The Last Big Job Read Online Free PDF

the hospital car park within view of the
Casualty Department.
    ‘ Switch the engine off and get out of the fucking car,’ Crane
ordered the Asian who was trembling so badly that control of his
bodily functions was now becoming an issue.
    ‘ But boss, I ain’t done nothing. I won’t tell no one,
honest!’
    ‘ Just get out, you little turd.’
    The taxi driver, whose name was Jyoti, got out, covered all
the while by Crane’s shaking shotgun. Crane was becoming weaker by
the moment; his head was starting to swim, his vision misting over.
He willed himself to get a grip. ‘Now, you bastard, you walk into
the Casualty Department just in front of me and you stay with me
all the way. You try to get away and I’ll shoot your stinking head
off. I’ve already killed a cop tonight, so a Paki won’t mean
anything to me - got it?’
    They walked the fifty or so yards to the entrance. Crane slid
the shotgun out of sight underneath his zip-up jacket.
    At the counter the receptionist looked up with a professional
smile into Jyoti’s troubled face. Crane leaned over his shoulder.
‘I want to see a doctor now,’ he insisted.
    ‘ Well, there’s a wait for an hour for non-urgent cases. I’m
afraid you’ll have to take a seat. Could I have your details,
please?’
    Sheer anger surged through Crane. Mustering all his strength
he propelled the little taxi driver away, sending him sprawling
across the tiled floor. He slammed the shotgun on to the counter.
‘Is this fucking urgent enough?’
    He pulled the trigger.
     
     
    Before Henry could settle down to have an unofficial chat with
Danny’s prisoner he was beckoned out of the cubicle by the nurse
who had shooed him out of the ETR.
    ‘ Your friend needs to go to surgery immediately.’ There was a
very concerned expression on her young face. ‘We think one of the
pellets may have ruptured an artery in his upper chest. He’s
bleeding very badly internally and externally. And before you ask -
he’ll be OK. That’s a promise. It just needs to be sorted
now.’
    ‘ Thanks for that. Can I see him before he goes?’
    ‘ If you’re very quick.’
    Henry strode towards the ETR behind the nurse.
    But then there was the shout. The scream. And the
ear-splitting noise that Henry had already heard once that
night.
    The roar of a shotgun discharging.
    He spun, hand going straight to the butt of the revolver at
his waist, and raced towards Casualty reception, Danny right behind
him.
    Crane was slumped like a drunk over the counter, his right
hand holding the shotgun. Blood gurgled out of his neck wound
across the plastic veneered surface of the counter. The
receptionist was curled up, terrified, on the floor. The
plasterboard wall behind her had a hole punched right through it by
the shotgun blast. The taxi driver still lay on the floor
whimpering. The other waiting patients were scrambling away to
safety or prostrating themselves in fear.
    Crane reacted instantaneously to the arrival of the two cops.
He swung the shotgun round in their direction, but as he did so, he
lost his balance and staggered back along the counter, trying to
regain his footing. The rogue shotgun pointed upwards and Crane
pulled the trigger yet again, this time bringing down huge chunks
of the suspended ceiling crashing around his ears.
    Seeing his chance, Henry launched himself into Crane.
In those days he was fit, fast and a rugby
player. His six-two, fairly muscled, thirteen-stone body powered
into the injured criminal, driving all the air and fight out of
him, flattening him painfully on to the cold, hard floor. The
shotgun clattered harmlessly away.
    There was no resistance from Crane. He had passed out.
Cautiously, Henry disengaged himself and rose to his feet,
wondering once again, if he was the right man for this
job.
     
     
    ‘ Well, that certainly was an interesting tour of duty,’ Rupert
Davison remarked to Danny. It was 8 a.m. and they had worked a
couple of hours overtime to tie up the loose ends