The Last Big Job (5 page)

‘
Well, there’s a wait for an hour for non-urgent cases. I’m
afraid you’ll have to take a seat. Could I have your details,
please?’

Sheer anger surged through Crane. Mustering all his strength
he propelled the little taxi driver away, sending him sprawling
across the tiled floor. He slammed the shotgun on to the counter.
‘Is this fucking urgent enough?’

He pulled the trigger.

Before Henry could settle down to have an unofficial chat with
Danny’s prisoner he was beckoned out of the cubicle by the nurse
who had shooed him out of the ETR.

‘
Your friend needs to go to surgery immediately.’ There was a
very concerned expression on her young face. ‘We think one of the
pellets may have ruptured an artery in his upper chest. He’s
bleeding very badly internally and externally. And before you ask -
he’ll be OK. That’s a promise. It just needs to be sorted
now.’

‘
Thanks for that. Can I see him before he goes?’

‘
If you’re very quick.’

Henry strode towards the ETR behind the nurse.

But then there was the shout. The scream. And the
ear-splitting noise that Henry had already heard once that
night.

The roar of a shotgun discharging.

He spun, hand going straight to the butt of the revolver at
his waist, and raced towards Casualty reception, Danny right behind
him.

Crane was slumped like a drunk over the counter, his right
hand holding the shotgun. Blood gurgled out of his neck wound
across the plastic veneered surface of the counter. The
receptionist was curled up, terrified, on the floor. The
plasterboard wall behind her had a hole punched right through it by
the shotgun blast. The taxi driver still lay on the floor
whimpering. The other waiting patients were scrambling away to
safety or prostrating themselves in fear.

Crane reacted instantaneously to the arrival of the two cops.
He swung the shotgun round in their direction, but as he did so, he
lost his balance and staggered back along the counter, trying to
regain his footing. The rogue shotgun pointed upwards and Crane
pulled the trigger yet again, this time bringing down huge chunks
of the suspended ceiling crashing around his ears.

Seeing his chance, Henry launched himself into Crane.
In
those days he was fit, fast and a rugby
player. His six-two, fairly muscled, thirteen-stone body powered
into the injured criminal, driving all the air and fight out of
him, flattening him painfully on to the cold, hard floor. The
shotgun clattered harmlessly away.

There was no resistance from Crane. He had passed out.
Cautiously, Henry disengaged himself and rose to his feet,
wondering once again, if he was the right man for this
job.

‘
Well, that certainly was an interesting tour of duty,’ Rupert
Davison remarked to Danny. It was 8 a.m. and they had worked a
couple of hours overtime to tie up the loose ends concerning their
prisoner from the police car park, who had become the
responsibility of the Regional Crime Squad, despite Danny’s initial
protests. However, by the end of her shift, she could no longer be
bothered. Let them have the little prick, she thought. What she
wanted was her bed.

As she and Rupert walked out of Blackburn police station, they
were greeted by bright sunlight. It was a fine Saturday
morning.

Rupert touched Danny’s arm and stopped her. ‘Danny, do you
want to come back to my place for a drink?’I he said awkwardly.
‘Perhaps we could get to know each other a little
better.’

She blinked rapidly at the proposal, amused and a little
shocked.

‘
I really fancy you,’ he went on, bolder now. ‘I want to make
love to you.’

Danny burst out laughing, turned away from him and strolled
to her car. She had to stop to let a plain police car drive past.
Henry Christie was at the wheel. He gave her a quick wave and was
gone. It would be many years before Henry would even have a
conversation with her again. Henry, Danny thought wistfully at that
time, if only
you’d
asked me that question.

PART ONE

HARD PENETRATION

Chapter One

Twelve years later, June
1998

Even as the passengers filed on board the aircraft, the cabin
crew knew exactly who was going to cause them trouble on the
four-and-a-half-hour flight ahead.

It was a young couple, boy and girl, late teens. As they
shuffled into the plane past the Chief Stewardess, she could smell
the alcohol on their breath, see from their demeanour that they
were ill-tempered and irritable - and drunk. They careened down the
aisle, bumping into other people, not apologising, having to grip
headrests and occasionally missing their hold and falling across
passengers who were already seated.

When they eventually found their seats, a middle-aged woman
was already sitting in one of them.

‘
Get out of my fucking seat, you sad old bitch,’ the young man
snarled, checking his boarding card. His first name was
Spencer.

Having had the prudence to stalk the couple down the aisle,
the Chief Stewardess cut in quickly. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ she said,
scowling at him. She turned to the lady in the seat. ‘Could I just
check your boarding card, madam?’ she asked sweetly.

‘
Yes, yes.’ The woman handed it over worriedly.

‘
I’m afraid you
are
in the wrong seat,’ she explained, almost pained
in the way she spoke. The woman was sitting in the window seat.
‘Yours is actually the aisle seat. It’s an easy mistake to make.’
She offered her hand to the woman and assisted her to
move.

‘
Dozy cunt,’ Spencer remarked.

The stewardess took a deep breath and actually bit her
tongue.

Once the woman was out in the aisle, the young couple barged
across. Spencer dropped heavily into the window seat. His
girlfriend, Cheryl, sat in the middle seat. They immediately
slapped their recline buttons and forced their seats as far back as
they would go.

With her professional patience already showing signs of
stress, the stewardess leaned across to the couple. A thin smile
was on her face. ‘Please keep your seats in the upright position
until we have taken off.’

Reluctantly, they complied with the request. ‘And,’ she added,
‘please behave yourselves.’

‘
I want a drink now,’ Cheryl demanded as though she had not
heard a word.

‘
Drinks will not be served until we have taken off. Sorry.’
She stood aside and allowed the displaced woman passenger to take
her seat next to the couple. The stewardess looked at the woman
reassuringly, then walked back down the aisle to the front of the
plane. ‘Watch those two,’ she ordered one of her
colleagues.

‘
Stuck-up bitch,’ Cheryl said to Spencer of the stewardess.
She was eighteen. He was nineteen. They had both spent the last
night of their holiday raving and had come directly to the airport
from a club to catch the 7.30 a.m. flight to Manchester. They had
indulged in Ecstasy and booze - a dangerous combination. Their
bodies were now exhausted, but their minds were alive and kicking,
albeit not functioning normally. Spending more than four hours in a
plane at 37,000 feet, breathing compressed air, was going to do
them no good whatsoever.

Spencer reached down for the bottle of duty-free Bacardi in
the flight bag at his feet and broke the seal.

They both pushed their recline buttons again and their seats
thudded back.

Danny Furness sat bolt upright in the narrow single bed. For
a moment she could not recall exactly where she was, then her
memory returned.
Geena’s
-
I’m at Geena’s.
She was short of breath, as if she had been
running fast. She hadn’t. She had been lying in this bed, in this
small, sparsely furnished room for the last ten hours, in a deep,
but uncomfortable sleep. Her dreams had been racing along at a
million miles per hour - here, there, all over the place -
incessant, unrelenting. She felt more tired than ever. Her body was
exhausted and weak, as if she had run a marathon. She wiped the
sweat from around her neck with the sheet and lay back on the damp
pillow.

‘
Jesus,’ she moaned croakily; her cigarette-smoke throat was
arid. ‘Am I ever going to shake out of this?’

With a great effort she rolled out of bed, picked up her
toilet bag and dragged herself into the .bathroom and under the
shower. Compared to her own power shower, this one was almost a
dribble. She had to stay underneath the warm spray for many minutes
before she felt clean.

Whilst she was drying herself, the bathroom door opened
suddenly. Danny quickly covered her nakedness with the towel - but
not quickly enough to prevent Alex, Geena’s man friend, from
getting the eyeful he was obviously after: the third or fourth
eyeful of Danny’s body he had ‘accidentally’
manipulated.

This time he was naked too. He had just got out of bed and his
blond hair was in disarray.

He stood in the doorway, displaying a semi-erect penis rising
unsurely from a bush of ginger-ish pubes. He had a good,
well-tanned body, which actually did nothing for Danny.

‘
Ooops . . . sorry, love,’ he said languidly. He raised his
eyebrows, sniffed and grinned wolfishly, making no attempt to hide
his cock. ‘I just needed the loo.’

Danny knew that her friend Geena must still be fast asleep in
the bedroom on the floor below. Danny wasn’t aware that Alex had
been staying the night, otherwise she would have tried to wedge the
unlockable door with a towel or something.

Danny glared at Alex. ‘Yeah, sure,’ she said
sarcastically.

‘
Honest to God,’ he said with an open gesture. Danny saw his
penis had maximised its potential.

‘
If you ever -
ever
- do this again, Alex, I’ll
cut that ugly dick of yours off with a pair of nail scissors.
Now close the door and fuck off.’

His expression morphed from ‘open-honest-accident’ into a
dirty scowl of contempt. ‘Frigid cow,’ he snarled. ‘Prefer Geena,
do you?’ and slammed the door shut.

Danny sank slowly on to the loo, dropped her head into her
hands and rubbed her tired eyes.

This just wasn’t working out; it was time to get a
grip.

The plane taxied away from the terminal building and trundled
out on to the runway where it came to one of those interminable
halts; then the engines began to roar as the power increased. Yet
still the huge machine remained there, like a racehorse in the
stalls, itching to get away. Suddenly the brakes were released, the
aircraft surged forwards on the runway, the massive General
Electric engines of the Boeing 767-200 smoothly forcing ground
speed upwards until the nose began to rise and the clatter of the
wheels ceased as the undercarriage left the ground. The huge bird
rose steeply away from Reina Sofia Airport. On one side passengers
were treated to a breathtaking early morning view of Mount Teide;
those on the other side could see the deep blue of the Atlantic
Ocean.

Within minutes the plane had risen to 35,000 feet. To the
majority of the 270 people on board, their holiday to the island of
Tenerife was, even now, no more than a pleasant memory.

Breakfast was a silent affair.

Geena and Alex had been out late the previous night, clubbing,
and had returned in the early hours to indulge in a goodly bout of
sex. Danny was glad she had taken one of the sleeping pills
prescribed by her doctor. She’d had previous experience of their
raucous lovemaking. Their relationship was in its infancy and
energetic, noisy intercourse was high on the agenda.

Danny stirred the cornflakes in her bowl and
sighed.

Geena and Alex, who was ten years her junior, were sitting at
opposite ends of the dining table. They were visually engrossed in
each other as they ate their cereal, although when Geena’s eyes
were momentarily diverted, Alex took the opportunity to evil-eye
Danny.

Danny looked away, feeling nauseous.

When the loving couple had finished eating, Geena began to
clear away their dishes and Alex slid out of the room to get ready
for work. He was employed as a manager at Blackpool Pleasure Beach.
Danny collected her own crockery and joined Geena at the
sink.

The two women had been friends for many years. Geena was a
Detective Inspector on the Major Crime Unit and would probably rise
to another rank at least. Danny had only comparatively recently
achieved the rank of Detective Sergeant and was realistic enough to
believe this was as far as she was likely to go. They were both the
same age - thirty-eight - but Geena had been through two divorces.
Danny had never married. Geena had been married to two cops and
both divorces were put down to the stresses, strains and demands of
the job. She had two sons from her first marriage whom she managed
to see once a month if she was lucky.