by Nick Oldham
‘Where can I find him?’
Flynn knew Braceford, but their paths had yet to cross. Braceford had been the subject of numerous unsuccessful police operations because he was a tricky, devious bastard. He was close to the top of Flynn’s to-do list, a well-known quality dealer on the Fylde coast, the area of Lancashire encompassing Lytham, St Annes, Blackpool and all the way up to Fleetwood.
Flynn returned to the living room, where Janie’s current beau was sitting up looking very sorry for himself, with a tea towel pressed to his face. He cowered as Flynn stepped towards him.
Jack Hoyle lounged by the broken front door. He arched his eyebrows questioningly at Flynn, who nodded.
As they left the flat Flynn took out his mobile phone and called Jerry Tope.
TEN
Those were the days when Flynn had no need to hold the sword of revelation (concerning infidelity) over Jerry Tope’s head. Both were cops, and Flynn had every right to access information about villains via the intelligence system, unless it was restricted for some reason.
That said, Flynn’s phone call at that particular time of day was still unwelcome.
Tope was busy in his spare room, the one doubling as a study-cum-mini-brewery. He was dealing with some delicate ingredient mixing, putting together his favourite home-brewed wine of dandelion and nettle, and disinfecting bottles.
As Flynn and Hoyle ran from Janie’s flat and leapt into their tired, well-travelled Vauxhall, which was almost devoid of fuel after their long, fast journey from London, Flynn had his phone to his ear, calling Tope’s home number. He knew Tope – completely unofficially, and way ahead of the rest of the force back then – had remote access to Lancashire Constabulary’s computer mainframe from his house. At that time the organization was terrified of the internet and staff were only gradually being given permission on a very limited basis to access the World Wide Web from their work stations, let alone their homes. Unless, of course, you were called Jerry Tope, who bypassed everything because he could. He was way ahead in the internet game, already able to use it to access the mainframe from home, something which would come eventually for other officers, mainly those of higher rank. If he had been found out, it could have meant being disciplined and might even have cost him his job.
Flynn only knew this big secret because Tope had become very loose-lipped one night on his home brew. And it was going to prove useful now for a bit of quick out-of-hours digging.
‘Jerry? Me,’ Flynn said breathlessly as the phones connected.
‘Do you know what time it is?’ Tope responded instantly. ‘I’m busy disinfecting.’
‘I know the time, you shiny-arsed bastard,’ Flynn responded, using the cute colloquial term for headquarters-based office wallahs. ‘Two cops are dead and I need some information now.’
‘Two cops?’ Flynn heard something clatter in the background. ‘Do I know them?’
Flynn said yes, told him their names.
‘Shit, what can I do?’ Tope asked.
‘You can plug that dinky computer of yours into the mains, or whatever you do, and get me some information now.’
‘I’m not at my desk, you know,’ Tope said coyly. ‘I’m at home.’
‘Don’t bullshit me, Jerry. I know you can get into the system from there; you told me, remember?’
‘Oh, yeah,’ Tope muttered unhappily. ‘You haven’t told anyone else, have you?’
‘Not yet. Now get on the laptop and do some gardening. I need addresses for Don Braceford and I want you to dig into a guy called Brian Tasker, could be from London.’
‘Got it. Give me five minutes. I need to log in.’
‘I’ll call you back in ten,’ Flynn said and ended the call.
He looked at Hoyle, who said, ‘What do we do?’
‘All night Maccie Dees on Preston New Road. I need fast food fast and we need to fuel up too.’
They decided to catch a breather at McDonald’s and instead of driving through they parked outside and walked into the restaurant.
It was relatively quiet, just a few customers, but they included a rowdy table of young men clearly the worse for alcohol who, when they spotted Flynn and Hoyle enter, dropped their loud-mouthed chatter and watched the two cops with surly expressions. Flynn noticed them and wondered if the lads had ‘made’ him and Hoyle as cops or were simply responding in the primal way of many males of that age in Blackpool – and elsewhere, of course. Flynn and Hoyle looked rough and tough, so there was an immediate challenge, even though neither of the cops paid the lads any heed.
They ordered burgers, chips and coffees and sat at a table as far away as possible from the four guys who, Flynn noted, were huddled in discussion, their eyes constantly checking them.
‘We should eat and go,’ Hoyle said, also having observed the glances. ‘Last thing we want is trouble.’ He had picked up the undercurrent of threat.
‘I know,’ Flynn said. He had his phone out and was looking through the numerous missed calls on the screen from the DCI. ‘I need to call the DCI.’
‘Good idea. Appease him.’
Flynn made the call, held the phone away from his ear at the bashing it got from a furious boss. He then explained why he and Hoyle had not stopped moving and had disobeyed orders. He said he hoped to have some good information on the offenders within minutes, and when he got it he would call in and arrange for back-up – although he knew he wouldn’t. This promise placated the boss somewhat, but not much. Cops were dead. Things were messy. Other forces were involved and screaming down the line at him. The chief was still literally breathing down his collar. Things had to be done properly.
As the conversation ended, Flynn looked up.
The four lads at the rowdy table were pushing themselves up with looks of determination.
‘Trouble,’ Hoyle said out of the side of his mouth.
The obvious ringleader led the way and stood, swaying slightly but attempting to tower with menace over the detectives. They looked up blandly, unaffected by the presence.
‘Phones,’ the lad said.
‘Pardon?’ Flynn asked.
‘We want your mobiles, now.’
‘Go away, guys,’ Flynn advised, stuffing a handful of chips into his mouth. ‘We’re busy.’
The ringleader sneered, then leaned on the table with two hands and glared at Flynn, who could smell his beer-reek breath. ‘Phones, now, or you both get the living shite kicked out of you and then we steal your phones and empty your fucking wallets.’
Unfortunately for him he had positioned his face within striking distance of Flynn’s right fist. Flynn hardly had to move to slam the brick-like structure of his knuckles and bones into the young guy’s nose. Way back then, Flynn was all-round fit and strong and lightning quick, sometimes too quick for his own good.
The young guy’s head jerked back as his face dissolved and his whole body flipped backwards against his three surprised mates, blood spraying out of his flattened nostrils. Flynn slid another chip lengthways into his pursed lips and sucked it in before saying, ‘Next,’ and rising slowly. Hoyle was getting up as well. Though not anywhere near as tall, broad and physically imposing as Flynn, he was also a commanding presence. And he knew how to fight, too.
‘Jeez,’ one of them said in awe, kneeling next to his injured friend.
‘Get him out of here and you all get lost,’ Flynn growled, ‘otherwise we congregate outside and take it much further.’ He sipped his coffee through the hole in the plastic lid.
None seemed willing for more trouble.
Four versus two had begun as good odds, especially with the hard-man gang leader ready to mix it. Three on two was not so appealing. Already they knew that within a second it would be two against two. They dragged their mate out of the restaurant, with Flynn and Hoyle hovering behind them, then piled into a van and skidded away.
‘Bloody hell,’ Flynn breathed, flexing his fingers. That was the second blow he had delivered in a very short space of time and
both had hurt his hand. The noses he had connected with might have squelched on impact, but Flynn’s knuckles had also hit hard bone.
His mobile phone rang. It was Jerry Tope.
They did not have to go far.
Tope had accessed all the files he could on Don Braceford and pulled out several addresses, including houses and business premises, all in the South Shore area of Blackpool. The first address was a basement flat below a terraced house also converted into flats. This was close to the Pleasure Beach, Blackpool’s big amusement and ride park, a place Flynn loathed. The plunging, twisting rides terrified him because he was not in control. They did a quick cruise of the surrounding streets and alleys for the Mercedes, but there was no sign of it.
Hoyle stopped outside the flat and Flynn climbed out of the police car to peer over the railings by the steps leading down to the door. Lights were out, the place was in darkness.
Flynn jumped back in. ‘Next one.’
This was another South Shore flat Braceford was known to own. That too was in darkness and there was no sign of the Mercedes.
Next they drove past a seedy club Braceford part-owned with another Blackpool low life, but it was closed and there was no sign of the car.
‘Doesn’t mean no one’s home,’ Hoyle commented.
‘Or that the car isn’t in a garage,’ Flynn added.
They cruised slowly around the streets but did not see the Mercedes.
‘What’s next?’ Hoyle asked.
Flynn peered at the last address he’d scribbled down on the palm of his hand in black ballpoint. ‘Jerry said he didn’t know what this was.’ Flynn switched on the inner light to squint at what he’d written. ‘Something in Marton Industrial Park,’ he said, referring to the largest industrial park in Blackpool, close to the end of the M55. It was a huge mishmash of businesses large and small, legit and shady. It was shaped like a huge lung and fed by a complex inner road system; finding some of the smaller business on its outskirts could be difficult.
‘It refers to a big scrapyard on the edge of the Spen Dyke Road and the info is that one of Braceford’s cars had been seen outside it, nothing more. Jerry didn’t know if this was any use or not. Just a snippet a patrol PC had submitted to the Field Intelligence Officer a while back, no further action taken on it.’
‘Spen Dyke Road, here we come,’ Hoyle announced. He knew Marton Industrial Park well enough. He spun the car around and cut across the resort. Less than five minutes later they were creeping slowly around the estate. Both knew it was a base for various illegitimate businesses in amongst the legitimate ones. It was a fairly badly signposted place but Hoyle quickly found Spen Dyke Road on the outer rim of the park, backing on to open farmland adjacent to the M55. As he turned into it, the first businesses on either side looked to be good quality, thriving concerns – an HGV dealership, a large car sales forecourt, a small office block and an immense cash and carry warehouse outside which several lorries were parked, delivering goods. As the two detectives made their way along the road, the enterprises became steadily grubbier and seedier away from the glare of the lights.
‘Did he give a business name?’ Hoyle asked.
‘No, just that it was a scrapyard or car breaker.’
Hoyle nodded.
The street lights petered out.
The car continued to creep slowly and the rain, which had eased for a time, began to thrash down again.
Flynn’s sharp eyes surveyed each side of the road, peering at and between parked vehicles and at business names on units, fences and walls. Then he spotted an open gate and beyond it the stacked, rain-glistening broken hulks of scrap cars.
‘Could be the one.’
Hoyle pulled in fifty metres down the road.
‘We going in?’ he asked Flynn.
‘Be rude not to.’
Flynn scrambled out and went to the boot. He gave Hoyle a ballistic vest and put one on himself, then put his short zip-up jacket over it and pulled his hood over his head. Hoyle did likewise and both men slid their extendable batons into their belt rings. Both had mini Maglite torches in their hands.
With Flynn trotting ahead, they reached the open mesh gates of the scrapyard and saw the name ‘Fylde Scrappers’ on a sign with a phone number underneath.
‘Dog,’ Hoyle hissed over Flynn’s shoulder and gestured with his torch.
The shape of a muscular-looking canine could just about be made out, chained to a post ten metres inside the gate.
Flynn stopped.
The dog wasn’t moving, which was odd. Flynn did not know of any dog that would willingly lie on cold, wet ground. They were creatures that liked warmth and comfort.
Then he saw the reason for the lack of movement as he took a couple of tentative steps towards the beast.
‘Dead dog,’ he said.
A bullet in the head and one in the side of the chest.
Flynn unconsciously took hold of his baton.
‘Not good,’ Hoyle whispered.
Beyond the gate was the yard, crammed full of scrap cars waiting their turn to be crushed, a car transporter and beyond that a portable office with a light on inside and the door open, but no sign of life. Behind the cabin were crushed and flattened cars, stacked precariously in high towers, thousands of them, like a science fiction city set in a dystopian future.
And in front of Flynn and Hoyle was the Mercedes they had followed all the way from London. Parked alongside it was a Range Rover, almost new with smoked-out windows at the back and its front passenger door wide open.
Crouching, the detectives walked slowly towards the Mercedes, their senses in overdrive. They stopped at the boot of the car and looked through the rear windscreen. Flynn could make out a figure hunched over the steering wheel. A man, unmoving.
Flynn circled sideways for a better view.
He could not see the man’s face because his head was twisted sideways on the wheel, but through the non-existent driver’s door window he could see that, like the dog, the man was dead, shot through the back of the head.
‘Check the boot,’ he told Hoyle, who backed off and opened it.
‘Spare wheel, nothing else.’
From somewhere inside the high-rise city of dead vehicles came two distinctive sounds.
Gunshots.
Flynn’s head jerked around.
‘We need back-up,’ Hoyle said.
‘Yeah, we do, but we also need to check it out.’ Flynn knew his partner was right but also that it was not in his own nature not to bowl in, armed or otherwise.
By this time he’d been a cop a long time and the need to help people was part of the way he was, even at the cost of his own safety.
‘That said,’ Flynn muttered to himself. He opened the driver’s door of the Mercedes, went on to his haunches by the dead driver. Although he could not see his face properly, he believed him to be Will Carney, one of the two men he’d observed in the motorway café. Without touching anything, Flynn leaned in and immediately found what he’d thought might be there – a handgun lying between the feet of the dead man, under the pedals of the car.
He lifted it out carefully.
‘What you doing?’ Hoyle asked anxiously.
‘What’s it look like?’
It was a Browning 9mm semi-automatic pistol, a weapon Flynn had known well in his military days. Way back then it was the preferred weapon, although in 2002 it wasn’t used so much in Europe, having been replaced by lighter, easier to use handguns such as Glocks.
Flynn checked it. There was a bullet in the breech and the magazine, he guessed from its weight, was about half-full, possibly six bullets in it. Flynn had learned to estimate the weight of weapons by handling them, a skill he’d acquired in the Marines and then the SBS. It was quite hard with older weapons, which were heavier to start with, but newer ones made of plastics and carbon fibre were easier to judge.
‘Might come in useful,’ Flynn said.
‘Shit.’ Hoyle did not like this. Then he said
, ‘OK.’
Flynn jogged towards the cabin, keeping quiet as he went with his back against the outer wall, Hoyle behind him. Flynn gestured him to keep quiet, then stepped up to the open door in a combat stance with the gun pointing ahead of him, his arms locked in an isosceles triangle, with the weapon as its point.
It was empty. Just rubbish furniture – a desk and two plastic chairs and a rusting filing cabinet.
‘Clear,’ Flynn declared, dropping outside again, beckoning Hoyle to follow him.
Two more bangs, quick succession, double-taps, cracked through the night from somewhere within the stacks of cars.
Flynn ran on and found a gap and plunged in with Hoyle, a track into this city between two finely balanced towers of crushed vehicles. It was a scary journey into a creepy place where it felt as if the stacks of vehicles, creaking and groaning, were alive and might fall and crush them to death at any moment.
Flynn followed what seemed to be a prepared route, straight in, left, right, as dark as the floor of a tropical rain forest, then suddenly emerged into a clearing, again as if in a jungle, a quadrangle about twenty metres square. Dead ahead across the square were three stacks of vehicles side by side, forming an impenetrable barrier, but facing him were steps leading into the back of an open truck just above ground level.
‘What is it?’ Hoyle said.
‘Secret hidey-hole, I reckon.’ Flynn moved cautiously across the flat square, mounted the steel steps and entered the back of the truck. Beyond this at the far end of the container, and obviously underneath hundreds of stacked vehicles, was another door into a narrow passageway held up by steel lintels and girders holding up a weight that was probably in excess of 10,000 tons, lit by a string of light bulbs. It was like the entrance to an old gold mine.
Above, the vehicles creaked ominously. Rain dribbled through the gaps.
‘Someone’s gone to a lot of trouble,’ Flynn whispered. Hoyle grunted agreement.
They began to walk cautiously along this corridor until they finally turned left and hit a dead end. Except it wasn’t a dead end, it was another steel door leading into a steel container.