Nightmare City (40 page)

Anderson flexed his fingers in the knuckleduster and his grip
tightened on the handle.

Henry prepared himself to be skewered.

From behind him came a sound he would never have believed he
would be relieved to hear.

A weapon being cocked.

Anderson looked up past Henry’s shoulder and the smile dropped
off his face.

‘
Armed police! Drop your weapon!’

The cavalry had arrived.

Chapter Seventeen

Munrow remained in an exceptionally bad mood as he constantly
reviewed yesterday’s proceedings. He could not even begin to get
over the way he’d been treated by Rider.

Left out on the moors in the middle of nowhere. Naked.
Todmorden? Where the fuck was that? Freezing his bollocks off,
having to undergo the torment and humiliation of trying to find an
ignition key in a fucking snowdrift. Could have died of
hypothermia. Then having to drive all the way back to his woman’s
house, covered in an oily car blanket, cowering down all the time,
hoping no one would see him, or the cops pulled him. How in the
name of shit would he have explained that to a Wooden
Top?

So embarrassing.

He had been made to look a complete fool.

And nobody made Munrow look a fool. No one. No cunt got away
with that - uninjured.

He sat brooding in a pub in the town centre of Preston, a pint
of Thwaites Mild in his hand, waiting for the woman to turn
up.

They had arranged to meet here so she could take him shopping
for a new set of clothes befitting a free man. She had a rich
husband in the oil business and a credit card with a ten thousand
limit on it. The trap of an unhappy marriage made het: want to
spend to the hilt and, basically, stick two fingers up at Hubby who
she knew was having it away in Saudi.

Munrow knew little about her, other than she was one of the
prison visitors. Unpaid, doing it for a social service. She’d
easily fallen under his powerful aura to the extent that they’d
even contrived to screw in the prison classroom once, when he’d
rear-ended her over a table.

He did not want to know very much about her. All he wanted
from her was enough sex to see him through the post-prison rampant
stage and then money.

One of his plans that afternoon was to induce her to make a
substantial withdrawal and hand every penny over to him. Wham, bam,
thank you, silly cow. He needed the money to payoff the men who had
helped him cause mayhem in Conroy’s clubs the other night. They
were cheap to hire.

He took a big swig of his beer. His mind skipped to Conroy
who, he imagined, would be shitting himself at that moment.
Munrow’s show of uncompromising strength would have worried him
badly and he would no message across very clearly: Munrow was here
to stay. He was back and wanted a chunk of the action.

Over the weekend he planned to hit some of Conroy’s
council-estate distribution houses in East Lancashire ... then
maybe there could be some talk. Or if the mood took him, he might
just move his men into one of Conroy’s Manchester clubs and take
the place over. No talk. No fucking about. Yeah, he might do
that.

It could be as simple as that.

As for Rider ... that bastard would really suffer.

‘
Hello, sweetheart.’ There was a tap on Munrow’s shoulder. It
was his woman. He had to admit she was - or had been - drop dead
gorgeous. And she was cracking in bed. Amazing what a shit of a
husband can do to a woman.

But deep down, Munrow sneered contemptuously at her. Naive,
stupid cow. Didn’t realise she was going to be screwed - in more
ways than one.

For the time being he was going to play along. He hadn’t
satisfied himself sexually yet and those years behind bars had made
him crave for it. He was going to have his fill before he robbed
her blind, then dumped her broke.

He slid his arm round her slim waist and squeezed her breast.
She bent down and kissed him hard on the mouth, breaking off
eventually with a gasp.

‘
How are you feeling, darling?’

‘
Fine, got myself together now. Are you OK?’

‘
Yes, yes, thanks for asking.’

She had been on the verge of hysteria when he got back from
his trip to Todmorden. At least she hadn’t called the cops. He
reassured her it was all one big mistake and things were fine. The
less she knew the better. She had swallowed his cock and bull story
and it was only when they both shared a hot shower and she knelt
down in front of him and swallowed his cock and spunk did she
really calm down.

After a few hours’ sleep, Munrow had then scoured Manchester
for the only person who knew exactly where he had been. The only
person who could have given Rider the information about his
whereabouts.

Toni Thomas, the bitch.

It was a waste of time. Toni was very noticeable by his/her
absence.

‘
So, Debenhams? Burtons? Where do you fancy?’

Munrow came back to the present. He shrugged. ‘Anywhere.
You’re buying, babe.’

The adrenalin ebbed out of Henry’s body to be replaced by
suffering.

He eased the protective vest carefully over his head -
carefully because he did not want to knock his ear which was
hanging off - laid it to one side and looked unwillingly down at
his chest where the bullet from the mini-Uzi had struck his
sternum.

There was a revolting, circular, deep purple mark with a
single black spot at its centre which looked like he’d been struck
by a hammer. When he breathed, he recoiled involuntarily. Jesus, he
could not believe how painful it was. It gripped his sternum like a
clawed fist. He was certain it must be cracked.

And his ear. His lovely ear. Bitten off by a madman. They
estimated ten stitches to get it back on.

He was sitting on the edge of a bed in a cubicle in the
casualty department of the Royal Lancaster Infirmary, a curtain
drawn across. He removed the remaining items of his clothing,
shoes, socks, jeans and underpants, shaking each item of clothing
to try and dislodge the fragments of glass which had got into them
and were slowly skinning him.

He was giving his underpants a very thorough shaking when the
curtain was swished back. Siobhan appeared.

‘
Henry. Can’t you wait?’

He couldn’t help but smile. She withdrew tactfully and he
called her in when he was half-decent, sat there in his
Y-fronts.

‘
Sorry about that,’ he said. ‘The glass, you know?’

‘
How are you?’

‘
Shaken and stirred. How ‘bout you?’

‘
I’ll survive,’ she said bravely. Henry could see that in
spite of her smiles and the outwardly ‘couldn’t give a toss’
attitude, she had actually been terrified when Anderson had opened
up and the firearms officer had fallen next to her.

She took in a long deep breath. ‘At least Dave’s all right,
though his shoulder is a real mess. He’ll have pretty restricted
movement in it.’

‘
I’ll go and see him once I’m sorted out.’

They regarded each other for a moment. Siobhan’s eyes took in
Henry’s bloodied, dangling ear, then lowered to inspect the other
injury on his chest. ‘That looks awful,’ she grimaced.

‘
I know. Feels like I’ve been hit by a truck.’

‘
No, not that,’ she said wickedly. ‘Your beer
belly.’

They caught each other’s eye and burst into laughter - which
Henry couldn’t handle because it made him cringe in
agony.

The amusement was curtailed when a fairly fearsome-looking
nurse stepped into the cubicle, pushing a trolley bearing an
assortment of trays, instruments, dressings and needles.

‘
I’ve come to clean your ear up. The doctor wants to sew it
back on. He’ll be here shortly.’

Henry was discharged two hours later, having had an X-ray
which showed nothing broken, had his ear re-fitted and visited the
firearms officer who had taken the bullet. The guy was in great
pain, but stoical about the injury. He was about to go into
surgery.

Henry also made a quick call home, told Kate briefly what had
happened and that – God willing – he would be home as soon as
possible. Bad as he felt, Henry wanted to get into Anderson’s
ribs.

Siobhan drove him down to Lancaster police station in the
surveillance van. She found a space on the lower parking area.
Anderson’s Shogun had been seized and was parked in one corner of
the yard.

‘
I drove it up,’ Siobhan explained, ‘but it hasn’t been
searched yet. I thought perhaps you’d want to do that.’

Henry frowned doubtfully, then dismissed the thought that it
should have been searched already. He happily accepted that she
believed he would want to supervise a thorough search of the
vehicle. She handed him the keys to it, then they climbed out of
the van and walked to the Shogun.

‘
Oooh, I could do with a wee,’ she declared. ‘You get on with
it, Henry, if you like. I’ll be back as soon as I’ve found a
loo.’

She dashed off to the entrance to the Custody Office and was
buzzed in through the security door, leaving Henry alone with the
keys and the car. Thinking nothing of the situation, he inserted a
key into the back door and turned it. As the door opened, Henry saw
that a travel rug was laid out over something in the
back.

He tugged it off and what was revealed made him puff his
cheeks out in disbelief.

One sawn-off shotgun - an Italian SPAS 12.

And two mini-Uzis.

He did not touch them, merely stared at them in amazement.
These were the last things he realistically expected to find in the
back of Anderson’s vehicle - the tools of his trade and quite
possibly the guns responsible for killing Geoff Driffield and five
other innocent people. How could the man be so stupid?

‘
What’ve you found?’ Siobhan reappeared behind Henry’s
shoulder, peeked into the Shogun and was awestruck by the
discovery. She hissed the words, ‘Pure gold,’ into Henry’s good
ear. ‘If these guns tied up ballistically. . .’ She did not need to
say anything else.

Henry stayed silent, blinking at how easy it had
been.

He called in a firearms officer to handle the weapons and
disarm them as necessary, then after a full search of the Shogun
which revealed nothing else, the guns were booked into the property
store and locked in a safe.

DI Gallagher and DS Tattersall arrived at the station as Henry
was about to have an initial interview with Anderson.

‘
Well done, you two,’ Gallagher said to them. ‘We need to
thoroughly debrief what went on and, of course, go through the
post-incident procedures for firearms incidents and consider
counselling where necessary.’

He looked knowingly at Henry here, who, following a previous
firearms incident had suffered a nervous breakdown caused by
post-traumatic stress. Henry was fine at the moment but he knew
these things had a habit of creeping up on people and addling their
brains when they least expected it. He thought that Siobhan might
benefit from counselling, although he didn’t suggest it. The choice
rested with the individual.

‘
What you need to do now is get your statement done,’
Gallagher told him.

‘
We were going to chat to him now,’ Henry said.

Gallagher shook his head. ‘Bad practice. Me and Jim’ll do
that. We’ve been involved from day one. It’s our
pigeon.’

‘
It should be down to us,’ Henry persisted.

‘
No - and that’s final. You’ve done a good job, now leave it
be and let someone else take it over.’

Henry’s nostrils flared. He was getting angry. He put a lid on
it and nodded. ‘Did the other targets get arrested?’

‘
Two locked up, one still outstanding. They are in custody in
Blackpool. We intend to interview Anderson up here though, then
take him to Blackpool. They’ll be in court on Monday morning. Look,
you’ve both done a superb job today,’ Gallagher concluded. ‘Get the
paperwork done, then go home, relax, do whatever you fancy. Enjoy
yourselves.’

The men’s clothing department in Debenhams, Preston, is in the
basement. There was a vast array of clothes to choose from.
Mind-boggling, really.

Munrow’s mind was totally boggled. He had already been treated
to about six hundred pounds’ worth of gear from other shops in
Preston and was therefore loaded with bags crammed to bursting with
shirts, ties, trousers, jeans, shoes and chic sporting gear, and
was frankly completely pissed-off. He stuck with it because he had
not yet induced the woman to make that cash withdrawal he so
desperately wanted. When she did and the money was in his fist, the
shopping would come to an abrupt end.

He took a glance at his watch. Almost four. He groaned
angrily. ‘We’ve missed the banks.’

She gave him a patronising look. ‘No, we haven’t,
sweetie.’

‘
But they close at half-past three!’

‘
You have been away a long time,’ she chided him gently. ‘Five
o’clock now, mostly.’ She took a breath and her eyes flickered a
once-over. ‘You really need a suit.’