Nick Oldham - The Last Big Job

She raised her knuckles, but did not knock. The door was slightly open. She pushed gently with a finger. It swung open with a creak of the hinges, revealing a short, empty vestibule.

‘ Cheryl?’ Danny called. ‘It’s me, Danny Furness.’

Danny’s cop instinct — honed by eighteen years of entering premises — told her straight away the flat was empty. Something about the atmosphere. The stillness. The way the sound of her voice was not absorbed by human flesh, just bounced off the fixtures and fittings. The hairs on the back of her neck rose, making her shiver.

She crossed the threshold and turned into the living room. She surveyed the empty room, listened and sniffed, catching the tangy mixture of cigarette and cannabis smoke, and beer; some cans of lager were open on the carpet in front of the electric fire which burned bright red, hot enough to make toast.

The room was sweltering. The heat hit Danny immediately.

The TV was on, too, the volume low; a morning chat show hosted by some celebrity on the way down career-wise. Incest being the topic up for discussion. Danny crossed the room, a quiver of apprehension inside her. She bent down, flicked off the TV and then the electric fire. The three bars faded immediately as though happy to be relieved of their task. Next to the fire was a half-smoked joint in an ashtray and next to that a clear plastic bag containing herbal cannabis. Danny recognised the illegal substance, as any cop worth their salt would have done. Alongside this was a packet of cigarettes, the lid tipped open, revealing the contents — about a dozen remaining from the original twenty. Then there was a set of keys, one of which looked like it was probably the front-door key.

Danny sighed through her nose, stood upright and considered the rest of the room.

Clothes were scattered around the floor, male and female. A pair of skimpy knickers, a dressing gown, a pair of jeans, a T-shirt. Cold remnants of a fish-and-chip supper were all over the settee and carpet, beginning to stink.

Danny checked the small kitchen, the bathroom, the untidy bedroom.

A very bad feeling made her swallow.

Earlier that morning she had checked the signing-on book at the front desk of the police station. She had seen that Cheryl, as well as missing last night’s rendezvous at the cop shop, had also missed this morning’s. Having a professional interest in the case, she decided to pay Cheryl a visit and give her the hard word, intending to warn her that next time she failed to sign on she would be thrown back in front of the court with the recommendation that bail be rescinded, and get locked up.

But Cheryl was nowhere to be found.

Danny actually wanted to believe that she had done a midnight flit, yet the state of the flat was unsettling. People who do runners usually take their fags and dope with them. Their lifelines. They don’t leave stuff like that behind.

As Danny went back on to the landing, she again noticed the damage to the door. She paused, patted her pockets and located her ciggies. She lit one, breathed smoke in deep and bent down to inspect the door. She exhaled through the side of her mouth. Had something happened here? she speculated. Some form of retribution because of the drugs? She pulled the door to behind her and made her way back to the car, going in the opposite direction to the teenage gang around the corner, thinking, Time will tell.

Where interpersonal relationships were concerned, Henry Christie was a coward at heart. Because he and Kate had parted on such sour terms and he had made little effort to keep in contact with her, he thought it was going to be very hard for him to present himself on the front doorstep and announce, ‘Honey, I’m home!’

He drove back from Manchester that morning, planning what he was going to say. One of his main problems was that he had thrown himself on to her mercy too many times in the past. Even for Kate, the most patient and forgiving of people, there must be a point at which enough was enough. Henry prayed she had not reached it.

On the M61 he stopped at Bolton West services. After a cup of tea, he bought several bunches of flowers and combined them into one big one, a box of chocolates and a pop music tape each for the girls… peace offerings. He had the sneaking suspicion this would not be nearly enough to appease Kate, probably rightly so.

As Blackpool drew nearer, he caught sight of the Tower. His intestines lurched. In ten minutes, or less, depending on the traffic, he could be home. He knew today was Kate’s day off — she worked part-time — and that on a day like this, glorious sunshine, she would probably be gardening.

He came off the motorway at Marton Circle, where he should have left the roundabout at the three o’clock exit. His nerve failed him. Instead, he looped right round and rejoined the motorway into Blackpool, deciding to bob into the station instead. Just to catch up on work. See what was happening in his absence. Give him a little more time to think about himself, Kate, their daughters and the future. And maybe see Danny Furness.

Colin Hodge, the driver for the security firm, was completely in control of the situation. He felt it, believed it, and was experiencing it right at that very moment as he walked into Thomas Cook’s Travel Agency on Fishergate in Preston. He said very firmly to the lady behind the counter, ‘I want you to book me on a flight to Tenerife as soon as possible.’

She smiled nicely. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

Hodge sat down on the comfy chair, leaned back, smiled complacently to himself. Yes, he was very much in charge of the whole shebang. Otherwise, why would those two stupid bastards have immediately bunged two grand his way, told him to take his annual holiday and get down to Los Cristianos where he was to go to a certain address and wait to be contacted? The contact, he had been assured, would be very soon. In the meantime, he should chill out, have some fun. If he wanted anything ‘extra’ he only needed to call a number he was given and his whims would be attended to. Hodge had already memorised the number.

The travel agent tapped some details into her computer. There was a delay of a few seconds before she turned the screen so that Hodge could see what was available. ‘There’s one tomorrow, if that’s any good,’ she said.

At the same time, Billy Crane and Don Smith were at Manchester Airport looking up at a departures screen. The flight to Lisbon was due to take off in three-quarters of an hour. Crane would be on it. He rarely travelled direct from the UK to Tenerife if he could avoid it. He wasn’t too concerned about making it difficult for people who might be tracking him, but did not want to make it too easy.

The two men regarded each other affectionately.

‘ It’s been a good break, lots achieved,’ Crane said.

They shook hands, patted each other’s shoulders.

‘ I’ll do some digging on Hodge,’ Smith said, ‘then I’ll be out to see you in a couple of days. I know a guy who can do it for me, discreet like. Someone who’s good.’

‘ Fine, but remember this — I haven’t said I’m in this for definite. I’m just sniffing a dog’s arse at the moment, that’s all,’

The departures screen rolled out instructions for the Lisbon flight: passengers to make their way to the boarding gate now. The two men parted and anyone observing them would not have been able to guess from their demeanour that both had been involved in murder only hours before.

Because of his dislike of airports, the Russian left it to the very last minute before arriving and checking in at Manchester. He walked briskly away from the BA check-in desk towards Passport Control, dropped his hand luggage on to the conveyor belt which trundled it through the X-ray machine, stepped through the metal detector without incident, collected his bag and presented his passport to the Customs official at the desk. The document received only the most cursory of glances. He might as well have offered his real one. Once in the International Departure lounge he turned into W.H. Smiths and bought a morning newspaper which he tucked under his arm and made his way to the boarding gate.