The Last Big Job

Chapter Seven

At 10 a.m. next day, Danny walked up the concrete steps of the block of flats where Cheryl lived. She strode over pools of urine and spew and avoided broken needles. At the first landing she turned left on to a walkway. A small group of youths were gathered outside the doorway to one of the council flats. Danny had to walk past them to get where she was going.

All eyes turned to her; conversation ceased as they immediately clocked her as a cop. A lone cop at that. And a woman. They purposely edged away from the door into her path to obstruct her.

She approached them with the impression of streetwise confidence, but underneath she was quaking. She had no business with these guys and did not want to have, but people like this always wanted to know what the authorities were doing on their territory. Danny guessed the oldest of them was about fifteen. Even so, they were all mean and potentially nasty.

Their chins — marked with zits and tufts of adolescent bum-fluff — lifted. Sneers appeared on their faces. They were like a pack of wild dogs responding to an intruder… in this case, Danny.

‘ Excuse me, please,’ Danny said politely.

‘ Why? What’ve you done — farted?’ one giggled.

‘ Just excuse me,’ she insisted.

One of them drew himself up to his full height. He stepped directly in front of her, challenge written across his face. Danny was tall, but he wasn’t far off.

‘ What’re you doing here?’ he wanted to know.

Danny sighed. ‘Just let me through, please, OK?’

There was a second or two’s hesitation; those tense moments when one or the other had to give ground. It wasn’t going to be Danny. The youngster lost his nerve and stepped reluctantly aside. A path opened and she passed through with relief.

‘ Bitch,’ one of them hissed.

‘ Twat,’ said another.

‘ Show us yer cunt… I can smell it already,’ another added bravely, sending them all into fits of hysterical laughter.

Danny chose not to respond, acknowledge them or turn round. She simply sighed and thought, Ahh, the youth of today, the leaders of tomorrow, and walked to the end of the landing, turning left out of their sight.

The flat was number 23. She stopped outside it, saw the obscene graffiti scrawled on the door, the window pane boarded up with cardboard and the damage halfway down the door which looked as though someone had kicked it in.

She raised her knuckles, but did not knock. The door was slightly open. She pushed gently with a finger. It swung open with a creak of the hinges, revealing a short, empty vestibule.

‘ Cheryl?’ Danny called. ‘It’s me, Danny Furness.’

Danny’s cop instinct — honed by eighteen years of entering premises — told her straight away the flat was empty. Something about the atmosphere. The stillness. The way the sound of her voice was not absorbed by human flesh, just bounced off the fixtures and fittings. The hairs on the back of her neck rose, making her shiver.

She crossed the threshold and turned into the living room. She surveyed the empty room, listened and sniffed, catching the tangy mixture of cigarette and cannabis smoke, and beer; some cans of lager were open on the carpet in front of the electric fire which burned bright red, hot enough to make toast.

The room was sweltering. The heat hit Danny immediately.

The TV was on, too, the volume low; a morning chat show hosted by some celebrity on the way down career-wise. Incest being the topic up for discussion. Danny crossed the room, a quiver of apprehension inside her. She bent down, flicked off the TV and then the electric fire. The three bars faded immediately as though happy to be relieved of their task. Next to the fire was a half-smoked joint in an ashtray and next to that a clear plastic bag containing herbal cannabis. Danny recognised the illegal substance, as any cop worth their salt would have done. Alongside this was a packet of cigarettes, the lid tipped open, revealing the contents — about a dozen remaining from the original twenty. Then there was a set of keys, one of which looked like it was probably the front-door key.

Danny sighed through her nose, stood upright and considered the rest of the room.

Clothes were scattered around the floor, male and female. A pair of skimpy knickers, a dressing gown, a pair of jeans, a T-shirt. Cold remnants of a fish-and-chip supper were all over the settee and carpet, beginning to stink.

Danny checked the small kitchen, the bathroom, the untidy bedroom.

A very bad feeling made her swallow.

Earlier that morning she had checked the signing-on book at the front desk of the police station. She had seen that Cheryl, as well as missing last night’s rendezvous at the cop shop, had also missed this morning’s. Having a professional interest in the case, she decided to pay Cheryl a visit and give her the hard word, intending to warn her that next time she failed to sign on she would be thrown back in front of the court with the recommendation that bail be rescinded, and get locked up.

But Cheryl was nowhere to be found.

Danny actually wanted to believe that she had done a midnight flit, yet the state of the flat was unsettling. People who do runners usually take their fags and dope with them. Their lifelines. They don’t leave stuff like that behind.

As Danny went back on to the landing, she again noticed the damage to the door. She paused, patted her pockets and located her ciggies. She lit one, breathed smoke in deep and bent down to inspect the door. She exhaled through the side of her mouth. Had something happened here? she speculated. Some form of retribution because of the drugs? She pulled the door to behind her and made her way back to the car, going in the opposite direction to the teenage gang around the corner, thinking, Time will tell.

Where interpersonal relationships were concerned, Henry Christie was a coward at heart. Because he and Kate had parted on such sour terms and he had made little effort to keep in contact with her, he thought it was going to be very hard for him to present himself on the front doorstep and announce, ‘Honey, I’m home!’

He drove back from Manchester that morning, planning what he was going to say. One of his main problems was that he had thrown himself on to her mercy too many times in the past. Even for Kate, the most patient and forgiving of people, there must be a point at which enough was enough. Henry prayed she had not reached it.

On the M61 he stopped at Bolton West services. After a cup of tea, he bought several bunches of flowers and combined them into one big one, a box of chocolates and a pop music tape each for the girls… peace offerings. He had the sneaking suspicion this would not be nearly enough to appease Kate, probably rightly so.

As Blackpool drew nearer, he caught sight of the Tower. His intestines lurched. In ten minutes, or less, depending on the traffic, he could be home. He knew today was Kate’s day off — she worked part-time — and that on a day like this, glorious sunshine, she would probably be gardening.

He came off the motorway at Marton Circle, where he should have left the roundabout at the three o’clock exit. His nerve failed him. Instead, he looped right round and rejoined the motorway into Blackpool, deciding to bob into the station instead. Just to catch up on work. See what was happening in his absence. Give him a little more time to think about himself, Kate, their daughters and the future. And maybe see Danny Furness.

Colin Hodge, the driver for the security firm, was completely in control of the situation. He felt it, believed it, and was experiencing it right at that very moment as he walked into Thomas Cook’s Travel Agency on Fishergate in Preston. He said very firmly to the lady behind the counter, ‘I want you to book me on a flight to Tenerife as soon as possible.’

She smiled nicely. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

Hodge sat down on the comfy chair, leaned back, smiled complacently to himself. Yes, he was very much in charge of the whole shebang. Otherwise, why would those two stupid bastards have immediately bunged two grand his way, told him to take his annual holiday and get down to Los Cristianos where he was to go to a certain address and wait to be contacted? The contact, he had been assured, would be very soon. In the meantime, he should chill out, have some fun. If he wanted anything ‘extra’ he only needed to call a number he was given and his whims would be attended to. Hodge had already memorised the number.

The travel agent tapped some details into her computer. There was a delay of a few seconds before she turned the screen so that Hodge could see what was available. ‘There’s one tomorrow, if that’s any good,’ she said.

At the same time, Billy Crane and Don Smith were at Manchester Airport looking up at a departures screen. The flight to Lisbon was due to take off in three-quarters of an hour. Crane would be on it. He rarely travelled direct from the UK to Tenerife if he could avoid it. He wasn’t too concerned about making it difficult for people who might be tracking him, but did not want to make it too easy.

The two men regarded each other affectionately.

‘ It’s been a good break, lots achieved,’ Crane said.

They shook hands, patted each other’s shoulders.

‘ I’ll do some digging on Hodge,’ Smith said, ‘then I’ll be out to see you in a couple of days. I know a guy who can do it for me, discreet like. Someone who’s good.’

‘ Fine, but remember this — I haven’t said I’m in this for definite. I’m just sniffing a dog’s arse at the moment, that’s all,’

The departures screen rolled out instructions for the Lisbon flight: passengers to make their way to the boarding gate now. The two men parted and anyone observing them would not have been able to guess from their demeanour that both had been involved in murder only hours before.

Because of his dislike of airports, the Russian left it to the very last minute before arriving and checking in at Manchester. He walked briskly away from the BA check-in desk towards Passport Control, dropped his hand luggage on to the conveyor belt which trundled it through the X-ray machine, stepped through the metal detector without incident, collected his bag and presented his passport to the Customs official at the desk. The document received only the most cursory of glances. He might as well have offered his real one. Once in the International Departure lounge he turned into W.H. Smiths and bought a morning newspaper which he tucked under his arm and made his way to the boarding gate.

He stepped on to the first travellator at exactly the same time as another man of much the same age and build as himself. They ignored each other. The Russian stepped

slightly ahead and came off at Gate 21.

Billy Crane carried on towards Gate 33.

At the boarding gate, the Russian was slightly aggrieved to see there was a delay of a few minutes on the Paris flight. He chuntered and sat down to read his newspaper, annoyed that he was actually sitting in an airport and not touring naval dockyards on the south coast as planned. But that was the nature of his occupation. He was very much in demand, well paid for what he did and never turned anything down.

After dealing so publicly with Jacky Lee, he had contacted his masters in Russia to report back. They were very pleased. Before he could tell them he was going to have a short break, he was instructed to get to Paris as soon as possible. He was given sketchy details of where and what the job entailed, and told that he would be properly briefed on his arrival in the city. He almost refused, but the lure of a quarter of a million dollars and the assurance that it would be a simple, straightforward hit swung it.

Which is how he came to be at Manchester Airport. If he had to travel by air, he chose provincial airports where appropriate.

In just over ninety minutes he would be in Paris.

Eight hours after that, he expected to be on a train heading south.

He laid out the newspaper on his knees, thought back to the Jacky Lee assassination.

It had gone well. Publicly as requested. Everything had slotted neatly into place. Timings, everything. The Russian closed his eyes and tilted his head back, working through the scenario moment by moment. Then his forehead furrowed. His heart blipped. Something had not gone quite right — but he could not place his finger on exactly what.

His brain rewound. He went through it all again. Pulling up, entering the transport cafe, seeing Lee, killing Lee, the getaway… the tense moment when Lee’s business partner pointed a gun at the speeding car but did not fire… then he was away. The car had been destroyed. All very smooth.

Except for… he wracked his brains. Two things now. Yes, the more he thought deeply about it, why didn’t Lee’s partner shoot? The Russian found that very suspicious. And the stance the man had taken with the gun. A professional stance. The Russian opened his eyes. Maybe the guy had been a cop!

‘ British Airways flight to Paris, now boarding at Gate 21,’ came the Tannoy announcement.

It was a possibility. The Russian folded his newspaper and joined the quickly formed queue.

As he handed over his boarding card, that other niggle, the one he could not quite pinpoint came to him in a sickening lurch. It had been the moment in the transport cafe when he had warned off Jacky Lee’s friend.

‘ Stop — get back!’ he had warned.

No problem in that, except for one thing. In the heat of the battle he had reverted for a split second to his mother tongue. He had uttered the words in Russian.

‘ Thank you,’ he said politely, taking back the boarding card minus the stub from the steward.

He cursed inwardly. Slips like that could become fatal ones.

It would never happen again.

Danny glanced up from the work on her desk and blinked. Her mouth fell open, stunned. For a fleeting moment, she hardly recognised Henry.

For a start, his hair had been trimmed very closely to his skull. Maybe a ‘number two’, at the very least a ‘number three’ cut. He was unshaven and the stubble was probably three days old. His eyes looked tired and a little sunken. Lots of late nights, possibly. He was slimmer and trimmer than he had ever been. The paunch had all but gone and his upper chest and shoulders were broader and firmer, like he’d been pumping iron. With a light tan, too. His leather-look reefer jacket was slung casually over his shoulder, he was wearing a pale blue pique polo shirt and twin-pleated Chinos in slate with black, plain-fronted Doc Martens completing the effect.

Danny gulped in admiration. He looked dynamite and she experienced a little thrill of pleasure deep down.

‘ The spy who came in from the cold,’ she gasped.

‘ Danny,’ he nodded with a boy-like grin, ‘how’s it going?’

‘ Ultra-busy as usual.’

‘ I’m just on my way home. Thought I’d pop in on the way.’

She allowed her eyes to traverse him from head to toe. ‘You look good,’ she said hoarsely, approvingly.

‘ You too. Slim.’

There was a moment of silence.

‘ Hey, Henry, how the hell are you?’ a detective called from across the office.

Henry gave a short wave. ‘Good.’ His eyes returned to Danny. ‘Time for a brew? Chat?’

‘ How about some animal-like sex?’ she wanted to ask, but restrained her thoughts. ‘Yeah, definitely.’ She grabbed her PR and followed Henry up the stairs to the dining room, her eyes at his butt-level. She could not help but noticing that it looked tight, good enough to sink her teeth into.

Two planes taxied in tandem out to the runway. The Paris flight, followed by the Lisbon one. They were in the air within a minute of each other, only a few miles separating them as they cut south through British airspace.

The Russian relaxed, prepared himself for a quick in-flight snack. He had now carried out his internal debrief on the Lee killing and put his mistake behind him. There was no point in dwelling on it. It was doubtful whether there would be any consequence from it. He adjusted his mind to the next task and beyond that to what would definitely be a holiday.

In the plane a few miles behind, the figure of Billy Crane was also relaxed. He too had considered the last few days of his life and was pretty pleased about the way it had panned out. He was sure his stay in Lancashire had gone unreported to the cops and he was not particularly worried that he would be caught for the killings. He was confident of Don Smith’s abilities to plug holes wherever necessary. Crane was now mulling over Colin Hodge’s proposition, wondering how — or if — he was going to progress it or not.

If things checked out, the probable answer would be yes.

That said, the timescale was very tight. According to Hodge, the next such collection was only three weeks away. To pull it all together and execute it in twenty-one days would be a real tester. Things would have to move very quickly indeed.

Of course, fifty million pounds — if that was to be believed — was a very effective motivator.

He smiled at the stewardess when she offered him a drink. He caught a glint in her eye and he thought that maybe the stopover in Lisbon could be very interesting.

‘ The story was that you were drafted on to some hush-hush HQ project, that you couldn’t be contacted directly and anything for you should be channelled through FB’s office,’ Danny explained. She felt absolutely wonderful to be sitting so close to Henry, their knees touching under the table. She had missed him so much it physically hurt her; she wanted him so much, that hurt too. Yet she was acutely aware of her last encounter with a married man that had ended very messily indeed.

‘ Yeah, I know,’ Henry said. He sounded distracted, but brought himself back on line. ‘Truth is, I’ve been working undercover. I can’t tell you the details, but it ended somewhat shit-shaped, to say the least.’

‘ So you’re back then, are you?’ Danny tried to keep the hope out of her voice.

‘ No, not exactly. Just a few days’ break, then I go back U/C.’ He ran a hand down his tired face, then interlocked his fingers in front of him. Danny touched the back of his hand with the tip of her forefinger. A tingle shimmied down her spine.

‘ You look tired.’

Again, Henry’s mind had wandered. Danny could see he wasn’t concentrating totally on her. It miffed her a little. Then his eyes focused. ‘Danny,’ he said with a click of his tongue, ‘can I bounce something off you — you being a close friend?’

A close friend! ‘Yes, sure.’

‘ Me and Kate parted on acrimonious terms. She was dead against me going back to Crime Squad work…’ He then related his sorry tale of woe. Danny listened intently and offered advice from her perspective, much against what she was really feeling. What she wanted to say was, ‘Ditch the bitch and hop into my sack.’ She didn’t, hid her disappointment and tried to give Henry some options. It was obvious he did not see Danny as a possible; he was too deeply in love with Kate and very distraught by his marital predicament.

‘ I just seem to cock it up all the time,’ he whined. ‘If it’s not my pants coming off, it’s work. I’m such a selfish bastard. Sometimes I think I should jack the job in, buy a newsagent’s or an off-licence, or something and live over the business, then I’d be really tied down.’

‘ Bad idea. If nothing else, you’re too good a cop for that, Henry.’

The two planes remained in tandem until the Paris flight veered east, whilst the Lisbon flight continued to fly almost due south. No one on either of the flights knew anyone on the other flight and although the two planes were never near to a collision, the two men, Crane and the Russian, were soon to be on a personal collision course which would end in bloody violence.

‘ Danny?’ A Detective Constable literally swung into the canteen on the upright door jamb, looking very excited. ‘ Got a good ‘un. Three bodies in a vehicle inspection pit — and they didn’t get into it willingly. Can you turn out and cover the scene? Like I said, looks a cracker.’

‘ Be right there.’ She looked at Henry, desperate to kiss him.

‘ Duty calls.’

‘ Want me to come?’

‘ Nah, I’m a big girl now. You go home and take my advice — give Kate an old-fashioned night of passion, OK? It works wonders, the orgasm. It does with me, anyway…’