The sergeant, who had been standing next to him, saw the hesitation.
‘Summat up, boss?’
Henry tilted his head, peering at the windscreen. Above the domed bulge made by the impact of Renata’s head in the glass, just on the edge of the screen, he had spotted something unusual. ‘What is that?’ He pointed.
The sergeant followed the line of the pointed finger, then his own eyes widened. He stepped in for closer inspection.
‘Well,’ he drawled without too much commitment, ‘I wouldn’t stake my reputation on it, but I’d say it was a bullet hole.’
The close proximity of cops just down the road made Lynch uncomfortable. Justifiably so. After all, he had blasted someone to death in an alleyway not very far away from a dozen boys in blue.
After shooting Snell, he had dragged his body to one side, to lie in shadow, then returned to the guest house.
The police were very busy, dealing with what looked like a nasty accident. Blue lights, ambulances, the works. But Lynch, though uneasy, smirked: not half as nasty as the ‘accident’ in the dark alley behind the prom, prom, prom.
As he crossed back over Dickson Road, he was tense, but exhilarated.
He made it unscathed.
At the guest house, Bignall was lying in Snell’s recently vacated room, bleeding from the wound to the upper arm inflicted by the fleeing thief. He had ripped a dirty bedsheet into strips, then bound the injury with it, afterwards slumping weakly on to the metal-framed bed, pale, dithering. Blood seeped through the grubby material like spilled ink on blotting paper. He attempted to sit up when Lynch returned, but did not have the strength.
‘Not good,’ the wounded man rasped. ‘Not good at all.’
‘You’ll be right,’ Lynch breezed without concern. ‘Bloody body armour didn’t do you much good, did it? Anyway — look! Success!’ He held the blue sports bag aloft triumphantly. ‘Got the dosh back.’
‘Great.’ Bignall winced with pain. ‘I need a quack. I think I’m bleeding to death.’
‘Rubbish,’ sneered Lynch. ‘I’ll get you to one when we get back, OK?’
‘Did you shoot him?’
‘Right between the shoulder blades,’ Lynch nodded. ‘Went down like a sack of spuds.’
Bignall shuddered. He knew he was involved in a deadly game now, but just how ruthless and nasty it was, was only just dawning on him as he lay there feeling strength ebb out of him. It had just spiralled out of control and suddenly he felt very foolish and vulnerable. Shit, shit, shit, his mind whirred. Get me out of this now.
‘We need to get him back to Manchester.’
‘Who?’
‘Snell.’
‘Why?’
Lynch looked despairingly at his wounded partner in crime. ‘Control. . it needs to be controlled and we can only do that if his body turns up within the environs of the city. . yeah?’
‘Fuck!’ Bignall muttered. A searing pain radiated out from his arm. ‘Hell!’ he grimaced, gritting his teeth.
‘And there’s no way on God’s earth that you can see a doctor around here, mate. That needs controlling, too. Fancy getting bloody shot!’
‘Yeah, fancy. Just what I wanted. How the hell am I going to explain this away?’
‘We’ll think of something.’ Lynch’s nostrils flared as his mind cogitated. ‘Let’s get Snell-boy sorted first.’
Henry took a great deal of wicked pleasure in telephoning Detective Superintendent Dave Anger. He left it until the last possible moment when he thought he could get away with it. . then rang him.
It was five thirty a.m.
He had waited at the scene of the accident after Renata’s dead body had been removed to the mortuary and then until the local rota garage had turned up to remove both cars. He watched the vehicles being pulled apart with an ugly-sounding tearing of metal, then winched into place on the back of the recovery truck. He knew the garage had a secure compound in which the cars would be stored. He instructed the recovery driver to ensure that no one, other than himself and crime scene investigators, had access to the cars. Henry wanted to see if a bullet could be dug out of the stolen Escort.
He phoned Anger as the fully loaded recovery vehicle was driving away. It was a very satisfying moment to hear the sleep-jumbled voice at the other end of the line.
Just following orders.
Well in that case, Mr Anger, I’ll follow them to the letter, Henry thought.
His smile was warped as the conversation ended and Henry folded up his mobile phone.
‘Right,’ he then said to himself, suddenly feeling a chill from the Irish Sea. ‘Let’s go and knock on a door.’
Lynch and Bignall drove across the breadth of Lancashire and back into the Greater Manchester area without incident. Both men were at cracking point on the journey, not surprising as the dead body of Keith Snell, low-level low life, was folded up neatly inside the boot of their motor, covered by an oily blanket. One pull by a curious cop, one pull by a cop who wasn’t impressed by their credentials, would have ended the game for them there and then. Such a cop would have found a murder victim, the best part of 25,000, an injured passenger, a revolver and a shotgun. It would have made the cop’s career.
But their journey was uninterrupted and no cops were even spotted.
Lynch, at the wheel, mumbled angrily to himself for much of the way. He was annoyed at having to heave Snell’s body into the boot of the car with no assistance from his partner, who claimed that his injury prevented him from doing anything other than sitting there like a spare part, or as Lynch said, ‘Spare prat.’
As spindly and light as Snell might have been, he still seemed to weigh a dead ton. Manoeuvring, dragging and heaving him into the car required a lot of effort and more time than Lynch would have liked to spend on the job.
He was sweaty and panting when he finished and did not let up on reminding Bignall that he was a ‘soft, lazy, mardy-arsed twat’ for most of the journey.
Wounded, hurting badly, pain increasing all the time, Bignall did not care. All he wanted was a doctor and some drugs.
Lynch drove the full length of the M55, turned south on to the M6, then bore left towards Manchester on the M61. At the first junction he left that motorway and headed down to the M65, making Bignall stir from his torpor.
‘Where we going?’
‘We need to dispose of our chum in the back, don’t we? We’re not gonna take him home with us, are we?’
Bignall groaned. ‘OK, OK.’
‘I know just the place,’ Lynch declared.
‘But you’re driving into Lancashire,’ Bignall said, protesting mildly.
‘Yeah, but I’m gonna drive into Manchester another way. . to somewhere quiet where we can dump him and then set fire to the fucker. . I know just the place. . Deeply Vale. . peace guaranteed. . which reminds me. . need to get some petrol. .’
Bignall slumped down, now in agony. It was as though electrodes were being applied to him with shots of a million volts. He swore, felt weak. . and passed out.
Lynch shook his head with annoyance. Bignall was turning into a liability now. He sped quickly down the M65, exited at junction 8 and headed across the moors to the Rossendale Valley along the A56, a good fast dual carriageway taking him high above the old mill town of Accrington and towards Bury, which was back in Greater Manchester. Rain began lashing down as the car descended into Rossendale, driving as hard as the car, and also annoying Lynch.
Before the A56 merged to become the M66 — a motorway which speared into the heart of Manchester — Lynch came off and drove towards Bury.
He was back on home turf. Disposing of the body and dealing with the aftermath would now be a simple matter.
Lynch relaxed. Control had reverted to him.
Four
Henry Christie knew a large number of criminals. He had been a cop over twenty-five years and had worked right across the county of Lancashire, east, west, north and south, though the majority of his latter service had been on the Fylde coast around Blackpool or at headquarters in various departments. Over that time he had come to know and deal with petty thieves and drug barons, drunks and murderers. He had put many of them away, never having tired of the process, nor the feeling of elation to see a bad guy get his comeuppance.