Big City Jacks

Nineteen

Forty-eight hours after almost going headlong on the ward floor, Henry was discharged from hospital and found himself at home. He was still scouring his brain for the memory of why he had been driving down the motorway with the chief constable, another man, a gun and some bullets. But being cooped up in the house drove him barmy very quickly. He paced like a caged rat and to escape this he decided to go for a walk, both to get out of the house and to get his mind turning again.

On the second morning at home, still booked off sick from work, he was striding down the promenade at Blackpool, heading north towards Bispham. . when he suddenly stopped because he had no recollection whatsoever of how he had actually got there.

He knew where he was and that he must have walked there from home, but for the life of him he could not recall putting his feet out of the front door and setting off. To get where he was, he estimated, would have taken him a good hour and a half, but that ninety minutes was just a void.

A sensation of panic rippled through him.

‘This,’ he said worriedly to himself, ‘is very bad.’ He was convinced that his mind had now completely gone kaput. The madness of Henry Christie. He quickly found a seat in a shelter and plonked himself down next to two old ladies who were openly displaying their underwear. He smiled at them, but it must have been more a frightening grimace and they cowered away from the sex-crazed murderous fiend who was obviously about to rape and kill them.

He sat with his head in his hands for a few minutes, breathing deeply and trying to regain some iota of control. ‘Get a grip,’ he instructed himself with a growl.

Gradually he became aware that someone was standing near to him. He raised his eyes to see a man, out of breath, maybe as old as he was, a few feet away, looking at him. The man’s right arm was in a sling. He looked dreadful, unshaved, eyes sunken, skin grey and sagging.

‘Can I help?’ Henry asked, wondering if this was the start of a new life for him, one in which he played a major part in the care-in-the-community scene. The man looked slightly demented, hunted even.

‘Thank God you stopped,’ he said, panting. ‘I thought you’d go on forever. I’ve been following you for ages.’

Henry’s heart missed a beat. ‘Why?’ he snarled. ‘Do I look like a nutter?’

‘No, no, no,’ the man said. ‘No, I need to talk to you.’

Henry’s next thought was that he was being picked up. Maybe the gay scene was actually his next move. ‘I’m a cop, you know,’ he said, hoping to fend the man off for good.

‘Yeah, I know,’ the man said. ‘You’re an SIO.’

This brought Henry upright. At that moment, something else jarred in his tumble drier of a mind. . something about a clown and a van. ‘How do you know that?’

‘Cos I’m a cop, too.’

Henry’s mind was definitely hurting now. ‘OK, so why have you been following me?’

‘My name’s Lawrence Bignall,’ he said. ‘I know who killed Keith Snell. . and I need protection.’

It took a few moments for Henry to actually remember who Keith Snell was, then, as quick as a brick flying through a window, everything suddenly slotted back into place. And at that exact moment Henry remembered something else which was vitally important, making a connection that, until then, he had been grasping for unsuccessfully.

He stood up. Everything was now clear.

Lawrence Bignall showed Henry his shoulder, peeling back the dressing to reveal an ugly red wound seeping unhealthily.

‘Keith Snell did that to me,’ he said.

They were sitting in an interview room at Fleetwood police station, Henry having decided to go there because it was quiet, out of the way, and there was less likelihood of an interruption. They had flagged a taxi down on the promenade to take them.

Bignall looked fearfully at Henry. ‘I checked myself out of the hospital before treatment was complete. . I couldn’t stay in. It was too dangerous.’

‘Why?’

‘A feeling. More than a feeling, actually. . I just knew I was a liability to them. . and the truth is, I am,’ Bignall admitted. ‘I got scared and they saw I was scared. I’m surprised he pushed me out at the hospital in the first place.’

‘Hold it there,’ Henry said. Bignall was far too ahead of himself now. Henry needed to reel him in, rewind right to the beginning, then press play. But even knowing that, Henry still could not resist asking, ‘Who’s they? And who is he?’

Bignall’s face screwed up, and he hesitated. This was one of those defining moments and both he and Henry knew that. The moment of no return.

‘They are the “Invincibles”,’ he said, ‘and he is Phil Lynch.’

A good sign. Henry recalled both in his recently revamped memory.

He remembered sitting in the CID office at the Arena police station in Manchester — seemed like a year ago — and seeing a poster with the word “Invincibles” on it. . and then he had been introduced to his Single Point of Contact, his SPOC. A detective sergeant called Phil Lynch.

A curious sensation travelled all the way from Henry’s heart to what is affectionately known as the ‘ringpiece’. He kept a calm, outward exterior, although inside he was almost having a cardiac arrest at this information. When he said, ‘Let’s take it back to square one, shall we? Tell me in a logical, chronological sequence, then I can understand everything you are telling me,’ he did manage to keep a straight face and not jump up and down with excitement.

Two hours later, Henry, Dave Anger and Jane Roscoe were with Bignall. Henry had realized immediately that he could not keep any of this to himself. It was far too big for one man to handle and although it stuck in his gullet to go to Anger, he did it because it was the right thing to do.

Following Bignall’s revelations to Henry, he had actually decided to relocate the witness away from any police station. Even though Fleetwood was a pretty quiet backwater, the police family is a pretty small one and word travels fast. He wanted to keep a lid on what was happening, so he contacted Rik Dean, the DS at Blackpool, and ordered — yes, ordered — him to drop everything and pick him and Bignall up at Fleetwood cop shop. Henry did not explain anything to Dean and Dean did not ask. It was unusual enough for Henry to ‘order’ anyone to do anything — he usually worked by persuasion — so Dean instinctively knew something big was afoot. He kept his questions to himself.

‘Take us to headquarters,’ Henry said quietly, ‘and don’t tell anyone anything.’

‘OK.’ Dean only glanced the once at Henry’s less than professional appearance — unshaven and in a tracksuit and trainers.

Henry hustled Bignall out of the police station into the back of Dean’s waiting car.

‘Any news on Roy Costain yet?’ Henry asked Dean in a whisper.

Dean shook his head. Henry shrugged, certain that before the day was out the police would know, at the very least, where Roy was, if not have him in custody. He kept that little nugget from Dean, not wishing to divulge anything just yet.

As they headed out of the fishing town, Henry keyed Dave Anger’s number into his mobile and called him.

When he said, ‘It’s Henry Christie,’ Anger barked, ‘You’re supposed to be off sick and I’m in a meeting, trying to sort out the sorry mess you left behind, actually.’

‘I need to see you urgently.’

‘Yeah, right. . your head still playing tricks with you? I’m surprised you can remember who I am.’

‘Don’t be an arsehole,’ Henry found the courage to say, eliciting a couple of very raised eyebrows from Rik Dean at the wheel, and a silent whistle of respect.

‘Who are you calling an. .?’

‘Just shut it and listen, OK,’ Henry interrupted firmly. ‘This is urgent and I can’t talk to you over the phone. I need to see you face to face.’

‘About your transfer request, I hope.’

Henry was a pan of water just about on the boil. ‘No, it’s about the accident. . and the other stuff. . the gun, all that. Take this seriously, it’s very urgent,’ he reiterated.

‘OK,’ Anger relented unhappily. ‘Are you coming to see me at HQ?’

‘No. .’ Henry’s mind scrambled for a location, suddenly deciding that HQ was not the best place for Bignall. ‘The Holiday Inn Express at Bamber Bridge, the new one just built near to Sainsbury’s, just off the M6.’

‘Why there?’

‘Just be there — forty-five minutes, tops,’ Henry snapped and folded his phone. He glanced sideways at Rik Dean. ‘OK, change of plan.’

‘Whatever.’

‘And after we’ve booked in, there’s something I’d like you to do for me.’

‘Whatever.’

The hotel, as Henry said, was newly built, the paint barely dry. It was situated close to junction twenty-nine, overlooking a very busy part of the A6. Henry’s journey took less than thirty minutes, which gave him time to book two adjoining rooms and settle Bignall down before Anger appeared on the scene. He purposely said very little to Bignall, but remained at the window, watching the road for Anger. When he spotted Anger’s car going through the traffic lights, two people on board, he called him and told him what room to come to.

‘This better be spot on, Henry,’ the superintendent said, ‘or I’ll have your guts, mate.’

Henry simply laughed and was still sniggering superciliously when his mobile rang again, the number calling withheld.

‘That you, Henry?’

He recognized the voice at the other end instantly. ‘Christ — is that you, too?’

‘I’ll refrain from saying no, it’s not Christ, but I have risen from the dead, so I have a great deal in common with the Messiah.’

‘What the hell happened to you?’ Henry demanded. Up until last night he had been in regular contact with Karen, Karl Donaldson’s wife, who was growing ever more desperate as nothing had been heard about Karl. She was increasingly fearing the worst, as had Henry.

‘Long story. . tell you sometime. . but just thought I’d tell you I’m fine, Karen’s fine, I’m in trouble at the Legat, but what the hell, and that I’m on my way to Manchester to sort out some Spanish business, hopefully. I hear you had a nasty accident, too.’

‘Manchester?’ Henry ruminated, not hearing the rest of what Donaldson had said after that word. ‘Karl, there is one thing I do need to mention to you.’ Henry was still by the hotel-room window, watching Anger park up, get out. Jane Roscoe was with him and he squirmed slightly when he saw her climb out of the car, wondering briefly if Anger was fettling her. ‘Clown masks. . black van. . ring any bells?’

It was a cautious ‘Yep, why?’ from the American.

‘I’ve been upsetting people in Manchester. . result was I got forced off the motorway by a guy in a van. . a guy wearing a clown mask and driving a black Citroen van.’

Donaldson did not respond for a few moments, making Henry think the connection had been lost. He hated mobile phones.

‘You still there?’

‘Yeah. . Henry, I need to talk to you before I go snooping around with both barrels,’ he said decisively. ‘Where are you now?’

Henry told him. ‘You?’

‘M6 heading north, just before the M62 turn-off for Manchester. I’ll keep going. Should be with you in about twenty minutes, traffic notwithstanding.’

There was a knock on the hotel-room door. Henry finished the call and opened the door, revealing Dave Anger and Jane Roscoe standing in the corridor, both their faces set with cynical expressions and their non-verbals indicating impatience verging on infuriation. This told Henry that neither of them was a very happy bunny.

He greeted them warmly, holding back an urge to act like the lunatic they clearly thought he was. ‘Come in, please.’ They edged past him and caught sight of the man sitting on the bed in the adjoining room.

Anger turned to Henry. ‘Who the fuck’s that?’

‘A witness to a murder. . Keith Snell’s murder.’

Their faces changed dramatically, Henry saw with satisfaction.

To coin a phrase, Detective Superintendent Carl Easton was up to his neck in it, rather like standing in a midden.

The Sweetman trial had been bad enough and the fact that an outside force had been contracted to investigate was not great, but he had totally believed he could wriggle out of that one; what was now giving him more trouble than ever began when he received a phone call.

It came on a particular mobile phone, a number known only to a select few, so he answered it without hesitation. But the voice he heard and recognized within one or two syllables sent an icy spike down into his bowels.

The voice was calm and measured. It was Rufus Sweetman.

‘Hello, Carl, my friend.’

‘Who’s this?’ Easton demanded, reckoning he did not know.

‘You know who it is.’

‘How did you get this number?’

‘Contacts,’ Sweetman said smugly.

‘What do you want?’

‘My property back — that’s all.’

‘You got all your property back at court,’ Easton reminded him. ‘I gave it to you personally.’

‘I think you know which property I mean. . fell off the back of a lorry, so to speak.’

Easton gulped, fell silent.

‘Penny dropped?’ Sweetman inquired.

‘No, don’t know what you mean.’ He clicked the tiny red button on his mobile and terminated the call. He spun round to Lynch and Hamlet, his two detective sergeants, and stared at them, shocked.

‘Who was that?’ Lynch said. They were in Easton’s office at the Arena police station.

‘We’ve nicked Rufus Sweetman’s cocaine,’ Easton announced.

Hamlet whistled. ‘Way to go!’

Lynch said, ‘Effin’ hell.’

Easton raised his eyebrows. ‘He wants it back. .’ He smiled. ‘But he can’t have it.’ He had opened his mouth to say more when his mobile rang again. ‘Sweetman,’ he guessed, and answered it. ‘Yep?’

‘Put it this way,’ Sweetman’s voice said coldly. ‘All we want is our goods returned. . and if we don’t get ’em, one cop will die every day from now on. An innocent cop, that is, not a bent bastard like you.’

Click. Phone dead.

That had been two days before and no cop had died — yet.

One uniformed PC from the city centre was lying in intensive care after being approached by a man who asked for directions and then shot him in the lower gut, below the line of his ballistic vest; another officer had been treated for shotgun wounds to the arm after being ambushed in an alley by a masked gunman. Sheer luck and body armour had saved him.

Although the two incidents had not been officially linked, Easton knew they were. He also knew that the effect of the shootings was to terrify all patrol officers, all of them wondering who would be next to take a bullet.

Easton knew he was sitting on a terrible secret, one he could only share with a few people.

Easton had been a corrupt cop for nearly all his service. He took bribes as a uniformed constable back in the ’70s, then later accepted backhanders for turning a blind eye or falsifying evidence to suit the circumstances. It was way back then he had started dealing in drugs through his prisoners.

All the while though, he kept an eye on his career because he wanted to combine crime-fighting with corruption — the challenge of a lifetime. Along the way he had carefully nurtured other cops and several of his contemporaries had retired with hefty Spanish bank balances after a few years of working alongside Carl Easton. He had nicknamed his team the Invincibles, because no one had yet beaten them. No one was going to, either, Easton believed.

Also along the way he had destroyed the careers of many criminals, sometimes by fair means, often by foul. He loved sending people to prison, particularly when he had engineered their guilt.

His goal had always been to run two careers in parallel. The cop and the criminal. Ridding the streets of the real bad guys, whilst stepping into their business shoes when they were getting kitted out in prison uniform.

And one of the crims he had most desperately wanted to put away was Rufus Sweetman — a guy who had been operating right under Easton’s nose for years on his city-centre patch. He had grown to hate Sweetman — the way he held a middle finger up at the law — and also to covet everything he owned: the apartment on the Quay, Ginny Jensen, the fabulous-looking girlfriend, the house in the Bahamas, the cars, the money.

Sweetman had gradually become an obsession. The man Easton most wanted to destroy.

And whilst this obsession had been simmering, Easton had chanced upon an amazing supplier of drugs. A man he never met, only ever spoke to occasionally by phone. Obviously a Spaniard or an Italian, but someone who supplied Easton with cut-price drugs with which he cornered a market consisting of young professionals.

How the man knew of him in the first place, he did not know.

Just a phone call from nowhere, two years earlier. This followed by delicate negotiations, Easton drawn by the prospect of drugs which often undercut other wholesalers by 50 per cent. The business had grown using ‘his staff’ as he called them — the band of corrupt detectives and uniformed cops whose pockets he had lined with cash. Easton’s principle was that each arrest, particularly of a professional person (and there were plenty) had potential. Some arrests led into massive drugs markets which produced hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of business.

And all the while, Sweetman hovered teasingly.

In the end Easton decided to bring him down in a way which would ensure that he was off the streets for a long, long time and would also bolster Easton’s own standing within the force, maybe even secure promotion. He fitted Sweetman up for murder.

The only thing was, there was no murder.

So Easton ‘engineered’ one.

The brutal death of Jackson Hazell, the unfortunate man who had fallen out big-style with Sweetman over a drug debt (something widely known in the Manchester underworld, and therefore by the cops, too). He had been kicked to death in an alleyway off Deansgate by three men, one of whom, it was alleged, was Sweetman.

In fact the three men who killed Hazell were Carl Easton himself, Phil Lynch and Gus Hamlet, Easton’s core team. They planted some forensic evidence in Sweetman’s trash, even verballed Sweetman up; they coerced false statements out of people who owed Easton a favour, which placed Sweetman in the right place at the right time.

And, all things being equal, he should have been convicted.

But the phone calls changed all that, put everything else in doubt, and Sweetman got released.

On that day Easton’s team were acting on information from the mystery drug supplier. If they were interested, he said enticingly, there was a mass consignment due into Manchester from the continent. It was theirs for the taking, if they had the bottle. It would set them up for life.

Easton, whilst still at Lancaster Crown Court, had set his team of police officers, led by the murderous Lynch, to pull the job at Birch Services on the M62.

But what they didn’t know at that time was that the drugs belonged to Sweetman.

Now they had this knowledge, but it did not concern Easton too much. What did concern him was that cops were now targets of random attacks. At heart, Easton believed his first love was the service, despite his corruption, and he did not really enjoy seeing other officers hurt. That made him angry. It made him want to destroy Sweetman once and for all. At least if he did it, he would make sure that, if the body was found — which it would not be — it would be in Greater Manchester this time.

Dave Anger could not disguise the look of utter contempt as he regarded Lawrence Bignall, a corrupt cop for whom things had turned out very badly indeed. Bignall was on the edge of the bed in the hotel room. Anger and Henry were on the two chairs in the room. Roscoe leaned against the interconnecting door, arms folded, listening to Bignall chatter away. He was talking as if it was just a friendly discussion with mates over a drink, not a life-changing revelation which would have massive implications for the rest of his days.

He shrugged. ‘Second divorce, second time of being taken to the cleaners, basically left penniless. Ended up in a shit-hole rented flat, no dosh, plenty of debts. . I was ripe for the picking.’ He said this as though that was OK. He eyed the detectives nervously. ‘Sounded like easy money. Deliver this, deliver that, don’t fucking ask questions. Fifty quid, hundred quid. Do it once and walk away, that’s what I should’ve done. Do it twice or more and they have you over a barrel. You’re fucked.’

‘Who’s they?’

‘The Invincibles they call themselves, like I said. Carl Easton and his crew of jacks. Lynch, Hamlet, Rogerson, Spooner. . all that lot. Been together for years. Some retire, others come on board. . like Lynch. He was always unstable as a PC, but he was just the right sort. No conscience. . They rule the city centre.’

‘Tell me about Keith Snell,’ Henry said.

‘Nobbut a little shit. Snouted for Lynch. Then Lynch started usin’ him for deliveries. . trouble was he wasn’t trustworthy. The little shit peeked and got greedy. Fatal error. Put cash in front of someone like that, it changes ’em. Makes ’em avaricious.’ He paused for effect. ‘Did a runner with twenty-five grand, stupid idiot.’

‘And got killed for it.’

‘Yep. Thing is, Lynch actually gave him a chance to give it back. Locked him up about, what, ten days ago? Gave him a chance to hand it over. . yeah, honest. . but he buggered off with it, scarpered to the big lights of Blackpool, which is where we found him.’

‘How did you find him?’ Henry wanted to know.

‘Paid a visit to his bird. .’

‘Grace?’

‘Yeah. . she wouldn’t tell us anything, so Lynch pasted her bad. Then we nearly caught him with Colin the Commando, but he legged it in a stolen car, even though Lynch took a pot shot at him. He gave Colin a smacking, too.’

Henry’s eyes narrowed as he mulled over the words, recalling the bullet imbedded in the back seat of the stolen Ford Escort. ‘Go on,’ he urged, glancing at Anger, who was enthralled by all this.

‘Then we got a call from a guy in Blackpool. Gave us where Snell was.’

‘Who phoned you?’

‘No idea. . Lynch knows. . anyway, we tootle into Blackpool and find him in some dive. He takes a pop at us with his shotgun and I get an armful. Lynch gets him in some backstreet somewhere. Then we drive him up to Deeply Vale and set him on fire. Well, Lynch did. I was bleeding to death in the car. . and the rest is history.’

‘Why Deeply Vale?’ Anger said.

‘Because he thought he was dumping him on GMP, so Easton could then control the subsequent investigation.’

Henry allowed himself an inner smile of congratulation as he thought back to his ruminations at the murder scene, wondering why the body had been left there. There is always a reason why a body turns up where it does.

‘Tell me about the guns,’ Henry said. ‘What’s the history of the gun used to kill Snell?’

‘It was his.’

‘Whose?’

‘Snell’s.’

‘Snell’s gun?’

‘Yeah. He’d used it on an armed robbery months ago, one he’d got locked up for, but never got charged with. The gun got took off him — and others that were found at his pad. They’re in the property store at Arena, guess they’ll be destroyed eventually. I just sneak them out of the store and return them as necessary.’

‘How do you manage that?’ Anger asked.

‘Got a duplicate key to the store and safe.’

‘Jesus!’ Henry uttered. ‘So he got killed with his own gun?’

‘Yep, ironic innit?’

Anger was visiting the toilet. Henry and Roscoe were in the room adjoining the one Bignall was in. He was relaxed now that he had got a weight off his chest and he was feeling safe being looked after by trustworthy cops.

Roscoe eyed Henry with some reverence. ‘You done good,’ she admitted grudgingly.

‘Just doing my job, ma’am.’

Roscoe shook her head. ‘Is there anything more to uncover in the Tara Wickson dog’s breakfast, or have I misjudged you?’

‘You decide,’ Henry said.

The toilet flushed and a damp-faced Anger came out, obviously having had a wash. He wiped the palms of his hands down his trouser legs, then looked expectantly at Henry and Roscoe, waiting for something. They looked expectantly back.

With a jerk of his head, he beckoned Henry to follow him to the far end of the room near the window, where he spoke in hushed tones. ‘This is going to be a massive job. Big implications.’

‘Yep,’ Henry agreed.

‘Needs a careful plan.’

‘Yep.’ Henry suddenly realized that Anger was drowning here, did not know what to do.

‘So,’ the superintendent said, ‘what I propose is this: over to you, Henry. It’s your baby, sort it whichever way you want. Hang back for a while, or wade in, whatever you feel is appropriate. Just plan it, justify it and I’ll back you to the hilt.’

Henry’s surprise could not be held back. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Absolutely. . you’ve worked hard on this one, you got the break, you get the glory. If you need any authorizations, I’ll sort them. . how does that sound?’

He did not want to dance up and down with glee. Instead he said, ‘Good.’

‘It’s a two-add-two job,’ Henry admitted. ‘I upset Lynch and his mob. . ha, the Lynch mob,’ he chuckled at his own wit, ‘and someone forced me off the road. Coincidence. . don’t think so. . but, the van was a black Citroen, don’t know the number, and it was being driven by a guy in a clown mask. Ring any bells?’ he asked for the second time.

Karl Donaldson did not need to consider. The vivid memories of the M62 robbery were still with him. ‘Same crew,’ the American said. ‘Gotta be.’

‘Or just a coincidence?’

‘Nahh, screw that, definitely same crew,’ Donaldson said. ‘To bring you up to speed, my trustworthy source, Senor Lopez, set Easton up to steal the coke — part of his master plan to cut off Mendoza’s legs. The drugs’ve been bought with borrowed Mafia money, just another nail in the big man’s coffin. His plan is to somehow retrieve the coke and set up his own show. Mendoza has been dealing with Sweetman for a few years, apparently, and all the time Lopez has had his head together with a guy called Grant, one of Sweetman’s top men, with a view to stepping in at some stage, getting rid of Mendoza and running the show.’

‘How do you know all this?’

‘Lopez blabbed, thinking I was on my deathbed.’

‘Why didn’t Lopez just kill him, or something? Isn’t that what they usually do? Far easier than this bloody chess game.’

Donaldson shrugged, open-handed. ‘Search me, but Easton is involved somewhere along the line. . just another pawn, I guess.’

‘So Lopez and Grant want the drugs and want to get rid of Sweetman and Easton, too.’

‘Yeah. . I think the drugs are the key. It’s a very big consignment and anyone who gets his hands on it will become very rich. He didn’t say it, but the way I think Lopez will play it will be to reckon that Mendoza lost the drugs. .’ Donaldson was thinking hard. Then he had it. ‘I know what it is,’ he proclaimed. ‘If you ask me, he’s going to try and outsmart the Mafia too. . that’s it! He gets the drugs, sets up his own network, cuts the Mafia out by saying Mendoza never recovered the dope and voila! He’s rolling in it! What do you reckon? You’re the hypothesis guy.’

‘Could be, could be,’ Henry said non-committally.

‘You never get excited about anything,’ Donaldson moaned.

‘Don’t you believe it. But what happens to Mendoza and Sweetman and all the others?’

‘That could well be where the bullets in the head come in.’

Donaldson had arrived at the Holiday Inn Express at the same time as Bignall was being loaded into an unmarked police car and driven away to be extensively interviewed by Roscoe at a safe house. It was likely he would end up in Witness Protection, depending on how much they could squeeze out of him. Anger had also left with Roscoe, whilst Henry and Donaldson walked over to the newly constructed Walton Fox pub, next to the hotel. They were drinking coffee at a table outside, watching the busy A6 traffic.

‘Do we need to run with this together?’ Henry asked. ‘One thing could lead to another here.’

‘Yeah,’ Donaldson said, ‘I do.’

‘There’s one person I need to see before doing anything, though,’ Henry said, telling Donaldson who it was. ‘But I need a lift — I’m carless.’

They finished their drinks and strolled back to Donaldson’s Jeep in the hotel car park. ‘Y’know, pal. . it was a good thing Snell’s body was dumped in Lancashire, otherwise Easton could well have been able to cover it all up.’

Henry guffawed. ‘Didn’t I tell you?’

‘Tell me what?’

‘The body was in GMP.’

‘Eh?’

‘Yep — definitely GMP.’ He stopped and regarded Donaldson. ‘Only by a few feet, admittedly, but it was on their patch. I know the ins and outs of that place like the back of my hand. I stole it.’

‘Why?’

‘Cos I wanted a meaty murder to show that bastard Anger I could do a good job, that’s why.’

‘You son of a bitch.’ Donaldson slapped Henry hard between the shoulder blades and they continued to walk to his car.

‘I knew no one would know the difference — except that PC who was convinced it was on GMP, but I’m sure he won’t really be too bothered.’

Donaldson laughed heartily as he clambered into the Jeep. Henry dropped in next to him. ‘Now you need to tell me about your Spanish jaunt.’

Had he been Spiderman he would have been climbing the walls. However, he was not, but that did not prevent him from trying. He felt like they were closing in on him, inch by dreadful inch; that the ceiling was dropping, going to crush him.

Troy Costain rushed to the cell door and hammered on it, the inspection flap rattling metallically but staying firmly shut. Tears streamed from his eyes as he begged, ‘Let me out, you bastards! You fuckin’ twattin’ bastards. I can’t stand this. It’s giving me a shedder. Please,’ he screamed, hammering louder.

Suddenly an eye appeared at the peephole. Troy jumped backwards into the middle of the cell, where he stood shaking and sweating.

The cell door swung open to reveal the figure of Henry Christie, still clad in the tracksuit he had set off in that morning.

‘Henry — thank God you’ve come,’ Troy bawled, sinking to his knees. ‘You know I can’t stand being locked up. Get me out of here, please. I’ve done nothing. What’s this shit? Conspiracy to murder? What the hell does that mean?’

Henry stepped into the cell. His face was hard and unforgiving. He took hold of Troy’s chin and tilted his face up whilst he bent down so they were eye to eye. Henry spoke quietly.

‘A friend of yours came to see you to ask for help, didn’t he?’

‘What?’

‘He came in a stolen car, didn’t he?’

‘I don’t know what the-’

Henry snapped Troy’s head further back. ‘Don’t lie, Troy, don’t ever lie, OK? Somehow that car ended up in Roy’s hands and then he killed Renata. .’

‘What?’ Troy interrupted. ‘Is that what this is about? Conspiracy to murder?’

‘No. . that’s not what this is about,’ Henry almost whispered, his eyes wild with menace. ‘Your friend was on the run, wasn’t he? And somehow the people who were after him found out where he was, didn’t they?’

Icy realization dawned slowly over Troy’s face.

Henry smiled dangerously. ‘Do you know what they did to your friend when they found him?’

Troy’s head, held by Henry’s hand, shook slowly.

‘Killed him. Shot him. Murdered him. And do you know why? Because you told them where he was, didn’t you?’

Troy was like a statue now. Henry released the hold on his head.

‘Therefore you conspired to kill him.’

Henry let go of him and Troy rose shakily to his feet, moved back and sat down heavily on the bench bed. ‘No, I didn’t do it for that.’

‘You must have known they would kill him,’ Henry said harshly. ‘I now want the telephone number you called to drop your mate right in this, and I want the name of the guy you spoke to. . then, maybe, we can start talking about where we go from here. Understand, Troy? You are in the biggest trouble you have ever been in — ever.’

‘My mobile phone is in my property. It’s one of the last ten numbers in there. The guy’s name was Phil — and that’s all I know,’ he wailed. ‘Honest. Keith had twenty-five grand on him and he told me how he’d got hold of it when he was drugged up. I thought I’d be able to get a backhander for telling them where the cash was. I didn’t mean to get him killed.’

‘Troy — you are the scum of the earth,’ Henry said with disgust. ‘And while we’re about it, you can tell me where Roy is. .’

Henry left Troy in mental agony in the cell at Blackpool nick, booked out his mobile phone from the property bag in the custody office and tabbed through the numbers Troy had recently called. With the business card that Phil Lynch had given him, Henry soon found that the number Troy had called was indeed that of the corrupt SPOC. Matching the numbers sent a spurt of adrenaline through his system, as the case against Lynch was getting stronger and stronger. It would be a good springboard into the rest of the inquiry into Carl Easton’s corrupt team of big city jacks. Henry returned the phone, then ran up to see Rik Dean in the CID office. He thanked him for picking Troy up and asked him to confiscate the mobile phone, which could provide valuable evidence in the murder investigation. He told Dean that, for the moment, Troy was going nowhere, and gave him the whereabouts of Roy Costain. It would be a nice arrest for Dean.

Henry dashed back out to Donaldson, who was waiting for him in the car park, and they drove to Henry’s house.

Kate was all over Donaldson like a bad rash, so relieved to see him alive, and once this show of affection was over, Henry almost having to prise them apart, she prepared a quick meal for the both of them. They devoured it, Henry got changed and within twenty minutes they hit the road again, heading speedily across the county to Rawtenstall, Henry’s mind now filled with the prospect of an arrest followed by a protracted investigation and lots of arrests. He was going to be busy for quite some time.

It was a closed briefing. Henry, Karl Donaldson, Jane Roscoe, Dave Anger and the ACC Operations, now acting chief in the absence of FB. Henry had decided not to invite Carradine, just to be awkward, but nobody seemed to notice. The show had been well and truly handed to Henry — who had now formally returned to work from sickness.

They met at Rawtenstall police station, hijacked the inspector’s office once again, imported a few extra chairs into the cramped space and scrummed down behind closed doors.

‘There is good evidence against Phil Lynch regarding the murder of Keith Snell.’ Henry glanced at Roscoe. ‘Although Lawrence Bignall is still being interviewed, he’s put enough down on paper to put Lynch right in the frame. There are other circumstantial bits of evidence to support what he says and as far as I’m concerned, we’ve enough to arrest him now. But, at the same time as we arrest him, I want us to get into the safe in the property store at the Arena police station and seize the guns belonging to Snell.’ He paused, taking a breath. ‘Those actions will open floodgates, I guess. These could sweep us to the murder and attempted murder of Colin Carruthers, me and the chief. It will also open up links to the job on the M62 where twenty illegal immigrants died in the back of a truck, and from there on, a lot of international stuff — hence the presence of Karl, here, from the FBI.’

‘How do you want to play it, then?’

‘We need to get Lynch sewn up tight. I want everything done to the nth degree — forensics, house searches, clothing, all vehicles he’s had access to gone over by CSI, and I want to find that damned Citroen van. We’ve already got a lot of this information from Bignall, so my view is we need to act on it quickly. Once Lynch is nailed to the wall, we can go for the others.’

Henry saw nods of agreement. It was a plan and he was open to suggestions, but none came.

‘I take it this is OK with everybody?’ A murmur of assent came back. He would have liked to see a little more enthusiasm, but there you go. ‘Right, let’s work out some of the logistics.’

Henry and Donaldson drove out towards Manchester in an unmarked police car. Jane Roscoe sat quietly in the back as Henry whisked them down the M66. Why he had let her tag along with him he wasn’t certain. Maybe it was to further demonstrate to her that he was an OK guy.

‘It has to be better to pick him up at his home address,’ he was saying. ‘That way we keep a lid on it. None of his mates need to find out until it’s too late for them — hopefully. He lives alone, so there shouldn’t be anyone there to blab. It would be nice to keep him under wraps for some time at least.’

The journey did not take long, Henry exiting the motorway at Bury, where Lynch lived on a newish estate in the Walshaw area. Henry had a good idea where it was, especially after refreshing his mind from an A-Z map book he found at Rawtenstall nick.

‘Everybody happy?’ Henry beamed sitting at the wheel. He was buzzing, but there was no response from the other two, though he knew they were keyed-up for action. Even Donaldson, who would have to remain on the sidelines whilst Henry and Roscoe did the work of making the arrest. ‘Soon be there,’ he promised, as though to kids.

Henry reached a road where he could not quite be sure whether he should turn off first or second left.

He got it wrong, but it was just as well.

As he flew past the road end he should have turned into, a car drew up to the junction.

‘That’s him,’ Henry snapped, recognizing Lynch at the wheel. He held back the urge to duck down behind his steering wheel and kept going without swerving.

Donaldson eyeballed Lynch, getting a good, if quick, look at his face. ‘I recognize him,’ he said. ‘He’s the guy that gave me the hard stare from the back of the Citroen van on the motorway.’

‘Nice one,’ Henry said, watching Lynch in his rear-view mirror. He pulled out of the junction and turned right, going in the direction Henry had just driven from, towards Bury town centre. ‘Need to turn this bus round.’

Following a vehicle on a one-on-one is tricky. To effectively surveil someone travelling on four wheels generally requires at least four cars and, if possible, a motorbike. Henry was kicking himself for failing to anticipate this situation, but then again, he thought reasonably, it’s impossible to cover all bases with the limited resources available. But he had not expected to have to follow his target, and this made him twitch a little nervously. Judgement again? He took a breath. . go with the situation, keep assessing it and do your best, he told himself, gripping the wheel firmly. Then pick the best opportunity to lift Lynch.

‘Wonder where he’s going?’ Donaldson speculated.

Henry slotted in three cars behind, hoping to hell that Lynch was such a confident bastard that it would never occur to him he was being tailed. If he started to use anti-surveillance tactics, Henry would be stuffed at the first junction.

He led them into Bury town centre. Henry had problems staying with him here. Having to hang back all the time meant either missing lights or running them. Henry ran plenty, unscathed more by luck than skill, and stayed with Lynch, who wound through the town and dropped on to the A58, going in the direction of Heywood and Rochdale.

‘Doesn’t look like he’s going to the office,’ Henry said.

It was just after eight p.m., getting darker, making following even more of a problem. Henry often had to rely on recognizing the rear light cluster of Lynch’s motor.

All three were now getting jittery.

So much for a plan.

As for Lynch, it never entered his head he was being followed. For a start he thought he had done the job on those simpletons from Lancashire. Even though the two cops in the car he had forced into the ARMCO barrier had survived, it had given the Invincibles the chance to regroup and put a better game plan together. Sure, the cops from Lancs would come back, but then the gates would be firmly closed and they would find nothing. The chief constable was hospitalized, the DCI was off sick and Carruthers was now really dead as opposed to just brain-dead. A good job, well done.

Now all that remained was to sort Rufus Sweetman and his cocaine — and that is what he was en route to pull off.

Easton had arranged a meet at a uniquely brilliant location, ostensibly to hand the consignment of drugs back and therefore stop the random shootings of innocent cops. But Lynch knew that no handing over would ever take place. Secretly everyone knew that there would only ever be one outcome, but because the stakes were so high, they were all prepared to take the risk.

Someone was going to die and Lynch was damn sure it would not be him.

He checked his rear-view mirror as he pulled on to the roundabout under the M66. Damn sure. .

They travelled through the small town of Heywood, then bore right towards Middleton.

‘All the best places,’ Henry said.

‘I don’t like this,’ Donaldson said.

‘Nor me,’ Roscoe chimed in. ‘Something’s happening.’

Henry knew what they meant. That inner voice of the experienced cop, wittering in your earhole. He was hearing it, too. Over his shoulder he said to Roscoe, ‘Give Dave Anger a call, tell him where we’re up to.’

She nodded.

Henry was now only one vehicle behind Lynch. Traffic was light on the road and maintaining invisibility was getting more problematical. ‘He’ll clock us soon, if he hasn’t done already. .’ Then Lynch’s brake lights came on and he turned off the main road. Henry could not follow. He had no choice but to drive on and stop after a further hundred metres.

‘I know what’s down there. .’ He looked quizzically at his American friend. ‘It’s the Big City.’

That was its affectionate nickname — the Big City. It was housed in a massive warehouse on the edge of an industrial estate on the outskirts of Heywood, not far from the noise of the M62 at Birch Services. And although it was known as the Big City, it was actually more like a small town. It consisted of a main street, shops on either side, with side streets and alleyways shooting off this main drag, some leading into small squares, others to dead ends. Most of the buildings were merely shells, constructed of plywood, held together by four by two, some were merely frontages like a Wild West film set. Some of the buildings had stairs in them, leading up to first-floor landings and windows, from which rioters could pelt police lines.

There had been many scenes of urban disorder in the Big City, but they were all stage-managed and no one really ended up hurt, because each riot was risk assessed under Health amp; Safety regulations and it was rare for someone to get hit by a flying fridge these days.

The Big City could be found on the perimeter of an industrial estate and it was the public-order training facility owned by Greater Manchester Police. It was the cops themselves who affectionately referred to it as the Big City, but it was also known by other names, such as Dodge City, or sometimes Moss Side. It was a good place to play and learn, an excellent venue to practise tactics, where things could be made to be very real indeed. Even personnel carriers and the mounted branch could come along.

It was in the Big City that Easton had engineered his exchange meeting with Sweetman.

‘It’s as good a place as any. There’ll be no one around. It may belong to the cops, but it won’t be in use. It’s private and there’ll be no one to interrupt our business.’ Sweetman took a lot of persuading, but finally went for it with the proviso that each man could only be accompanied by two others and that no one should be armed. The no-arms requirement was ridiculous, but at least it had to be asked for.

‘All I want is the consignment back, then it’s over between us. I’ll drop the civil case against you, then it’s quits, OK. You get out of my life, I leave you be. Business, not personal.’

Easton agreed, knowing there would be no deal. It was all or nothing, and despite the words and the promises, each man knew that.

‘In my occasional forays into the uniformed branch, I’ve taken part in Regional public-order training exercises down there, when all the north-west forces get together and throw bricks at each other.’

‘Me, too,’ Roscoe piped up, shuddering distastefully. ‘I wonder if that’s where he’s going — and why?’

‘If memory serves me correct — and I have had a nasty bang on the head recently — there’s not much else down there, just a big industrial estate. So’ — he looked at Donaldson — ‘what do you reckon? Only one way to tell — on the hoof.’ He then twisted to Roscoe in the back. She was dressed in her normal work suit — nice jacket, nice skirt, heels on her shoes, not exactly appropriate dress for traipsing around an industrial estate on a dark evening. ‘You stay in the car. Me and Karl’ll go and have a snoop around. That OK?’ He expected some resistance and maybe some complaint about sexist treatment, but it did not come. She was relieved to be staying in a warm car.

Henry reached for his personal radio.

‘Take care,’ Roscoe said. Henry gave her a quick sideways glance and caught her eye in a fleeting moment. Something moved inside him, and he knew something had moved within her too, but he tried to ignore it. He was not going down that road again. He gave her a nod and dived out of the car.

He and Donaldson began to walk quickly toward the road junction Lynch had turned down, their heads down, fastening their jackets against the chill of the night.

The street lighting was poor and there was no problem in keeping to the shadows, two dark figures progressing cautiously but swiftly, keeping out of any pools of illumination. It was almost like a country road, overgrown verges on either side of narrow footpaths. In the distance, away to their right, could be seen the orange glow of the lighting on the M62, and they could hear the dull hum of motorway traffic.

Ahead, the road they were hurrying down did a sharp left, but straight on was the entrance to the industrial estate. Henry recalled it well now. It was a very large estate, rambling and untidy, with lots of open space on it, lots of waste ground and some huge units, one of which was the Big City.

Behind them, a car turned off the main road, headlights ablaze. Donaldson immediately pushed Henry to one side and both men dropped low on their haunches into a sodden ditch which was part of the grass verge. They watched the car drive past slowly, three people on board. It stayed on the road, did not go into the estate.

‘Make out any faces?’ Henry whispered. He could see the whites on his friend’s eyes in the available light.

‘No. . looks like a recce, though.’

Henry spoke into his PR, using the dedicated channel for the SIO team. ‘Jane, you receiving?’

‘Yeah — go ahead.’

‘If you haven’t done so already, move the car into a more discreet location, will you? We don’t want to spook anyone.’

‘Done it already.’

‘Good stuff.’

Henry and Donaldson were about to rise from their damp position when another car turned in from the main road.

‘Getting busy down here,’ Henry commented.

The car that had only just cruised by them moments before reappeared from the opposite direction. Instinct made the pair of detectives drop even lower, their bellies almost on the grass. The cars drove slowly toward each other and when they were alongside each other, only a matter of feet from where they lay hidden, they stopped.

Words inaudible to either Henry or Donaldson were exchanged by the people in the cars. Neither man hardly dared to raise his head an inch, but the temptation to have a look-see was overwhelming.

After a brief conflab, the cars separated. The one which had just turned into the road drove straight on into the industrial estate. The other executed a three-point turn and followed.

The two men rose from their secret place when they were sure the cars had gone.

Henry got on to his radio again. ‘Jane, call me an old fuddy-duddy, but I think it might be as well if we had some back-up here after all. It’s hard to say what might or might not be happening, but I’d rather have it coming and not use it.’

‘Yeah — what do you need?’

‘Whatever we’ve got closest to hand. At the very least get an armed-response unit on the way and see if there’s any support unit on in the Valley. You act as the RV point. Can you fix it?’

‘Yep. I take it you don’t want GMP telling.’

‘No — just use our people, OK?’

‘Roger, will do.’

‘And we will maintain radio silence for a while now. . we’re just going on to the estate.’

Crouching and running from shadow to shadow, they set off towards the Big City.

They discovered Lynch’s car parked up, unlocked, behind a block of industrial units some way from the Big City. One of the things Henry had always taken pleasure in doing was disabling cars belonging to criminals. He had often done it in his younger days just for fun. Now he took the opportunity to dive under the bonnet of Lynch’s motor and yank the spark-plug leads out, whilst Donaldson kept nicks. He knew it wasn’t a subtle thing to do, but it would be effective for a short time and might give Henry some advantage. Not knowing how things were going to pan out, he would be happy to gain any advantage. This done, the two detectives moved on, keeping to the building lines of the industrial units and using all cover available, their senses sharp, alert for anything. Both men were nervous, not having a clue what they were getting into.

They emerged from between two units and looked across a road to a huge, detached unit which seemed to go on forever. The bottom half of it was constructed of breeze block, the top half corrugated metal. It had no windows on the side they were looking at. ‘This is it,’ Henry said. ‘The Big City. GMP have it on lease for God knows how many years. It’s just like a little high street inside. I think there’s even a Burton’s shopfront. Lots of alleys, the works. What you’re looking at is the gable end, in effect, because the front entrance is round that side.’

Donaldson just nodded. Henry had noticed he had gone extremely quiet, but put it down to tension and circumstance.

They legged it across the road, flattening themselves against the outside wall of the Big City. There was a lot of cover next to the building, several builders’ skips, a couple of tractor units, an old van and piles of building materials, all typical of such an estate.

On a signal from Henry, they sidled up to the corner of the building where they crouched under the lee of a skip filled with what looked suspiciously like asbestos. They dropped to their hands and knees and, comically, peeked around the corner, one head above the other, so they could see down the front elevation. It stretched far and there was a big car park and a large porch on the front of the building.

Two cars were parked up. One being one of the two cars Henry and Donaldson had seen minutes before on the road.

Three people were getting out. Henry squinted in the growing darkness, trying to get a good look at them. ‘I recognize one of them,’ he hissed.

‘Mendoza,’ Donaldson gasped. ‘The guy on his left is Lopez. . the other will be Sweetman.’

‘Father, son and holy ghost,’ Henry said less than reverentially. Both men drew back out of sight.

‘Struck gold here,’ Donaldson said. ‘This must be the return of the drug consignment. . shit. .’

‘What?’

‘Don’t know about you, H, but I’ve never known something like this go smoothly for any of the parties. Tears are often shed.’

‘I want to see what’s going down.’

‘Me, too.’ Henry thought hard. ‘There are several emergency exits dotted around the building, one on each wall, I think. Maybe we could get in through one of them to watch things.’

‘Worth a try,’ said Donaldson, then clutched his chest. Henry thought he was having a heart attack, but it was actually the American’s mobile phone vibrating silently above his heart. ‘Shit. . let me get this.’ He scurried away a few steps out of Henry’s earshot.

It was rather like a badly built shopping mall, lit by massive, but not brilliant, lights suspended from the metal roof.

They met in the middle of the main street in the Big City.

Easton was flanked by Lynch and Hamlet, their breath visible in the chill air of the industrial unit. Three holdalls had been placed on a trestle table in front of them.

Sweetman, with Mendoza and Lopez at either shoulder and Grant behind them both, like a formation of fighter planes, walked slowly down the road, which had been named, appropriately enough, Ambush Alley by the cops in the public-order units which trained there regularly. Officially it was called simply ‘Main Street’. The four stopped, twenty metres away from Easton and his crew.

‘I thought we agreed only two assistants,’ Easton said.

‘He’s my solicitor,’ Sweetman said, thumbing a gesture at Grant. ‘He’s here just to oversee the legal niceties.’

‘Not a good start to proceedings.’

Sweetman shrugged.

‘Is that my property?’ He pointed at the holdalls.

Easton said it was, then, ‘Where do we go from here?’

‘You all step back twenty paces, leave the bags where they are and we pick them up. When we’ve gone, the matter is over. It’s that simple.’

‘Nothing is that simple,’ Easton said.

The seven men stared at each other.

Suddenly the tension was broken by a mobile phone announcing that a text message had just landed. It was Mendoza’s and he instinctively pulled it out of his pocket and thumbed the ‘read message’ button. That was the thing about texts. They were impossible to ignore, even in the most stressful of situations. Mendoza glanced at the display and skim-read the message, his face growing darker with each word he read, as it confirmed something which he had been suspecting for a long time now.

All eyes were on him, but as he replaced the phone in his pocket, looked up and shrugged, everyone’s attention returned to the task in hand. Mendoza’s mind was on other things as he sidled up to Lopez and smiled broadly at his second in command. He placed an arm around his shoulder and said, ‘Soon all our troubles will be over, amigo.’ He nodded in the direction of the drugs. Lopez frowned at this out of character display from Mendoza, and he never got the opportunity to put his plan into action. On his signal, he had intended that he and Grant would draw their weapons and start shooting. Grant would take down Easton, Hamlet and Lynch. Lopez would take great pleasure in wasting Mendoza and Sweetman. Then he and Grant would be in business.

The plan never came to fruition.

Mendoza’s left arm gripped Lopez’s shoulders, and suddenly there was a short-barrelled revolver in his right hand, rising from the pocket into which he had just placed his mobile phone.

Easton was first to see the gun. He opened his mouth and screamed, ‘Get down!’ He and his two sergeants started to dive, but Mendoza’s gun did not even consider them. ‘Double-crossing bastard,’ he screamed and placed the muzzle of the gun hard against Lopez’s right temple and pulled the trigger twice. The two soft-nosed bullets blasted through his brain and virtually removed the left side of his head as they tumbled out on exit. Mendoza’s left arm was covered in blood and fragments of grey brain. He let go of the already dead Lopez, threw himself to one side and scrambled for the protection of the shop frontages.

Easton, Lynch and Hamlet all had weapons in their hands now and opened fire at Sweetman, Mendoza and Grant.

Everything that happened from that moment on, until it was all over, lasted perhaps thirty seconds.

Lynch discharged the single barrel of his shotgun at Sweetman, catching him in the upper arm and neck, sending him spinning.

Mendoza fired haphazardly, missing everyone completely, as he dived through the front door of a florist’s shop just at the moment Easton fired at him and caught him in the upper thigh. Mendoza screamed as he landed and dragged himself behind the wooden panelling of the pretend shop.

Lynch ran up to the squirming Sweetman, blood gushing out of his neck. He stood over the criminal and racked another shell into the breech of the shotgun — a gun which was once owned by Keith Snell — then blasted his face off, killing him instantly.

‘Get the other guy!’ Easton yelled, pointing to the open shop door where Mendoza had managed to crawl. Lynch stepped across the bodies of Lopez and Sweetman, racking his gun again.

‘That’s far enough,’ a controlled voice shouted behind all three of the corrupt cops. They spun to see two masked men standing in combat stance not twenty feet away, each brandishing an MP5 machine pistol.

Lynch was the first to react. Teeth gritted, he swung round with the shotgun. One of the men loosed a burst of his MP5, almost cutting him in half.

Easton, outgunned, turned to run and was drilled with about a dozen bullets from the gun of the other man.

Grant and Hamlet remained frozen in time. Hamlet dropped his gun and held up his hands, but to no avail. Both masked men fired simultaneous bursts, lifting both Grant and Hamlet off their feet, spinning them like ballet dancers, before smashing them to the hard ground of Ambush Alley, the Big City.

Teddy Bear Jackman and Tony Cromer did not waste another moment, ditching their weapons, grabbing the three holdalls and running for the exit. They disappeared into the night.

The sound of gunfire was muted through the breezeblock walls of the building, however, it was unmistakable to Henry Christie and Karl Donaldson, who knew exactly what guns sounded like. They had worked their way to the back of the Big City building when they heard the first shot from inside. Neither hesitated, but gave up all pretence of finding another entrance and now hared round to the front entrance, Henry yelling down his PR to Roscoe that they were responding to the sound of gunfire.

By the time they reached the entrance, each man had tried to count how many shots had been fired. At first it had been easy, but when the rapid fire came, it was impossible.

The door was open.

With extreme caution they edged carefully into the warehouse, coming straight on to Ambush Alley. Despite seeing the bodies lying ahead, they moved tentatively towards them, always expecting the worst, both men having pinned their IDs on to the front of their jackets. Not that a badge would have stopped a bullet, but it was a degree of psychological protection.

Henry counted five bodies. One was twitching horribly. He bent down and looked into the man’s face. It was Lynch. He was still alive. . and then he was dead.

‘Shit!’ he said, then looked at Donaldson, who was hopping from one body to another.

‘Can’t find Mendoza,’ he said. ‘He must have done all this.’

‘Don’t think so. Not alone, anyway,’ said Henry, assessing the different wounds to each person. He had seen a lot of gunshot wounds in his time and could tell immediately that this was not the work of one man. ‘He might have been part of this, but he had help,’ Henry speculated. ‘This one’s been shot by a shotgun, this one by a pistol, or something, these three have been ripped apart by machine guns.’

‘I want Mendoza,’ Donaldson said. ‘Do not tell me he got away.’

Henry looked round. ‘Someone in there,’ he said, pointing to the florist’s shop. He had seen a splash of blood at the door. With Donaldson he walked carefully to the shop, and as he got closer he could see a man’s leg.

‘That’s him,’ Donaldson said, staring down unemotionally at the man who had haunted him for so long, someone he had dearly wanted to see in this position. ‘Looks like he’s been shot in the leg from here. Bullet must have travelled up into his innards,’ he guessed, seeing the vast amount of blood the Spaniard was lying in. He squatted down by the body and carefully lifted Mendoza’s jacket, his hand slipping in and coming out with the mobile phone, which Donaldson then slid into his own pocket, without Henry seeing the surreptitious move.

It would not have done for the police to check the phone and find out that the last text message the Spaniard had received had come from Donaldson’s mobile, now would it? Donaldson looked up at Henry, then back at Mendoza’s body, a cruel smile coming to his face. ‘What goes around comes around, eh?

Henry blew out his cheeks. ‘Yeah.’ He stepped back and looked along Ambush Alley. ‘Well, we’ve got the florist. I wonder if there’s an undertaker down here?’