Just Another Day (13 page)

‘
Look at the drivers’ seat,’ Johnson said to John.

John began to turn around to the figure behind him to his right, suddenly, he felt a sharp punch to the right side of his head near his temple and he was momentarily stunned.

‘Don’t fucking look at me. Look at the seat.’

John instinctively rubbed the side of his head and looked toward the empty driver’s seat wondering what this psychopath was going to do next.
Johnson took hold of the handle of the kitchen knife with his empty right hand and slowly slid it out of his waistband.

‘
Can you see anything on the drivers’ seat?’ he said to John.

S
till hurting and rubbing the side of his head, he was also now tired and somewhat exasperated by the puerile nonsense spewing from his obscene mouth.

‘
No, I can’t see anything.’

‘
You will now, watch.’

As john glanced to his right once more, he saw a sudden movement behind him.
Johnson gripped the carving knife very firmly and stabbed the back of the empty driver’s seat with tremendous force. John involuntarily jumped as he saw the blade exit the middle of the fabric covering by about six inches and he shuddered as he thought of the damage the blade would have done to him if he had been sitting in the seat. He realised that this was exactly what Johnson wanted him to feel. He was letting John know that he was very much in charge of the situation and that he could kill both of them at any time. It wasn’t warm in the car, in fact it was quite chilly but he felt a shiver of sweat as it ran down the back of his shirt into his waistband.

Johnson withdrew the blade.

‘Do I need to explain anything to you Mr Negotiator?’ Said Johnson in a mocking voice. He knew full well that his demonstration conveyed his power far more than words ever could.

John was beginning to have a very bad feeling about the outcome of this situation. He had seen Johnson swallowing more pills in an effort to stay awake and he knew it would be only a matter of time before Johnson realised that he needed to sleep. As a lone kidnapper with no one else to help him, he might decide to end it sooner rather than later.

‘
I understand’ said John. ‘Just tell me what you want me to do next.’

‘
Right you lot, listen to what I’ve got to say’ growled Johnson.

John started to speak,
‘who are?’ he didn’t finish his question as he felt Johnson lean forward and felt the tip of the knife blade press against the soft tissue behind his right ear.

‘
Do you think I’m a simpleton or something’ as he pushed the knife a little harder causing a small puncture wound, john felt the blood trickle down his neck.

‘
This is a fucking police car; keep your mouth shut while I talk to our friends who I’m sure will be listening now to my every soothing, comforting word.’ Johnson took the blade away and leaned back in his seat.

‘
Now, this is what I’m going to do my friends,’ he was now beginning to enjoy taunting a wider audience.

‘
As our friendly marksmen will be able to see; the officer and me’, he said, almost laughing, ‘still have the blanket over our head. I’m going to remove it because we both need a little air. Just remember any of you nice people with the guns that whilst it may be very tempting for you to consider relieving me of my head, you will also see my own little gun pressing into your friend’s neck.

So just bear that in mind one and all; think of it as a supermarket offer; shoot me dead, and you get another dead one free.
’

Chief Superintendent McKay sat back in his chair in the forward command post a short distance from the hostage scene and stared intently at the radio speaker.
He knew that Johnson would work out sooner or later that the police car was bugged but he hoped that he would be able to buy a little time as the gunman would be tired and maybe not thinking too clearly. Johnson’s chilling monotone voice dispelled any notion that they might gain an advantage in being able to listen directly to the dialogue in the car.

Ged Duggan was also concentrating very hard on not pulling the trigger. He had a clear sight and the red laser dot was very visible on the back of Johnson’s skull. He could end this now and they could all go home. ‘Relax Ged’, he thought to himself, ‘There’s only one in the car that needs taking out. Let’s get the guys home safe.’
He eased his finger off the trigger and slid the safety catch in position.

‘
I think that went rather well’ said Johnson to no one in particular as he pushed the blanket back over their shoulders to the parcel shelf behind.

‘
Now then John Boy, before we set off on our little trip to the seaside, back in the drivers cab of the lorry, you will find a pair of green overalls and a nice comfy pair of trainers that our lorry driver friend left behind in his haste to depart from us. Very rude don’t you think?’ John knew the words were more of a statement than a question and didn’t answer.

‘
They’re at the bottom of the bunk near the cupboard and you’ve got 30 seconds to get them and then get back in the car, otherwise your mate here, who looks a little under the weather anyway, might just lose a little more blood. Do you understand me?’

‘
Yes’ he replied, ‘perfectly.’

‘
No, I’m not sure you do understand me. I want you to turn round, very slowly, and look at me.’

The menacing tone of the words chilled John and he slowly turned as instructed.
Their eyes met and John could see the unmistakable wildness in his eyes and at that moment he knew that their captor had no intention whatsoever of allowing either of them to survive their imprisonment. At the end of their torment, Johnson was going to kill them both. They might die in the next five minutes or the next five hours, but as they looked at each other, they both knew that things had gone too far now for there to be a peaceful end to the situation.

He broke his gaze and glanced at Dave who was fading. He didn’t think he would be able to take much more of his humiliation and pain.

Johnson didn’t take his eyes off John and glared at him.

‘Doesn’t look too good your mate; why don’t we put him out of his misery and then you and I can be a nice cosy twosome eh?’

John’s eyes flashed back to Johnson,

‘please, I’m begging you, don’t,’ he didn’t finish his sentence before Johnson cut him off with a wave of the blade and said, ‘Now I think you understand. 30 seconds, Go.’ Johnson was enjoying playing to a wider audience as he was well aware that the command team would be listening to his every word.

John stumbled out of the car and ran and tripped as he reached the lorry with its passenger door still open from where Dave had slithered out in what seemed an age ago but in reality was only about 10 minutes.

‘
10 seconds,’ he heard Johnson shout as he counted down, ‘9, 8, 7’.

John was back at the passenger door of the car, clutching the trainers and rolled up overalls before Johnson finished his count only to hear Johnson proclaim in a loud mocking voice,

‘Too late me old mucker, too fucking late’.

He saw the flash of the blade as Johnson stabbed Dave’s right thigh. He screamed in pain and jerked his head back.
‘Steady on officer’, said Johnson as he looked not at him, but at John. ‘Don’t yank your head about. This might go off without me wanting it to. Then where would we be eh?’

Dave’s shoulders slumped and he began to moan. The knife had cut into the soft tissue but had not connected with the bone or major artery and whilst the blood began to flow, it did not spurt out and John breathed a sigh of relief.

‘Now, just to show that I am not altogether without feeling, you can tie that cloth around his leg. We wouldn’t want poor old Dave here to lose too much blood would we?’ said Johnson, using the dripping knife to indicate the cloth on the dashboard that had been routinely used by the normal driver of the car to demist the inside of the windows on occasions.

He told John to twist in his seat and tie the cloth around Dave’s thigh. He knew there was too little room to allow him into the back seat and he could sense that, for all his experience as a negotiator and his usual calm demeanour, he might just have a go at being a hero.
He had plans for John, but not just yet. He needed him to get them away from this location to somewhere that he could feel safer. Johnson thought to himself that he still had an opportunity to walk away from this situation, provided he maintained control.

John finished tying the bandage, not too tight that it would cut off the blood supply to his leg, but tight enough to ensure that he could adequately stem the blood oozing from Dave’s thigh.

‘
Right.’ said Johnson, ‘now that you’ve done your Florence Nightingale bit, strip off.’

‘What are you talking’
, he never finished his question before Johnson screamed at him in such a loud, aggressive voice that even the officers in the command post jumped in shock.

‘
Don’t you fucking question me, get out of the car, stand where I can see you and take everything off. The fucking lot, understand? And when you’ve done that, put the overalls and trainers on.’

He was convinced that John would have a transmitter or listening device somewhere in his shoes or clothing and this was his way of further strengthening his position, intimidating John, and showing to his listening audience that he could still think clearly.
He watched very carefully that john did not retain anything as he saw him put on the overalls and the trainers which, whilst a size too small, would not restrict him from driving the car.

‘
Now, get fuckin your arse into the drivers seat, we’re going for a little drive. Just remember Mr Walsh that you’re sitting in front of me.’

‘
Mr Walsh,’ thought John. He didn’t particularly like that sound coming from his kidnapper’s mouth. John was now not a negotiator any more, but another hostage and he became increasingly aware that any influence he hoped to bring to bear on this situation had disappeared in the last hour or so. He was as much a victim as Dave and time was not on their side. John started the engine, the headlights cutting through the gloom of the rapidly darkening day. He slowly turned the car around to face the service road that led back towards the Motorway. He could see the police barricades and vehicles being moved out of position to allow him to leave the industrial estate.

‘
Where are we going then?’ He could feel Johnson’s breath on the back of his neck as his captor leaned forward and it made him shiver.

‘
Just drive the fucking car,’ he said menacingly. ‘I’ll
tell
you when to go left or right.’

He glanced in the mirror at Dave slumped in the back seat. His face was grey and his eyes were closed. With the earlier wounds to his head, shoulder and hand and this latest wound to his leg, he was slowly but surely bleeding to death.
He drove forward through the avenue of police vehicles. Shit, said John to himself, this is not going to plan; this is not going to plan at all, and his shoulders sagged as he headed toward the Motorway.

‘
Take the next left,’ growled the voice from behind.

‘
What, back on the Motorway?’

‘
Just do it. That’ll do for the time being. I need time to think.’

Johnson, pretty confident that his driver didn’t have any bugs or listening devices on his body; the overalls and trainers saw to that, was also absolutely sure that there would be plenty of them in the car. He didn’t have much choice when getting away from the industrial park. He had to take whatever car they gave him. They were bound to have fitted them somewhere. He had to get shut of this motor as soon as possible.
He needed to give himself time to think. He had no problem with killing both his captives; in fact, he was rather looking forward to it. He’d had the shit kicked out of him plenty of times over the years by the screws and coppers and, even though it hadn’t been in his mind earlier that morning to take any body hostage, other than the lorry driver, this was now quite a bonus.

There was no way he was going back to the nick. He was already out on licence and with his form and today’s episode going tits up, he knew that the next sentence would be his last. ‘Hanging’ Judge Wilson had as much told him so when he gave him fifteen years. If he was caught this time, he would die in prison, plain and simple.

Well, he pondered, if I’m going to die in prison anyway, might as well make it worthwhile and see these two fuckers off.
Besides, he thought, if this bastard hadn’t been so nosey this morning and just taken the pass from the fucking driver, I would’ve been sunning meself  in Spain in a few weeks time. Sunbeds and beer for the rest of me fuckin natural. He looked at the figure alongside him; and as he realised his plans would never become reality, he banged his fist hard on Dave’s thigh at the point where he had knifed him earlier causing him to cry out with pain.

John instinctively hit the brake pedal with his right foot when he heard the shout from his injured colleague.

‘
Just keep fucking moving,’ came the voice from behind; ‘He’s not dying, not yet anyway.’

Johnson’s thoughts drifted back over the last few hours.

If they didn’t know before, and chances are that they would have no idea, the cops would know by now as they’d have been all over the wagon in the last half hour or so. As soon as they’d driven away from the industrial estate, the back of the container would’ve been opened. The precious cargo in the container he had left behind consisted of 24 million pounds in Bank of England notes that were on their way for incineration as they had been taken out of circulation. Even though they were destined to burn, they were still legal tender. The Bank of England sometimes transported huge amounts of cash by ordinary carriers, partly as a means of moving the money quietly, without drawing attention to the cash being taken out of the system, and partly to save money on the transportation costs.

When large amounts of notes were carried by a recognised carrier, there was a massive operation involved as the goods were easily recognised because of the Bank of England logos and the distinctive livery of the wagons.
The Bank would never be able to maintain credibility if one of its vehicles was attacked by armed robbers and the load stolen. It was always necessary to have armed escorts accompanying the transfer from start to finish. It cost a small fortune in itself to keep it safe and even the Bank of England were constantly looking for ways to save money.

Johnson and his brother had no idea, not many people did; they couldn’t believe that huge amounts of untraceable cash could be moved in such an insecure way. They had happened upon the information by chance during a drunken conversation with a lorry driver on the Dock Road several months earlier.

Tony Johnson was stood at the bar of the Bramley Lighthouse Pub. A well known alehouse on the edge of the Docks that played host to many of the ladies of the night. It was well frequented by local thugs and villains. Some were just small time thieves who bought and sold knock off gear, others like the Johnsons, were particularly nasty.
They were well known by many regulars to be ‘players’ and, unless you were part of their inner circle, people to keep well clear of.

A few years earlier, a new licensee at the pub who was trying his best to keep order had made the mistake of barring the brothers from the pub as a result of a drunken argument. Tony, the younger of the two brothers, had smashed a glass over the head of a punter because he hadn’t asked him if he could look at his paper. The crewman of a nearby ship had not known the reputation of the thugs and had done no more than pick up the newspaper from the table that the Johnsons were sat at. Tony took umbrage at this lack of respect and, typical of their violent lifestyle, showed him the error of his ways.
The police were called and attended mob handed but nobody saw anything, such was the reputation of the brothers. The senior police officer had spoken to the new landlord and advised him that he might want to think seriously about certain members of his clientele, bearing in mind that the liquor Licence would be up for renewal at the next session of the Licensing Magistrates. The officer,

‘
Would hate to have to oppose the continuation of your licence Mr Evans because you can’t keep order at your pub’.

With the police in attendance and, feeling somewhat bolstered by their presence, bearing in mind the police ‘advice’, the licensee had made a grand gesture of barring the brothers from the pub and they left quietly.

There was never any evidence, well, none that people were prepared to swear before a court, but it was common knowledge among the regular customers as to what had happened when Evans was found in the cellar of the pub a few weeks later with both his arms and legs broken in several places as the result of a fall down the cellar steps when he had gone to change a barrel. The injuries were not consistent with being caused by a fall and even though the police wanted to investigate, as far as the licensee was concerned, there was nothing to look at.

‘It was just a simple slip off the top step of the cellar officer, must have spilt some beer there before I went down.’

He never recovered fully from his injuries and never managed a pub again.

The brothers stayed away for the next few months and then began to drink there once more. There were quite a few incidents over time, but they were never asked to leave again.

Tony sat down at the table and whispered in the ear of his elder brother,

‘
Eh Luke, you won’t believe what Terry Penrose has just told me. It can’t be right. No fuckin way.’ He took a large swig of his pint of lager and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘He’s got a grand in his back pocket. Say’s he gets paid extra because of some special containers that he sometimes takes out of the yard. Tapped his nose a bit when he said ‘special’.

Luke never looked up from the racing pages of the Echo.

‘Now then little brother, what’s got you wetting your pants then?’

‘
He reckons it’s absolutely kosher, I know he’s arseholed after about ten pints but just look at the bulge in his arse pocket.’ Tony continued to keep his voice low and recounted the story told to him by Penrose a short time earlier.

A few months earlier, he had been due to deliver a container of used engine parts to a scrap metal dealers in Bristol. He was late getting to the depot because of a massive smash on the Motorway. When he finally got there, the gates were closed and, as his driver’s hours were up for the day, he parked up outside the yard and slept in the cab overnight.
In order to do a quick delivery and get away handy, he decided early next morning to remove the seal from the container, and as the container doors were often damaged and difficult to open, he opened the doors to make sure that there wouldn’t be any hold ups once he got into the breakers yard. He knew instantly, even before the doors were open properly, that there was something wrong with the load.

Usually, there was a distinct smell of grease and old engine oil as soon as the doors were opened, but this time, the smell was very different. He couldn’t identify the strange odour; it certainly wasn’t grease or oil.

He pulled one of the two doors open fully and in the half light, he could see that there were pallets of shrink wrapped goods where there should have been open pallets of engines, gearboxes and axles.
He climbed up into the container and viewed the pallets, 24 in total. They were all quite nondescript and bland looking and he looked across the top of them for a name or a company logo but couldn’t see much under the gloomy conditions.

With his torch, he could just make out a name on the side of the pallet nearest the door, ‘property of The Bank of England’.

‘
Must be old documents or something,’ he said out loud, although there was no one around at that time of the morning as the delivery premises was not yet open for receiving goods. He turned intending to get down out of the container and knocked the torch on the edge of the pallet. It slipped from his fingers and wedged halfway down between two of the pallets out of his grasp.

‘
Bollocks,’ he said. Ordinarily, he would have been able to get the torch after the first pallet had been taken out of the container but now, he would not be removing any pallets at all, ‘Some knobhead back at the yard has given me the wrong bloody container,’ and he would now have to drive all the way back to Liverpool and sort the mess out.

‘
I can’t leave the torch on for the next four hours, the batteries will be dead,’ he said to no one in particular and began to untie the small fork lift bogey in an effort to move the offending pallet. He slid the forks under the pallet and moved it back about two feet as he heard the metallic clang of the torch falling to the deck of the container and he squeezed in alongside to retrieve it. As he picked up the torch, the beam of light picked out something unusual. He saw the outline of a £20 note that was visible in between the clear plastic shrink wrapping and the cardboard boxes that the wrapping was covering.

‘
Well, I’ll have that’ thought Terry and as the wrapping was quite thick, he thought it better to slice it with the ‘Stanley’ knife that was in his drivers cab and he jumped down from the back of the container to fetch it. As he climbed into the cab he saw his mobile phone on the dash board flashing and remembered that he had switched it to silent in order to have an undisturbed nights sleep. He checked the time and saw that he had 10 missed messages and calls.

‘
Fuckin hell’ he said to himself, ‘I’ve never been so popular,’ as he turned the audio back on just as the phone rang again.

‘
Is that you Terry?’ as he recognised the dulcet tones of his transport manager back at the yard.

Terry
heard the strain in his voice instantly. He had known Frank West for fifteen years and he knew right away that his transport manager was in a bit of a flap. Not like him, not like him at all.

‘Hello Boss, how are you on this bright and cheery morn?’

‘Where the fuck have you been I’ve been trying to contact you since midnight.’

‘
Steady on Guv, no need for that at this hour of the morning. I put my phone on silent last night so I could have a decent kip.’

‘
Is everything OK down there?’ said Frank, rather nervously.

‘
No problem, I’ve just taken the seal off the back so I can get a quick start when the breakers yard opens in about 15 minutes.’

‘
Have you er, have you opened up the box yet?’ said Frank, trying to sound very matter of fact.

Terry instantly knew that there was more to this container than he first thought and he decided not to mention anything to Frank about the £20 note stuck in the shrink wrapping. His instincts told him to play along with his boss until he had a better idea of what the call was about.

‘
Not yet boss, is there a problem?’

Terry could almost feel his boss’s sigh of relief.

‘
No, no problem, well, just a small one. It’s my fault Terry; I made a cock up with the paperwork back here at the office. The last three numbers on the container should have been five five three, but I didn’t have my specs on when I sorted out the paperwork and I wrote five three three instead so when you went looking for the container in the yard, you hooked up to the wrong box. Not your fault mate, entirely mine.’

Terry was now definitely suspicious of something. Frank West never apologised for anything. On many occasions in the past there had been errors in paperwork, wrong dates on the gate passes, wrong registration numbers etc. Even though Frank had made some of those errors, he never accepted it was his fault. He was the Transport Manager and he never took responsibility for errors.

‘
You should all know by now gentlemen, as the transport manager, and the person responsible for hiring and firing, I do not make mistakes with the paperwork do I?’

Terry had heard that little speech for many years, in fact he wished he’d had a pound for every time he’d heard that little retort. He would be a rich man by now
. There was a silence in which Terry was certain he could hear Frank snuffling at the other end of the line.