Get Cartwright (25 page)

The letterbox rattled. The flap was pushed up. Eyes appeared in the slot.

Sam tensed. Annie took a breath and held it. Gene tightened his grip on the axe.

‘Aye up, anybody in?’ Chris called through the letter box.

Sam slumped against a wall, as Annie let out a laugh that was all nerves. Gene’s eyes glowered furiously.

‘Christopher!’ he bellowed, and stomped into the hallway.

‘Guv? What you doin’ in there, Guv? You all right?’

With immense strength, Gene hauled the sofa back a few feet and flung open the door. Standing outside, backlit by the full moon, were Chris and Ray, their Hillman Avenger parked on the track behind them.

‘What they hell are you tit-faces doin’, givin’ us the heebies and the jeebies?!’ Gene roared at them.

‘Here, steady on, Guv,’ said Chris, backing off and looking to Ray for support.

‘We got your message and raced up here pronto, Guv,’ said Ray.

‘What bloody message? We didn’t send no message!’

‘Aye, you did,’ Ray insisted. ‘Radio message. Tyler spoke to Phyllis on the desk. Signal was all broken up, but she got the key words and wrote ’em down.’ He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket, unfolded it, tilted it so that the moonlight fell on Phyllis’ handwriting, and read out: ‘Get a message to Ray and Chris. We need their help. We’re in Trawden – message breaks up – serious trouble – message beaks up again – we need them … Message breaks up entirely.’ Ray thrust the paper back into his pocket. ‘So we jumped in the Avenger and got over here toot sweet. And we
thought,
given that you sounded like you were in trouble, that you might actually be pleased to see us, Guv.’ He eyed the axe in Gene’s hands. ‘Didn’t know all you wanted us for was to give us the flamin’ chop.’

Annie rushed forward, throwing her arms around Chris and planting a big kiss on his cheek. Chris looked terrified.

‘You don’t know how good it is to see you!’ she beamed, her eyes filling with tears. ‘You don’t know …’

‘All right, all right, tone it down,’ stammered Chris, backing off. ‘Came here for a punch up, not rumpy-pumpy.’

Annie turned to Ray. She went to kiss him too, but he held his hand up, stopping her.

‘Save it,’ he said severely. He still sported an X of sticking plasters on his head from where she’d glassed him. Ignoring Annie, he peered into the dark hallway. ‘Is that you lurking about back there, Boss?’

Sam came forward.

‘It’s me, Ray. And Annie’s right – it is so, so good to see you guys. And you’ve brought a motor! Guv, let’s just get out of here. Let’s get out of here right now.’

Gene nodded: ‘Much as I was warming to the idea of a bit of medieval combat …’ He set down the axe. ‘Ray, Chris, you did the right thing comin’ here, lads. You just caught us at a slightly tense moment, and I don’t mean that Cartwright was offering to show off her belly dancin’. We got Clive Gould breathing down our necks – him and three armed jokers. They’ve given us a right run for our money tonight. They’ve already murdered the Cortina.’

‘They’ve
what
?’
Chris cried out, his eyes going wide as fried eggs.

Ray turned away sharply, pressing the back of his hand to his mouth, like a man suddenly seized with overwhelming nausea.

‘Vengeance
will
be ours,’ Gene intoned. ‘But not tonight. Tyler went and lost me shooter, so we’re a little outgunned stuck here. So, everybody into the Avenger and let’s get rollin’ before …’

He broke off. Headlights had appeared at the far end of the track, turning in off the road, blazing on full beam.

‘You bring any back up with you?’ Gene asked tensely.

‘No, we didn’t get time,’ said Ray.

From behind the dazzling headlights there was a deafening volley of gunfire. The Hillman Avenger rocked and shuddered, its rear lights and windscreen blowing out.

Chris was through the front door and along the hall faster than a frightened cat. Ray reached under his corduroy jacket and pulled out a pistol, but Gene grabbed him and thrust him inside. There was a last glimpse of shotguns flaring and the Avenger sinking down on deflated tyres, before Gene slammed the door and ordered the sofa to be wedged back up against it.

‘That’s it then, playmates,’ he growled in the dark. ‘Too late to run. The Avenger’s knackered and Gould’s just popped round for jammy dodgers and a chat. So stay sharp, and buckle in for a bumpy ride. We’re back in the Alamo.’

‘Gimme the shooter, Ray,’ Gene ordered, thrusting out his hand.

Ray frowned, looked sideways at Gene, and held his gun close to his body.

‘I said,
gimme the shooter, Ray
!’

‘What about your Magnum, Guv?’

‘I told you,
he
lost it. Now stop arguing!’

But Ray backed off, shaking his head slowly. ‘No, Guv.’

Gene seemed to inflate like an enraged puff adder, his eyes glittering furiously in the darkness – but then renewed gunfire outside sent everybody bundling back along the hallway.

‘They’re blowing the front windows out!’ Sam cried, as glass showered into the living room.

Gene made a grab for Ray’s gun, and for a moment there was an undignified tussle. Then Ray stumbled back, still holding on to his shooter, his face red and angry.

‘I came out here to help you, Guv!’ he snapped. ‘Not to give up me gun so you could save yourself and leave me to them bastards out there!’

With a furious roar, Gene grabbed the big two-handed axe. ‘Right, Ray, you insubordinate sodomite! I’m gonna put this thing right through your undersized head!’

Sam put in angrily: ‘Stop mucking about, you spanners, the enemy is
outside
!’

There was a moment of sullen, macho glowering, and then Gene growled, ‘Well, Raymond, since in all this excitement you’ve forgotten how to take orders, perhaps you’ll tell us what you’re proposing to do next?’

‘I’m going upstairs,’ Ray said. ‘I’m going to open fire from a window. And Chris, you’re coming with me.’

‘But I ain’t got no shooter!’ Chris howled.

‘You’re gonna chuck things.’

‘What things?’ He turned imploringly to Gene. ‘What things, Guv?’

‘Don’t ask me, Christopher, I’m just the bloody DCI round here.’

‘You’re gonna chuck anything you can get your hands on!’ Ray hissed, dragging Chris with him up the stairs. ‘Furniture! Vases! Shoes!’

‘Unzip your kecks and take a gypsy’s on ’em if that’s what it takes, Chris,’ Gene called up after them. ‘And you have my blessing to direct that pissy stream straight on DS Carling, the gobby, back-chatting little –’

More gunfire shook the house. More windows shattered.

‘Guv, we don’t have time to muck about,’ Sam urged him.

Gene gave Annie a rough shove, sending her stumbling back into the kitchen.

‘Barricade the back door!’ he ordered. ‘And arm yourself with whatever you can find! Tyler – back me up.’

Gene strode into the living room, the axe blade flashing. Annie thrust something into Sam’s hand. It was a meat cleaver from the kitchen.

‘Please don’t die,’ she said, then raced away to heap furniture against the back door.

There was no time to hesitate, no time to think. Sam pounded into the living room after Gene. Broken glass crunched under his feet. The Guv was standing to one side of the shattered windows, so Sam positioned himself on the other. They pressed their backs to the wall and waited.

‘I’m going to kill that Ray Carling when we get out of this,’ Gene hissed. He was still bloody furious.

‘Take it out on
them
,’
Sam whispered, and he indicated with a nod of his head the unseen gunmen outside.

Two or three more gun blasts flashed like a tropical storm in the deep night, the bullets racing through the broken window pane and smacking into the far wall of the living room. Then there was an ominous silence.

Still gripping the meat cleaver, Sam shot an anxious glance at Gene.

‘
Wait
…’
Gene mouthed across at him, and he slowly lifted the axe.

Above them, they heard Chris and Ray moving about in the upstairs bedroom. Moments later, there were cracks of gunfire, and a table lamp crashed down into the drive outside.

Sam hopped from foot to foot, psyching himself to attack.

‘Wait
…’
Gene mouthed again.

Without warning, a figure came forcing its way in through the broken windows. Sam caught a glimpse of the pig-like face, flattened and distorted by the stocking mask. But his attention was caught more by the twin barrels of the smoking shotgun.

Gene swung the axe. The blade whistled through the air and caught the gunman on the shoulder. His shotgun went off, blasting books from a shelf in a great flutter of flying pages. Sam jumped out and brought the cleaver down with all his strength, but it swept through empty air. The gunman was gone, back out into the night.

More shots came from Ray upstairs, and now a glass with a toothbrush and tube of paste came down as missiles from Chris, followed by a slipper.

Gene grabbed a chair, upended it, and rammed it against the remains of the window. Sam pulled down the bookcase and dragged it across. As he wedged it alongside the chair, shotgun slugs came blasting through it. At the same moment, Annie screamed from the kitchen.

‘I’ll hold ’em here!’ Gene bellowed. ‘Get round the back!’

Sam tore across the wrecked living room and pounded into the kitchen. Annie was flat up against the back door, holding it shut with her body against a series of shattering blows from outside. Her feet began to slide slowly across the floor. The door edged open, and a black gloved hand reached in, grasping at Annie’s throat.

With a cry, Sam sprang forward and brought the cleaver down. The broad blade sliced straight through the flesh and lodged into the bone at the wrist. At once, the arm withdrew, taking the cleaver with it.

Looking around frantically, Sam saw the low level Beko fridge. He grabbed it and dragged it furiously across the floor, walking it to the back door to wedge it shut.

‘You okay?’ he asked Annie, panting.

‘I’m okay.
You
okay?’

‘I’m
okay, but I don’t think that bastard out there’s feeling too perky, though.’

There was movement at the window, and glass broke violently. Sam flung open a drawer, looking for a fresh weapon, and saw nothing but silver table knives.

Next to him, Annie moved suddenly. She had a pan of boiling water on the stove, which she now flung at the broken window. The stocking-faced gunman briefly glimpsed there fell back in silence.

‘I put sugar in it,’ Annie said, her eyes wild and fierce now. ‘Like they do to nonces in prison. Sticks like napalm.’ And then at the empty window she screamed, ‘There’s plenty more of the same if you want it!’

There was a flash of light and the roar of a shotgun, and plaster exploded from a suddenly gaping hole in the wall.

And then, nothing.

Sam looked at Annie, and Annie looked at Sam. They waited, panting, their eyes wide. But still there was nothing.

It was then that the phone started to ring. The incongruity of it, surrounded by all the violence and destruction, made the sound almost sickening, like a child’s lullaby heard in a graveyard.

‘Ignore it!’ Annie hissed.

But that was impossible. The sound drew Sam irresistibly out of the kitchen and into the hallway. He stepped across broken glass and shattered wood, searching for the source of the sound, and found the telephone sitting innocently on a little table in the alcove under the stairs.

For a few moments, Sam hesitated, not quite able to nerve himself to reach out his hand and lift the receiver. Part of him was willing it to ring off. But the phone just kept on calling to him.

At last, he relented.

‘Hello?’ Sam said in a toneless voice.

The line was bad. Through a fog of static a man’s voice said, ‘I want to speak to Annie. Put her on.’

The voice was indistinct and smothered with white noise, but Sam was in no doubt who it belonged to.

‘I said put her on.’

‘No,’ said Sam.

‘It’s in your interests to do what I tell you.’

‘Forget it. Annie’s with me now. You’ll never speak to her again, you’ll never see her again.’

‘I’m cutting you a deal, you silly boy. You and your police friends can walk out of here; all you have to do is give me what I came here for.’

Sam thought hard. He wasn’t going to negotiate, but neither was he going to squander this opportunity to simply hurl insults at Gould. Every word counted.

‘Why are you speaking to us?’ Sam asked.

‘Because I haven’t come here to get drawn into a long, tedious fight,’ Gould replied through that swirling buzz of static. ‘I’ve come here for her. So put her on.’

‘We’re stronger than you thought,’ Sam said carefully. ‘There’s five of us in here. We outnumber you now. That’s why you’re trying to cut a deal.’

‘You’d be a fool to think that.’

‘You’re a villain, Mr Gould. And Annie is a copper. Through and through. Like her father before her. That’s why she’s with us, that’s why she found herself here, in 1973, in CID A-Division. She might not have had a badge and a rank when she died, but that didn’t make her any less a copper than me or my guv’nor or anyone else in this department. Face it – you’ve lost her, like you’ve lost everything else. The law has won. It doesn’t always win, but this time, Mr Gould,
this
time, we got a result.’

And with that, Sam hung up.

We’re CID. We don’t do deals with scum. And he doesn’t own us. The days of Carroll, Walsh and Darby are over. Gould can go to hell. He can go to hell
alone
.

He became aware that Gene was standing behind him, the axe still in his hands.

‘Well, Tyler?’

‘It was him. It was Gould. He was just trying to unnerve us. I told him to forget it.’

‘He won’t give up,’ Gene said. ‘He can’t, not now he’s grabbed the tiger’s tail. He’s in for the duration. He can’t leave here until we’re all dead, and his nasty little secrets from the past are safely buried again. Then he’ll go back to where he came from, back to whatever false identity he cooked up for himself, hidden away behind some dodgy death certificate and an empty grave that tell the world that Clive Gould is dead. Once you and me and Chris and Ray and dopey drawers back there in the kitchen are all done away with, that’s when he’ll call it a day. Until then, it’s war, Tyler. And you know what?’