Nick Oldham - Dead Heat

‘I know man, I know,’ she’d pleaded convincingly. ‘I’m desperate, had a really bad night, really withdrawing, shaking like mad.’

Goldman knew what that was like, for he, too, was an addict. Aches, tremors, sweating and freezing, sneezing and yawning. Any combination of these effects. He felt for her.

‘You got cash?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Show me,’ he insisted through the door.

‘Oh, fuckin’ hell, Goldy,’ she whined.

‘Look, you’re a day early and I’m a nervous guy.’

‘Yeah, I know I’m early Goldy, but I’m fuckin’ desperate. I need it now and I’ve got the cash. . look.’

Goldy saw her wave a handful of notes up to the spy hole.

‘OK, OK, hang on.’

‘Yeah, thank fuck for that, Goldy,’ she said and stepped away from the door as he unlocked it.

The heavy door swung open, its hinges well oiled and maintained. Goldman appeared on the threshold and looked down at Denise as she wobbled and reached for the burning cigarette on the worn floor. He immediately noticed her missing trainer.

She caught his eye as she glanced up and in that split second Goldman knew he had been set up by one of his best customers.

He was already moving backwards into his flat when Turner leapt up from his crouch and swung the baseball bat in a wide arc at Goldman’s head.

It connected with a hollow smack, right across the bridge of his nose, which crumbled instantly, sending him staggering backwards down the short hallway, into the living room, pursued by the vengeful forms of Turner and Newman, coming after him like a pair of devils.

Goldman’s nose had broken marvellously, blood gushing everywhere down the front of his T-shirt, which originally had been white.

As Turner roared from the hallway into the living room, he wielded the bat again, this time whacking it sideways across Goldman’s temple, knocking him to the ground, senseless. Behind Turner, Newman ducked and weaved to get the best angles he could in order to record the terrible assault on camera. He got one great shot of Goldman as he pitched floorwards, then another, as on the way down, Turner managed to get another blow in on the back of the drug dealer’s skull.

Goldman lay between his furniture, writhing slowly and moaning piteously face down in the pool of blood spreading underneath his face, bubbles foaming as he laboured to breathe.

Turner’s chest rose and fell from his short burst of exertion. There was a large smile on his face, one of victory.

‘Here — get one of this,’ he instructed Newman. Turner bestrode Goldman’s prostrate form, rested the tip of the bat in the middle of the injured man’s back, between the shoulder blades, and placed his hands one on top of the other on the tip of the bat, as though he was a great white hunter astride a kill.

Newman fired away.

‘Now this.’ Turner reached down and grabbed Goldman’s ponytail. He heaved his head up and held his blood-drenched face to the camera. ‘Get this,’ he told Newman.

‘Got it!’

Turner dropped Goldman’s face back on to the carpet. It smashed into the puddle with a squelch. Now he was not moving at all.

‘Think he’s dead?’ Newman asked.

‘No, he’s still breathing. . I think.’

More often than not, surveillance operations are very specific in that the location of the target is usually known and he or she is picked up from that point and followed by the team until the operation is either called off or the cops move in and make an arrest. The surveillance team is never used for this latter purpose. Occasionally some ops are run on an ad hoc basis by putting a team into an area which the target is known to frequent, hoping there is a sighting from which the team would then pick up the target and slot themselves into place.

As was the case that afternoon and evening.

But this type of op can be frustrating, especially when the target does not put in an appearance.

The team had gravitated to the Rusholme area of Manchester, a location well known for the high number of Asian restaurants along the main street. Andy Turner was known to do quite a lot of his business in this part of the city. He was suspected of trading with Asians, who made up a large proportion of the local community in Rusholme. Much of the heroin which found its way on to these streets originated in Pakistan, coming in from the north-west frontier, through Turkey and some of the former Soviet republics and across Europe.

Jo Coniston and Dale O’Brien were sitting in their car on a side street, facing towards the main road through Rusholme, becoming very bored with the way the afternoon was progressing into evening. They had exhausted ‘I spy’ and medleys of Beatles songs and were sitting in glum silence, listening to sporadic radio transmissions between other team members, aware that the radios were still not working properly. They had a tendency to pack up half-way through a conversation. Very annoying.

‘I’m going for a stroll,’ O’Brien announced.

Jo sank down in her seat and reclined it. ‘Don’t blame you,’ she said. ‘This is just so bloody wishy-washy. . needle-in-a-haystack job. He’s never gonna turn up, y’know.’

‘I know.’ O’Brien climbed out and walked down to the main road, turned out of sight. She closed her eyes after locking the car doors, this being the sort of area where anything could happen, especially to a lone woman in a car. She exhaled a long, fed-up sigh.

Goldman was not dead, but he was not well. Blood continued to cascade out of his nose, indicating that his heart was still beating, and the blows to his head had knocked him unconscious for a few seconds. He came round with massive brain pain.

Newman hoisted him up off the floor, avoiding getting any blood on his own clothes, whilst Turner scoured the flat. He returned from the kitchen, shaking his head in wonderment.

‘A right little drug dealer’s set-up,’ he said. In the kitchen he had found an array of mobile phones and pagers, neatly piled up bank statements, coded lists of contacts; wraps, bags, weighing scales, crushed paracetamol tablets, bicarbonate of soda and four microwave ovens. ‘Ready for a delivery, I’d say. Isn’t that right Goldy, you Jewish twat?’

He tapped Goldman on the crown of his head with his bat. The dealer, now seated on a chair, swooned and dropped his bloodied face into his blood-covered hands. He did not respond to Turner’s question, nor his derogatory racial remark.

‘I asked you a question.’

Goldman mumbled something and held his head, which felt as though it had been smashed like an egg.

Turner positioned himself on the arm of a chair. ‘Now then, you little shit, a little budgie’s told me that you’ve been dealing on my patch without my say so. Very rude thing to do, that. Don’t like it.’

Goldman slavered out a gobful of blood down between his legs.

‘It’s got to stop. Where do you keep your cash, boyo?’

‘What cash?’ he managed to reply.

‘Don’t mess — any cash you have in this house, I want it. So where is it? Pay up and stop dealing on my streets and I’ll call it quits.’

‘Fuck off.’

‘Wrong answer.’

Turner slid what could have been a friendly arm around Goldman’s shoulders and gave him a hug. He beamed at Newman. ‘Photo opportunity.’

Newman caught the tender moment on the digital camera.

Turner punched Goldie hard on the side of his head, twice, so hard he hurt his knuckles.

Goldman’s brain felt like it had been dislodged. He dragged himself slowly up from the floor, clinging to the furniture.

‘You know who I am, don’t you?’ Turner said.

Goldman gasped a yes.

‘Then you know I have a reputation to maintain, don’t you?’ It was not a question, it was an explanation. ‘So you have a choice about this, don’t you?’ Once again, it was not a question. This time it was a statement of facts. ‘Accept you made a mistake, hold your hands up, say sorry, pay up — and live! Then I might even think about letting you deal for me.’