The Last Big Job

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.

His room was neat, functional and clean. He showered, taking it long and hot, swilling off the dust and smell of travel, dried off and slumped into the double bed. Yawning, he refitted the knife to his wrist, then immediately fell asleep.

Just before midnight, a rustling noise awoke him. He came to quickly, his eyes darting around the room, his senses alert and prickling. He rolled off the bed and picked up the envelope which had been pushed under the door. He listened, ear to the door, but there was nothing to hear. Good. It meant the delivery boy had gone, was not curious.

Inside the envelope was a car key. On a small card was a make, model and registration number. A nondescript Ford. Nothing flashy. Again, functional.

The other item in the envelope was the most recent photograph of the man with whom he was required to do business.

A man who, within forty-eight hours, would be dead.

Danny had definitely decided to go back to her own place that night. Even if Geena’s ever-hopeful boyfriend had not been an issue, she had had enough of living out of a suitcase, sleeping in a single bed, not having her own toilet, not having the privacy to be a slob. She was too old and set in her ways to feel comfortable living like that. She needed her own space; room to get on with her life.

She was going to be brave and return home.

It had been a long day at work, complicated by Mickey Mouse and the redirected holiday jet landing at Blackpool Airport. But by 11 p.m. Danny had managed to get everything tied up.

‘ Mr Mouse’ had eventually decided to come clean about his true identity. He had been charged with Grievous Bodily Harm and was appearing in court in the morning. The file for that had been done and dusted.

Spencer had been refused bail and charged with offences relating to his behaviour on the plane. He had also been questioned extensively about the drugs in Cheryl’s suitcase, but denied all knowledge. Danny believed him. Cheryl, meanwhile, was as guilty as sin. She was going nowhere, either, other than in custody to the Magistrates’ Court on a charge of importing cocaine and assaults on the plane. The Crown Prosecution Service intended to oppose further bail for her, but Danny suspected the court would probably allow conditional bail — reporting to a police station coupled with confiscation of passport and strict residence and curfew impositions.

Danny actually felt sorry for Cheryl. She was obviously a mule, bringing in dope on behalf of some big-time dealer or organisation and getting nothing but problems for her reward.

Just after eleven, Danny left work and raced to a local pub where she knew her request for alcoholic beverage would be met with sympathy. She also found a couple of Detective Constables there and spent the next hour chatting to them… by which time the pub had emptied and the landlord wanted to know if they were staying put for a lock-in, or were leaving; if the latter, could he shut up shop?

They left. Danny walked to her car and got in. She rested her hands on the steering wheel and allowed her head to droop between her arms. Then she raised her face and brushed her hair back.

The moment of weakness had passed. The moment when she almost drove back to Geena’s instead of returning to her own house which she had not seen for three months… where tragic memories lurked… where someone had committed suicide in her kitchen.

It was 2 a.m. The sixth cigarette butt in a row was tossed out of the driver’s window on to the pavement.

Danny’s resolution to go home had deserted her like a rat from a sinking ship when she drove her new Mazda MX-5 into the street where her house was located. She had parked directly outside the semi, not even daring to pull into the driveway.

She had rolled the window down and lit a cigarette, drawing the heavy smoke deep into her lungs. She stared at the house, illuminated by the fluorescent street-light. Nothing had changed, other than the addition of a For Sale sign embedded in the front lawn. No prospective buyers had been to view the property. It was probably still too soon. The story was still fresh in everyone’s mind. The illicit love affair. The suicide when Danny ended it. The shotgun in the mouth. The brains blasted into the fridge. The revelations in the newspaper afterwards — another smut-scandal in the police. The media lapped it up. Photographs of the wronged wife. Danny, the Scarlet Woman (even invited on to a morning TV chat show!). Jesus, it had been completely horrendous. Then the funeral — not attended by Danny. The inquest… all major life-shattering events, the ramifications of which still bubbled on. Danny still faced the prospect of internal discipline proceedings for bringing the Service into disrepute, amongst other things.

And she had never set foot in the house since the day Jack Sands, her boss and lover, had blown the whole of his head above his jaw into the freezer compartment and top shelf of her fridge.

Danny lit the seventh cigarette.

Her eyes burned with tiredness.

This was the first time she had ever smoked in her smart new car. And would be the last, she decided firmly, and made up her mind. She flicked the cigarette out of the window, then got out herself. She drew in as deep a breath as her smoke-saturated lungs would allow and walked up to the front door, slotted in the Yale key.

She was home.

A scrawny lion had once been rescued by some do-gooders from a tiny cage on top of a bar in Tenerife. The beast had been a pitiful sight. Poorly treated, badly fed and cared for, its ribs pushed out like a xylophone, its mane a tangled, dried-up mess, its eyes oozing pus. No doubt it could still have killed a man, given the chance — and enjoyed the feast — but it was a pathetic specimen by any standards. It deserved to be saved and the owner strung up.

However, the lion which, at 2 a.m. on that warm, balmy night in Los Cristianos, Tenerife, prowled the large cage on the roof top of Uncle B’s English Bar and Disco was a different matter altogether. He was fit, healthy and rippling with muscle. His tawny grey-yellow coat was glowing, smooth as a peach. The mane was black and looked as though it had been shampooed and trimmed by Vidal Sassoon himself.

The lion’s name was Nero, and he was capable of bringing down a Cape buffalo and a zebra at the same time.

Nero paced his cage, his large pads slapping down on the hard floor. A serious grunt emanated from his throat with each tread. He was impatient. And hungry.

He moved up and down the length of the cage, his head and eyes always fixed on the point where the staircase opened out on to the roof terrace. There was a click, followed by a scraping noise as a metal door was drawn backwards. Then there was the sound of footsteps on the metal stairs.

Nero stopped moving, his shining black eyes concentrating on the opening through the mesh of the cage.

Unusually, two men appeared instead of one.

Nero recognised the first one by his smell: the aftershave and the cigar smoke complemented by alcohol fumes. It was an aroma Nero loved — but only because there was the pleasure of food associated with this human being who was also his owner.

The first man up the stairs was carrying a coolbox.

Nero knew this contained his food for the day.

The first man walked confidently up to the cage whilst the second man hesitated in the background, hovering nervously. Nero picked up on this. The man smelled very much like the first one — smoke, aftershave and alcohol — but there was something else there which sent a tremor of excitement down the great beast’s spine.

Fear.

‘ Hey, Nero, look what I got for you. ’ The man held up the coolbox and rapped his knuckles on it.

A deep roar emanated from the beast’s throat, like thunder approaching.

‘ The best horsemeat money can buy,’ the man said. He walked up to the cage and placed the box on the floor next to a specially constructed sliding tray at ground level. He pulled the flap open and dragged out the metal tray.

Nero’s pace grew quicker, up and down the cage, impatience showing. He was hungry. He wanted food.

The man at the cage glanced over his shoulder at his colleague who had remained at the top of the steps, ready to bolt. He’d lit a cigarette. Shaking fingers placed it between his lips. Jesus, the lion scared the hell out of him. He spent as little time as possible on the roof.

‘ Hey, come over here, you soft bastard.’

‘ I’d rather not, if you don’t mind. Frightens the shit out of me.’

‘ We all have our fears, Loz. We’ve all got to come to terms with them.’

‘ I don’t mind coming to terms with normal things, but a fucking lion? No way.’

Nero snarled. The man at the cage looked at him and smiled. ‘It’s OK, pal. You’ll have some din-dins in a minute.’ He turned back to Loz. ‘C’mon,’ he coaxed, encouraging him to come across the divide with a gesture of his fingers. ‘You gotta do this. It’ll be good for your soul.’

The man called Loz, short for Lawrence, shook his head.

‘ I said c’mon,’ the first man said more firmly.

Loz’s mouth dried up. His eyes narrowed. What the hell was this about? he wondered. ‘No, look I-’

‘ Get your fucking arse over here,’ the first man said fiercely. Then his tone lightened. ‘I mean, who the hell’s going to look after this baby while I’m away? You, Loz — you — so you’ve got to get used to feeding him.’

‘ Just so long as I don’t have to take him for a walk.’

‘ That’s the spirit.’

Loz stomped on his cigarette, blew a lungful of smoke into the clear Atlantic night and dragged himself reluctantly across the roof to the cage. His eyes never left Nero; his imagination never moved away from being ripped to shreds by those paws which were as big as shovels and teeth which were as sharp as nails.

The first man was kneeling down by the coolbox, having prised off the lid. Two hands went in and eased out a dripping horse steak, the size of a dinner-plate.

‘ A Frog would give his right arm for this,’ the man joked. ‘Now, this is the tricky bit,’ he explained to Loz. ‘Making sure Nero don’t get the chance to tear your hand off.’

He dropped the meat into the sliding tray and pushed it under the cage to the waiting lion. Nero grabbed it immediately between his teeth, reared back and with snuffling grunts of pleasure, padded to the far corner of the cage and began to tear at it. He held it between his paws and ripped it with his teeth and licked it with his massive, rough tongue.

‘ What a brilliant animal,’ the man said. He loved the lion.

‘ Yeah,’ Loz answered uneasily. ‘Brill.’ Something was pricking at Loz’s mind — something the other man had said, about going away. It was the first time he had even mentioned it and Loz wondered why it should suddenly come up here, at two in the morning on the rooftop whilst feeding that bastard of a lion. Something did not fit right here, Loz’s instinct warned him.

‘ You give him the next piece, eh? When he’s finished that one.’

Loz shrugged. ‘Whatever you say, boss.’ His eyes bored into the back of the man’s head while he tried to figure out what his employer was up to. Loz couldn’t get a handle on it. Why had Billy Crane asked him up here tonight?

Crane spun round quickly and caught Loz looking at him.

‘ Problem, Loz?’

The younger guy shook his head.

Nero had devoured the first piece of horseflesh. He knew there was more to come. He rose to his feet, his belly only partially filled, and strolled back across to the two men. He was not as impatient now; the first steak had taken the edge off his craving.

‘ Everything go all right at the airport this morning?’ Crane asked conversationally.

‘ Yeah, no probs.’

‘ Good, good.’ Crane held up the palms of his hands and inspected them; they were still covered in blood from handling the meat. ‘So we should be fifty grand richer pretty soon, shouldn’t we?’

Loz’s senses tingled alarm bells. ‘Yeah,’ he said, brow furrowed. ‘Should be.’

‘ That’s good.’ Crane sniffed, then indicated the next piece of meat in the coolbox. ‘Grab that, Loz.’

Loz took a breath, steeled himself and delved into the box.

Behind the mesh of the cage, Nero regarded both humans expectantly, the short, dark, vertical stripes of the inner corners of his eyes virtually pointing at them. Loz could see the lower canines jutting out of the lower jaw like mini, sharpened tusks, but yellow, with off-brown bases, as thick as a grown man’s thumb. Nero smelled all lion too: bad breath which was overpowering, a strong mustiness emanating from him and, of course, the thick smell of urine. It was a combination which made Loz want to retch.

Swallowing hard, he wrapped his fingers around the slimy piece of meat which he carefully lifted out, trying to get as little blood as possible on his hands.

‘ You said you were going away, Bill. Where to?’

‘ Back home for a while. Got something to do.’

‘ Urgent?’

‘ Necessary, shall we say?’

Loz looked at the meat in his hand. That, too, stunk. Obviously not the freshest meat in the world. Not that a lion would care.

‘ What should I do now?’ There was an expression of distaste on his face.

Billy Crane groaned with annoyance. ‘Give it to me, you pathetic git!’ He snatched the meat from Loz’s hands and said, ‘Here I’ll show you.’

He made a show of weighing the meat in his hands, then without warning he slammed it into Loz’s face and wound it round like a custard pie, smearing blood all over Loz’s face. Before the other man could react in any way, Crane had thrown the meat down and gripped Loz’s throat crashing him hard up against Nero’s cage, rattling the mesh.

Nero was stunned by the flurry of movement. He roared.

The fingers of Crane’s right hand circled Loz’s throat and lower jaw, pinning him against the cage, squeezing, distorting Loz’s face like a cinematic special effect. Crane’s left forearm was crushing Loz’s throat, using his victim’s shoulder as a lever to apply pressure and make him gurgle.

Loz’s eyes were wide and terrified. The thought of Nero only inches away behind him made him twitch fearfully but it was the unleashed anger of his boss that made him wet himself in fear.

Crane was nose to nose with Loz.

‘ I pay you good money to pick up sensible, trustworthy mules and you go and choose that silly bitch. I am so fucking annoyed, Loz, you would not believe it. I am struggling to express myself.’

‘ I don’t know what you mean,’ Loz croaked.

‘ Well, I’ll tell you,’ Crane’s voice grated dangerously. ‘I got a phone call not very long ago to say that she was picked up at the airport. Not because of a routine check — I could have lived with that — but because of her behaviour and her stupid boyfriend’s behaviour. Two fucking drunken louts. So why did you pick her, Loz? Why?’

He crashed Loz’s head against the cage again.

Behind, Nero bristled and growled, fascinated by what was happening. His black eyes shone with anticipation.

‘ She seemed OK, honest, Bill. But you can’t fucking tell.’

‘ Why pick her?’ Crane insisted. ‘I have lost a lot of money over this and I’m not happy, not one bit.’

Loz closed his eyes and whispered, ‘She gave me a blow job.’

There was little to be gained by lying to Crane. Better to admit things than submit to his interrogation techniques.

Crane relaxed his grip slightly. ‘A blow job? Fifty grand’s worth of coke for a blow job? Is that how you recruit them? It is, isn’t it? That’s a superb way of seeing if they have all the necessary skills for the job, isn’t it? “Will you suck my cock? Well then, you must be a good drug carrier”.’

He let go and stood back.

Loz coughed, massaged his throat, took his eye off Crane. A mistake. He never saw the fist coming. All he knew was that the front of his face exploded in a searing white light of pain. He sank to the ground, dazed. He didn’t see the knee coming either as Crane drove it into his face.

Loz pulled himself slowly up the cage on to his hands and knees, his head drooping loosely between his arms. He could tell his nose was broken, crushed, and his cheekbone possibly fractured. Blood poured out of his nostrils, blobbing on to the floor with strands of snot and saliva.

But Billy Crane had not finished with him yet. His rage had not subsided.

He hauled Loz to his feet and hurled his face against Nero’s cage. The huge beast, 108 kilos of rippling muscle and sinew, launched himself through the air, his huge paws spread wide, claws extended.

Even though there was the mesh between them, Loz cowered away with a scream just a nano-second prior to Nero’s full weight crashing against the cage. The lion rolled away backwards and regained his feet in one flowing, feline motion. The smell of blood and fear was starting to drive him wild.

And still Billy Crane had not finished.

With a roar himself, he took hold of Loz’s brightly coloured shirt, pulled him roughly on to his feet and pinned him against the cage again. Tipping Loz off-balance, he dragged the unfortunate man along the cage, winding up its inhabitant, who paced angrily behind Loz. The latter screamed, shrieked and provoked even more of a response from Nero.

In all, Crane dragged Loz up and down the cage four times. By the end of this Nero was emitting unworldly noises which seemed to come from the very pit of his guts; noises more akin to a wild African night than a balmy one in the Canaries.

By now, Loz had taken the leap beyond fear. The whole episode had become unreal to him following the massive blows to his face. It was like a nightmare from hell.

Panting heavily, Crane threw Loz to the ground, where he snivelled like a baby.

‘ Fifty fucking thousand pounds,’ Crane gasped. ‘You arsehole. What is that worth, eh? An arm? A leg? An eye?’

He bent down and withdrew Nero’s food tray from the cage and flung it clattering across the roof. There was now a gap of about four inches high by ten long in the netting at floor level.

‘ Or a hand?’ Crane said. His eyes blazed anger and retribution.

Loz’s face snapped up at Crane as the implication of what had been said struck home. ‘No, Billy,’ he uttered in disbelief. ‘Please… I don’t deserve this. No way do I deserve this.’

Nero roared in his ear. Crane bent towards him menacingly.

Almost as soon as she inserted the key into the lock, Danny lost her nerve. She fell against the door for support and butted her head against it in an expression of frustration at herself.

This is stupid, she thought bleakly. It’s two in the morning — no time to be returning alone to a house which holds such tragedy. I need moral support for this.

She took her mobile phone from her pocket and tried to remember Henry Christie’s number. ‘Phone me any time,’ he’d told her. Oh yeah, she thought sardonically. He’d really appreciate me calling him at this hour, wouldn’t he just? His wife would be none too happy either.

The fleeting image of Henry asleep in the same bed as his wife made Danny wince with jealousy. She slid the mobile back into her pocket, put the key into the lock once again, turned it and pushed open the door.

A musty aroma wafted to her flaring nostrils.

She looked towards the closed door of the kitchen. Where it had happened. And stepped across the threshold on to a pile of letters which cracked beneath her shoe. Geena had been collecting the mail for her, but it was about two weeks since the task had last been done. There was a small mountain of the stuff, mostly junk. She stepped beyond it into the hall, closed the door behind her and stood there for a moment in the darkness. All she could hear was the beating of her own heart and the nervous rasp as she inhaled, exhaled, shallowly.

Her hand reached for the light switch.

The light came on, illuminating a familiar scene.

In sudden flashback, she saw herself, three months before, treading slowly down the hallway carpet in her bare feet, a dressing gown wrapped tightly around her naked body. Walking with trepidation towards the closed kitchen door from behind which had come the boom of a shotgun being discharged.

She swallowed in the here and now, hardly daring to move. Then she stepped forwards and the unexpected noise from her house alarm almost made her leap out of her clothes, skin and bones. The movement sensor fitted above the kitchen door had picked her up and set the house alarm going, giving Danny one minute to get to the control panel and switch it off.

‘ Hell, Christ!’ she yelled, covering her ears.

She had forgotten about the alarm, something she’d had fitted in response to problems experienced prior to Jack Sands’s death. She ran down the hall, ducked under the stairs, desperately trying to recall the code number to deactivate it.

Her own collar number.

She tapped it in and the cacophony ceased as quickly as it had begun, leaving a hollow ringing in her ears.

At least the episode had achieved something. She was now right by the kitchen door, only inches away from the handle.

Without further ado, she grabbed it, opened the door, flicked on the lights and stepped into the kitchen.

Danny’s bleak thoughts concerning the whereabouts of Henry Christie were way off the mark. Not only was he not in bed with his wife Kate, he had not slept on the marital bed for almost two weeks. At that moment in time he was leaving a very sophisticated night club in Manchester’s city centre, with his arm thrown around the shoulders of one of the biggest and most feared villains in the North of England.

Jacky Lee believed himself to be one of the elite hundred or so men in the country who were considered by the cops to be the top of the tree, crime-wise. One of those crims who lead flash lifestyles, drive big cars, own big houses, screw second-rate models, knock about with footballers and pop stars, and who have no visible means of support. The police know their way of life is financed by crime, but because they cleverly distance themselves from the sharp end, they are rarely caught.

However, Lee’s belief had been somewhat dented six years earlier when he found himself in front of a Crown Court jury in York, facing drugs importation charges for which he subsequently received eight years in jail. Good behaviour got him out in four, when he immediately slotted back into business.

Lee and Henry Christie stumbled out of the club, down the steps. A Roller had pulled up, a black BMW behind it, all tinted windows and menace. Lee and Henry clambered into the back of the Rolls, laughing and joking drunkenly.

Lee was definitely the worse for wear, well inebriated. Henry was stone cold sober, but acting pissed. Inside himself he was worked up like a coiled spring and needed to keep his wits firmly about him. He was operating in dangerous territory.

Lee leaned over the driver’s shoulder and gave him instructions to take them to his apartment in the city — a penthouse down south. Then he slumped back next to Henry and gave a deep sigh of contentment.

‘ Jesus, it’s good to be back with you,’ he said to Henry, slapping the policeman’s knee in a manly way. ‘I really missed our crack when I was inside that fucking place, you know.’

‘ I missed you too, Jacky,’ Henry said. ‘We had a scream back then, didn’t we?’

‘ Aye lad, we fuckin’ did that — and did some good business too.’

A change suddenly came over Jacky Lee. He became silent, pensively watching the lights of the city flash past from the Rolls. His expression was hard and he no longer seemed drunk.

‘ Y’know,’ he said at length, ‘I fuckin’ thought and thought about why I ended up in the slammer. I truly believed my operation was watertight.’

Something in Henry’s throat constricted. A peculiar feeling — nausea combined with dread — grumbled in the pit of his stomach.

‘ I been over it all again and again, boy. Workin’ it all back in my mind. Retreading everything I’d done, who I’d met, who I’d dealt with, and I really, really struggled to see why the cops moved on to me. I even got a private detective to go over all the witness statements against me to see if there was any clue in them as to who might’ve dropped me in it with the cops, and to check out people I know. Just out of curiosity, like.’

Henry’s controlled outer-body language did not betray his inner turmoil. He feigned a stifled yawn of indifference and belched. He folded his arms and allowed his head to drop back on to the soft white leather headrest. ‘Any conclusions?’ he asked Lee laconically, closing his eyes.

‘ Oh yeah, too fucking true.’ Jacky Lee’s eyes bored across at the side of Henry’s head. Henry opened his own slowly and clicked his tongue as though there was a nasty taste in. his mouth. Actually there was. It was a taste called terror. But even so, if Lee thought he was going to rattle Henry into spouting a confession of some sort, he was wrong.

‘ And?’ Henry asked.

‘ I thought about you. I thought you could’ve been the one.’

Shit. Henry’s mind raced whilst his face remained impassive. So this was it, he thought. The time of confrontation. The moment Henry dreaded happening. He knew that his reaction to Lee’s statement was crucial as to whether he, Henry, lived or died. The significance of the following BMW struck him at that moment. The hit team.

Henry eyed Lee narrowly for a few tense seconds. Lee was waiting, testing.

Henry’s mouth kinked into a grin and his eyes flushed with humour. The grin evolved into a smile which became a chuckle and a head-shake of disbelief. Lee responded with a giggle.

‘ I had to think about you, pal. I had to think about every cunt,’ Lee explained when the mirth had subsided. ‘But you — I knew it couldn’t be you. You’ve put too much bent gear my way for it to be you.’

Henry’s mind breathed a sigh of relief.

‘ Yeah, you know me too well, Jack,’ Henry said, remembering how he had once spent a whole Christmas with Lee and his family up in the North-East — mother, sisters, granny, nieces and nephews and even had a holiday in Spain with the guy once. They knew each other very well. ‘I’m just like you. Making a living. Buying and selling. Just a commodity broker.’

‘ Yeah, you’re right. That’s all we are — commodity brokers, market traders without a pitch. Just selling on goods. I like that — commodity broker.’

The Rolls drew to a halt outside an apartment block. New, swish with good security, overlooking one of the basins of the Ship Canal. Lee had built the whole complex, financed it one hundred per cent. The eighty apartments he’d already sold had netted him somewhere in the region of six million.

‘ Love to invite you up, pal,’ Lee said, ‘but I got some hot totty waiting up there. Gagging for it, she is.’

‘ Hey, no problemo.’

‘ Good. So — see ya.’ Lee opened his door but crimped back suddenly to Henry before getting out of the car. ‘The issue we’ve just been discussing, by the way…’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Y’know, the grass?’

Henry waited.

‘ Sorted it,’ Lee said with a wink. ‘Fish food. No more problems for Jack. See ya.’ He got out, slammed the door and slapped the roof and strode briskly, if unevenly, to the apartment block.

‘ Where to, sir?’ the driver asked through the intercom.

Henry told him the name of a hotel in the city centre. The Rolls pulled quietly into the night. A quick glance over his shoulder confirmed that the BMW was staying with him all the way.

He sank into the comfortable seat and tried to control his pulse-rate, careful not to let the mask slip because the driver was constantly monitoring him in the rearview mirror. Henry was actually elated by the way things had gone. Without any pushing or probing, which could have put Lee on his guard, the crim had begun to talk about ‘having sorted his problem’ and once people like him began to brag, the rest was usually easy.

Soon, Henry was sure, he would have Jack in the bag.

Of course the refrigerator had gone. Because Jack Sands’s brains had been handily collected in it, there had been no need to bag up the bits and pieces. The fridge door had been closed and the whole thing accompanied the body to the mortuary where the pathologist had simply helped himself to particles of the skull and brains as required during the autopsy. Like he was raiding the fridge for a snack or something.

But Danny could still see the scene, clear and graphic as ever in her mind’s eye.

She remembered opening the kitchen door, full of apprehension.. And there he was. Jack Sands, former lover, lying with his head in the fridge, his legs and arms were splayed and twisted gruesomely. The single-barrelled shotgun lay by his right side. Danny had to step right into the kitchen to actually see his head.

Or what was left of it.

The shotgun had literally blown it right off.

Somehow Sands had wedged the muzzle underneath his chin, in the cleft of soft skin in the ‘V’ of the lower jawbone, angled it slightly, stretched forward and pushed the trigger back with his right thumb. His long arms had easily reached down the length of the barrel.

All because she had ended a relationship between them that was going nowhere, doing no one any favours.

Danny had reeled away in horror back into the hallway and hurled up the contents of her stomach. She remembered little else about the next few minutes until the cops and ambulance people arrived on the scene.

Now she stood and looked at the box-shaped space where her Zanussi had been positioned. She wondered how she should be reacting. Although the scene was still there with her, she found she actually felt very little now. As if it had all been a terrible dream.

Certainly there was nothing here — now — in physical terms. No tangible memories of Jack. Indeed, prior to his suicide, Danny had emptied the house of all memories of him in a fit of pique.

So there was nothing. Every last speck had been cleared away. All the mess which had managed to seep out of the fridge had been sponged away by Henry Christie and some other colleagues.

Danny sighed, walked across the kitchen and plugged the kettle in. A nice, hot cup of tea, without milk, was a good enough homecoming.

In his rage, Billy Crane had gone a whole lot further than he’d intended. He found himself possessed by some uncontrollable inner demon to punish Loz for the lack of judgement that had cost fifty grand.

He’d dragged Loz down to the ground and forced the screaming man’s hand into the lion’s cage through the food-tray flap. Nero, his wild instincts fired up by the events outside his cage, leapt towards the hand. His two massive front paws smashed down on to it, talons extended, and his mouth opened wide, revealing his fearsome array of teeth… at which moment Crane realised that Nero was about to rip Loz’s arm off. With a curse on his lips, Crane tried desperately to extract Loz from the lion’s clutches.

Nero responded by holding tighter, pulling harder and sinking his claws into the hand.

The initial, searing pain had been incredible for Loz: the puncturing of the skin by those dirty, germ-laden claws. Then, mercifully, endorphins and other body chemicals kicked into Loz’s system and it all became unreal for him. A blur. He went limp and allowed it to proceed, unable to put up any fight or struggle.

With one last almighty wrench, Crane managed to drag Loz to safety, though Nero’s talons dug deep, leaving lines of ripped flesh in the back of the little man’s hand.

Deprived of his kill, the lion roared terribly, throwing himself against the cage in a frenzy. For a while Crane was fearful that Nero had the power to pull the structure down. But it held. Just.

Twenty minutes later Crane had calmed down, smoked his fourth cigarette. He sat on a chair, elbows on knees, deep in thought.

Loz cried softly on the rooftop, holding his injured arm between his knees. He rocked like a baby, in a pool of his own blood. The arm was in a terrible mess.

‘ Help me,’ he whined. ‘Billy — help me, man.’

Crane stood up, tossed his cigarette down and stamped it out. ‘I’ll get a doctor,’ he announced, turned and left Loz lying there.

Nero, now also calm, having devoured the remaining contents of the coolbox, sat regally inside the cage, eyes focused on Loz.