Chapter 37
The windscreen wipers intermittently crawled across the screen as the clouds lightened and a ray of sunshine spilled out.
“I’m fed up with this. I’m going in.”
“Have some patience,” Simon replied, hoovering the last of his milk shake up the straw, gurgling noises resounding through the car.
“Can’t you just take the top off and drink it like a normal person.”
“Up yours!”
Nicks looked at his watch. Silence. Simon took the top off, licked it then began scooping foam from the inside of the cup with his finger. Nicks looked at him and scowled.
Another glance at his wrist. “Seven hours and forty-eight minutes we’ve been doing this.” More silence.
“Fuck it! I’m going in!” He pulled on his latex gloves, leaned forward, opened the glove box, released the back panel and retrieved a Beretta 21A pistol, slid its magazine of jacketed hollow points into the grip and racked a round into the chamber. He re-applied the safety. From his belt, he unclipped a key chain, removed the three and a half-inch long cylindrical fob and screwed it onto the Beretta’s barrel which he stuffed into the leg pocket of his cargo pants. All the time Simon just sat and looked at him. Rubber screeched across the windscreen.
“How you goin’ to do it?”
“I’m just going to knock on the bloody door and see her off when she answers it. The full mag should do it.” With that, he stepped out into the sunshine, hands in pockets, and walked casually across the street.
Simon turned off the wipers and rested his head against the steering wheel. Thirty seconds later he started the car, reversed several feet, then waited.
A glance at his watch. He didn’t know how long he’d been gone but it seemed an age. A knock on the window startled him.
An old woman, shopping bag in hand, smiled: “Will you be long there, dear? It’s just that my son needs that space to park his car. He’ll be back soon. You really should have a permit, you know, but I won’t say anything. You get them from the council.”
He smiled back. “Hopefully I’ll be leaving any moment now. I’m just waiting for a mate. You have a nice evening.” Another smile and she walked away with a wave.
The door slammed shut making him jump. He didn’t know how much more of this he could take.
“She’s gone!” It was Nicks.
“What do you mean, ‘She’s gone’?”
“What I mean is she’s fucking gone, Si. She’s left. She’s done one.”
“How did that happen?”
“I don’t know! I presume she just packed her suitcase, opened the bloody front door and walked down the street.”
“How do you know?”
“I don’t, but that’s usually how it’s done.”
“No, you divvy. How do you know she’s gone?” Si checked the road and pulled out.
“I spoke to the woman downstairs. Apparently, she handed her the keys this morning, just before we got here. The only good news is she thinks she might have gone to Hulme, to stay with a friend. Some Mancunian bird. You know this wouldn’t have happened if we’d still had the bloody surveillance.” He quickly unloaded the weapon, flipped the glove box and sat back with a sigh. “Bollocks! Fucking Manchester.”