The Last Big Job (7 page)

The steward who had successfully subdued Spencer left him
pinned down by a colleague - knee jammed hard down between the
shoulder-blades - and turned his attention to the wildcat down the
aisle.

He approached on the balls of his feet, lightly, with a
spring. He cut in at the right moment and seemed only to touch
Cheryl on the side of the head, underneath an ear somewhere. Her
legs gave way instantly. She wobbled to her knees and before she
hit the deck, the steward eased her head down, cushioning the fall.
He applied a second pair of handcuffs to her.

It was the first time he had ever used his skills in anger.
The first time that fifteen years of Kung-fu training had been
transferred into a real-life fight. Modestly, the steward
acknowledged the appreciative ripple of applause and few cheers and
whistles from the passengers.

Ten minutes ahead of the Tenerife flight into Manchester was a
cargo flight from Brussels, bringing in a few tons of electrical
equipment. With a total of only three people on board - pilot,
co-pilot, navigator - the flight had been uneventful, boring even.
It was landing bang on schedule, the weather had been fine and the
plane was working well. All three crew lived in the South
Manchester area and were eager to get home as soon as
possible.

They slotted into the approach to Manchester and began their
descent. The undercarriage was lowered. On the port side, the
wheels dropped and clicked into position correctly. On the
starboard side, no undercarriage came out of the wing at all. It
refused to drop.

The plane was going to have to land with only one set of
undercarriage down.

‘
Manchester,’ the pilot said coolly, ‘we have a
problem.’

‘
Shove him back in his cell,’ Danny said stonily to the
Custody Sergeant. ‘He’s made no admissions in interview. I’m going
to make further enquiries with the victim and see if I can root out
any other witnesses.’ It was just after midday. ‘And I’m going to
get some lunch first.’

‘
OK.’ The Sergeant addressed the detainee. ‘Anything to say?’
There was no response. The Sergeant indicated to the PC gaoler to
take Mr Mickey Mouse away. He began to scribble an entry into the
custody record, translating what Danny had said into the
appropriate jargon and abbreviation, which she signed.

‘
He’s done himself no favours in interview.’ Danny leaned on
the desk. ‘Not least because he won’t admit who he is.’

‘
If it comes to it, we’ll ID him through his prints. He can be
as awkward as he wants. We’ve got all the time in the
world.’

Danny nodded. ‘I aim to be back by three. Will you try to get
him to have a solicitor for the next interview? It would be better
for all concerned.’

‘
Will do, Danny.’

Ten minutes later Danny was tucking into a large tuna salad in
the dining room, a mug of tea and several slices of white,
unhealthy bread. It tasted wonderful. She found she was famished.
She rounded off the meal by indulging in an Eccles cake which
seemed to add a centimetre to her waistline as she digested
it.

Her pager bleeped: The message read,
Phone Comms.
She reached for the
phone. ‘DS Furness. I was paged.’

‘
Danny.’ It was the Comms Room Sergeant. ‘Just got a message
via Control Room for Manchester Airport. They’ve had to redirect a
holiday charter flight from Tenerife into Blackpool Airport because
of an incident on the runway at Manchester. Apparently a plane’s
landed without wheels and the runway’s going to be blocked for an
hour or two. They’re redirecting incoming flights all over the
place.’

Danny waited. Very interesting, she thought. But what the hell
was it to do with her?

‘
Two of the passengers have been causing a disturbance and
have been restrained by the crew. They want the cops to be there
when it lands. I’ve got a couple of uniformed PCs on their way, but
no supervision. The Patrol Sergeant’s busy and so is the
Inspector.’

And I’m not? Danny thought.

‘
I wondered if you’d nip across, It’s a bit different, isn’t
it - aviation law and all that?’ he sounded hopeful.

‘
When is the plane due in?’

‘
About ten minutes.’

‘
OK, I’ll
have a look.’ She hung up,
checked her watch and made a few mental calculations. She could go
to the airport on the way up to the hospital to see the
knife-attack victim. Though she had to admit it was a fairly
interesting and unusual occurrence and she was curious, she doubted
if there would be anything for the CID. A couple of drunks on a
plane, a bit of air rage - the trend of the moment ... but so
what?

Blackpool Airport is not very big. A few holiday companies use
it as a starting point for package tours to Spain, but its main
real source of revenue is from business flights to other UK
destinations, in particular the Isle of Man. Having a jet the size
of a 767 land presented no problem, fortunately. The airport
controllers and emergency services could easily hand such a
flight.

Danny and the two Constables watched the plane descend,
painfully slowly it appeared; suddenly it grew large and was there,
touching down perfectly, the merest hint of a screech of tyres and
a puff of dust, then it was taxiing to the terminal building where
the police van was parked. Motorised steps were driven to the front
and rear doors which were heaved open.

Together with a Customs Officer and a member of the airport
staff, Danny and the two PCs trotted up the front steps to be met
by the Chief Stewardess.

Danny flashed her badge and warrant card, introduced herself,
and found it impossible not to notice the woman’s shiner of a left
eye, grazes on her face and cut lip. She succinctly explained to
Danny what had transpired; in total, six assaults and drunk and
disorderly conduct.

She led Danny into the plane where Spencer and Cheryl were
still handcuffed and pinned to the floor by cabin crew. It was a
situation which had caused safety concerns during landing, but
handcuffed and held down they had remained.

‘
The man is called. . .’ the stewardess began.

Danny cut in with a snort and a chuckle. ‘I know them both,’
she said. ‘They are two local characters, well known to us.’ She
did not use the term ‘toe-rags’ to describe them, even though it
was more appropriate. ‘You’ve brought them home, saved them a trip
from Manchester.’

Both Spencer and Cheryl were regular customers for the police
on the Fylde coast. They were prolific thieves, mainly shoplifters,
but Spencer also had burglary and robbery convictions. Both were
known drug-users and were drawing dole.

‘
Hi, Spence, hi, Cheryl,’ Danny said, bending down to their
eye level.

Neither looked particularly pleased to see her.

How they had financed their holiday was a question Danny was
already posing to herself and it was one she would soon be asking.
She was also relishing the prospect of searching them and their
luggage very thoroughly indeed. She was certain she would find
illegal substances on them. Probably for their own use, but even
so, importing controlled drugs carried very heavy
penalties.

Danny’s day was brightening up.

Twenty minutes later the police van was pulling up at
Blackpool Central Custody Office. Danny’s car was behind and the
holidaymakers’ suitcases were in the boot.

Spencer remained as obnoxious and violent in police custody as
he had been in the plane. The result was he was quickly, forcibly
searched and dragged screaming, kicking and shouting down the
corridor and heaved into a cell.

Cheryl was more compliant. She had calmed down and looked
extremely nervous as she was processed. Danny noticed her hands
were shaking when she signed her name to her rights.

Danny strip-searched her in an interview room and found
nothing other than an undernourished girl. Once Cheryl was dressed
again, Danny herded her back into the Custody Office, aware she was
now running late with her other, more important job. Danny was
impatient to get to the hospital to see Mickey Mouse’s victim.
Spencer and Cheryl’s stupidity was a job uniform could deal with
quite capably.

However, there was still the possibility of smuggled drugs.
Danny opened Cheryl’s suitcase and started to list the property.
When most of it had been taken out and logged, Danny felt carefully
around the interior of the case. She almost immediately noticed a
split and a bulge in the inner lining.

Feeling her own heartbeat quicken, she glanced up a Cheryl,
and saw terror smeared across her face. Slowly and carefully, Danny
extracted a brown paper parcel from the lining. She rolled it open
and pulled out a long clear plastic bag from within, secured by
sticky tape. In the bag was a white, powdery substance.

Cheryl said, ‘Oh fuck, I’m dead,’ and fainted.

Chapter Two

The Russian hated airports. They were too sophisticated these
days. Too many cameras, hidden or otherwise. Too many two-way
mirrors and one-way windows, making it impossible to determine if
you were being watched, your movement recorded and the details
subsequently passed to the appropriate authorities and possibly
used against you at some future time.

He often had to use airports, but spent as little time in them
as possible. He always arrived at the latest possible moment before
take-off and always tried to use some subtle disguise, even if it
was only the way he walked or the language or dialect he spoke. The
Russian could converse fluently in six languages and get by to a
greater or lesser degree in four others. Being a pro active kind of
person, his best foreign language was English which he could speak
in a variety of accents - American, Australian, South African and
several British dialects.

Much of his work took him across Europe these days and he
gladly travelled by road or rail, savouring the way boundaries had
been all but flattened. Nowadays he could move virtually
unchallenged and unobserved from country to country. A perfect
scenario for someone like him.

For this particular job, he had travelled west across Europe
by train; a fairly circuitous route from Moscow to Paris, then up
to Caen in Normandy. From there he collected a hire car which had
been pre-booked for him and drove to Ouistreham where he boarded
the ferry
Normandie
to take him across to Portsmouth, England.

That Sunday afternoon, the same day on which Spencer and
Cheryl had been arrested, the Russian had spent the
six-and-a-half-hour crossing inside a reserved cabin, sleeping to
the gentle roll of the Channel, eating sandwiches and drinking Coke
bought pre-boarding from a shop in Ouistreham.

Even on a ferry he was cautious. He always booked a cabin and
got into it as soon as he boarded, only leaving it when the boat
docked.

However, that afternoon, curiosity got the better of the
Russian. He had never sailed into Portsmouth before and wanted to
see HMS
Victory.
Naval history was one of his many interests, and after he had
completed his task in England, he promised himself a short break
along the South Coast, exploring ports and naval
dockyards.

As the ferry sailed into Portsmouth, the Russian found
himself amongst many other passengers in the front lounge of the
boat, watching the steady progress towards the dock and gawping at
the
Victory.

The Russian thought the ship was magnificent. He became
engrossed in his thoughts about it and its history. When a man
nudged him and said, ‘Fantastic, eh?’ the Russian immediately
feared the worst. The fingers of his right hand instinctively
curled into the palm ready to press the release catch on the
stiletto secreted up his sleeve.

‘
Yeah, superb,’ the Russian responded. He eyed the man for
some sign that this was where it was going to happen, but the man
was now ignoring him, trying to peer over someone else’s
shoulder.

The Russian edged away, dry-throated, into a position where he
could see the man out of the corner of his eye.

He was very suspicious.

Who was the man? Was he testing him? Did he know who he was?
Would he have to kill him?

A glimmer of relief stabbed the Russian when two young
children and a harassed-looking woman came up behind the man, who
picked up the youngest child and pointed excitedly to the
Victory.

The Russian’s eyes closed briefly. Next time, he admonished
himself, no matter what the temptation, you stay in your cabin. You
were lucky this time; next time you might not be so
fortunate.

He spun out of the assembly of passengers and slunk
away.

The Ibis Hotel in Portsmouth was perfect for the Russian.
Purpose-built and designed for people on the move, whether business
or pleasure, it was soulless and sanitised. He registered using a
different identity to the one he’d crossed the Channel with, then
headed for the restaurant where he downed a quick meal and drank a
pint of lager.