Munrow knew little about her, other than she was one of the prison visitors. Unpaid, doing it for a social service. She’d easily fallen under his powerful aura to the extent that they’d even contrived to screw in the prison classroom once, when he’d rear-ended her over a table.
He did not want to know very much about her. All he wanted from her was enough sex to see him through the post-prison rampant stage and then money.
One of his plans that afternoon was to induce her to make a substantial withdrawal and hand every penny over to him. Wham, bam, thank you, silly cow. He needed the money to payoff the men who had helped him cause mayhem in Conroy’s clubs the other night. They were cheap to hire.
He took a big swig of his beer. His mind skipped to Conroy who, he imagined, would be shitting himself at that moment. Munrow’s show of uncompromising strength would have worried him badly and he would no message across very clearly: Munrow was here to stay. He was back and wanted a chunk of the action.
Over the weekend he planned to hit some of Conroy’s council-estate distribution houses in East Lancashire… then maybe there could be some talk. Or if the mood took him, he might just move his men into one of Conroy’s Manchester clubs and take the place over. No talk. No fucking about. Yeah, he might do that.
It could be as simple as that.
As for Rider… that bastard would really suffer.
‘ Hello, sweetheart.’ There was a tap on Munrow’s shoulder. It was his woman. He had to admit she was — or had been — drop dead gorgeous. And she was cracking in bed. Amazing what a shit of a husband can do to a woman.
But deep down, Munrow sneered contemptuously at her. Naive, stupid cow. Didn’t realise she was going to be screwed — in more ways than one.
For the time being he was going to play along. He hadn’t satisfied himself sexually yet and those years behind bars had made him crave for it. He was going to have his fill before he robbed her blind, then dumped her broke.
He slid his arm round her slim waist and squeezed her breast. She bent down and kissed him hard on the mouth, breaking off eventually with a gasp.
‘ How are you feeling, darling?’
‘ Fine, got myself together now. Are you OK?’
‘ Yes, yes, thanks for asking.’
She had been on the verge of hysteria when he got back from his trip to Todmorden. At least she hadn’t called the cops. He reassured her it was all one big mistake and things were fine. The less she knew the better. She had swallowed his cock and bull story and it was only when they both shared a hot shower and she knelt down in front of him and swallowed his cock and spunk did she really calm down.
After a few hours’ sleep, Munrow had then scoured Manchester for the only person who knew exactly where he had been. The only person who could have given Rider the information about his whereabouts.
Toni Thomas, the bitch.
It was a waste of time. Toni was very noticeable by his/her absence.
‘ So, Debenhams? Burtons? Where do you fancy?’
Munrow came back to the present. He shrugged. ‘Anywhere. You’re buying, babe.’
The adrenalin ebbed out of Henry’s body to be replaced by suffering.
He eased the protective vest carefully over his head — carefully because he did not want to knock his ear which was hanging off — laid it to one side and looked unwillingly down at his chest where the bullet from the mini-Uzi had struck his sternum.
There was a revolting, circular, deep purple mark with a single black spot at its centre which looked like he’d been struck by a hammer. When he breathed, he recoiled involuntarily. Jesus, he could not believe how painful it was. It gripped his sternum like a clawed fist. He was certain it must be cracked.
And his ear. His lovely ear. Bitten off by a madman. They estimated ten stitches to get it back on.
He was sitting on the edge of a bed in a cubicle in the casualty department of the Royal Lancaster Infirmary, a curtain drawn across. He removed the remaining items of his clothing, shoes, socks, jeans and underpants, shaking each item of clothing to try and dislodge the fragments of glass which had got into them and were slowly skinning him.
He was giving his underpants a very thorough shaking when the curtain was swished back. Siobhan appeared.
‘ Henry. Can’t you wait?’
He couldn’t help but smile. She withdrew tactfully and he called her in when he was half-decent, sat there in his Y-fronts.
‘ Sorry about that,’ he said. ‘The glass, you know?’
‘ How are you?’
‘ Shaken and stirred. How ‘bout you?’
‘ I’ll survive,’ she said bravely. Henry could see that in spite of her smiles and the outwardly ‘couldn’t give a toss’ attitude, she had actually been terrified when Anderson had opened up and the firearms officer had fallen next to her.
She took in a long deep breath. ‘At least Dave’s all right, though his shoulder is a real mess. He’ll have pretty restricted movement in it.’
‘ I’ll go and see him once I’m sorted out.’
They regarded each other for a moment. Siobhan’s eyes took in Henry’s bloodied, dangling ear, then lowered to inspect the other injury on his chest. ‘That looks awful,’ she grimaced.
‘ I know. Feels like I’ve been hit by a truck.’
‘ No, not that,’ she said wickedly. ‘Your beer belly.’
They caught each other’s eye and burst into laughter — which Henry couldn’t handle because it made him cringe in agony.
The amusement was curtailed when a fairly fearsome-looking nurse stepped into the cubicle, pushing a trolley bearing an assortment of trays, instruments, dressings and needles.
‘ I’ve come to clean your ear up. The doctor wants to sew it back on. He’ll be here shortly.’
Henry was discharged two hours later, having had an X-ray which showed nothing broken, had his ear re-fitted and visited the firearms officer who had taken the bullet. The guy was in great pain, but stoical about the injury. He was about to go into surgery.
Henry also made a quick call home, told Kate briefly what had happened and that — God willing — he would be home as soon as possible. Bad as he felt, Henry wanted to get into Anderson’s ribs.
Siobhan drove him down to Lancaster police station in the surveillance van. She found a space on the lower parking area. Anderson’s Shogun had been seized and was parked in one corner of the yard.
‘ I drove it up,’ Siobhan explained, ‘but it hasn’t been searched yet. I thought perhaps you’d want to do that.’
Henry frowned doubtfully, then dismissed the thought that it should have been searched already. He happily accepted that she believed he would want to supervise a thorough search of the vehicle. She handed him the keys to it, then they climbed out of the van and walked to the Shogun.
‘ Oooh, I could do with a wee,’ she declared. ‘You get on with it, Henry, if you like. I’ll be back as soon as I’ve found a loo.’
She dashed off to the entrance to the Custody Office and was buzzed in through the security door, leaving Henry alone with the keys and the car. Thinking nothing of the situation, he inserted a key into the back door and turned it. As the door opened, Henry saw that a travel rug was laid out over something in the back.
He tugged it off and what was revealed made him puff his cheeks out in disbelief.
One sawn-off shotgun — an Italian SPAS 12.
And two mini-Uzis.
He did not touch them, merely stared at them in amazement. These were the last things he realistically expected to find in the back of Anderson’s vehicle — the tools of his trade and quite possibly the guns responsible for killing Geoff Driffield and five other innocent people. How could the man be so stupid?
‘ What’ve you found?’ Siobhan reappeared behind Henry’s shoulder, peeked into the Shogun and was awestruck by the discovery. She hissed the words, ‘Pure gold,’ into Henry’s good ear. ‘If these guns tied up ballistically…’ She did not need to say anything else.