Nightmare City (57 page)

At the first set of traffic lights, Gallagher filtered into
the offside lane and then into the right-hand lane specifically for
vehicles turning right into Nelson Way. The lights were on red and
he stopped.

Henry could see the indicator flashing a right.

‘
What the fuck’s going on?’ he demanded suspiciously, alerting
Rider who shook himself out of his reverie, opening his eyes at the
sound of Henry’s utterance.

The lights went to green. Gallagher let out the clutch and
turned the wheel.

‘
We should be going straight on here,’ Henry said. He rapped
the window with his knuckles and shouted, ‘What’s
happening?’

He was ignored.

He looked quickly at his travelling companion.

‘
This takes us onto the shit end of an industrial
estate.’

Rider leaned forwards, concern on his face.

Gallagher gunned the van down the road which was lit for about
a hundred metres. Then nothing. It was like driving into a coal
mine. Open fields were on either side.

‘
Get me out of these, Henry,’ Rider said urgently. He pushed
his hands forwards, presenting his cuffed wrists.

Henry looked at him, but Rider’s face was only shadow on
shadow.

‘
Come on,’ the other man hissed. ‘If this diversion is legit,
then put ‘em back on. If not, I think I’d be better hands
free.’

Henry did not hesitate. Within seconds Rider was massaging the
blood-flow back into his hands.

The van slowed down and turned. The beam from the headlights
swept across the outer wall of an old factory. The van stopped
about four feet from, and pointing into, the wall.

Henry knocked on the glass again.

‘
Hey, what’s happening, folks?’ he shouted, trying to sound
jovial and unconcerned. The reality was that he was shitting
bricks.

The interior light came on in the front cab. Siobhan handed
something across to Gallagher. Something metallic. A
gun.

Rider had seen it too.

Something inside Henry twisted like colic. He wanted to burst
into tears.

Gallagher flicked a switch and the light in the cage came
on.

With the engine still running and lights on, the three
detectives stepped out of the van.

Henry caught Rider’s expression. He was just as
petrified.

The back doors of the van opened. A burst of cold air whooshed
in, making Henry shiver and feel weak.

Gallagher, Tattersall and Siobhan pushed their faces up to the
metal grill.

Gallagher’s face, in the light given out by the interior bulb,
looked evil. He smiled.

‘
End of the road, Henry.’

‘
What do you mean?’

‘
Exactly what I say. It’s been decided to whack you, pal - and
you, mate.’ He indicated Rider and rested the muzzle of his pistol
on the cage door. ‘Sorry an’ all that, but you should have taken
the hint and done what you were told. Your life would have been
good, with all sorts of perks, not least shafting Siobhan here as
and when you liked.’

‘
I’d rather fuck a rusty drainpipe,’ Henry said.

‘
So you’re gonna shoot us, is that what you’re sayin’?’ Rider
cut in.

‘
Yup.’

‘
And how you gonna explain that?’ he asked
incredulously.

Gallagher jerked a finger at Henry. ‘He knows enough about us
to answer that one, don’t you, Henry?’

‘
Creatively, I suppose,’ Henry conceded.

‘
Spot on,’ Gallagher said. He shrugged. ‘Just thinkin’ off the
top of my head ... you’re overpowered by the prisoner in the back
of the van who has secreted a knife on him. We ... ahh ... realise
that unless we accede to his demands he’ll kill you and so we play
it safe. Drive down here as he tells us and open the back door.
He’s got the knife to your throat ... demands our guns ... he
shoots you in the back of the head. We overpower him and in the
struggle he gets shot dead too. Something like that. And we’ll be
heroes.’

Siobhan said, ‘Whatever the circumstances, we’ll fit a story
to answer the evidence. What it boils down to is that both of you
are due to die.’ She spoke with glee and a sneer.

‘
Like all the others?’ Henry demanded.

‘
Exactly like the others,’ she confirmed.

‘
Derek Luton had you sussed, altering those statements. Which
one of you killed him?’

Tattersall gave Henry a friendly wave and a smile through the
cage door.

A lurching sensation went through Henry.

‘
And Geoff Driffield? What about him?’

‘
Team effort,’ Gallagher said. ‘He thought we were going to
catch that gang of gypos, poor sucker. We turned up instead. Just
unfortunate they hit that shop up the road at more or less the same
time as we hit dear old Geoff.’

‘
And what had he done to you? Looked at you wrong?’

‘
Got caught collecting evidence against us. He had to
go.’

‘
You know other people are involved with me - people like the
FBI?’

‘
We’ll deal with them as and when we need to. Anyway, I’m sick
of talking now,’ said Gallagher, ‘getting pissed wet through. What
I want you both to do is climb out of here nice and slowly, walk up
to that factory wall and put your noses up to it, OK? I see you’ve
taken his cuffs off, Henry, but it makes no odds. If you piss
about, we’ll shoot you anyway, so it’s as broad as it’s long. If
you want it over quick and clean, just follow orders.’

Henry and Rider exchanged glances.

‘
Is that FBI shit true?’ Rider asked.

‘
Yeah,’ Henry squeaked.

‘
Well, that makes me feel a whole lot better.’

Henry’s throat felt like his windpipe had been constricted by
a boa and despite the cold, a clammy sweat had formed under his
armpits.

Siobhan smacked the release catch and the locking bar sprang
open.

The three armed detectives took a few paces back and covered
Henry and Rider as they slowly descended out of the van. Henry saw
Siobhan was holding some kind of machine pistol and looked very
confident with it.

‘
Up to the wall,’ Gallagher reiterated.

Henry’s heart-rate was incredible. He thought it had reached
his limit. A myocardial infarction was more likely to be the cause
of death than a bullet.

He and Rider walked side by side to the wall. By the time they
reached it they were both drenched.

‘
Right up to it,’ snapped Gallagher.

Henry stood with his nose pressed up to the bricks. His hands
hung loose and weak. He closed his eyes despairingly and let his
forehead drop onto the wall.

‘
Who’d like to be first?’ Gallagher offered the
choice.

Rider said, ‘Kill the cop first. At least it’ll give me some
pleasure before I die.’

‘
But you’re both in this together,’ Siobhan argued. ‘We’ve
listened to your little chats.’

‘
Just shoot the cop first,’ Rider insisted. ‘He’s still a cop,
isn’t he?’

‘
Thanks,’ breathed Henry.

Gallagher stepped forwards and placed the muzzle of the
revolver at the back of Henry’s head at the point where vertebrae
and cranium met.

‘
Don’t worry, Henry, you won’t feel a thing.’

Terror welled up inside him and made him want to shit and
vomit and scream and cry and wake up from this fucking nightmare of
nightmares.

Rider looked at Henry. ‘Always wanted to see a cop get
blasted away. I’ll die happy now. . .’ and on the
H
of
Happy
his open-palmed left hand shot
out with the intention of smacking the revolver away from Henry’s
head before Gallagher fired.

Except Gallagher was ready for this manoeuvre. He stepped
smartly back a stride, pulling the gun away.

Rider slapped thin air and found himself staring down the
barrel of the revolver.

‘
You idiot,’ Gallagher laughed. ‘I was hoping you’d try that,
because I wanted to kill you first anyway.’

Henry’s mind clicked into gear at that moment. His right hand
swung to the leather pouch on his belt which held his extendable
baton. He thumbed up the catch and drew it out, making his
movements smooth and unhurried.

‘
You’re too slow,’ Gallagher taunted Rider. ‘Do you want to
see if you can bat it out of my hand now, before I blow your head
off?’

Hoping Gallagher wasn’t too far behind him, Henry swivelled at
the hips and in one flowing motion pirouetted and released the
catch on the baton which extended with a whoosh and a click. He
turned 180 degrees with the baton swishing through the air like a
sword and slammed it against Gallagher’s right forearm with all the
force he could muster. Had it been a blade, Gallagher’s hand would
have been sliced off.

Gallagher screamed. The gun jumped out of his grip, skittering
away into the darkness.

Coming back round for a second time, Henry whacked the baton
against the side of Gallagher’s head; it connected against his
eye-socket with a satisfying jolt.

Neither Siobhan nor Tattersall, standing behind their DI, were
able to shoot for fear of drilling holes into his back.

In that moment of confusion, Rider grabbed Henry’s jacket and
dragged him bodily into the van’s headlights, shouting
‘Run!’
For a second both
men were completely exposed. Two shots were hurriedly fired ...
then they were beyond the headlight beams and had launched
themselves into the total wet blackness of the night.

Siobhan was in time to glimpse Henry’s disappearing back. She
flicked the safety off the machine pistol and riddled the night
with bullets.

Blindly, Henry pitched himself headlong onto the ground,
landing clumsily and jarring his sore chest and dropping the baton.
He ignored the pain and forced himself to roll along the hard
ground for about twenty metres, feeling the spray of bullets
passing only inches overhead.

He righted himself onto one knee, aware fleetingly that his
clothing was now in an abominable state. His trousers were tom,
jacket sleeves ripped.

And besides hurting his chest, he had also caught his ear,
which felt as if it had been ripped away from the stitches. The
pain was dreadful. But Henry pushed himself on. Where was Rider?
Had he been hit?

Henry scrambled up and ran into the further darkness, not
knowing what sort of terrain lay ahead. Next thing he tripped. He
went head over heels down a steep grassy bank, expecting to roll
and tumble into something awful. He came to an unexpected stop.
More bullets cracked above.

Henry stopped breathing. Tried to listen. The heavy sleet
deadened everything.

Voices. They were searching. Can’t make out the words, but
there’s annoyance there.

Keep still. Don’t move. Odds are against them finding you. My
ear, my fucking ear!

The engine revving, the beam of headlights lighting up the
land to his left ... getting closer, the van crawling closer. More
voices - Siobhan’s - and some shouts.

The headlights swept to the spot where Henry lay.

He knew they would see him. He was briefly reminded of those
World War II POW escape films. He knew that if they saw him, he was
dead.

The lights passed over him. The engine grew
fainter.

Henry breathed out cautiously, but didn’t move. It could be a
ploy to flush him out. He was wet and cold, but fuck that.
Hypothermia was better than lead poisoning. He gritted his teeth at
the pain in his ear.

Ten minutes passed.

A hand clasped his shoulder. ‘You OK?’ It was Rider. He had
been lying up only feet away.

‘
No, not really.’

‘
They’ll bring other cops in to search. We need to make some
progress, Henry.’

‘
Let ‘em,’ said an exhausted detective. ‘We can give ourselves
up.’

‘
Are you fucking thick, or what?’ Rider was incredulous.
‘You’ll be an accomplice to me. You’ll get convicted of that and
all the other shit, and probably end up murdered in prison. We
can’t give ourselves up yet anyway, not until it’s safe - not until
we’ve decided on a way out of this crap.’

‘
So what do you propose?’ Henry couldn’t have given a toss at
that moment. Everything was too much for him.

‘
First things first. Let’s get out of here and stay
free.’

The plane touched down at Manchester Airport at nine o’clock.
The pilot handled the atrocious weather conditions with aplomb. The
passengers gave him a round of applause and were glad to be alive.
They disembarked and having collected their luggage, made their way
through Customs. Only a couple were stopped, their cases searched
perfunctorily. Scott Hamilton and his companion, Raymond de Vere,
sailed through unchecked, were met by a driver at the meeting point
and led immediately to a waiting Mercedes.