Nick Oldham: Dead Heat

Jo’s heart rate upped dramatically at the same time as her stomach sank. She had wanted to avoid this.

‘Let me out, please,’ she said quietly, her voice quavering.

‘Bitch,’ he hissed. He checked over his shoulder. No one was close by. ‘You shouldn’t have done it.’

‘I don’t want to talk about it anymore, Alan, please.’

Major said nothing, but stared dangerously at her. For a moment she thought he was going to hit her. She knew that if they had been anywhere else than on police premises, he would have done.

‘Excuse me, boss.’ Dale O’Brien had returned unexpectedly. He ducked under Major’s arm-barrier. ‘Forgot my notepad.’ He came into the office and Major’s face returned to it’s normal, affable self.

‘. . So,’ Major said, as though he and Jo were having a work-related conversation, ‘any problems on that point, let’s chat.’ He winked at her in a friendly way and made his way down the corridor to the supervisor’s office.

Jo exhaled a lungful of air.

‘You ready yet?’ O’Brien demanded of her.

‘Yeah, yeah.’ She pulled herself together. ‘Here.’ She tossed him the car keys, which he caught against his chest. ‘You drive. I’ve changed my mind.’

‘Oh brill,’ he said with a wide grin.

One of the reasons why people were terrified of Andrew Turner was that he believed in sorting things out himself. He described the drug barons or top-class criminals who hired goons to do their dirty work for them as ‘shitless wonders’, holding such people in contempt. They had no real bottle or courage. Not like him. Turner had the ‘real shit’ to do things himself, to get his hands bloodied and, where necessary, put his own forefinger around a trigger and pull the thing backwards and make a big bang. That was why he believed he stood apart from all the others, all the so-called hardmen.

Andy Turner had the ‘shit’.

And that evening he was on his way to show someone just how powerful his shit was.

Turner had recently moved out of Manchester to docklands in Preston. He owned an apartment overlooking King George Dock, now a marina full of yachts, pleasure boats and retail outlets. The move out to the sticks was not through any personal fear on his behalf, because Turner was afraid of no one, but just through a bit of common sense. Cop-wise the innards of the city of Manchester were becoming a little too hot for him. He needed somewhere cool where he could chill, and Preston suited him fine. He could be on the motorway within minutes and in Manchester in just over half an hour, so he now commuted as and when required. Quite often he did not go into the city for days on end, doing much of his wheeling and dealing over mobile phones and arranging his meetings at pubs, restaurants and hotels outside the environs of Manchester. He tried to keep his visits to the city to a minimum because he knew that if the cops sighted him, he would either be harassed or surveilled.

Today, though, he needed to get into the heart of the city and cause some grief before having a very important meeting.

The night before he had been out on the town in Preston, cruising around the pubs and clubs, revelling in the anonymity, even though one or two wise-looking guys eyeballed him. He easily picked up a woman, aged about thirty-five, on the prowl for a good fuck, and took her back to his apartment. They had a long bout of very drunken sex followed by almost twelve hours of alcohol-induced sleep. On waking, Turner screwed her again before literally forcing her out of the door with a?50 note crumpled in her mitt by way of compensation.

‘Will I see you again?’ she pleaded.

Turner laughed. ‘Fuck off,’ he said and slammed the door in her face.

Without any further thought for her, he got ready. A four-mile run on the treadmill, twenty minutes on the weights, then a shower before dressing in jeans and T-shirt. He packed a zip-up jacket, shirt, chinos and a pair of loafers into a sports bag, then made his way to the secured underground car park.

As ever he took time checking his car carefully for any tracking devices, but found nothing. He knew the cops were capable of anything.

A minute later, the wide tyres squealing dramatically, he exited the car park through the security barrier. As he did a left, he had to slam his brakes on.

The woman he had so unceremoniously ejected from the flat was standing in front of the car, bedraggled and forlorn.

Turner wound his window down, stuck his head out and before she could utter a word, he shouted, ‘Do us all a favour, sweetheart — just fuck off and count yer blessings. Otherwise they’ll be draggin’ yer body out of the docks. Get me?’

Before she replied, Turner pressed down hard on the accelerator and his big Mercedes surged powerfully away. He shook his head in disbelief, curled his lips with disdain. He had no time for women. As far as he was concerned they were good for two things only: sex with him and sex with people he wanted to do business with. As regards the latter, Turner was convinced that a good blowjob or arse-fuck was usually a dead-cert deal clincher. The old ways were always the best. He did not even bother to glance in his rear-view mirror to look at her, just drove down to Strand Road and purred out towards the motorway.

He was looking forward to Manchester.

Dale O’Brien, Jo’s partner for the day, did a quick check of the car before setting out: water, oil, lights and tyres and found everything to be working OK. It was an old, battered Nissan, with a nodding dog, fluffy dice and a shabby exterior, belying the fact that underneath it was a police car maintained to a high standard. He swung into the driver’s seat next to Jo, who, sat in the passenger seat, was ostensibly reading her briefing pack. Her mind was not on it, particularly. Al Major had thrown her well off balance.

The rest of the surveillance team were going through much the same sort of pre-road rigmarole, including the motorcyclist, who was often a vital part of the mechanism of keeping targets pin-pointed as they moved around the country. He had just checked his big machine, mounted it and fired up. The bike sounded lovely, purring away like a pussycat, then roaring like a tiger as he twisted the throttle back. He slotted down his visor, engaged first and crept slowly out of the garage.

Jo and O’Brien gave him a wave.

He reached the gates of the secure compound and waited for them to swing open. He turned his machine into the road, leaned into the turn and gunned the bike away.

But his rear tyre had a very tiny patch of oil on it which he had not noticed. It could have come from anywhere. The garage floor. The bike’s engine. The road, maybe. No one would ever know. Not that it mattered where it came from, it’s the effect it had that mattered.

As the biker angled into the turn out of the gates, the oil patch made the back wheel slide sideways uncontrollably, even though it was only travelling at a slow speed. The rider could not keep it upright and though he tried, it slithered away and crashed to the ground before he could leap off, trapping his left leg underneath.

Jo and O’Brien saw it happen.

It was not a spectacular accident by any means. In fact as accidents go, it was rather pathetic.

‘Shit!’ O’Brien gasped. He leapt out of the Nissan and ran towards the stricken, trapped motorcyclist. Jo was right behind him as were the other members of the surveillance team.

The biker may not have fallen far and it may only have been his machine that dropped on him, but it was plainly obvious from the shape of his left shin that it had snapped like a twiglet. The team eased the bike off him and he screamed in a very animal-like way when one of them accidentally kicked his left foot.