The gun was a Smith and Wesson snub-nosed .38 revolver, often referred to as a ‘Saturday night special’. The five-round cylinder was fully loaded. Claude had obtained the gun as payment in lieu of a drug debt. Pointing the gun at an imaginary front seat passenger he adopted a Gangsta pose. “BANG! You’re dead mutherfucka!”
He slowly raised the barrel to his lips and blew on it, and then threw back his head and laughed. It was a loud humourless sound. Placing the gun back in its protective cloth, he set off towards the East End. He had business to attend to.
CHAPTER 11
The rear wheels spun impressively as the BMW accelerated away, leaving the air thick with the cloying smell of burning rubber.
Tyler stepped out of the shadows, followed closely by Dillon, whose face was grim as he spoke into the handset. “The subject just got into a black BMW and is heading north along Kimberley Road.” He broadcast the registration number and told the team to fan out and try to pick it up.
The Omega appeared at the top of the road, engine roaring, before he had even finished speaking. A few seconds later it screeched to a halt beside them and both men dived in. Bull was pulling away before the doors had closed, but the BMW was already out of sight, and Jack was forced to face the ugly possibility that they might have lost him. The thought left a bad taste in his mouth. Suddenly, up in the distance, he caught a brief glimpse of bright red.
Red for brake lights.
Red for danger.
A frisson of hope stirred in his chest, only to be dashed as an old red Mini pulled out of a side road straight in front of them, blocking their path and forcing Bull to brake heavily. Oblivious to the urgency of the situation, the Mini’s elderly driver seemed content to pootle along at twenty miles per hour.
“Shall I put the blues and twos on?” Bull asked.
Jack shook his head glumly. He was trying to blot out the noise that Dillon was making as he screamed non-stop abuse at the Mini’s driver, but it really wasn’t easy. “No, we can’t do anything that might tip him off that we know where he lives.”
“We’ll lose him if we don’t,” Bull warned, shouting to be heard over the cacophony that Dillon was making.
“I know,” Tyler said, miserably. “We’ll just have to try and reacquire him once we get past this old fogey.” As he spoke, the BMW’s tail lights dwindled into tiny pinpricks and then disappeared altogether. Dillon nudged Steve’s arm so hard that the car swerved. “Ram the dozy fucker out of the way,” he demanded.
“Not helping, guv,” Steve snapped, shrugging Dillon’s massive hand off his arm.
As soon as the road opened up, Steve Bull buried the accelerator pedal into the floor and the Omega powered past the Mini, but it was far too late by then; the trail had gone cold.
“Right or left?” Steve demanded as they skidded to a halt at a T-Junction a few moments later.
Jack shrugged. “No idea,” he said, feeling totally depressed.
“I’ll plot a route for the City,” Dillon said, frantically pawing through the Met issue Geographia to work out how to get to the A13 from their current location. “Chances are he’s heading into town to go pimping.”
A car behind them sounded its horn aggressively. Looking in the rearview, Bull was surprised to see it was the red Mini that had unwittingly run interference for Winston, its driver impatiently gesturing for him to move off.
“What’s that racket about?” Dillon demanded without looking up.
“Nothing,” Bull said quickly. If Dillon realised who was behind them things were likely to get ugly.
Tyler had also seen the Mini. “Just go with your instinct, Steve,” he instructed.
Bull nodded. He pulled the selector into Drive and glanced in both directions, knowing that sod’s law dictated whichever way he went was bound to be wrong.
Right or left?
“Fuck it,” he said, initiating a left turn just as the Mini honked again. This time the old codger flashed his headlights as well.
Dillon put the map down and spoke into the radio. “We’ve lost him,” he told the team, “but the chances are he’ll head back towards Tower Hamlets.” He directed the team to starburst, dispatching cars in various directions to hedge his bets. Putting the radio down, he glanced back at Tyler, lips compressed into a tight, thin line. “It’s gonna be bloody embarrassing if we lose him.”
“Hopefully, we won’t,” Tyler said, but his voice lacked conviction.
The silence was unbearable as they waited for someone to spot Winston, knowing that the odds of doing so diminished disproportionately with every passing moment. As the seconds stretched into minutes, the mood inside the car became increasingly sombre.
“It’s been too long,” Bull finally said, breaking the silence.
“Contact! Contact! Control from DC Murray, we’ve spotted the Target. We’re two behind and he’s just taken the A13 slip road at Canning Town. He’s heading along East India Dock Road towards the Blackwell Tunnel, and he’s not hanging about either.”
Bull sat up ramrod straight and began driving with renewed purpose. When he caught Tyler’s eye in the rear-view mirror, the boss winked at him. Despite the evening’s tribulations, he found himself smiling as relief flooded through him. Somehow, they were back in the game.
“I never thought the day would come when I’d be grateful to that little twat for anything,” Dillon admitted, “and if either of you ever tells that scrawny little prat what I said, I swear I will put dog excrement in your exhaust pipes.”
“Don’t worry, your secret is safe with us,” Tyler assured him.
“Guv, do you want us to try
