Nick Oldham - The Last Big Job

With placating gestures, the Chief Stewardess tried to calm the situation. The body language, coupled with soothing talk, did the trick. The man settled back down into his seat when she promised some action.

The aisle seat next to Cheryl was now unoccupied. The woman who had been sitting there, who had been vomited on, had been moved to a vacant seat further back — one of only four on the whole plane.

The stewardess sat down on it and addressed the couple.

‘ I have spoken to the Captain about your behaviour,’ she said firmly, but with a faint touch of nervousness in her voice, because she recognised the instability of the two. ‘If you continue, he has told me that there will be no alternative but to restrain you and ensure the police are waiting for you when we land at Manchester. I don’t want that to happen, and I’m sure you don’t either, so I suggest you start to behave now, otherwise you’ll leave us with no choice in the matter.’

The detectives flicked a coin for which prisoner they got.

Danny ended up with the anonymous male who had slit another guy’s throat in an argument over a girl. The first job was to find out who ‘Mickey Mouse’ was, as he had named himself on arrival at the station at two o’clock that morning. Had Danny been paid a pound for every Mickey Mouse she had met in her service, she would have been a rich woman.

Mickey was in a foul mood. The alcohol which had worked through his system had left him feeling very poorly and very obnoxious. When a gaoler brought him from his cell to the Custody Office, he was dressed in a white paper suit because his clothes had been seized for Forensics as soon as he’d arrived in custody. He looked like a prisoner in some science fiction film.

‘ Now then,’ the Custody Sergeant said amicably. ‘Would you like to begin by telling me your real name? Because it’s not really Mr Mouse, is it?’

Mickey did not speak. He closed and opened his eyes in an expression which said ‘Fuck you!’ He then gave voice to the expression.

The Custody Sergeant remained unperturbed. Danny wanted to slap the prisoner.

‘ The implications of refusing to give your name are that you will not get bail whatever you might have done and you’ll definitely go to court in the morning without passing Go.’

Mickey spat at the Custody Officer.

The problems on the Manchester-bound flight from Tenerife eased when Spencer and Cheryl fell asleep. Cheryl claimed the vacant seat next to her, propped her feet on it, curled up and dropped her head into Spencer’s lap. Peace then reigned for about an hour.

Until Spencer woke up. Cramped, ill-tempered and bursting to go to the toilet.

Cheryl was still sleeping. He poked her roughly and she came to, sitting up groggily, feeling dry and with a head thumping to the beat of the dance music she’d bopped to for most of the previous night.

‘ Jesus,’ she moaned pitifully. ‘God, I feel so rough. I want to be sick again.’

‘ Well, don’t fuckin’ do it on me,’ Spencer warned her unsympathetically. He stood up stiffly, using the headrest of the seat in front to lever himself on to his feet. In the process of so doing, he yanked the seat back several degrees. The man in it, Spencer’s tormentee, turned and glared up at him. On seeing the man’s face, Spencer leaned aggressively forwards, hissing, ‘And as for you, just fuck off, you cunt.’ He flicked the man’s face with his middle finger, very, very hard. An action which prompted an angry outburst.

‘ You little shit!’ the man shouted. He shot to his feet, but before he could spin round and lay a good punch on Spencer, one which had been festering for almost three hours, Spencer got in first. His fist powered into the back on the man’s neck, sending him sprawling across the seat in front of him.

‘ Ha!’ yelled Spencer gleefully.

With a roar, the man lunged for Spencer. The youth got another good punch in before they both grappled into each other’s arms. There then followed a scrap which spilled out on to the aisle, across seats, across other passengers, on to the aircraft floor.

Bedlam ensued. Cabin crew raced to the scene, by which time Spencer had bloodied the man’s nose and knocked a tooth loose.

The crew grabbed both participants and hauled them apart.

But Spencer had flipped. He head-butted a stewardess on the nose, kneed a male steward in the testicles and struck, slapped, punched and scratched anyone else who came near him. Eventually force of numbers overwhelmed him. The staff, assisted by some helpful passengers, began to subdue him — a situation which unfortunately provoked another reaction. This time from Cheryl.

‘ Let go of my boyfriend, you poxy slag!’ she screamed, and launched herself like a wild cougar at the Chief Stewardess; the woman crashed to the floor, stunned. This did not stop Cheryl, in the tight space available, from raining kicks into her curled-up body.

This new attack startled and distracted those who had been restraining Spencer. He broke free with a surge of angry energy, scrambled to his feet and raced headlong down the plane with some wild thought in his mind of bursting on to the flight deck and having a go at flying the plane.

Blocking his way was the effeminately-mannered male steward, holding out his right hand in a number one stop signal: hand raised to shoulder height, arm extended, elbow locked, palm facing out.

Spencer’s expression turned to a scornful snarl as he hurtled towards the petite man. A roar grew in his throat and he adjusted his pace to deliver a flying kick, aimed somewhere around the steward’s midriff.

Had it connected, the force behind it would, at the very least, have broken bones and could possibly have damaged internal organs. However, rather like a balletic bullfighter minus the cape, the steward side-stepped gracefully out of Spencer’s flight path at the last possible moment. As the youth hurtled past him, the steward delivered a well-aimed blow on the side of his head which had the immediate effect of making Spencer think he’d slammed against a brick wall. He crumpled and thudded down into the aisle, a quivering blob.

Within seconds, the steward had skilfully turned Spencer over on to his stomach, wrenched his arms behind his back and secured his wrists with a pair of clear plastic handcuffs which resembled the plastic rings which kept six-packs of beer together.

Halfway down the plane, Cheryl was continuing to cause havoc. She bit, scratched, kicked, clawed and continually broke free from the fingers of would-be captors. She connected several good punches and many of the people around her were bleeding or bruised.

The steward who had successfully subdued Spencer left him pinned down by a colleague — knee jammed hard down between the shoulder-blades — and turned his attention to the wildcat down the aisle.

He approached on the balls of his feet, lightly, with a spring. He cut in at the right moment and seemed only to touch Cheryl on the side of the head, underneath an ear somewhere. Her legs gave way instantly. She wobbled to her knees and before she hit the deck, the steward eased her head down, cushioning the fall. He applied a second pair of handcuffs to her.

It was the first time he had ever used his skills in anger. The first time that fifteen years of Kung-fu training had been transferred into a real-life fight. Modestly, the steward acknowledged the appreciative ripple of applause and few cheers and whistles from the passengers.

Ten minutes ahead of the Tenerife flight into Manchester was a cargo flight from Brussels, bringing in a few tons of electrical equipment. With a total of only three people on board — pilot, co-pilot, navigator — the flight had been uneventful, boring even. It was landing bang on schedule, the weather had been fine and the plane was working well. All three crew lived in the South Manchester area and were eager to get home as soon as possible.