Nick Oldham - Big City Jacks

The plan never came to fruition.

Mendoza’s left arm gripped Lopez’s shoulders, and suddenly there was a short-barrelled revolver in his right hand, rising from the pocket into which he had just placed his mobile phone.

Easton was first to see the gun. He opened his mouth and screamed, ‘Get down!’ He and his two sergeants started to dive, but Mendoza’s gun did not even consider them. ‘Double-crossing bastard,’ he screamed and placed the muzzle of the gun hard against Lopez’s right temple and pulled the trigger twice. The two soft-nosed bullets blasted through his brain and virtually removed the left side of his head as they tumbled out on exit. Mendoza’s left arm was covered in blood and fragments of grey brain. He let go of the already dead Lopez, threw himself to one side and scrambled for the protection of the shop frontages.

Easton, Lynch and Hamlet all had weapons in their hands now and opened fire at Sweetman, Mendoza and Grant.

Everything that happened from that moment on, until it was all over, lasted perhaps thirty seconds.

Lynch discharged the single barrel of his shotgun at Sweetman, catching him in the upper arm and neck, sending him spinning.

Mendoza fired haphazardly, missing everyone completely, as he dived through the front door of a florist’s shop just at the moment Easton fired at him and caught him in the upper thigh. Mendoza screamed as he landed and dragged himself behind the wooden panelling of the pretend shop.

Lynch ran up to the squirming Sweetman, blood gushing out of his neck. He stood over the criminal and racked another shell into the breech of the shotgun — a gun which was once owned by Keith Snell — then blasted his face off, killing him instantly.

‘Get the other guy!’ Easton yelled, pointing to the open shop door where Mendoza had managed to crawl. Lynch stepped across the bodies of Lopez and Sweetman, racking his gun again.

‘That’s far enough,’ a controlled voice shouted behind all three of the corrupt cops. They spun to see two masked men standing in combat stance not twenty feet away, each brandishing an MP5 machine pistol.

Lynch was the first to react. Teeth gritted, he swung round with the shotgun. One of the men loosed a burst of his MP5, almost cutting him in half.

Easton, outgunned, turned to run and was drilled with about a dozen bullets from the gun of the other man.

Grant and Hamlet remained frozen in time. Hamlet dropped his gun and held up his hands, but to no avail. Both masked men fired simultaneous bursts, lifting both Grant and Hamlet off their feet, spinning them like ballet dancers, before smashing them to the hard ground of Ambush Alley, the Big City.

Teddy Bear Jackman and Tony Cromer did not waste another moment, ditching their weapons, grabbing the three holdalls and running for the exit. They disappeared into the night.

The sound of gunfire was muted through the breezeblock walls of the building, however, it was unmistakable to Henry Christie and Karl Donaldson, who knew exactly what guns sounded like. They had worked their way to the back of the Big City building when they heard the first shot from inside. Neither hesitated, but gave up all pretence of finding another entrance and now hared round to the front entrance, Henry yelling down his PR to Roscoe that they were responding to the sound of gunfire.

By the time they reached the entrance, each man had tried to count how many shots had been fired. At first it had been easy, but when the rapid fire came, it was impossible.

The door was open.

With extreme caution they edged carefully into the warehouse, coming straight on to Ambush Alley. Despite seeing the bodies lying ahead, they moved tentatively towards them, always expecting the worst, both men having pinned their IDs on to the front of their jackets. Not that a badge would have stopped a bullet, but it was a degree of psychological protection.

Henry counted five bodies. One was twitching horribly. He bent down and looked into the man’s face. It was Lynch. He was still alive. . and then he was dead.

‘Shit!’ he said, then looked at Donaldson, who was hopping from one body to another.

‘Can’t find Mendoza,’ he said. ‘He must have done all this.’

‘Don’t think so. Not alone, anyway,’ said Henry, assessing the different wounds to each person. He had seen a lot of gunshot wounds in his time and could tell immediately that this was not the work of one man. ‘He might have been part of this, but he had help,’ Henry speculated. ‘This one’s been shot by a shotgun, this one by a pistol, or something, these three have been ripped apart by machine guns.’

‘I want Mendoza,’ Donaldson said. ‘Do not tell me he got away.’

Henry looked round. ‘Someone in there,’ he said, pointing to the florist’s shop. He had seen a splash of blood at the door. With Donaldson he walked carefully to the shop, and as he got closer he could see a man’s leg.

‘That’s him,’ Donaldson said, staring down unemotionally at the man who had haunted him for so long, someone he had dearly wanted to see in this position. ‘Looks like he’s been shot in the leg from here. Bullet must have travelled up into his innards,’ he guessed, seeing the vast amount of blood the Spaniard was lying in. He squatted down by the body and carefully lifted Mendoza’s jacket, his hand slipping in and coming out with the mobile phone, which Donaldson then slid into his own pocket, without Henry seeing the surreptitious move.

It would not have done for the police to check the phone and find out that the last text message the Spaniard had received had come from Donaldson’s mobile, now would it? Donaldson looked up at Henry, then back at Mendoza’s body, a cruel smile coming to his face. ‘What goes around comes around, eh?

Henry blew out his cheeks. ‘Yeah.’ He stepped back and looked along Ambush Alley. ‘Well, we’ve got the florist. I wonder if there’s an undertaker down here?’

The inquest into the death of John Lloyd Wickson, husband of Tara Wickson, and others was convened four weeks later. The proceedings were held at Fleetwood Magistrate’s Court. It was a warm day, very clear, with fine views across Morecambe Bay towards the twin nuclear reactors at Heysham and further north to the hills of the Lake District.

Henry parked his car in the police-station yard and walked round to the court buildings situated on the seafront at Fleetwood. He paused and took in the view. It was not often this clear and he savoured the moment, wishing he was walking or fishing in the hills, instead of having to go through the agony of explaining Wickson’s death to the coroner, as well as the associated deaths which were even more difficult to describe and all quite gruesome: The death of the hitman, Verner, who had also killed Wickson and then been assassinated by the unknown sniper. Also in there was the death of another man, Wickson’s driver. This was the one that really worried him, because this was the death he had attributed to Verner when, in reality, Tara Wickson had pulled the trigger of the shotgun which had blasted the guy’s head off. He had done this for what he thought were the best of reasons — the man, Jake Coulton, had raped Tara’s daughter and it had been the anguish of that which had unhinged Tara’s mind. On reflection he had acted hastily — to say the least — and now he was going to have to go public with the story he had made up to cover the killing.

To say that he was nervous was an understatement.

If Tara cracked under pressure, all hell would be unleashed.

Dave Anger and Jane Roscoe appeared round the corner, walking from the direction of the car park. Both had been deeply involved in the investigation and their input into the inquest would be vital and telling.