Though a Manchester cop for seven years before transferring to SCU in London, Shawna McCluskey had never worked on the E-Division, which was South Manchester. She’d been located five miles away in Salford, the F-Division, so only knew Cameron Boyd and Terry Mullany by reputation. She’d never dealt with them personally, nor any of the other criminals in this neck of the woods. As such, it had seemed a reasonable option to put her on a plainclothes stakeout here.
It was pure bad luck that Theo Taylor, a gangbanger, otherwise known as ‘Mr Ed’ because he had a mouthful of protruding yellow horse-teeth, should have turned up at this very moment. Over in Salford, Shawna had arrested him three times – once for burglary, once for having an offensive weapon and once for robbery. The latter of those charges ought to have sent him to prison for a couple of years at least, but his barrister had performed intellectual gymnastics over some legal technicality, which the judge had been swayed by, and Mr Ed had walked out a free man. Shawna and everybody else in Salford CID had felt cheated at the time, but the law was the law even if it was sometimes an ass. And ultimately it hadn’t mattered much, because Mr Ed had dropped out of sight shortly afterwards, apparently having moved on, which they were all mightily glad about.
The problem was that he’d moved here, to Rusholme.
‘DC McCluskey, isn’t it?’ Mr Ed shouted. ‘I fucking knew it!’
They were in a supermarket at the time. It was unusual for Terry Mullany to do any shopping. Both Shawna McCluskey and Gary Quinnell had been caught on the hop by it, even if it did transpire that all he was popping into the store for was a case of beer. But it was seriously bad luck that they’d met Mr Ed in there as well.
‘What’re you going to try and fit me up with this week, detective?’ he shouted.
Shawna stared down the aisle at him in disbelief. He was wearing a long yellow coat and a snazzy purple running-suit, an ensemble which looked vaguely ridiculous over his tall, gawky frame. He still hadn’t had his teeth fixed – they were a mismatched bunch of yellow pegs – but he was laughing loudly as he approached, arms outstretched, a bunch of his idiot pals sniggering behind him.
‘What’s it to be?’ he shouted. ‘Shoplifting? Fuck, I haven’t chosen anything yet … but hey, give it a go. I’ll enjoy watching them rip the shit out of you in court again!’
Shawna was less concerned about Mr Ed than she was about Terry Mullany. She gazed the other way along the aisle in the direction of the tills. Mullany was at the rear of the queue with his case of beer, but he, like the other shoppers gathered there, had heard the fracas and glanced around. He fixed on her intently, perhaps finally thinking it odd that he’d glimpsed her, or someone like her, once or twice in the last few days – and suddenly broke from the base of the queue, chucking his goods and running towards her with heavy, clumping steps.
Shawna went rigid, not sure what he intended, but then realising from his thousand-yard stare that he was actually looking past her. He was seeking to escape, not attack.
Mullany was a slobbish, toad-like individual, with a wide mouth, a broad, flat nose and eyes buried in pallid flesh. But he was at least six feet tall, and must have held a seven-stone advantage on her. However, Shawna had been raised in the GMP school of thought that the only excuse you could ever offer for letting a scrote escape was if he beat the living crap out of you.
So she stepped into his path.
Mullany kept coming.
She attempted to crouch, throwing her arms out, hoping to rugby tackle him around his legs. But all she caught was his denim-clad knee full in her face. Pain lanced through her head, along with a crackle of cartilage.
And then she was down on her back, the side of her skull smacking the floor.
‘Hey!’ she heard someone shout.
It was that buffoon, Mr Ed; probably bewildered – and not a little upset – that none of this was about him. Blood bubbled into the back of her throat as she craned her head around to look. Mr Ed and his cronies jumped to one side as Mullany’s big frame barged past them, his left shoulder catching Ed in the chest, catapulting him backwards through a neatly-stacked pyramid of spaghetti tins.
‘G– Gary,’ she stammered into her radio. ‘I’ve been clocked. The bastard’s coming out the back …’
Mullany tore through the supermarket stock room, kicking boxes out of his path, cannoning into staff members and sending them flying. He ran outside via a goods door at the rear, jumping down from the concrete platform into a loading bay, fishing the mobile phone from his pocket. An engine roared and tyres shrieked as a dented Volvo swerved into view around the nearest corner.
The call was answered. Mullany didn’t wait to hear his mate’s voice; he just began jabbering. ‘Leg it! They’re onto us! Dunno where you are, just go, fucking go!’
When Gary Quinnell jumped out of the Volvo in front of him he looked so big that for a split second Mullany had trouble rationalising how he’d ever fitted into it in the first place. The cop wasn’t just tall; he was as broad as an ox, with a neck as thick as a telegraph pole.
‘Give it up, boyo,’ Gary Quinnell said menacingly.
Mullany hurled his phone over the nearest wall, hoping to Christ that it would land somewhere like a river or sewer from where it couldn’t be retrieved, and then tried to run again. Quinnell ballooned into his path. Mullany tried to change direction. But Quinnell blocked his way yet again.
The rugby tackle the big cop now put in was somewhat more successful than the one his female colleague had attempted. The brawny shoulder that smashed into Mullany’s capacious gut felt as though it had cut him in half. The fugitive was flung down on the concrete with so much force that the air whooshed out of his lungs. Quinnell landed on top of him, eighteen stone of bone and muscle, his ham shank forearm crushing Mullany’s windpipe.
‘You’re locked up, you little bastard!’
In The Hayrick, Cameron Boyd only heard the start of this commotion. He stood bolt-upright in shock, the phone clamped to his ear. White-faced, he pivoted around, gazing across the pub interior. There was nobody immediately, obviously suspicious. That slapper at the bar? No fucking way. The barman himself? That was a non-starter as well. He’d seen that fat bastard in here a dozen times. The kids in the corner were too young.
Then Boyd heard another phone ringing.
He peered left through the entrance to the pool room. There were two blokes in there, weren’t there? One of them had red hair, freckles and ludicrous ears. But it was the other one who Boyd saw answer the call – the lean, dark-haired fella – he now stood there with phone to ear, cue in hand. A rough-looking customer, but he seemed agitated. Then the one with the ears stepped back into view and gazed out into the main bar – his eyes locked with Boyd’s.
And he knew.
Both of them knew.