The Last Big Job (16 page)

‘
Three hundred quid,’ she replied sheepishly.

‘
And now we’ve got fuck all, you stupid cunt.’ Spencer folded
a particularly large chip into his mouth and washed it down with a
swig of beer.

‘
Yeah, you’re dead right there.’ Cheryl’s face pinched tight.
‘I’ve got you and that’s as good as fuck all because I’m fucking
sick to death of you.’

Spencer shrugged. He grabbed the TV remote and flicked
channels to
Star Trek.
‘You know what you can do.’

‘
No, you know what
you
can do,’ she retorted, her anger bubble bursting.
‘It’s my flat, so you can go. Go on, piss off and leave me alone. I
hate the fucking sight of you.’ Cheryl was now gearing up for full
throttle and her mouth was beginning to take over before her
alcohol-riddled brain cells advised caution. ‘It was a fucking
pleasure to give that guy a blow job. At least he had a
proper-sized dick.’

Spencer blinked as the words filtered through his own alcohol
barrier.

Cheryl covered her mouth. Too late, the words had already
left.

Spencer turned his bleary eyes to her. ‘Blow job? What blow
job? What guy?’

‘
The one I carried the drugs for.’

Spencer stared uncomprehendingly at her for a few silent
moments, his mouth lolling open stupidly. One or two things slotted
into place for him. Mysterious absences by Cheryl on their holiday.
He’d not bothered about them at the time, mainly because he’d been
drunk or recovering for the bulk of the time. And - over one
two-day period - with a bunch of guys he’d met out there, he’d gone
walkabout anyway and ended up screwing some nameless girl in an
apartment somewhere in Los Cristianos. They had all screwed her and
her four mates. Cheryl did not need to know about that, Spencer
reasoned.

‘
You slag!’ he uttered, as though disgusted by her behaviour.
For a drunken person he moved quickly. He rose from
the chair, shifting the fish-and-chip supper on
to the palm of his right hand. He catapulted across the room and
before she could react, he had slammed the takeaway full into her
face, following it up with a punch and a scream.

Cheryl was a mean fighter. She had been raised tough in the
world of alcoholic and abusive parents and children’s homes. One of
her bare feet
connected hard with
Spencer’s scrotum, sending him stuttering back across the room,
clutching his balls.

‘
You bastard!’ Cheryl jumped to her feet
,
picking the broken fish and
crushed chips off her face and out of her hair, throwing the bits
down with exaggerated flicking of her fingers. ‘I’ll get you
for
that.’ She hunted round for
a suitable weapon, found nothing, so went
for
Spencer like an alley cat.

He was no slouch in the fighting arena either, but the lucky
strike on his testicles had taken his breath away. It was all he
could do to fend off her blows. He went under until he was curled
up in a tight ball with her raining punches and kicks on him - most
fairly ineffectively - until she collapsed exhausted on the
settee.

Silence fell between them, punctuated by the sound of the
adventures of Captain Kirk on the TV.

Eventually and cautiously, Spencer raised his head. ‘You
finished?’

She nodded. There was a tear in her eye. ‘I’m sorry,’ she
mumbled.

‘
Yeah, me too.’

They were not the kind of couple who bore grudges against
each other. They lived hand to mouth, mostly for
the moment, wondering where their next drink was
coming from
,
or
their next spliff. They didn’t have the time or the intellectual
capacity or complexity of thought to dwell on things
for
too long.

Still smeared in chip grease, Cheryl slid off the settee on to
her knees and shuffled across to Spencer. He pushed himself into a
sitting position. The pain in his lower abdomen had become a dull
ache. ‘I didn’t mean what I said. I love you really.’

‘
An’ I love you.’

Their mouths clashed and locked in a ferocious
kiss.

‘
I want a blow job too,’ Spencer broke off with a
gasp.

‘
Sure, sure,’ she panted, planting kisses all over Spencer’s
spotty face and neck. She drew him on to the floor and pushed him
back, fumbling with the buttons on his shirt, followed by the
zipper on his jeans. She rolled down his underpants to reveal his
eager but droopy penis. Cheryl tried to hide her disappointment:
The man who said his name was Loz, whom she had fellated on
Tenerife in order to get the courier job, really did have a very
large one. She took Spencer whole in her mouth and worked
diligently on him. He reached down between her legs and inserted
his fingers into her.

Billy Crane did not return to his home town of Blackburn.
Instead, he was driven to the Lancashire coast where he took a room
at the Imperial Hotel, Blackpool, which had been booked for him
under an assumed name. The hotel was on the sea-front, North Shore,
and was the one in which high-ranking politicians usually stayed
during political conference week. He was shown to a suite on one
corner of the building, overlooking the promenade. In the past, he
was reliably informed by the porter, the room had been occupied by
Prime Ministers during their stay at the resort.

When the porter left, Crane gazed round the room fairly
unimpressed. It seemed a lot of money for not much. But it was fine
for his needs and it was unlikely he would be recognised in this
environment. He walked to the window and looked at the grey Irish
Sea, his countenance set grim.

Then he lay on the wide bed, set his alarm and dozed off.
Travel was very tiring. He woke before the alarm, showered, shaved
and dressed smart but casual. Fifteen minutes later he was in the
bar ordering a gin and tonic.

Not long after, another man sauntered in. Crane’s business
partner. After a quick drink, they gravitated into the restaurant
and ordered dinner.

Anyone observing them would have found it difficult to guess
that between them, they operated one of the most successful
drug-smuggling operations in Britain, or that, unless the observer
could lip-read, their conversation that evening revolved around the
subject of murder.

Totally naked, Cheryl and Spencer lay on the carpet, warming
themselves next to the triple-bar electric fire.

Cheryl was dribbling beer into Spencer’s mouth from her own.
Both were smoking, passing a tatty joint back and forth filled with
very potent Moroccan skunk, giggling as the weed took effect. Their
world was now a very pleasant, if slightly off-centre, place to
be.

Reality did strike when Cheryl glanced up at the teddy-bear
clock on the wall. She squinted at it, focused, and worked out it
was ten past eight.

‘
Oh shit.’ She pushed herself up. ‘I should’ve signed on.
Fuck.’ She tried to get up, but Spencer pulled her back - a gesture
that probably sealed their fate that night.

‘
Fuck ‘em,’ he told her. ‘It’ll be all right. I should know -
I’ve been on bail loadsa times.’ He manoeuvred her so that her
small breasts were positioned over his face. He opened his mouth
and sucked in the left nipple and a fair proportion of the mammary
behind it, filling his mouth.

His name was Don Smith. He operated and controlled the British
end of Billy Crane’s Tenerife-based drugs connection. Crane, Smith
and another man had been the three who had committed the Building
Society robbery in Blackburn in 1986; subsequent to that, Crane and
Smith had served time together, though Smith’s sentence had been
shorter than Crane’s. Their time banged up together had been the
foundation of the drugs business, Crane being very much the man in
charge.

‘
I’m glad you decided to come over, Bill,’ Smith said. ‘We
don’t see enough of each other.’

‘
Let’s keep it that way, Don.’ Crane wiped his mouth as he
finished the last of his soup. ‘You never know who’s watching us.
It’s best we stay apart.’

‘
Yeah, I know that. Communication being what it is, we don’t
need to meet so much. But it is good to see you.’

Crane nodded in agreement.

‘
I want to take advantage of you while you’re here,’ Smith
went on. ‘I know you want to do the business and then get home
quick, but I’ve had an approach from someone and I want you to meet
him. Something I want you to consider.’ Smith was
excited.

‘
I’ve come for one thing only.’

‘
I know, but this is well worthwhile, believe me. And,’ he
said mysteriously, ‘there’s something else on top of that you’ll be
interested in.’

Crane rolled his eyes. He did not have time for
games.

‘
Hey,’ Smith said placatingly, recognising he was beginning to
wind his friend up. ‘Trust me.’

‘
I do trust you, Don.’ A waiter arrived and removed their soup
dishes. ‘I enjoyed that,’ Crane said to him.

‘
Thank you, sir.’

Crane leaned on the table when he’d gone. ‘It’s not you I
don’t trust.’ He lowered his voice. ‘It’s all the other
cunts.’

‘
Bill, believe me . . . everything tonight will be worth your
while.’

Crane shrugged. ‘OK - so what about the first item on the
agenda - fifty g’s worth of smack in police hands?’

‘
As we speak, it’s being sorted.’

Detective Sergeant Danny Furness stared down at the assorted
paperwork on her desk which contained figures, charts, graphs,
crime-pattern analyses - all produced on Excel software in very
pretty multi-coloured bar charts and pie charts - and rubbed her
gritty eyes. She had been attempting to make sense of the
statistics which told her, in a complicated format, that crime was
rocketing unchecked throughout Blackpool and whatever the police
tried to do was failing miserably. Unfortunately Danny had the
unenviable task of communicating this bad news to the Divisional
Management Team at their next meeting and explaining why things
were going wrong.

She knew she was going to get a pasting.

‘
Stuff it,’ she hissed, tidied all the papers up and dropped
them into one of the wire baskets on her desk. It did not matter
which one. They were all brimful of paper, everything crying out to
be dealt with - now!

It was 8.30 p.m. She’d had enough. Another twelve-hour day.
She rose slowly from her chair, stretching her aching spine, and
slid into her coat. She was brain dead. She walked out of the CID
office and trotted down to the front desk of the police station
where one of her friends was working, a Public Enquiry Assistant
(PEA) called Helen. She was busy. There was a waiting room full of
people and she looked harassed. She was due to finish at nine;
Danny wondered if she fancied a drink.

‘
I do, actually,’ Helen said, filling in a vehicle document
production form - an HORT2. ‘I’m parched, tired and irritated.
Where?’

Danny suggested the name of a decent pub not far from the
nick. They agreed to meet up at nine and walk there
together.

‘
Oh, incidentally,’ Helen said as Danny was leaving, ‘your
friend hasn’t signed on tonight. Cheryl Whatsername? Big time
druggie.’

‘
Big time sucker, you mean.’ Danny looked at the bail
signing-on book and turned to Cheryl’s page. She had signed on in
the morning, but not this evening. Danny pouted. She checked her
watch. ‘Time yet ... see you at nine, Helen.’

Which left Danny another twenty minutes to get her head around
the crime figures and come up with some excuses for the DMT. She
closed the signing-on book and trundled back to her desk, sat down
despondently and lifted the paperwork out again.

Danny knew why she could not motivate herself.

Henry Christie.

Or to be more accurate, a lack of Henry Christie.

She missed him dreadfully. Just to talk to, listen to his
supportive voice, maybe fall into his arms at least once. Oh God,
I’m in love with a boss and a married man again, she punished
herself. Will I ever learn? At least he had the strength of
character not to encourage her, even though she could tell he was
interested.

But she did need to talk to him. Just talk, that was all. She
looked at the phone, picked it up and before she could stop
herself, dialled his home number. It rang out several times. Danny
was almost relieved no one was there and was about to hang up when
it was answered.

‘
Hello, Kate Christie,’ came the bright voice from the other
end.

Danny’s tummy rolled over. She considered slamming down the
phone, but kept her nerve. ‘Hi Kate, it’s Danny
Furness.’

‘
Hi Danny, how are you?’

‘
I’m good, thanks. Look, Kate, sorry to bother you, but could
I have a word with Henry? I just need some advice about something,’
she lied.

‘
I’m afraid not.’ Kate’s voice changed tone. Danny could not
guess why. ‘I haven’t seen or heard from him for a few days now. I
thought you’d know that. He’s doing some sort of job for the
National Crime Squad and I don’t know where he is.’ Kate knew
enough not to say Henry was working undercover. Even other cops
might not be trusted. But she was clearly upset by what she was
saying and Danny picked up on that.