The Last Big Job

Chapter Six

‘ What we do is this: we keep him sweet, we string him along and we milk him of all the information he has to give us. We let him believe he’s got clout and that he’s running the show — because that’s what he wants to believe. We feed him cash, we feed him birds, booze and smack if that’s what turns him on. We con the living shit out of him and then we bury the twat!

‘ See — I’m not having no stinking little security guard trying to tell me what to do,’ Crane went on. ‘No fucking way under God’s sky. We run him. Be doesn’t run us.’ Crane turned to Smith. His eyes were lit by passing fluorescent street-lights as the car moved swiftly northwards through the easy traffic. They were back in the shabby Vauxhall Carlton, having concluded their meeting with Colin Bodge. ‘Is that clear?’

Smith’s face cracked with a smile of pleasure. ‘I take it from that you’re in?’

Crane extended his right hand. Smith shook it and clasped his left over it. ‘I knew you’d be interested. I needed you along. You’ve got all the right contacts for this one.’

‘ And I don’t want to take that little bastard’s word for anything,’ Crane said, referring to Bodge. ‘Do some background on him, make sure he’s not telling us a load of crap. Make sure he’s not a cop or a snout, either. Check everything out, mega-style. Take nothing at face value. I’ve had so-called mates informing on me in the past and I didn’t like it one bit.’

Smith guffawed.

‘ What’s the joke?’

‘ Nah — you’ll see very soon. Something very pertinent to what you’ve just said.’

‘ Stop stringing me along, will you?’ Crane was annoyed.

‘ Hey, Bill, stick with me, eh? It’ll come good. You can trust me.’

‘ Right, sure,’ he said without enthusiasm.

They were driven north to Bispham and on to a small industrial estate. The whole place was dead.

‘ Here we are,’ Smith announced as the car drew to a halt. ‘Lesson time.’

Way above in the ceiling, the strip-lights pinged on. Cheryl blinked. The lights were very bright after the darkness and hurt her eyes. She was extremely cold. Her legs and hands were numb. She saw, at last, what sort of premises she was in — a garage. There were two hydraulic car ramps, over two inspection pits. A car was on one and the ramp was raised high. There was no car on the other ramp nearest to her. Cheryl could see the black, rectangular inspection pit. It reminded her of a newly dug grave.

She heard footsteps and began to sob.

Cheryl and Spencer, both naked, were now seated on plastic chairs, placed side by side. Their feet and wrists were still secured by tape, their arms pulled around the backs of the chairs. Cheryl had wet herself and was sitting in a puddle of her own urine. Spencer had gone one step further in his terror and soiled himself. A tremendous stench wafted from underneath him.

‘ Fifty thousand pounds, that’s what I lost,’ Billy Crane said in a gentle voice — for the tenth time — leaning into Cheryl’s face. He was wearing a pair of overalls.

‘ I’m so sorry,’ she gurgled. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘ Sorry doesn’t cut it, you stupid bitch.’ Though the words were harsh, Crane’s voice remained calm. As a result, he was all the more fearsome. He was playing with them and enjoying it.

He turned his head slowly, rather like Dracula, and cast his eyes to Spencer who quickly looked away and stared down at the oozing shit between his legs. ‘I don’t need to

say very much to you, sonny, do I?’

Spencer did not respond.

Crane reached across and tipped up Spencer’s chin with a forefinger. There was no resistance. ‘You are a stupid little boy who thinks he’s a man, aren’t you?’

Spencer blinked rapidly and swallowed.

‘ Men do not crap themselves, Spence.’

Crane stood up to his full height, looked around the floor and saw a couple of eight-foot wooden planks, each about four inches thick, lying nearby. ‘Lay those two planks on top of each other,’ he said.

Hawker and Price, the two men who had so efficiently abducted the couple, materialised from behind them. They carried out Crane’s instructions, placing one plank on top of the other.

Crane watched them work, then turned to address Cheryl and Spencer. ‘I want you both to see how angry you have made me and to realise how wrong you were to be such fools. I’ll deal with you first.’ He glared directly at Spencer.

‘ Oh fuck — no,’ Spencer screamed. ‘I didn’t even know she was carrying the stuff. Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ!’ he babbled. ‘I’ve done nowt.’

‘ Pick him up and lie him face down, parallel to the planks,’ he instructed Hawker and Price.

On hearing the words, Spencer shot to his bound feet and threw himself sideways in an effort to escape. The two men caught him quickly and easily. One punched him hard in the guts, doubling him over, driving all the air and fight out of him. Spencer crumpled with a groan. Then they laid him out as instructed.

‘ About two feet away,’ Crane directed. ‘Good. Now, release his arms.’ Crane squatted on his haunches near to Spencer’s head and spoke quietly. ‘Listen to me, Spencer. ‘I’m going to get these guys to let your arms go free, so you can do this whatever way you want. I don’t give a shit. If you struggle or fight at all, things will be worse for you.’ Crane shrugged. ‘You know what I’m saying, don’t you?’

Spencer nodded, his face pressed into the oily concrete of the garage floor. His hands came free.

‘ Good. Now, Spencer, keep yourself face down and reach out with your right arm, straight out from your shoulder and place the palm of your hand down on top of the planks. That’s it, good lad. Keep your arm rigid and keep your elbow nice and locked. Excellent.’

Crane stood up stiffy, stepped over Spencer so that he was standing in the gap between Spencer and the planks. He placed the sole of his right shoe on the point of Spencer’s elbow and tested it with a little bit of pressure, but no real body weight.

He nodded at Cheryl and smiled foully.

Her face was a mask of horror and disbelief.

Spencer began to weep.

Crane’s expression was evil. ‘This is part payment for fifty grand,’ he announced. At the exact moment he finished speaking, he rose up, put all his weight on to his right foot and forced Spencer’s elbow down like he was breaking a twig. The joint went first time with a loud splintering crack. Spencer roared in pain.

Crane stepped off.

‘ I do not fuck about,’ he said, lurched over to Cheryl, grabbed her face in the palm of his hand and squeezed, distorting her features. ‘And now it’s your turn, girl,’ he growled.

Henry Christie stared with growing disbelief at Detective Superintendent Rupert Davison, then emitted a high-pitched laugh with a slightly hysterical tinge to it. ‘Did I hear you right? You’re asking me why I didn’t shoot him?’

‘ You had the opportunity.’

‘ Yeah — and he was being driven away in a car by some kid and he presented me with no danger whatsoever, except from exhaust fumes. Not only that, I was holding a firearm which I’d taken from Jacky Lee’s body which, it will probably transpire, was no doubt used by Lee to waste a guy a few weeks ago… the reason I was on Lee’s tail in the first place.’

Henry sat down after realising he had been pacing the room — a classroom at Sedgely Park, Greater Manchester Police’s training school. This was where a hasty rendezvous had been arranged for him and Terry Briggs to meet Davison for a debrief of Lee’s shooting.

‘ You let a professional killer go loose, probably to kill again.’

Henry blinked. He gave a sidelong glance at Terry who was sitting there shaking his head. He could not believe what he was hearing, either.

‘ So be it,’ Henry said. ‘I’ll live with it. At least I’m not at the shitty end of another PCA enquiry or civil litigation, having to justify even drawing breath, let alone firing a non-police-issue firearm. Yeah.’ He folded his arms defensively. ‘I can live with that.’ He was thinking about an on-going enquiry, in which he was deeply embroiled, following the shooting incident several years earlier when he had been obliged to put a bullet into a professional hitman. Things like that did not go away. They scarred for life.

‘ You have less of a conscience than I do, then,’ Davison said.

He and Henry stared impassively at each other. Henry was determined he would not be the one to drop his eyes. Instead, he raised his eyebrows.

After leaving the scene of Jacky Lee’s murder — in keeping with the characters of their legends — he and Terry had immediately contacted Davison and filled him in on what had taken place. As a result of their information, details of the getaway car had been circulated, but as yet — 11 p.m. — it had not been found. Davison had hastily arranged to meet the two U/C officers for a debrief and statements from them.

This process was taking a long time. They had been at it four hours. Henry and Terry were worn out and needed some serious kip. Davison’s attitude did not help either; he was annoying both detectives immensely.

‘ You’re criticising me for not shooting someone — is that what I’m hearing? I hate to think what you’d be saying to me if I had pulled the trigger.’ Henry snorted and let it drop. He needed a bed. He thought briefly about Kate and wondered if she was asleep or not. ‘I guess that’s it,’ he said with a touch of finality. ‘Job’s over. Jacky Lee’s met a sticky end. You’ll probably never find out for sure if he killed that guy in the canal, and we’ve done our work.’

‘ No, you haven’t.’ Davison shook his head.

Henry and Terry looked up together.

Davison held up the witness statements they had written. ‘I am now the SIO on the murder of Jacky Lee. I will not be making these statements available to the investigating team, though I will let my deputy know about them, of course. As far as you are both concerned, you are being hunted down by the police as witnesses to the murder, possibly even suspects. I haven’t revealed to any of my team that an undercover operation was up and running as regards Lee. It is not my intention to tell them an undercover operation is up and running to find Lee’s murderer.’

‘ What are you saying?’ Terry demanded.

‘ That I want you’ — he pointed at Henry — ‘to stay undercover, and I don’t want the Murder Squad to know about it, with the exception of my deputy SIO. I want you to get into the ribs of Lee’s minders and gather evidence for us… then when you’ve got it, I’ll pull you out.’

‘ That will be so fucking dangerous, it’s not worth talking about,’ Henry pointed out forcefully. ‘There’s a good chance I’ll get iced as well as Lee. It is not a good situation. In fact, it’s a dark, murky one. These people don’t mess around, you know. They don’t like you, or don’t trust you, they kill you. They’re not like you and me.’

‘ I want you to go back in and find out who killed Jacky Lee, then withdraw. Piece of piss for a guy like you.’

Henry remained tight-lipped. ‘Does Fanshaw-Bayley know about this?’

Davison nodded. ‘And approves.’

Henry’s lips reverted to tight, cynical. He looked at Terry. Each man knew what the other was thinking. It was an exciting prospect, yet appalling at the same time. Henry loathed himself for what he said next.

‘ OK, I’ll do it. But everything is down to me. Every detail. Everything. Even the merest hint that Thompson and Gunk are unhappy with me, I’m out like shit off a shovel.’

‘ Fine.’

‘ And the first thing is, for the sake of realism, Frank Jagger would definitely lie low for a few days before slithering out of the woodwork, so that’s what I’ll be doing. Not least because I haven’t spent enough time at home for a while.’

They left the classroom a short while later.

In the very basic bedroom that had been provided for him at the Training School, Henry settled on the bed after a long, hot shower. He got to thinking about Rupert Davison. He remembered him from years before. Recalled what a prick the guy had been as a Constable. A real loose cannon. Obviously the intervening years had not changed him much. He had been unpopular way back then and as Henry dozed off he tried to remember why. Then it struck him. Davison did stupid things, always seemed to put other people in danger and always emerged unscathed himself. The thought made Henry sweat.

‘ Look up, you bastard,’ Crane ordered Spencer. All bravado gone, the teenager was sitting back on his reeking chair, doubled forwards, trying to nurse the terribly broken arm. The pain was excruciating, burning up from his elbow to his shoulder and across his chest. He rocked in agony, trying to handle the sickening waves which pulsated through him. However, he responded to Crane’s harsh voice and raised his chin.

Cheryl was standing up, naked, petrified. Hawker was behind her, holding her arms, preventing her from moving.

Crane stood next to her, swinging a solid metal pipe in his right hand. It was about half the length but of a similar diameter to the thick end of a snooker cue.

‘ Watch this,’ he said to Spencer.

‘ Oh God,’ screamed Spencer as Crane’s body twisted at the hip and knee. The pipe arced through the air. He put his whole weight behind the movement and smashed the pipe against Cheryl’s left shin.

She screamed and fell clutching her shattered leg, fractured by the blow.

Crane surveyed his handiwork. Above the sound of Cheryl’s moans he announced, ‘This is what you get when you cock up with me. Grief.’

Then he thought the couple had suffered enough. He waggled his fingers at Smith who had watched the whole episode whilst leaning against the wall. He handed a revolver to Crane.

‘ Enough of this shit,’ Crane said. He reached out and grabbed Spencer’s hair, yanked him up off the chair and dragged him to the edge of the vehicle inspection pit where he forced him on to his knees, overlooking the edge. Very quickly, without preamble, Crane pressed the muzzle of the gun against the back of Spencer’s head and pulled the trigger. The bullet lifted him into mid-air and into the inspection pit. He smashed to the bottom of it and twitched only once.

Crane repeated the procedure with Cheryl. Her body landed on top of her boyfriend’s.

When the echo of the gunfire had died away, Crane looked at Smith. He was breathing heavily, chest rising and falling, but his expression was exuberant, as though he’d just won Gladiators.

‘ You said you had something else for me.’