Nick Oldham - Dead Heat

‘Depends how pissed she gets.’

‘Well, this is gonna be fast and hard, so you’d better be ready to click away. I won’t be hanging around: in and out. Forty whacks, then I’m gone straight after the lecture. You’d better be right behind me.’

Newman shrugged. ‘I’ll be there.’ He slowed and turned into a leafy side road of old, well-constructed terraced houses, most now bed-sits or flats. Newman drove down the road, maintaining the same speed. ‘It’s that one — number eight,’ he said without pointing or looking. ‘Goldman lives on the first floor. The door to his flat is the first one you come to on the landing. He keeps it well locked. We won’t be able to boot it down. It’s made of toughened steel but painted to look like wood. He only lets in people he knows. Got a good peep-hole and there’s plenty of locks behind it. . not easy to get through.’ Newman pulled in a hundred metres down the road. ‘That means we have to get him to open it for us.’

‘Does he operate alone? Will anyone else be in the flat?’

‘He’s alone,’ Newman confirmed.

‘Mmm,’ Turner ruminated. ‘Shit.’

‘Don’t worry though. I know somebody he knows.’ Newman grinned, showing cigarette-stained teeth. ‘Someone who’ll get the door open for a ton.’

‘A ton?’ blurted Turner.

‘Worth every penny. . have you got it?’

‘Yeah, yeah. . so where is this guy?’

‘It’s a bird, actually.’ Newman looked across the road. Leaning on the gable end of a house was a scrawny-looking young woman, early twenties. She wore a T-shirt which showed her tummy and the ring pierced through her navel, and a pair of jeans. She was smoking nervously, flicking back scraggy unwashed hair from her drug-ravaged young face. ‘There.’ He wound his window down and beckoned. ‘Denise, luv, c’m’ere.’

She continued to glance anxiously around as though she had not seen or heard him. Maybe she hadn’t. Maybe she was trapped in her own world. Then she set off across the road, tossed the cigarette away, and folded her arms underneath her small breasts. Newman reached over his seat and unlocked the back door for her. Her thin body entered the car. She looked defiantly at the two men in the front seats, her eyes wild at first, as though she blamed them solely for her predicament. Then they glazed over to become lifeless. Turner saw the scars on the inside of her spindly arms, more visible evidence of heavy drug abuse and self harm. She looked like she attempted suicide on a regular basis. Turner knew the type. People like her were the epitome of his usual customer.

‘OK, sweetie?’

She nodded reluctantly.

‘You up for this?’ Newman went on.

She shrugged. ‘Yeah, whatever.’

‘This is Andy.’ Newman indicated Turner. Denise gave him a crooked smile. From somewhere on her person she produced a hand-rolled cigarette, lit it and blew grey smoke into the car.

‘Hundred quid. No negotiation,’ she said as a lungful of acrid smoke left her nostrils and mouth.

‘Fine,’ Turner said. ‘You do the job, you get the dosh.’

‘Up front.’

Newman and Turner exchanged glances. Turner shrugged and dug into a pocket, pulling out a wodge of twenties. He peeled five off and held them out to her. Her eyes suddenly became alive again, focusing on them hungrily. She did not try to take it. Too many people had teased her with money, only to play snatchey-snatchey with her.

‘You get the door open, get out of the way. That’s all you have to do,’ Turner said. ‘Dead simple. Money for old rope.’

‘I know.’

He tossed the money on to her lap. She took it and eased it into the back pocket of her jeans.

‘What you gonna do?’

‘That,’ Turner said, ‘you don’t need to know.’

She shrugged. She did not give a shit, even though she had enough imagination to guess. The pairs of disposable latex gloves each man was easing on to his hands were a bit of a giveaway.

‘What is it with you and Al?’ Dale O’Brien asked Jo innocently enough, but she could see he was burning with curiosity.

They were sitting in a Little Chef, not far away from Manchester Prison, more famously known as Strangeways, drinking exorbitantly priced cups of tea — which would be claimed back on expenses at the end of the month.

Jo took a sip of hers, savouring its expense. ‘Just crap,’ she said.

‘You been having an affair?’ O’Brien asked directly.

Jo spluttered on the tea, placed the cup down and wiped her mouth. ‘Bit to the bloody point, that, Dale!’

‘Sorry.’

‘Well, anyway, yeah. . you could say that. We were an item.’ She tweaked her fingers on the word ‘item’. She sounded wistful. ‘But it didn’t work out.’ She finished her tea and said, ‘Let’s move.’

‘Once she’s in, give her half a minute,’ Newman said, looking into his rear-view mirror. He watched the girl walk towards the front door of the flats, and press a button on the intercom. She leaned on the wall and talked into the speaker, then stood upright for a moment before pushing the door open.

‘She’s in,’ Turner said. He was contorted round in his seat, also observing Denise’s progress. He spun around and picked up the baseball bat, which he concealed underneath his jacket when he got out of the car.

He and Newman crossed the road and walked side by side down the pavement to the door.

‘What a good girl,’ Turner said. As promised, Denise had wedged the door open with one of her trainers. Turner muscled his way in, followed by Newman. They stopped at the foot of the stairs leading up to the first-floor landing. Turner motioned Newman to complete silence by touching his lips with a finger and withdrew the baseball bat from its place of concealment. He positioned a foot on the first step.

The sound of the girl’s voice filtered down to them.

‘Yeah, I know I’m early, Goldy, but I’m fuckin’ desperate. I need it now and I’ve got the cash. . look.’ It was obvious she was talking through the steel door to the dealer, who was all nice and snug and safe in his little fortress.

There was a muffled response from Goldman which could not be made out down at ground level.

‘Yeah, thank fuck for that, Goldy,’ Denise said.

What could be heard on the ground floor was the unmistakable sound of bolts being drawn back and a key in the lock.

‘Come on,’ Turner whispered, dashing quickly up the stairs, bounding on to the landing and dropping into a crouch in a corner. Newman came up behind him, digital camera at the ready. Denise was down the narrow corridor, standing outside the first door. She did not even glance in their direction, but stepped back a yard (with the trainer missing from her left foot) from the door. She dropped her lighted cigarette and stooped to pick it up, overbalancing slightly, making more room for Turner and Newman to move in.

Drug dealers have a very finely honed sense of self-preservation. If they don’t have, they don’t stay in business for long.

When Goldman peered with one eye through his spy hole in response to the persistent knocking on his door and saw the distorted figure of Denise through the fish-eye lens, his brow creased with puzzlement. She was one of his regulars, a good payer either in cash or blowjobs, but usually he dealt with her in another location, out in the streets. She had been to his flat occasionally, but it was only yesterday he had supplied her with a quarter gram of heroin. He did not expect to see her so soon — and certainly not at his abode.

His hands hesitated on the numerous locks and bolts which secured his steel-backed door. Something did not feel quite right. ‘I only saw you yesterday, girl. Our next meet is tomorrow. You know that. I don’t deal from here.’