Free The Last Big Job by Nick Oldham Page A

her
naked body. Walking with trepidation towards the closed kitchen
door from behind which had come the boom of a shotgun being
discharged.
    She swallowed in the here and now, hardly daring to move. Then
she stepped forwards and the unexpected noise from her house alarm
almost made her leap out of her clothes, skin and bones. The
movement sensor fitted above the kitchen door had picked her up and
set the house alarm going, giving Danny one minute to get to the
control panel and switch it off.
    ‘ Hell, Christ!’ she yelled, covering her ears.
    She had forgotten about the alarm, something she’d had fitted
in response to problems experienced prior to Jack Sands’s death.
She ran down the hall, ducked under the stairs, desperately trying
to recall the code number to deactivate it.
    Her own collar number.
    She tapped it in and the cacophony ceased as quickly as it had
begun, leaving a hollow ringing in her ears.
    At least the episode had achieved something. She was now right
by the kitchen door, only inches away from the handle.
    Without further ado, she grabbed it, opened the door, flicked
on the lights and stepped into the kitchen.
     
     
    Danny’s bleak thoughts concerning the whereabouts of Henry
Christie were way off the mark. Not only was he not in bed with his wife Kate, he
had not slept on the marital bed for almost two weeks. At that
moment in time he was leaving a very sophisticated night club in
Manchester’s city centre, with his arm thrown around the shoulders
of one of the biggest and most feared villains in the North of
England.
    Jacky Lee believed himself to be one of the elite hundred or
so men in the country who were considered by the cops to be the top
of the tree, crime-wise. One of those crims who lead flash
lifestyles, drive big cars, own big houses, screw second-rate
models, knock about with footballers and pop stars, and who have no
visible means of support. The police know their way of life is
financed by crime, but because they cleverly distance themselves
from the sharp end, they are rarely caught.
    However, Lee’s belief had been somewhat dented six years
earlier when he found himself in front of a Crown Court jury in
York, facing drugs importation charges for which he subsequently
received eight years in jail. Good behaviour got him out in four,
when he immediately slotted back into business.
    Lee and Henry Christie stumbled out of the club, down the
steps. A Roller had pulled up, a black BMW behind it, all tinted
windows and menace. Lee and Henry clambered into the back of the
Rolls, laughing and joking drunkenly.
    Lee was definitely the worse for wear, well inebriated. Henry
was stone cold sober, but acting pissed. Inside himself he was
worked up like a coiled spring and needed to keep his wits firmly
about him. He was operating in dangerous territory.
    Lee leaned over the driver’s shoulder and gave him
instructions to take them to his apartment in the city - a
penthouse down south. Then he slumped back next to Henry and gave a
deep sigh of contentment.
    ‘ Jesus, it’s good to be back with you,’ he said to Henry,
slapping the policeman’s knee in a manly way. ‘I really missed our
crack when I was inside that fucking place, you know.’
    ‘ I missed you too, Jacky,’ Henry said. ‘We had a scream back
then, didn’t we?’
    ‘ Aye lad, we fuckin’ did that - and did some good business
too.’
    A change suddenly came over Jacky Lee. He became silent,
pensively watching the lights of the city flash past from the
Rolls. His expression was hard and he no longer seemed
drunk.
    ‘ Y’know,’ he said at length, ‘I fuckin’ thought and thought
about why I ended up in the slammer. I truly believed my operation
was watertight.’
    Something in Henry’s throat constricted. A peculiar feeling -
nausea combined with dread - grumbled in the pit of his
stomach.
    ‘ I been over it all again and again, boy. Workin’ it all back
in my mind. Retreading everything I’d done, who I’d