Big City Jacks

Two

Lynch leaned over the snooker table, lined up his cue and slammed the white ball into the pack of reds to break off the game. One red dropped luckily into a pocket and the white ball rolled into a potting position behind the blue. He sniggered at his good fortune and his opponent shook his head disparagingly.

As he lined up his next shot, his mobile phone rang. He cursed but answered it and listened intently before ending the call with a terse ‘Been chased and dumped in Blackpool? Interesting.’

He stood up and bounced the thick end of his cue thoughtfully on the floor. ‘Bloody Blackpool,’ he muttered thoughtfully.

‘Eh?’ his opponent enquired.

‘Nowt.’ He dropped into position over the snooker table again, but once more his phone rang out. ‘Shit. . yeah?’ he answered.

He walked across to the window and gazed down on to the street below the private club, a quiet Manchester street, close to the town centre.

‘You’re sure he’s there? Right. . right. .’ As he spoke and listened he became more and more agitated and excited. ‘Leave it with me. He pressed the ‘end call’ button and redialled immediately. ‘C’mon, c’mon,’ he muttered. ‘Biggars? It’s me again. . got a location this time. . yeah, a grass. . how are you fixed? Can you finish? Can you provide the necessary tools and equipment? Yeah, yeah. . good, half an hour. . I’ll be there. . you’ll need a shooter, too, just in case. . yeah, nice trip to the seaside. . see ya.’

Lynch picked up his cue and walked back to the snooker table, potted the blue, then a red, then laid the cue down across the green baize. ‘Got to go.’

It was 3.32 a.m. when they found the guest house and parked the car in the street outside. Bignall had been driving. He killed the lights and engine and the two of them sat in the dark of the car, watching the front of the premises.

Nothing moved. The street was dead. Few lights were on in the buildings and in the one they were watching there was a dim light at one window on the top floor.

‘He’s in there,’ Lynch said quietly.

Bignall nodded nervously.

‘We do this right, it does us a lot of good.’

‘I know.’ Bignall’s voice rasped dryly in his throat.

‘You up for it?’

‘Yeah.’ Still rasping.

Lynch reached into the footwell and pulled up the sawn-off shotgun and revolver, handing the latter to his companion. The shotgun was double-barrelled. He snapped it open and loaded two cartridges in with sure, steady fingers, then clicked it shut, flicking the safety on. He knew how sensitive the trigger was. He rested the weapon across his lap and pulled on the stocking mask.

Bignall did the same.

It wasn’t as though they were worried about Snell recognizing them, it was a defence against other witnesses. Just in case.

Keith Snell was awake. The mainlining of heroin had helped him to sleep deeply for a couple of blissful hours, but now he was very much eyes wide open, splayed out on the ropey bed, scratching and sweating, twitching nervously, the cold shotgun across his chest.

The chill breeze from the slightly open window made his skin goosebump.

From outside in the street below he heard a click, then another click.

Keith’s heart lurched. He froze on the bed, his whole being tensing up, his senses razor-sharp. He did not really know why. There had been lots of noises outside. Blackpool rarely slept. But somehow and for some reason, his gut instinct told him this was different.

He spun his legs off the bed and sat up, a puzzled, worried expression on his face. What made those noises so different? Two clicks. . car doors closing quietly. Why hadn’t they been closed noisily, with a bang? People in Blackpool did not close car doors softly, they didn’t care about waking other people. It wasn’t that sort of town.

Switching the low-wattage bedside light off, he gripped the shotgun and took two strides across to the bedroom window, flattening himself against the wall. Using the muzzle of the shotgun, he moved the curtain just wide enough to peek through the gap, down into the street.

Two dark figures moving silently and quickly down the pavement confirmed Snell’s worst fears.

He was on the run and they had found him.

Vomit rising in his throat, he thought about how his supposedly good friend had betrayed him.

‘Fuck you, Troy Costain,’ he said under his breath.

The front door of the guest house was open. They went straight in, down the short hallway, then up the stairs on to the first floor, twisted back along the landing, then up the next set of stairs, which took them up to the top floor. They knew where they had been going, had been well briefed.

They came low on to the landing, now extremely cautious, knowing that Snell was armed.

Lynch put a finger to his lips.

Bignall nodded.

Both men took a couple of seconds to control their breathing. Then, wordlessly, Lynch mouthed a slow, ‘One. . two. . three,’ and they began to progress slowly along the landing, taking careful steps, attempting complete silence.

They knew which door opened into Snell’s squalid room. They paused a couple of metres short of it. Lynch signalled for Bignall to go past the door — which he did with long strides and a shuffle — then both men were in position either side, their backs tight against the wall, weapons ready in their hands, Lynch with the shotgun held vertically and Bignall with the revolver in a two-handed grip, pointing it skywards.

The door was unlocked. They were told it would be.

Lynch reached for the handle, which he turned with agonizing slowness. Then, with a surge, he leapt into the room, brandishing the shotgun, legs spread, body hunched, and he accompanied his grand entrance with the scream of a banshee.

The scream died in his throat as he realized the room was empty. He uttered a stream of swear words and went to the wire-framed bed, heaving the soiled mattress off with his left hand, making certain that Snell wasn’t hiding underneath.

He spun to Bignall. ‘Bastard’s legged it!’

Bignall actually looked relieved. His shoulders sagged and he breathed out.

‘Musta seen us coming,’ Lynch said. ‘He won’t be far away, c’mon. Here,’ — he handed Bignall the shotgun and took the revolver off him, then pushed past his partner back into the dingy hallway at the exact same moment that a terrified Snell burst out from the cover of an alcove near to the top of the stairs.

Snell’s courage to remain in that deep, dark recess had deserted him. He made a manic dash for freedom and loosed off one of the barrels of the shotgun in the general direction of his two hunters.

Both ducked instinctively, but Bignall emitted a loud howl of pain and staggered backwards, then dropped on to his backside.

Snell hit the stairs running.

Lynch lurched into a forward roll, the sound of the shotgun blast in the confines of the narrow hallway echoing disorientatingly in his ears. As he came up on to his feet, the revolver cocked and ready, Snell was halfway down to the next floor.

‘I’ve been fuckin’ hit!’ screamed Bignall, his hand coming away from his shoulder dripping with blood.

Lynch didn’t pause to see. His mind was concentrated on his quarry. He slammed his body against the wall at the top of the stairs, weapon held steady in both hands ready to fire, but Snell dived out of sight, raced along the landing and hurtled down the next set of stairs to take him down to ground level.

With a snort, Lynch hurled himself in pursuit, taking the stairs six at a time, steadying himself with the bannister as he landed hard and unsteadily. Using his lack of balance to aid momentum, he ran on and spun towards the next stairway just in time to see the fleeing figure of Snell heading towards the front door.

His face a hard mask of anger, Lynch threw himself down these stairs, aware that if Snell made it out through the front door and on to the street, he might as well say ‘Adios’ to him and the money. Lynch knew from experience that scrawny little thieves-cum-druggies could run like a hurricane when they had to. It was only when they knew they’d escaped did they stop and cough up their lungs. They could be very slippery bastards when necessary.

As Lynch landed in the ground-floor hallway, Snell had just snaked out through the front door.

For a nanosecond Lynch thought about taking a shot at him. . but he held back. He was too far away to guarantee a hit.

Lynch ran, determined that Snell would not be going far.

In his time as a low-level crim, Keith Snell had been forced to outrun the law on many occasions and, more often than not, he had been successful. This was because he had learned one thing about being chased: never, ever hesitate. The trick was to keep going and hope for the best, because it didn’t matter where you ran, it’s just that you needed to keep on doing it.

Having said all that, he had never before been hunted down by someone with a gun and a grudge.

As he landed on the footpath outside the guest house, he gyrated on his heels and sprinted down the street, then cut out between a couple of parked cars to put some sort of barrier between himself and Lynch, then turned on the speed.

Each pound of a foot on the ground was matched by a similar one in his cranium, in his ears and behind his eyes. His whole head seemed to be loose.

He glanced over his shoulder. No one was there. He was approaching the end of the street. No pause. He ran across the junction, dimly aware of blue lights and police activity down the main road to his left, near the town centre. He pushed on in the direction of the sea, the blue sports bag on his back, bouncing and banging against his spine, his arms threaded through the straps, the shotgun in his right hand.

Another glance. Still clear.

Snell was finding it harder to catch his breath now, but he knew he had to keep going. He urged himself on, motivated by two men with guns, keeping to the darkness of the building line until he broke cover on the promenade, where he stopped. . and almost toppled over.

But there was no time to think.

He veered right, heading north, now keenly aware that he was under the bright street lights of the sea-front. An easy target. He needed to return to the safety of darkness. He spun next right, back inland, now suffering, hardly able to keep going. At the first alleyway on the right he turned in and slumped down in the recess of a doorway. His breath came in painful rasps.

Had he done enough to save himself again?

Snell took a minute to calm down, easing his arms out of the straps on the sports bag, placing the shotgun carefully on the ground.

Eventually his body returned to almost normal. He stood up and stepped out of the doorway, bag in one hand, shotgun in the other.

Time to steal another car.

‘Keith. . Keith Snell!’ Lynch’s voice came ominously from behind.

Snell felt his whole body contract on those words.

‘Drop the gun.’

It clattered from his fingers.

‘And the bag.’

It landed with a dull thud.

Snell began to rotate slowly.

‘No need to move, Keith my boy.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Snell gasped. ‘I’ve been a fool.’

‘Trouble is,’ said Lynch, ‘when you realize that, it’s just too late. Well anyway, it’s all over now. No more need to run.’

The way in which Lynch raised the revolver in his right hand, supported it in the palm of his left, and double-tapped two bullets into Keith Snell’s back was almost casual.