The Last Big Job (19 page)

Henry remained tight-lipped. ‘Does Fanshaw-Bayley know about
this?’

Davison nodded. ‘And approves.’

Henry’s lips reverted to tight, cynical. He looked at Terry.
Each man knew what the other was thinking. It was an exciting
prospect, yet appalling at the same time. Henry loathed himself for
what he said next.

‘
OK, I’ll do it. But everything is down to me. Every detail.
Everything. Even the merest hint that Thompson and Gunk are unhappy
with me, I’m out like shit off a shovel.’

‘
Fine.’

‘
And the first thing is, for
the sake
of realism, Frank Jagger would definitely lie low for a few
days before slithering out of the woodwork, so
that’s what I’ll be doing. Not least because I haven’t spent enough
time at home for
a while.’

They left the classroom a short while later.

In the very basic bedroom that had been provided for
him at the Training School, Henry settled on the
bed after a long, hot shower. He got to thinking about Rupert
Davison. He remembered him from
years
before. Recalled what a prick the guy had been as a Constable. A
real loose cannon. Obviously the intervening years had not changed
him much. He had been unpopular way back then and as Henry dozed
off he tried to remember why. Then it struck him. Davison did
stupid things, always seemed to put other people in danger and
always emerged unscathed himself. The thought made Henry
sweat.

‘
Look up, you bastard,’ Crane ordered Spencer. All bravado
gone, the teenager was sitting back on his reeking chair, doubled
forwards, trying to nurse the terribly broken arm. The pain was
excruciating, burning up from
his elbow to
his shoulder and across his chest. He rocked in agony, trying to
handle the sickening waves which pulsated through him. However, he
responded to Crane’s harsh voice and raised his chin.

Cheryl was standing up, naked, petrified. Hawker was behind
her, holding her arms, preventing her from
moving.

Crane stood next to her, swinging a solid metal pipe in his
right hand. It was about half the length but of a similar diameter
to the thick end of a snooker cue.

‘
Watch this,’ he said to Spencer.

‘
Oh God,’ screamed Spencer as Crane’s body twisted at the hip
and knee. The pipe arced through the air. He put his whole weight
behind the movement and smashed the pipe against Cheryl’s left
shin.

She screamed and fell clutching her shattered leg, fractured
by the blow.

Crane surveyed his handiwork. Above the sound of Cheryl’s
moans he announced, ‘This is what you get when you cock up with me.
Grief.’

Then he thought the couple had suffered enough. He waggled his
fingers at Smith who had watched the whole episode whilst leaning
against the wall. He handed a revolver to Crane.

‘
Enough of this shit,’ Crane said. He reached out and grabbed
Spencer’s hair, yanked him up off the chair and dragged him to the
edge of the vehicle inspection pit where he forced him on to his
knees, overlooking the edge. Very quickly, without preamble, Crane
pressed the muzzle of the gun against the back of Spencer’s head
and pulled the trigger. The bullet lifted him into mid-air and into
the inspection pit. He smashed to the bottom of it and twitched
only once.

Crane repeated the procedure with Cheryl. Her body landed on
top of her boyfriend’s.

When the echo of the gunfire had died away, Crane looked at
Smith. He was breathing heavily, chest rising and falling, but his
expression was exuberant, as though he’d just won
Gladiators.

‘
You said you had something else for me.’

Chapter Seven

At 10 a.m. next day, Danny walked up the concrete steps of the
block of flats where Cheryl lived. She strode over pools of urine
and spew and avoided broken needles. At the first landing she
turned left on to a walkway. A small group of youths were gathered
outside the doorway to one of the council flats. Danny had to walk
past them to get where she was going.

All eyes turned to her; conversation ceased as they
immediately clocked her as a cop. A lone cop at that. And a woman.
They purposely edged away from the door into her path to obstruct
her.

She approached them with the impression of streetwise
confidence, but underneath she was quaking. She had no business
with these guys and did not want to have, but people like this
always wanted to know what the authorities were doing on their
territory. Danny guessed the oldest of them was about fifteen. Even
so, they were all mean and potentially nasty.

Their chins - marked with zits and tufts of adolescent
bum-fluff - lifted. Sneers appeared on their faces. They were like
a pack of wild dogs responding to an intruder ... in this case,
Danny.

‘
Excuse me, please,’ Danny said politely.

‘
Why? What’ve you done - farted?’ one giggled.

‘
Just excuse me,’ she insisted.

One of them drew himself up to his full height. He stepped
directly in front of her, challenge written across his face. Danny
was tall, but he wasn’t far off.

‘
What’re you doing here?’ he wanted to know.

Danny sighed. ‘Just let me through, please, OK?’

There was a second or two’s hesitation; those tense moments
when one or the other had to give ground. It wasn’t going to be
Danny. The youngster lost his nerve and stepped reluctantly aside.
A path opened and she passed through with relief.

‘
Bitch,’ one of them hissed.

‘
Twat,’ said another.

‘
Show us yer cunt . . . I can smell it already,’ another added
bravely, sending them all into fits of hysterical
laughter.

Danny chose not to respond, acknowledge them or turn round.
She simply sighed and thought, Ahh, the youth of today, the leaders
of tomorrow, and walked to the end of the landing, turning left out
of their sight.

The flat was number 23. She stopped outside it, saw the
obscene graffiti scrawled on the door, the window pane boarded up
with cardboard and the damage halfway down the door which looked as
though someone had kicked it in.

She raised her knuckles, but did not knock. The door was
slightly open. She pushed gently with a finger. It swung open with
a creak of the hinges, revealing a short, empty
vestibule.

‘
Cheryl?’ Danny called. ‘It’s me, Danny Furness.’

Danny’s cop instinct - honed by eighteen years of entering
premises - told her straight away the flat was empty. Something
about the atmosphere. The stillness. The way the sound of her voice
was not absorbed by human flesh, just bounced off the fixtures and
fittings. The hairs on the back of her neck rose, making her
shiver.

She crossed the threshold and turned into the living room. She
surveyed the empty room, listened and sniffed, catching the tangy
mixture of cigarette and cannabis smoke, and beer; some cans of
lager were open on the carpet in front of the electric fire which
burned bright red, hot enough to make toast.

The room was sweltering. The heat hit Danny
immediately.

The TV was on, too, the volume low; a morning chat show hosted
by some celebrity on the way down career-wise. Incest being the
topic up for discussion. Danny crossed the room, a quiver of
apprehension inside her. She bent down, flicked off the TV and then
the electric fire. The three bars faded immediately as though happy
to be relieved of their task. Next to the fire was a half-smoked
joint in an ashtray and next to that a clear plastic bag containing
herbal cannabis. Danny recognised the illegal substance, as any cop
worth their salt would have done. Alongside this was a packet of
cigarettes, the lid tipped open, revealing the contents - about a
dozen remaining from the original twenty. Then there was a set of
keys, one of which looked like it was probably the front-door
key.

Danny sighed through her nose, stood upright and considered
the rest of the room.

Clothes were scattered around the floor, male and female. A
pair of skimpy knickers, a dressing gown, a pair of jeans, a
T-shirt. Cold remnants of a fish-and-chip supper were all over the
settee and carpet, beginning to stink.

Danny checked the small kitchen, the bathroom, the untidy
bedroom.

A very bad feeling made her swallow.

Earlier that morning she had checked the signing-on book at
the front desk of the police station. She had seen that Cheryl, as
well as missing last night’s rendezvous at the cop shop, had also
missed this morning’s. Having a professional interest in the case,
she decided to pay Cheryl a visit and give her the hard word,
intending to warn her that next time she failed to sign on she
would be thrown back in front of the court with the recommendation
that bail be rescinded, and get locked up.

But Cheryl was nowhere to be found.

Danny actually wanted to believe that she had done a midnight
flit, yet the state of the flat was unsettling. People who do
runners usually take their fags and dope with them. Their
lifelines. They don’t leave stuff like that behind.

As Danny went back on to the landing, she again noticed the
damage to the door. She paused, patted her pockets and located her
ciggies. She lit one, breathed smoke in deep and bent down to
inspect the door. She exhaled through the side of her mouth. Had
something happened here? she speculated. Some form of retribution
because of the drugs? She pulled the door to behind her and made
her way back to the car, going in the opposite direction to the
teenage gang around the corner, thinking, Time will
tell.

Where interpersonal relationships were concerned, Henry
Christie was a coward at heart. Because he and Kate had parted on
such sour terms and he had made little effort to keep in contact
with her, he thought it was going to be very hard for him to
present himself on the front doorstep and announce, ‘Honey, I’m
home!’

He drove back from Manchester that morning, planning what he
was going to say. One of his main problems was that he had thrown
himself on to her mercy too many times in the past. Even for Kate,
the most patient and forgiving of people, there must be a point at
which enough was enough. Henry prayed she had not reached
it.

On the M61 he stopped at Bolton West services. After a cup of
tea, he bought several bunches of flowers and combined them into
one big one, a box of chocolates and a pop music tape each for the
girls. . . peace offerings. He had the sneaking suspicion this
would not be nearly enough to appease Kate, probably rightly
so.

As Blackpool drew nearer, he caught sight of the Tower. His
intestines lurched. In ten minutes, or less, depending on the
traffic, he could be home. He knew today was Kate’s day off - she
worked part-time - and that on a day like this, glorious sunshine,
she would probably be gardening.

He came off the motorway at Marton Circle, where he should
have left the roundabout at the three o’clock exit. His nerve
failed him. Instead, he looped right round and rejoined the
motorway into Blackpool, deciding to bob into the station instead.
Just to catch up on work. See what was happening in his absence.
Give him a little more time to think about himself, Kate, their
daughters and the future. And maybe see Danny Furness.

Colin Hodge, the driver for the security firm, was completely
in control of the situation. He felt it, believed it, and was
experiencing it right at that very moment as he walked into Thomas
Cook’s Travel Agency on Fishergate in Preston. He said very firmly
to the lady behind the counter, ‘I want you to book me on a flight
to Tenerife as soon as possible.’

She smiled nicely. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

Hodge sat down on the comfy chair, leaned back, smiled
complacently to himself. Yes, he was very much in charge of the
whole shebang. Otherwise, why would those two stupid bastards have
immediately bunged two grand his way, told him to take his annual
holiday and get down to Los Cristianos where he was to go to a
certain address and wait to be contacted? The contact, he had been
assured, would be very soon. In the meantime, he should chill out,
have some fun. If he wanted anything ‘extra’ he only needed to call
a number he was given and his whims would be attended to. Hodge had
already memorised the number.

The travel agent tapped some details into her computer. There
was a delay of a few seconds before she turned the screen so that
Hodge could see what was available. ‘There’s one tomorrow, if
that’s any good,’ she said.

At the same time, Billy Crane and Don Smith were at Manchester
Airport looking up at a departures screen. The flight to Lisbon was
due to take off in three-quarters of an hour. Crane would be on it.
He rarely travelled direct from the UK to Tenerife if he could
avoid it. He wasn’t too concerned about making it difficult for
people who might be tracking him, but did not want to make it too
easy.

The two men regarded each other affectionately.