The slightly shorter of the two stood on the left; he now circled around the kneeling figures of Turk and Pugh, before heading around Shankhill’s desk, where he took possession of the shotgun. He backed away, cradling it under his right arm while balancing the SIG in the left, in effect, covering the three hostages with both weapons. The taller one, meanwhile, let his SIG hang from its strap, while he took a rolled-up black canvas bag from his coat pocket, shook it open, came forward and commenced sweeping the money off the table into it.
This took no more than twenty seconds. The kneeling captives could do nothing, fresh blood still trickling down the front of Turk’s shirt, Pugh hunched forward, eyes screwed shut, a pool of yellowish fluid spreading out around his sodden knees.
When the taller gunman had cleared the desk, he dug into a large holdall alongside it, lifting out several more bricks of banknotes and cramming them into his sack.
‘Do you know who I am?’ Shankhill couldn’t resist asking.
‘I couldn’t care less if you’re Donald Trump’s condom supplier,’ came a voice from behind the taller intruder’s scarlet ski-mask. ‘Open the fucking safe.’
Shankhill pursed his lips and gave a tight shake of his head.
The gunman’s eyes widened in the holes in his mask – not so much with anger, Shankhill felt, as with fascination. ‘Seriously?’ the guy asked.
‘Seriously,’ Shankhill replied in a stern but patient tone, like a teacher trying to impart a lesson. He’d decided that he was going to tough this thing out. ‘You’re on very fragile ice, boys, let me tell you. Time is not on your side, and if you actually do know who I am … you wouldn’t even be here. Now, I strongly suggest you don’t push your luck any more, and you get out while the getting out’s good. As it is, you’re going to be hunted for the rest of your life.’
The taller gunman regarded him with apparent deep interest. ‘The safe?’
Shankhill shook his head again, slowly and deliberately.
The gunman seemed to consider this, and then whipped around, grabbed Turk by the collar of his jacket and yanked him up to his feet, before pushing him hard towards the far corner of the room. ‘Turn around!’ he barked.
Still with his arms out, Turk shuffled around until he was facing them, eyes expanded to an amazing size in a face not just bloodied but now pale and damp with fear. Without warning, the taller gunman raised the SIG and, single-handed, fired a deafening burst at his legs.
Both limbs were visibly shattered as the shells ripped through them, hammering into the wall behind, spraying it with blood and bone and meat. Turk fell full-length onto his side, gagging in almost unimaginable pain. Malcolm Pugh screamed in terror, clapping his hands to his ears, fresh streams of piss seeping through the front of his trousers. Shankhill, who’d banked that his temporary tough talk might do the trick, could only goggle in horror. He too had half put his hands to his ears, and now, as the echoes died away and the dust cleared, could do no more than blink in rapid-fire shock at the sight of his fallen comrade.
‘He gets the next lot in the head,’ the taller gunman said. ‘After that, we start on the little fella.’
‘No … please!’ Pugh squawked.
‘Be quite a fucking mess for you to clean up given that you run an unlicensed money-lending business from these premises,’ the gunman added. ‘And you won’t even be able to call a friend when your own knees and elbows are shot through, will you? Because trust me, pal … we’ll get round to you too before we leave here.’
Shankill’s mouth sagged open as he gaped first at one, and then at the other.
This was serious. This was absolutely for real. Roy ‘the Shank’ Shankhill was being robbed inside his own office.
‘The safe!’ the taller one said again. ‘You fat, greasy-headed fuck!’
The money-lender held his position for another moment – just long enough for the various bits and pieces to finally fall together inside his stunned mind. Beaded with sweat, he stumbled away from his desk to the safe and squatted down, where he adjusted a dial, turning it back and forth to listen to the requisite number of clicks. When the door clunked open, Shankhill rose to his feet and backtracked away.
At the far side of the room, the wounded Turk gave a low, animalistic whine. The gunmen ignored him, the shorter one stepping in front of Shankhill so that he could cover him with the SIG while keeping the shotgun trained on the fallen henchman. The taller, meanwhile, hunkered down at the safe, and began lifting out rolls and rolls and rolls of banknotes, all of which he shovelled into his sack. After that, he helped himself to jewellery – bracelets, brooches, necklaces – quality stuff too, not of the bling variety that Shankill generally adorned himself with, but platinum and white gold, embedded with diamonds and other gems. When he’d finished, he straightened up and turned to face the Shank.
He offered an empty hand. ‘We’ll take your neck chains and your rings, while you’re at it. And the Rolex. Jesus … you wash your hair in chip-fat, or what?’
Shankhill scowled as he handed the valuables over. ‘I’ll find you,’ he said quietly.
‘Yeah?’ The taller gunman stepped backward. ‘Maybe my bootprint’ll give you a head start.’
Then he opened fire at Shankhill’s legs. A fusillade of lead shredded through muscle and bone, all but blowing the ungainly limbs away completely, hurling the overweight money-lender down onto the blood and urine-spattered floorboards.
To prove he was a man of his word, the taller bandit concluded by stamping on Shankhill’s pale, sweat-soggy face some two, three times. When he’d finished that, the two of them rounded on Malcolm Pugh, who wailed even more loudly than before.
‘Shut it or you die!’ The taller one stabbed a warning finger into Pugh’s face.
But the little gambler was wild-eyed and wet-mouthed with fear. ‘My inside pocket!’ he gibbered. ‘It’s in my inside pocket … all of it. Take what you want …’
‘We don’t want your money,’ the taller one said.
When Pugh filched a handful of twenties from under his jacket and waved it at them, the shorter one simply knocked it out of his grasp, sending it fluttering across the room, and then twisted his hands behind his back, causing him to shriek again, his time with agony, before binding them together with duct tape. He repeated the process with Pugh’s ankles.
‘It’s dead simple … Malcolm,’ the taller bandit advised him, when Pugh lay trussed in a corner. He’d read the first name on a credit card from Pugh’s wallet, though he now reinserted the card into the wallet, and replaced it in the captive’s pocket. ‘You’ve survived this. You even get to keep your own cash … you’ll be able to get yourself free in a few minutes. But it isn’t over. We know who you are. So, you go to the cozzers about this … you even call an ambulance for these two goons, and we’ll come back for you. And you won’t need me to tell you … it won’t just be your legs we shoot off.’
Pugh said nothing, closing his eyes against the stinging sweat dabbling his lashes.
When he finally risked opening them, the masked assailants had gone.
Lucy was back in Robber’s Row CID not long before one o’clock, the case against Darren Pringle proved and the regular offender finally in receipt of the custodial sentence he’d deserved for so very long. He’d been led down to the cells, looking totally stunned that four months’ imprisonment now hung over his head, but Lucy knew that it was a minuscule punishment in reality. If he kept his nose clean, and he likely would