Nick Oldham - The Last Big Job

A car pulled up nearby. The engine kept running. A door opened, the sound of voices drifted across to Crane’s ears. Despite the burning surge of agony which came with movement, Crane raised himself high enough to see over the wall.

Not many yards away from him, a car was stationary. Someone — a man — was leaning in through the passenger window, talking to the driver. A young woman stood nearby on the pavement. Crane blinked and shook his head. A few seconds passed before he realised he was seeing someone paying off a taxi.

He forced himself up, staggered over the wall and lurched towards the rear door of the car which he wrenched open. He threw himself across the back seat, much to the surprise of the driver and the man who was paying him.

‘ Sorry pal,’ the Asian taxi driver said over his shoulder. ‘Got a fare already booked. I can fit you in in half an hour if you like. See ya mate, thanks.’ The last four words were directed at the man who had just paid and turned away to his girlfriend.

The taxi driver looked over his left shoulder.

What he saw would remain with him for the rest of his life.

A reincarnation of the devil, hunched up in the back seat. An indescribable, terrifying look across the countenance. Eyes sunken in their sockets, hair in disarray, blood gushing from the neck — and a shotgun aimed squarely in his direction.

Crane growled, ‘Take me to the hospital now or I’ll kill you.’

Henry Christie was shooed out of the ETR. He retreated with reluctance, wanting to be with his friend throughout this ordeal.

‘ Go on, go and get a cup of tea,’ a nurse told him firmly.

Henry turned and walked back down the corridor, rubbing his face and shaking his head, muttering to himself He almost collided with Danny who pushed a plastic cup towards him. It contained hot, sweet tea.

‘ Oh, thanks,’ he said gratefully, eyeing Danny up and down. ‘I need it. I’m parched.’ He took a sip, which tasted wonderful. He noticed there was a faint trace of lipstick on the other side of the cup. She had given him her drink.

‘ What the hell’s going on, Henry?’ Danny demanded to know. ‘That’s a cop in there, isn’t it?’

‘ Yeah, yeah it is.’ Henry chewed his lips. He looked at Danny again, impressed by what he saw, as he always had been. A slim, slightly gangly girl with a figure worthy of worship, and fantastic Oriental-style eyes, a seductive shade of green. ‘RCS job,’ he went on. ‘A burglary at a Building Society just off Preston New Road.’ Then realising he’d better not say too much to Danny in case she was interviewed later about what he’d told her, he shrugged and muttered angrily, ‘Obviously a cock-up.’

‘ Is he your partner?’ She nodded towards the ETR.

‘ Yeah.’

‘ How is he?’

‘ He — we — both thought he’d just taken a shot in the shoulder, but it looks a lot worse than that now. He’s hurt pretty badly, I think.’

‘ God, I hope he’s OK.’

‘ So do I.’ Henry took a ruminative sip of tea. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘ Caught some guy blowing up police cars in the yard at Northgate. He got dogged; half his back leg bitten away.’ A smirk of evil crossed Danny’s face which made Henry smile. ‘He refused to give his details to the Custody Sergeant.’

‘ Blowing up cars, you say?’

Danny nodded.

‘ I wonder if he’s connected to the burglary? The guy we were after tonight is known to use diversionary tactics to keep everyone busy while he does the business.’

‘ We’ve had a few hoaxes tonight — big ones.’

Henry said sagely, ‘I’ll lay odds he’s involved.’

‘ Ahhhh — you bitch!’ came a scream from behind the cubicle curtain.

Danny drew the curtain back to reveal a female doctor suturing the dog-bite on the patient’s leg.

The man’s mouth clamped tight shut when he saw Henry Christie.

‘ Well, hello there, Callum, me old mucker — and just what the hell have you been up to tonight?’ Henry asked, approaching and leaning towards him in an intimidating manner. He had recognised the prisoner immediately. ‘But more to the point — who have you been working with?’

The taxi pulled up in the hospital car park within view of the Casualty Department.

‘ Switch the engine off and get out of the fucking car,’ Crane ordered the Asian who was trembling so badly that control of his bodily functions was now becoming an issue.

‘ But boss, I ain’t done nothing. I won’t tell no one, honest!’

‘ Just get out, you little turd.’

The taxi driver, whose name was Jyoti, got out, covered all the while by Crane’s shaking shotgun. Crane was becoming weaker by the moment; his head was starting to swim, his vision misting over. He willed himself to get a grip. ‘Now, you bastard, you walk into the Casualty Department just in front of me and you stay with me all the way. You try to get away and I’ll shoot your stinking head off. I’ve already killed a cop tonight, so a Paki won’t mean anything to me — got it?’

They walked the fifty or so yards to the entrance. Crane slid the shotgun out of sight underneath his zip-up jacket.

At the counter the receptionist looked up with a professional smile into Jyoti’s troubled face. Crane leaned over his shoulder. ‘I want to see a doctor now,’ he insisted.

‘ Well, there’s a wait for an hour for non-urgent cases. I’m afraid you’ll have to take a seat. Could I have your details, please?’

Sheer anger surged through Crane. Mustering all his strength he propelled the little taxi driver away, sending him sprawling across the tiled floor. He slammed the shotgun on to the counter. ‘Is this fucking urgent enough?’

He pulled the trigger.

Before Henry could settle down to have an unofficial chat with Danny’s prisoner he was beckoned out of the cubicle by the nurse who had shooed him out of the ETR.

‘ Your friend needs to go to surgery immediately.’ There was a very concerned expression on her young face. ‘We think one of the pellets may have ruptured an artery in his upper chest. He’s bleeding very badly internally and externally. And before you ask — he’ll be OK. That’s a promise. It just needs to be sorted now.’

‘ Thanks for that. Can I see him before he goes?’

‘ If you’re very quick.’

Henry strode towards the ETR behind the nurse.

But then there was the shout. The scream. And the ear-splitting noise that Henry had already heard once that night.

The roar of a shotgun discharging.

He spun, hand going straight to the butt of the revolver at his waist, and raced towards Casualty reception, Danny right behind him.

Crane was slumped like a drunk over the counter, his right hand holding the shotgun. Blood gurgled out of his neck wound across the plastic veneered surface of the counter. The receptionist was curled up, terrified, on the floor. The plasterboard wall behind her had a hole punched right through it by the shotgun blast. The taxi driver still lay on the floor whimpering. The other waiting patients were scrambling away to safety or prostrating themselves in fear.

Crane reacted instantaneously to the arrival of the two cops. He swung the shotgun round in their direction, but as he did so, he lost his balance and staggered back along the counter, trying to regain his footing. The rogue shotgun pointed upwards and Crane pulled the trigger yet again, this time bringing down huge chunks of the suspended ceiling crashing around his ears.

Seeing his chance, Henry launched himself into Crane. In those days he was fit, fast and a rugby player. His six-two, fairly muscled, thirteen-stone body powered into the injured criminal, driving all the air and fight out of him, flattening him painfully on to the cold, hard floor. The shotgun clattered harmlessly away.