Two-Faced (47 page)

And could he
please
bring her something nice, because she’d been having
such
a terrible time since those nasty men had snatched her from the loving arms of Steve and his magical gear.

Oh, he’d take her something nice, all right.

‘Noel!’ he barked now, snatching up his car keys and heading towards the back door. ‘Get the guys. We’re on!’

Liam parked up outside Darren’s house and nodded at Pete when he came rushing out.

‘Jeezus, it’s a good job you’re here,’ Pete hissed, jerking his head back towards the house. ‘The old man’s having a proper paddy in there. Where’s our kid?’

‘Alderley Edge,’ Liam told him taking his bags out of the boot and handing him the car keys. ‘He got nicked, but they’ve let him out, so I’m going to go back for him. I just need a number for a cab company, if you’ve got one.’

‘What’s he been nicked for?’ Pete asked, frowning as he pulled a thin branch out of the car’s radiator grille. ‘And what the fuck’s he been doing with this?’

Liam chuckled softly and said, ‘I found it stuck in a hedge and thought they must have nicked him for driving without insurance, or something. But he rang when I was on my way back and said they’d pulled him for indecency.’

‘You what?’ Pete screwed up his face.

‘Seems he took a corner too fast,’ Liam explained. ‘So he thought he’d walk back down and get me to come and help him pull the car out. But he stopped for a piss on the way and some old bird saw him and thought he was exposing himself, so she called the cops. They’ve cautioned him, but he’ll have to go back next week to see if they’re pressing charges.’

‘What a cunt!’ Pete burst out laughing.

‘Oi, knob-head!’ his dad grumbled, coming out of the door just then with a scowl on his face. ‘Quit arsing about and get your mam’s bag. Only gone and decided she wants to stop in a bleedin’ hotel for the night now, hasn’t she – like I’m made of bleedin’ money.’

Pete rolled his eyes at Liam and said, ‘You can afford it, you auld miser. Anyhow, I thought you were a dead cert for winning that grand on the karaoke.’

‘I
am
– if I ever get there,’ the old man replied, snatching the car keys out of his son’s hand. ‘But that don’t mean I want to waste it on hotels when we’ve got a perfectly good bed of our own upstairs.’

Pete said, ‘Wait up on that cab thing, Liam. I’ll come with you,’ and headed back into the house to get the bag.

Liam nodded, lit a cigarette and leant back against the car. Getting straight back off when the old man glared at him, he went and sat on the small wall bordering the garden instead. Glancing to his right when another car turned onto the road and slowed down, he frowned when he saw that it was Sammy’s Bentley.

Sammy rolled his window down and waved him over.

‘What’s up?’ Liam asked, trying desperately not to look at Michelle.

‘We think you might be in danger,’ Sammy gabbled nervously. ‘Kim – Michelle’s mum – just rang to tell us that she overheard Mia telling Steve Dawson where he could find you.’

Giving them a curious look as he came out and placed his mother’s suitcase in the boot of the car, Pete wondered what kind of fare Liam thought they’d be paying, booking a bleeding
Bentley
for a cab.

‘Is that Darren?’ Sammy asked Liam. ‘Only Mia’s apparently given his name and address to Steve as well.’

Liam shook his head. ‘That’s his brother Pete. We’re just about to call a cab and go back for Darren.’

Sammy told him to hop in, that he would take them. ‘And you’d best tell your friend to warn his parents.’

‘They’re about to head off to spend the night in Blackpool,’ Liam told him. ‘Just give me a minute.’

He went over to Pete, pulled him aside and told him what he’d just heard. Pete nodded, and turned back to his father.

‘Oi, hurry up and piss off, can’t you?’ he said, somehow managing to act as if nothing was any different than it had been moments earlier. ‘Me and Liam are waiting to get the birds round for an orgy.’

Flicking a suspicious glance at Sammy’s car, the old man said, ‘Oh, aye – picking ’em up in that, are you?’

Darren and Pete’s overweight mother wheezed her way over the front doorstep just then, and said, ‘You could have bloody helped. It took me ages to get out of that flaming chair.’

‘Serves you right for parking your arse in it and leaving me to do your bleedin’ packing,’ her husband grunted as he took her elbow and guided her to the car. ‘I’m signing you up for the gym when we get back,’ he grumbled when she got in and the vehicle dropped several inches.

Waiting until they had gone, Pete grabbed Liam’s bags and rushed back into the house. Liam followed and didn’t object when Pete thrust a balaclava, a pair of gloves, and a heavy flick knife into his hand. Shoving them into his jacket pocket, he said, ‘Do us a favour and don’t mention any of this to them in the car. They’re straights. They don’t need to get involved.’

Pete nodded, squatted down and pulled the hall carpet back. He removed a piece of broken floorboard, stuck his hand inside and pulled out a gun.

Again, Liam didn’t object. Steve Dawson wouldn’t come empty-handed, so they’d be stupid to go unprepared.

Sammy pulled over when Liam pointed out Darren sitting in a bus shelter not far from his house. The fat agent looked at Liam worriedly. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘Nothing for you to concern yourself about,’ Liam told him, not wanting to alarm Michelle who was sitting in the back with Pete now.

‘If I may proffer an opinion,’ Sammy said quietly. ‘I’d hazard a guess that they might be more inclined to strike at the house first. They’re already in that vicinity, after all, and will no doubt feel safer on their own territory. Whereas trying to spring a surprise attack at a public venue, where they’re likely to be seen by hundreds of witnesses, would be far too risky. Although, if they think that’s where
you
are,’ he added musingly, ‘I suppose they may decide to go there first in order to keep watch, so they can follow when you leave. In which case, you’ll have time to get yourselves prepared.’

Nodding, Liam turned to Pete and said, ‘We’re going to head back to yours.’ Then, thanking Sammy, he climbed out of the car.

‘How will you get back?’ Sammy asked when he came around to the driver’s side.

‘Cab,’ Liam told him, catching Darren’s eye and waving him over.

‘I’ll take you,’ Sammy offered without hesitation. ‘Just let me drop Michelle off first.’

‘No, you’ve done enough,’ Liam insisted. ‘Seriously, this is too heavy. Anyway,’ he added quietly, casting a hooded glance at Michelle to let Sammy know that he didn’t want her to hear this, ‘I think you should go and book yourselves into a hotel for the night. Sooner the better – and not the hotel you were doing that charity thing at.’

Fully understanding what he meant – that if Mia had given Steve so much information, she obviously believed that things were all right between them, in which case she was likely to have told him where she was staying in order that he could come for her – Sammy nodded, and said, ‘Right you are. I’ll book you a cab as soon as I get home and have it pick you up at the bus shelter. Oh, and you’d better take my number – in case something happens that we need to know about.’

‘What’s going on?’ Darren asked, watching as the Bentley drove away.

Liam saved Sammy’s mobile number onto his SIM card, slipped his phone into his pocket and set off across the road, telling Darren the situation on the way.

‘Wish I’d known we were going straight back,’ Pete complained, jumping at every little noise coming from the seemingly endless rows of hedges. ‘If the coppers are that hot round here that they’re on
him
like a bag of shit for having a wazz, I could end up in proper lumber, tooled up like this.’

Telling him to stay cool, Liam lit a cigarette and peered off into the darkness ahead.

33

‘This is bollocks,’ Steve snarled, rapping his fingernails agitatedly on the steering wheel. They had been parked up for half an hour now, and he was going cross-eyed with boredom as he stared through the darkness at the gates of the country-house hotel further along the road. And to cap it all, his car stank of sweat and stale fag smoke, thanks to the three bruisers who were crammed in the back.

‘You sure it’s the right place?’ Noel asked, peering out through the windscreen.

‘Well, it’s the only place holding a function for fucking cancer tonight,’ Steve reminded him. ‘Unless you ballsed it up when you rang around asking?’

‘No, the woman definitely said it was this one,’ Noel said quickly. Then, ‘What if Mia changed her mind and warned him, and he ain’t coming?’

‘She’s too desperate for a hit,’ Steve replied, sliding down in his seat along with the rest of them when a car drove past at speed – unaware that it had contained Sammy, Kim, Michelle, and Mia, who was sobbing as she nursed the black eye that Michelle had just given her. He sat back up when it had passed and yanked a bag of coke out of his pocket, muttering, ‘I’m gonna go fucking crazy in a minute.’

‘He’ll probably go to Mitchell’s house when he’s done here, so we could go and wait for him there,’ Noel suggested, watching nervously as Steve scooped some of the powder out of the bag and shoved it straight up his nose. ‘Davy reckons he’s got no one else in Manchester to stop with.’

‘Yeah, and Davy’s an arse-bandit who’d tell you shit was chocolate to protect his little buddy, so why am I gonna believe a word
he
’s got to fucking say?’ Steve shot back, sniffing loudly to get all the coke down.

‘Well, we know he booked himself out of the hotel he was staying at a while back,’ Noel reminded him.

‘Yeah, three fucking weeks ago – straight after he fucked
me
over!’ Boiling over now, Steve brought his fists down on the wheel and roared like a crazed bear. Then he pulled the mask he’d brought with him over his head and started the engine, yelling, ‘Fuck this! I’m going in for him!’

‘Aw, Jeezus, calm down, man!’ Noel croaked, pulling his own mask on and casting a nervous look back at the others as they scrabbled to do the same. ‘You’re gonna get us all fucking nicked!’

The receptionist’s head shot up when the front doors were kicked open. She instinctively jabbed her foot down on the button that had been fitted on the floor beneath the desk, activating the silent alarm.

‘Keep your fucking hands where I can see them!’ Steve barked as he ran towards her with his gun aimed at her face. He hit her hard in the side of the head when he reached her, knocking her out cold. Then he swung his arm round in an arc, warning the people who had run out from other rooms to see what was going on to get on the floor.

Leaving one of the bruisers to stand guard over them, Steve ordered the rest to follow him and, barging through a set of double doors behind which he’d heard the sound of applause, he careered through the neatly laid tables inside, indiscriminately slamming the butt of his gun into screaming faces along the way. When he reached the stage, upon which the mayor and a fairly well-known local cricketer who’d been drafted in as a replacement for Michelle were cowering, he fired several shots into the ceiling to shut everybody up before leaping up onto the stage to get a better view of the room.

Scanning the terrified faces as they huddled together, he could hear nothing but the volcanic roar of his own breathing behind the mask. When he realised that his prey wasn’t there, he leapt back down and walked backwards through the room with his gun held out in front of him to prevent anyone from trying anything heroic.

Back outside, Steve jumped into the car with his guys in hot pursuit, stuck it into reverse and turned it to face the gates before slamming it into drive, leaving a spray of gravel flying every which way in his wake as he put his foot down.

‘You’ve fucking lost it!’ Noel bellowed at him as he skidded out of the gates and headed off into the darkness without switching his lights on. ‘Anything could have fucking happened back there!’

Steve ignored him, his eyes wild as he tore down the lane. When he heard the sound of approaching sirens in the distance he yanked the wheel round, slamming into and through a hedge.

‘
FUUUCK!
’ Noel squealed, throwing his arms over his head to protect it as he waited for them to slam into a wall or some other immoveable object that they couldn’t see in the dark.

Steve slammed his foot on the brake, causing the guys in the rear to smash into the backs of the front seats, and glued his eyes to the rear-view mirror. Someone had obviously set off the alarm back at the hotel, but the sirens could only belong to the local plods because there wouldn’t have been time for the ARU to have left the city yet. Same with the helicopter.

Counting three sets of blue flashing lights speeding past a minute later, and knowing that there were unlikely to be any more local units in close enough range to follow, Steve waited until the sirens had faded before he reversed back out through the gap he’d made.

He switched his lights on when they reached the slip road onto the motorway a few minutes later and grinned at Noel. ‘You need me to stop at a garage on the way back and get you some toilet roll, or what?’

Noel breathed out loudly and shook his head, chuckling, ‘You’re one fucking crazy bastard, you!’

34

Time was of the essence but Liam was calm. He got the cab driver to drop them in Didsbury, several miles from Darren’s house, so that the driver wouldn’t link them to anything newsworthy that happened tonight. Then he immediately had another cab pick them up and drop them on the Princess Parkway, from where they were able to run the rest of the way in a few minutes.

On the way they did a quick scout of the surrounding streets to check for any suspicious-looking cars that might indicate that Steve and his crew were already here.

Pete went in first, his gun at the ready. Relaxing when he found the house as they’d left it, he set to work as Darren rang three of his trusted mates and told them to come round to give them back-up, tipping all the empty bottles out of the bottle bin into a blanket and smashing them to pieces. Then, creeping out into the yard, he sprinkled a thick layer of broken glass right the way across the back wall and gate.