‘
Next time,’ the Russian said, turning to go, ‘I’ll cut your
heart out.’

Chapter Four

It is claimed that prisons are the University of Crime, and
there is some truth in that. However, the belief that a young car
thief, for example, who finds himself behind bars will come
out
as a safe cracker, knowing all the
tricks of the trade, is a misconception. The sad truth is that,
more than likely, he will come out
as a
dope-head no-hoper and fall back into a grubby existence of petty
crime and drug abuse followed by further spells inside which get
longer and longer.

On the other hand, it would be unusual for a criminal who has
a recognised trade and makes a good living (a professional, in
other words) to come out of prison and fall into such a way of
life. He is more than likely to come out a better, more
well-connected, more wary criminal or, perhaps, like Billy Crane,
to actually see the error of his ways ... and then move into a
completely different line of activity.

When Crane received his twelve-year jail sentence in I986 for
the safe job at the Halifax Building Society and Grievous Bodily
Harm on PC Terry Briggs (reduced from Attempted Murder), he entered
prison as a hero. Career criminals such as Crane are highly
respected in that fraternity and life in prison was a doddle for
him. He was a very hard, uncompromising man anyway, and he got no
hassle from the prison rulers.

Although he buckled down to the inevitability of prison life,
Crane began to brood in his cell. He constantly rubbed the sore
shoulder where that bastard cop had shot him, and started to doubt
his whole existence as a professional criminal. He came to think of
himself as a blacksmith. A man with lots of skills, learned and
acquired over many years, but which had become anachronistic in the
modern world of crime.

Robbery and burglary were very hard ways to make a living,
even though the buzz of committing such offences was
incredible.

Then he got to comparing himself to the manufacturing
industry, trying to survive in an economic climate dominated by
service industries. The main service industry in the criminal world
being the drugs trade, of course.

As the realisation dawned on him that safe breakers and bank
robbers were old hat, not least because the cops had started
shooting back these days, and that there were far easier ways to
make a crooked pound sterling, Crane concluded he needed to do
something about it: make plans for his release. The last thing he
wanted was to become the grand-daddy of safe-crackers and blaggers,
locked up at the age of sixty because he could not run fast enough,
telling boring war stories to young wannabes.

Fuck that for a game of soldiers, he often though to
himself.

The prisons he guested in over his period of custody -
Strangeways, Wymott, Leeds and Walton - became his closed
university. Four prisons, four seats of learning. The drugs trade
was his chosen subject. He left clutching a Master’s
degree.

Not that the theoretical principles were too difficult to
learn. They were as follows. It was an easy trade so long as you
did not become an addict yourself. The profits were unbelievable
for a paltry outlay. You mustn’t tread on anybody’s toes - unless
you mean to break them. And finally, if your organisation is set up
correctly from the word go, you will not get caught because,
basically, cops are thick. The connection should never be made to
you, and you become rich on other people’s hard work, suffering and
death.

A peach of a trade.

And Billy Crane had a very large deposit to put into his new
venture - his share of the money he’d heisted from the Building
Society in I986 which had never been recovered, plus a fair amount
of cash from other jobs.

Ten years after entering prison he was released with a very
firm business plan, some new connections and the idea that he
wanted to live somewhere warm, fairly friendly and in the same
time-zone as England.

It didn’t take him long to choose Tenerife as the base for his
operation. He had considered the Spanish Costas, but dismissed
them. They were already overrun by British criminals and were well
policed. The Canary Islands were only just beginning to feature
prominently in the drug trade. Within six months he owned a small
bar in Los Cristianos, paid for in cash, and had bought four other
apartments which he rented to holidaymakers. Within eighteen months
a supply line of high-trade marijuana had been established into the
UK, out of North Africa, via Tenerife and on to the streets of
grubby Lancashire towns. Fourteen months on and he was shooting
heroin and cocaine up through the vein of holiday air travel into
the same area, using stupid young holidaymakers who came to the
island for a good time and were always eager to earn extra
cash.

After two years, he owned three disco-pubs on Tenerife, a
couple of bars on Lanzarote, and had just bought a gorgeous villa
on La Gomera, an island reached by hydrofoil from Los Cristianos
harbour. He estimated himself to be worth around three million
pounds sterling. Life was good and relatively easy. Sometimes,
though, things went awry. And fifty grand is fifty grand in
anybody’s money. It wasn’t so much the losing it that annoyed
Crane. It was the manner in which it had been taken from
him.

Sheer stupidity.

He believed that he, personally, needed to make a statement
about this. And that was why, two days after he almost fed Loz to
Nero, Crane was sitting in a plane making its final descent into
Manchester Airport.

He bolted his seat belt as instructed and leaned back in the
upright seat, thinking about Nero. Somehow the lion had just been a
natural progression – pet-wise. All through his life he had owned
big, vicious dogs which fuelled his ego. He’d even owned a couple
of pit bull terriers in his time which had been confiscated by a
court and destroyed after they had attacked a crying child and
almost torn the brat to shreds. At his villa on La Gomera, a couple
of Dobermans patrolled the grounds with evil on their minds. He
loved them dearly.

The chance to own a lion had been too good to pass up. Nero
had been sold to him by an Arab drug dealer and shipped secretly
across from Morocco without bothering the Spanish authorities.
Crane planned a new enclosure for Nero on La Gomera which would
give the beast more space and a better environment. Maybe then
Crane would find a mate for him.

He hoped Loz was looking after him properly.

The plane touched down without a hitch. Crane passed through
Customs, no problem, and was met by a driver on the other side.
Five minutes later he was in the rear of a Ford Granada speeding
northwards. He picked up the mobile phone and began to make some
arrangements. He wanted to conduct his business swiftly and get
back to Tenerife as soon as possible.

The last collection was made at lunchtime. The discreet but
heavily armoured security van drew up outside the bank in Carlisle.
Two guards jumped out of the front cab, leaving one man at the
wheel and another locked inside the rear of the van. All the men
were dressed in identical protective clothing: full-face crash
helmets, bulletproof Kevlar vests and body armour to protect arms,
legs and groins. Even the one inside the back of the van was
required by strict company regulations to wear this outfit at all
times, although he rarely wore the helmet.

Following a prearranged signal, the two guards were allowed
into the side door of the bank. The money was already waiting for
them in four suitcase-sized boxes with carrying handles. They were
locked, of course. The guards picked up the containers and signed
the receipt. A minute later they were outside again. The shute on
the side of the van opened and the boxes were slid quickly into the
waiting hands of the guard inside. He stacked them up alongside all
the other boxes, just under fifty in total, collected from banks
all over Southern Scotland and Northern England.

The guards jumped into the front cab. One of them slid on to
the seat behind the driver. The doors were locked and the van set
off.

Within minutes they were travelling south on the
M6.

The driver was a man called Colin Hodge. He gave his workmates
a sidelong glance as they chatted with relief. The last collection
meant there had been no hitches and now they were on the motorway,
it was plain sailing. Hodge smiled thinly, trying hard to mask his
evil thoughts.

He turned his attention back to the driving.

His heart was beating fast and he was sweating. The palms of
his hands were slimy and damp, making gripping the steering wheel
difficult.

None of the security guards knew the exact amount they were
carrying in the van. However, it did not take too much discreet
nosying about, a few questions here and there, a little listening
at doorways, plus the professional guesstimates of people familiar
with heaving large amounts of cash about, to make a pretty good
stab at the size of the load, all of which was in used, crinkled,
sometimes damaged - but eminently serviceable - Bank of England or
Scotland notes which were being transported to be incinerated to
nothing.

Hodge nearly whimpered in frustration at the
thought.

What a waste of perfectly good money!

He pressed his foot on the accelerator and increased the speed
of the van to sixty, the maximum it was permitted to travel. He
tried to keep his mind focused on the three lanes ahead, blocking
the thought from his mind that very soon, if all went well, some of
that money would be bypassing the incinerator and going into his
pockets instead.

Henry Christie stared at the grease-laden meal in front of
him. Typical transport-cafe fare. The Trucker’s All-day Breakfast
Special. No wonder, he thought, so many drivers died of heart
attacks. All that cholesterol must clog up their veins. The new,
health-conscious Henry Christie, the man who had shed half a stone,
who had motivated himself to run for twenty minutes every day,
found the thought terrifying. His alter ego, Frank Jagger, however,
was not so fussy. He tucked in with relish, whilst keeping a wary
eye on the comings and goings around him.

He was sitting in a cafe on the A580 East Lancs Road, south of
Leigh, near to Junction 23 of the M6. It was an establishment
catering almost exclusively for long-distance lorry drivers. There
must have been over sixty heavy goods vehicles outside in the huge
lorry park, and the cafe itself was bubbling with the last dregs of
the lunchtime trade. Although he was not certain, Henry suspected
that Jacky Lee had some financial interest in the place. Even if he
hadn’t, it was an ideal place to do business, particularly
involving large shipments of stolen goods, because it was one of
those busy, stop-start places where everyone and everything is
transient.