‘ See if you can find it,’ said Ralphie.
Henry eyed the people standing over him, ending up on the girl’s face. If he’d expected any vestige of sympathy or concern from her regarding his plight, he was mistaken. Her mouth wasn’t quite so lovely when it was folded into a snarl of contempt. She looked like she could have happily spat on him.
The target pulled everything out of the wallet. Three five-pound notes went sailing down the alley, one or two receipts went with them. His Barclaycard was tossed to one side after being twisted beyond use. A driving licence was extracted along with his warrant card. The target read them in the available light before showing them to Ralphie. One of the gorillas arrived back bearing Henry’s gun between thumb and forefinger.
‘ Found this in all that shite,’ he said.
‘ Give it to me,’ snapped the target, clicking his fingers.
He handed the gun over. The target looked at it, smiled, leaned over Henry and forced the muzzle into the soft flesh underneath his chin.
‘ So you’re a cop, eh?’
‘ Yeah.’
‘ Do you think that makes a difference to me? Do you think that’ll stop me from pulling this trigger? Eh?’ He was becoming more and more angry and wound up as he spoke. ‘Do you think that’ll stop me from splattering your brains into the chop suey?’
‘ Don’t know,’ said Henry, his eyes wide, nostrils flaring. He could smell the target’s aftershave. It was overpowering. ‘Probably not,’ he conceded.
The target pushed the gun harder into the flesh. Henry heard the hammer being cocked. Oh God, I’m going to die in an alley full of shit, he thought.
‘ Now why the fuck are you following me?’
‘ Part of an operation… we suspect you of being a drug dealer.’
‘ Is that all?’ He sounded disappointed.
‘ Yes.’
‘ Why the gun? Why the fuckin’ gun?’ he was screaming at Henry.
‘ I carry all the time… part of my job… Crime Squad,’ Henry bleated. There didn’t seem much point in beating about the bush now. It was no great earth-shattering secret.
The target rocked back on his haunches. Henry heard the man’s knees crack. He looked up at Ralphie who was lounging by the wall with the girl.
‘ Shall I pop him?’
‘ Your problem, not mine,’ said Ralphie unhelpfully.
Why couldn’t you say no, Henry thought.
‘ I think I will.’
The target looked back down at Henry and opened his mouth to speak.
Before any words could come, however, there was the sound of a gun shot, and the target’s head disintegrated. His mouth, still opened wide, vomited blood and brain out onto Henry’s chest.
The girl screamed. Ralphie shouted some sort of warning. There were running feet, confusion.
For a few moments the target stayed where he was in a squatting position before keeling forwards across Henry’s thighs and lower abdomen, twitching like mad in his death throes. Henry saw that the back of his head was missing.
The man who’d fired the shot stood at the open end of the alley. Even in the poor light Henry knew he’d seen him before; just a short time ago in the pub.
He held a gun in his right hand.
‘ Get him! Get him!’ Ralphie screamed in panic at his men. He dived for cover behind a wheelie-bin, dragging the girl down with him. Henry, trapped under the weight of the dead man, could not move. The two gorillas reacted with predictable slowness. As they fumbled for their weapons, the figure at the end of the alley took his time, aimed slowly, and picked off each of the bodyguards with a shot to the chest. They were out of the game even before their weapons were in their hands.
Henry lay there terrified.
The man started walking down the alley to where Ralphie and the girl were hiding.
She was crying.
Ralphie was immobile. He exchanged a glance with Henry, whose expression said nothing.
‘ Stand up,’ the man ordered Ralphie. He ignored Henry and the girl.
‘ No, please, don’t, don’t, what’s this all about? Please, I haven’t done anything.’
The target finished squirming. Henry eased himself to one side underneath the weight and his right hand slowly snaked out towards his revolver which was still in the target’s outstretched right hand.
‘ I said stand up.’
Ralphie, quivering, got slowly to his feet.
‘ Face the wall,’ the man said. He spoke with an American accent. The gun was six inches further than Henry could reach without drawing attention to himself.
‘ Nooo!’ screamed the black girl. She was already on her knees, her hands covering her face, rocking back and forth like a baby in a cot.
Ralphie faced the wall, his nose pressed up to the brickwork.
The man walked across to the girl and gave one violent blow to the back of her head with his revolver butt; she fell silent. He went to Ralphie then and said, ‘You know what this is for, don’t you?’
‘ No.’
‘ Double-crossing Corelli. No one does that, Mr Brown.’
‘ Look… Jesus Christ!’
‘ Too late for Him.’
He pulled the trigger four times, putting the bullets into the back of Ralphie’s head. Ralphie jerked into the wall with the impact and slithered to the ground. The man didn’t bother to check if he was dead: he knew. Even whilst Ralphie was slithering he was walking away down the alley.
Shocked for an instant by what he’d witnessed — an execution — and still unable to believe it, Henry heaved the target’s body off himself, prised the gun out of his dead fingers and pointed at the man’s retreating back.
‘ Stop!’ he shouted. He aimed the gun, but his hand was shaking. The man barely glanced round before turning left at the top of the alley and disappearing.
Henry, who’d shouted his command from a seated position, rose quickly to his feet. He looked at the bloody scene which surrounded him. It was like a street in the capital of Rwanda, littered with bodies. The girl moaned.
Henry knew he had a decision to make. He made it quickly. He went after the man.
Running was very painful. His ribs jarred each time a foot crashed to the pavement. He kept his left arm pressed tightly across his chest in a V-shape to support himself.
As he ran he checked that his gun was loaded, releasing the cylinder with the thumb of his right hand and flicking it back into place when he saw the chambers were full. On his belt at the small of his back was a leather ring which held a spare speed loader primed with six more. 38s. The gorilla had missed it when searching him, as he’d missed the PR.
He veered out of the alley and ran in the direction of the promenade. About a quarter of a mile ahead of him the Tower loomed, bristling with lights.
He soon hit the Golden Mile. And people. Hundreds of people. He couldn’t see the killer.
‘ Get out of the fuckin’ way,’ he screamed, repeating it as he ran.
The crowd opened for him like the Red Sea as people scattered. Not surprising as it must have frightened the life out of everyone to see Henry careering towards them in his present condition.
Blood was still pouring from the reopened cut on the side of his face, as well as from his nose and mouth. His face was battered black and blue by the assault and his hair was in total disarray, matted with an unpleasant mixture of blood and cold, rotting food. There was a large area of blood and gore right aross his chest where the target had emptied the contents of the back of his head. With Henry’s left arm wedged where it was, it must’ve looked like he’d sustained a massive injury of some sort.
