familiar with.
It did not take the Brain of Britain to realise that the car which had driven round the back of the transport cafe as the BMW was driving away was probably involved in the shooting. Henry strode out of the door over Lee’s body and set off running along the front of the cafe where he figured the car was likely to appear.
As he rounded the end of the building, the Mondeo skidded away.
Henry saw two people on board. A young lad at the wheel — and the killer, still wearing the stocking mask. The car swerved on the gravel surface, the driver adjusting and readjusting, then regaining full control.
Henry dropped into a combat stance: feet shoulder-width apart, knees bent and flexible, gun in his right hand supported by his left, elbows locked, arms forming an isosceles triangle. He aimed at the driver, his finger curved around the trigger tight enough for the hammer to roll back. Then he thought, Shit, what am I doing?
The car hurtled past, out of the lorry park and headed west along the A580 towards the M6.
Henry thumbed the hammer back into place and lowered the weapon. He felt slightly sick. He had almost done a stupid thing in the heat of the moment — fired at someone who presented no threat. That would have taken a lot of explaining to a coroner’s court. He returned quickly to the murder scene and found Terry.
‘ Let’s get lost,’ he said to him.
Against all their instincts as cops, but in keeping with their undercover legends, they legged it.
Chapter Five
One and off, the argument had been raging since their arrests the previous Sunday. The tiny rooms of Cheryl’s grubby little council flat in Blackpool often rang to the high-decibel noise of her exchanging verbals with boyfriend Spencer. But that evening, drink entered the equation as, sooner rather than later, it was bound to do so.
Spencer had been out since lunchtime, drinking heavily with his churns, spending one of the many state benefits he claimed on the booze and then urinating it away against the porcelain. His favoured drink was bitter beer. He adored the stuff and managed to consume nine pints over the course of the afternoon.
When he rolled into Cheryl’s flat just after seven, holding a lukewarm fish-and-chip takeaway, he reeked of beer. On the journey from the chip shop to home the wrapping had started to work loose from around the food. Grease patches had seeped through the paper. He grabbed another beer from the fridge and plonked himself down on an easy chair in front of the stolen TV He flipped open the beer, emptied a large mouthful down his throat and unwrapped his meal.
His face was creased and mean. There were some grazes on his cheek where he’d exchanged blows with a ‘mate’ earlier in the afternoon. Nothing serious.
Cheryl was already in the flat, watching the news. She had been drinking too, having spent a couple of hours at a friend’s house, quaffing sweet Martinis. She was feeling pissed and rotten. Her eyes were red raw, she was tired and in no fit state to sign on at the police station between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m., as her bail conditions stipulated. All she wanted to do was sit where she was, wrapped in a skimpy dressing gown, stare at the TV and continue boozing until her supply ran dry.
However, the unexpected return of Spencer crashing through the door, bearing food, was some sort of motivation to do something.
‘ Give us a chip,’ she demanded.
He leaned forwards protectively over the meal which he’d spread out on the paper over his lap. ‘No, fuck off.’
‘ Oh, come on, you tight-assed get,’ Cheryl whined. ‘I’m starving.’ She hoisted herself up from her position deep in the settee and reached across to help herself from Spencer’s pile of greasy chips.
He saw her hand approaching and moved his knees just far enough to keep the food out of her reach. ‘I said fuck off.’ He took a swig of beer, belched loudly from the pit of his guts.
‘ Oh, come on,’ she pleaded, getting annoyed. ‘I haven’t had owt all day. I’m starving.’
He sighed, turned to look at her. ‘Why the fuck should I give you anything, eh? You stupid bitch. You deserve sod all.’
‘ Oh, fucking forget it.’ She slumped back, folded her arms and crossed her legs haughtily.
‘ No, I won’t forget it. I still want to know why you didn’t tell me about that fucking Charlie. If I’d known, I would’ve kept my gob shut on the plane, wouldn’t I? Then we could have sold the gear ourselves, made a few bob out of it. But no, you didn’t have the bottle to tell me, did ya?’
It was not so much the issue about carrying drugs that was driving a wedge between them, more the fact that Spencer felt cheated because he’d lost out on the opportunity to sell the drugs himself to his pals in Blackpool.
‘ Coulda made a fortune,’ he wittered.
‘ Oh, like, yeah,’ sneered Cheryl, ‘as if they’d really let you do that. Are you fucking stupid or something, Spencer? You could never have walked away with those drugs. You’d be dead if you did… I might be dead now, for all I know,’ she concluded desolately.
‘ Bollocks,’ he spat in disbelief. ‘We could be rollin’ in it now, but because you never told me, we haven’t even got your pay packet, have we? An’ how much was that gonna be?’
‘ Three hundred quid,’ she replied sheepishly.
‘ And now we’ve got fuck all, you stupid cunt.’ Spencer folded a particularly large chip into his mouth and washed it down with a swig of beer.
‘ Yeah, you’re dead right there.’ Cheryl’s face pinched tight. ‘I’ve got you and that’s as good as fuck all because I’m fucking sick to death of you.’
Spencer shrugged. He grabbed the TV remote and flicked channels to Star Trek. ‘You know what you can do.’
‘ No, you know what you can do,’ she retorted, her anger bubble bursting. ‘It’s my flat, so you can go. Go on, piss off and leave me alone. I hate the fucking sight of you.’ Cheryl was now gearing up for full throttle and her mouth was beginning to take over before her alcohol-riddled brain cells advised caution. ‘It was a fucking pleasure to give that guy a blow job. At least he had a proper-sized dick.’
Spencer blinked as the words filtered through his own alcohol barrier.
Cheryl covered her mouth. Too late, the words had already left.
Spencer turned his bleary eyes to her. ‘Blow job? What blow job? What guy?’
‘ The one I carried the drugs for.’
Spencer stared uncomprehendingly at her for a few silent moments, his mouth lolling open stupidly. One or two things slotted into place for him. Mysterious absences by Cheryl on their holiday. He’d not bothered about them at the time, mainly because he’d been drunk or recovering for the bulk of the time. And — over one two-day period — with a bunch of guys he’d met out there, he’d gone walkabout anyway and ended up screwing some nameless girl in an apartment somewhere in Los Cristianos. They had all screwed her and her four mates. Cheryl did not need to know about that, Spencer reasoned.
‘ You slag!’ he uttered, as though disgusted by her behaviour. For a drunken person he moved quickly. He rose from the chair, shifting the fish-and-chip supper on to the palm of his right hand. He catapulted across the room and before she could react, he had slammed the takeaway full into her face, following it up with a punch and a scream.
Cheryl was a mean fighter. She had been raised tough in the world of alcoholic and abusive parents and children’s homes. One of her bare feet connected hard with Spencer’s scrotum, sending him stuttering back across the room, clutching his balls.
‘ You bastard!’ Cheryl jumped to her feet, picking the broken fish and crushed chips off her face and out of her hair, throwing the bits down with exaggerated flicking of her fingers. ‘I’ll get you for that.’ She hunted round for a suitable weapon, found nothing, so went for Spencer like an alley cat.
He was no slouch in the fighting arena either, but the lucky strike on his testicles had taken his breath away. It was all he could do to fend off her blows. He went under until he was curled up in a tight ball with her raining punches and kicks on him — most fairly ineffectively — until she collapsed exhausted on the settee.
