Nick Oldham - Big City Jacks

And one of the crims he had most desperately wanted to put away was Rufus Sweetman — a guy who had been operating right under Easton’s nose for years on his city-centre patch. He had grown to hate Sweetman — the way he held a middle finger up at the law — and also to covet everything he owned: the apartment on the Quay, Ginny Jensen, the fabulous-looking girlfriend, the house in the Bahamas, the cars, the money.

Sweetman had gradually become an obsession. The man Easton most wanted to destroy.

And whilst this obsession had been simmering, Easton had chanced upon an amazing supplier of drugs. A man he never met, only ever spoke to occasionally by phone. Obviously a Spaniard or an Italian, but someone who supplied Easton with cut-price drugs with which he cornered a market consisting of young professionals.

How the man knew of him in the first place, he did not know.

Just a phone call from nowhere, two years earlier. This followed by delicate negotiations, Easton drawn by the prospect of drugs which often undercut other wholesalers by 50 per cent. The business had grown using ‘his staff’ as he called them — the band of corrupt detectives and uniformed cops whose pockets he had lined with cash. Easton’s principle was that each arrest, particularly of a professional person (and there were plenty) had potential. Some arrests led into massive drugs markets which produced hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of business.

And all the while, Sweetman hovered teasingly.

In the end Easton decided to bring him down in a way which would ensure that he was off the streets for a long, long time and would also bolster Easton’s own standing within the force, maybe even secure promotion. He fitted Sweetman up for murder.

The only thing was, there was no murder.

So Easton ‘engineered’ one.

The brutal death of Jackson Hazell, the unfortunate man who had fallen out big-style with Sweetman over a drug debt (something widely known in the Manchester underworld, and therefore by the cops, too). He had been kicked to death in an alleyway off Deansgate by three men, one of whom, it was alleged, was Sweetman.

In fact the three men who killed Hazell were Carl Easton himself, Phil Lynch and Gus Hamlet, Easton’s core team. They planted some forensic evidence in Sweetman’s trash, even verballed Sweetman up; they coerced false statements out of people who owed Easton a favour, which placed Sweetman in the right place at the right time.

And, all things being equal, he should have been convicted.

But the phone calls changed all that, put everything else in doubt, and Sweetman got released.

On that day Easton’s team were acting on information from the mystery drug supplier. If they were interested, he said enticingly, there was a mass consignment due into Manchester from the continent. It was theirs for the taking, if they had the bottle. It would set them up for life.

Easton, whilst still at Lancaster Crown Court, had set his team of police officers, led by the murderous Lynch, to pull the job at Birch Services on the M62.

But what they didn’t know at that time was that the drugs belonged to Sweetman.

Now they had this knowledge, but it did not concern Easton too much. What did concern him was that cops were now targets of random attacks. At heart, Easton believed his first love was the service, despite his corruption, and he did not really enjoy seeing other officers hurt. That made him angry. It made him want to destroy Sweetman once and for all. At least if he did it, he would make sure that, if the body was found — which it would not be — it would be in Greater Manchester this time.

Dave Anger could not disguise the look of utter contempt as he regarded Lawrence Bignall, a corrupt cop for whom things had turned out very badly indeed. Bignall was on the edge of the bed in the hotel room. Anger and Henry were on the two chairs in the room. Roscoe leaned against the interconnecting door, arms folded, listening to Bignall chatter away. He was talking as if it was just a friendly discussion with mates over a drink, not a life-changing revelation which would have massive implications for the rest of his days.

He shrugged. ‘Second divorce, second time of being taken to the cleaners, basically left penniless. Ended up in a shit-hole rented flat, no dosh, plenty of debts. . I was ripe for the picking.’ He said this as though that was OK. He eyed the detectives nervously. ‘Sounded like easy money. Deliver this, deliver that, don’t fucking ask questions. Fifty quid, hundred quid. Do it once and walk away, that’s what I should’ve done. Do it twice or more and they have you over a barrel. You’re fucked.’

‘Who’s they?’

‘The Invincibles they call themselves, like I said. Carl Easton and his crew of jacks. Lynch, Hamlet, Rogerson, Spooner. . all that lot. Been together for years. Some retire, others come on board. . like Lynch. He was always unstable as a PC, but he was just the right sort. No conscience. . They rule the city centre.’

‘Tell me about Keith Snell,’ Henry said.

‘Nobbut a little shit. Snouted for Lynch. Then Lynch started usin’ him for deliveries. . trouble was he wasn’t trustworthy. The little shit peeked and got greedy. Fatal error. Put cash in front of someone like that, it changes ’em. Makes ’em avaricious.’ He paused for effect. ‘Did a runner with twenty-five grand, stupid idiot.’

‘And got killed for it.’

‘Yep. Thing is, Lynch actually gave him a chance to give it back. Locked him up about, what, ten days ago? Gave him a chance to hand it over. . yeah, honest. . but he buggered off with it, scarpered to the big lights of Blackpool, which is where we found him.’

‘How did you find him?’ Henry wanted to know.

‘Paid a visit to his bird. .’

‘Grace?’

‘Yeah. . she wouldn’t tell us anything, so Lynch pasted her bad. Then we nearly caught him with Colin the Commando, but he legged it in a stolen car, even though Lynch took a pot shot at him. He gave Colin a smacking, too.’

Henry’s eyes narrowed as he mulled over the words, recalling the bullet imbedded in the back seat of the stolen Ford Escort. ‘Go on,’ he urged, glancing at Anger, who was enthralled by all this.

‘Then we got a call from a guy in Blackpool. Gave us where Snell was.’

‘Who phoned you?’

‘No idea. . Lynch knows. . anyway, we tootle into Blackpool and find him in some dive. He takes a pop at us with his shotgun and I get an armful. Lynch gets him in some backstreet somewhere. Then we drive him up to Deeply Vale and set him on fire. Well, Lynch did. I was bleeding to death in the car. . and the rest is history.’

‘Why Deeply Vale?’ Anger said.

‘Because he thought he was dumping him on GMP, so Easton could then control the subsequent investigation.’

Henry allowed himself an inner smile of congratulation as he thought back to his ruminations at the murder scene, wondering why the body had been left there. There is always a reason why a body turns up where it does.

‘Tell me about the guns,’ Henry said. ‘What’s the history of the gun used to kill Snell?’

‘It was his.’

‘Whose?’

‘Snell’s.’

‘Snell’s gun?’

‘Yeah. He’d used it on an armed robbery months ago, one he’d got locked up for, but never got charged with. The gun got took off him — and others that were found at his pad. They’re in the property store at Arena, guess they’ll be destroyed eventually. I just sneak them out of the store and return them as necessary.’

‘How do you manage that?’ Anger asked.

‘Got a duplicate key to the store and safe.’

‘Jesus!’ Henry uttered. ‘So he got killed with his own gun?’

‘Yep, ironic innit?’