Frank McCracken’s official residence was 17, Yellowbrook Close, Didsbury, in South Manchester. The house, a five-bedroom detached, surrounded by extensive gardens, was located on a swish but secluded housing estate, where the average property price could be anything between £700,000 and £1,000,000.
At present, though, there was no one home. It was nearly eight o’clock in the evening, and Mrs Hepplethwaite, McCracken’s housekeeper, finished no later than six. Most of the neighbours were indoors, their children along with them because it was a school night. Overhead, the evening sky turned from lilac to indigo, while down below, the dim orange bulbs of streetlights flickered to life one by one.
Slowly, unusually cautiously, Mick Shallicker drove along the empty street, parking the Bentley in front of McCracken’s house rather than using the fob on the key-ring to open the electronically operated gates. Yellowbrook Close was a cul-de-sac, which always made him feel hemmed in, even in normal circumstances, so to go onto the drive now would seem like sheer folly. He climbed from the car and loitered on the pavement, scanning the surrounding gardens, paying particular attention to other parked vehicles, seeing if there were any that he didn’t recognise. No one would think it strange to see him here, for all that his size made him an eye-catching individual. He was known locally as an employee of McCracken’s, a security man who often lived on site, though this behaviour might have appeared a little strange.
At present, of course, he had too many other things on his mind to be worried by that.
He finally used the fob on the pedestrian gate, which stood to one side. It swung open, and he walked up the drive, unlocking a side-door to the house. Inside, he deactivated the alarm and stood for a second, listening. The palatial interior was perfectly still and smelled clean and fresh.
Satisfied, Shallicker trotted upstairs to the third bedroom, which was reserved for guests. In an upper section of its wardrobe, he found a series of matching tan suitcases of decreasing size, each one placed inside the next like the parts of a Russian doll. He selected one of the smaller ones, though not the smallest, and took it through to the main bedroom. Opening the wardrobe in there, he yanked out various clothes and threw them all into the case. He then moved through to the bathroom, which was all gold and chrome and crystal, the tub large enough to accommodate several people at once – and that had happened at least a couple of times to Shallicker’s memory, his employer frolicking two and even three at a time with some of his favourite ladies.
In the mirrored cupboard, he found a zipped toiletries kit, containing everything for the man on the move. He tossed that into the case too, and then hovered, trying to ensure there was nothing else he’d missed. McCracken already had his wallet and his laptop, and any data files he might need on the pen-drive he always kept on his person. Shallicker then remembered the other thing – in some ways, it was the most important item of all. He could have slapped himself on the head. Hunkering down alongside McCracken’s four-poster bed, he pulled out a drawer. Inside it, there was a shoebox, and inside the shoebox a Walther P22, with six full magazines. Shallicker threw those into the case as well, compressed everything down and tugged the zip closed.
He glanced at his watch. It was now after eight. What daylight remained was diminishing fast. He descended the staircase, humping the heavy bag alongside him. At the bottom, he stopped to think one final time, dying sunlight lying in crimson stripes across the whole of the downstairs. It would be dark by the time he hit the M60, which while it didn’t give him any kind of decisive advantage, would be more useful to him than broad daylight.
He left the house the same way he’d come in, reactivating the alarm and then closing and locking the side-door behind him. As he walked down the drive, Yellowbrook Close still looked deserted. He retreated backward through the pedestrian gate, pushing the suitcase onto the pavement with his foot, while turning and using both hands to ensure that the gate closed and locked behind him.
‘Going on holiday, Mick?’ someone asked.
Shallicker twirled around and found Benny B a couple of yards away, with three of his black-suited goons at his back. Further movement drew his attention down to the end of the street, where two of the Crew’s security chief’s trademark black Audi A6s trundled into view.
Shallicker shrugged. ‘Getting Frank a change of togs. He’s been discharged.’
‘Already?’ Benny B wasn’t clever enough to affect mock-surprise. He sounded genuinely surprised, but two of the trio behind him were visibly wielding handguns inside their jacket pockets, while the other one wore a raincoat over his shoulders, mainly to screen the Uzi submachine gun he was carrying. So Shallicker had no doubt that this wasn’t a courtesy call.
‘Frank’s walking around,’ he ventured. ‘No point him staying in hospital.’
‘Well … he’s certainly walking around,’ Benny B agreed, the two Audis now gliding into place and braking, blocking the Bentley in. ‘That much is truthful. That’s why he discharged himself earlier on. So, where you really going, Mick? And where you taking that gear?’
‘Look, Ben … I just do what I’m told.’
‘Don’t we all?’ Benny nodded towards the nearest Audi, the front passenger door to which had clunked open. ‘After you, pal.’
More nervous than he’d ever been in his life, Shallicker picked the case up.
‘Leave that,’ Benny B said. ‘Frank may not know it yet, but he’s actually going nowhere.’
‘Can’t leave it on the street, Ben … there’s a piece inside.’
‘Speaking of which … arms up.’
Shallicker leaned against the Audi, hands outspread. One of Benny’s goons made a quick search of his upper body, extricating the Colt Cobra from his shoulder-holster, and then searching his pockets, taking charge of the keys to the Bentley. Another one picked up the suitcase.
‘Okay,’ Benny said. ‘You’re good to go.’
Shallicker climbed into the front passenger seat, back and shoulders tense as hardboard, especially when he sensed Benny and two of his men climb in behind. Doors slammed.
‘Don’t be too worried,’ Benny said. ‘We just want to know what’s going on.’
Shallicker shrugged again. ‘Frank discharged himself and he’s going away for a few days to recover. What’s the big deal?’
‘The big deal,’ Bill Pentecost’s voice sounded from the dash, ‘is that first he ordered a hit on a high-level affiliate of ours without running it by the board!’
Shallicker initially jumped on hearing the voice, but then realised that Wild Bill was at the other end of a phone somewhere.
‘Don’t tell me you were involved in that, Michael?’ the Chairman said, in the kind of disappointed tone that indicated he already knew the answer.
‘Look, Bill …’ Shallicker held his hands up as though the guy was there in front of him. ‘I’ve already said … I just do what I’m told.’
‘In that case do what you’re told now,’ Pentecost retorted. ‘Give us the skinny. What’s going on and where’s Frank? It may be that he had a perfectly good reason to wipe out the Ripsaw Man. I mean, it’s a shame such a talented associate is gone. But if it had to happen, it had to happen. The point is … I’d like to know why.’
‘I don’t know why exactly …’ Shallicker stiffened as a muzzle jabbed the back of his left shoulder. ‘But I think Frank was unimpressed by a job he did for us recently. Caused some collateral damage, left a paper trail for the cops to follow.’
‘And that’s the reason he’s gone into hiding?’ The voice sounded unconvinced.
‘He’s not gone into hiding.’
‘So it’s just a coincidence that he’s done a runner from hospital, that he’s not answering his mobile and that his minder is packing his bags for him?’
‘Frank’s aware that he’s breached protocol, Bill.’
‘If that’s all it is, he’s not the man of steel he once was. So, where is he?’
With a click, Benny B cocked the pistol.
‘All right, all right,’ Shallicker said hurriedly. ‘He’s got a safehouse. Down in Delamere Forest.’
There was a brief silence before Pentecost spoke again. ‘Benny, you know what to do.’
Then he cut the call.
Benny B dug his pistol into Shallicker’s back again. ‘You know what to do too, Mick.’
Shallicker nodded and started issuing directions. The Audi pulled off the estate and headed south towards the motorway. The second Audi and McCracken’s Bentley, now with one of Benny’s goons at the wheel, fell into line behind it.
From the M60, they joined the M56, heading west. Gradually the South Manchester conurbation melted away behind them, replaced by the occasional woods and flat, quilt-work fields of rural Cheshire. About forty minutes later, night had fallen completely, and they’d pulled off the main road network and were following rutted back-lanes between deep, dark hedgerows. They finally drew up against the verge at an unmarked crossroads. There were no streetlights now, their headlamp beams illuminating a white-painted fingerpost offering arrows to destinations like Winsford, Weaverham and Cuddington, which remained mostly unknown to Benny B and his crew. What was most noticeable was the mileages involved. They were all in double-figures, which meant that Frank McCracken had chosen this particular safehouse carefully; it was a long way out.
‘It’s that one.’ Shallicker nodded to the lane on their left. It didn’t promise much, disappearing beneath a canopy of trees into complete blackness. ‘Why don’t you let me go in alone, Ben? I can talk to him first. Then there’ll be no hassle.’
‘There’ll be no hassle anyway,’ Benny replied. ‘How far down there is it?’
‘Hundred or so yards. There’s a layby about thirty yards along, where we can leave the cars. They’ll be okay there. No one else ever uses it.’
Benny instructed the driver to go left. A short distance along, they pulled into the layby and went the remaining way on foot, the big minder at the front, still being prodded in the back with a pistol. The road, which was so narrow that even a tractor would have trouble negotiating it, curved sharply and an opening appeared on their left. Shallicker went through, the others following silently, now with deep bushes on either side. These only ended another fifty yards on, when a broken-down farm gate on the right revealed a thatched cottage with several dilapidated outbuildings ranged to the left of it in horseshoe formation. Light streamed out onto a courtyard of beaten earth, but everything else lay in darkness.
‘Any motion sensors out here?’ Benny wondered quietly.
Shallicker shook his head.
‘So we’re not going to get bathed in a glorious light-show?’
Again, Shallicker shook his head. ‘The idea of this place was that it wouldn’t draw attention to itself.’
Benny jabbed him with the gun again, marching him forward towards the main structure. The other seven followed, fanning out, firearms drawn. One scampered ahead, flattening himself against the cottage’s front wall and sidling along it until he reached the window, at which point he risked a quick peek.
‘He’s in there,’ he whispered, chuckling.
‘Alone?’ Benny asked.
‘Yeah.’
‘What’s he doing?’
Another chuckle. ‘Watching telly.’
Benny shook his head in disbelief.
‘Overconfidence was always your gaffer’s weak spot,’ he told Shallicker. ‘Was always going to lead to a bad end one day. Sorry, Mick –’ and he nodded at the others, one of whom produced a sledgehammer and advanced on the cottage door ‘– but this fall from grace is well overdue.’