[b]Zinkman & Sons Diamond Exchange 12:28 AM[/b] They were officially late. Coach muttered a complaint under his breath as he eyed the clock on the dashboard of his taxi. It was unlike Red. Coach had never met someone as able to plan things out to the very second as Turner was – something he put down to his time in the military. He didn’t talk about it much, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to work it out. So when things ran late, as they were running late now, it made Coach worried. Deathly worried. It took Bobby some time to get down from the roof but there was no reason Red, Charlie and Freddy shouldn’t have long since been out. Coach tried to put his fears to one side and think instead about what he’d spend his cut on. He still wanted to take the kids abroad, like he’d promised them before the Wembley job, and he’d started putting quiet feelers about setting up a firm of his own. That dream was well within reach. More minutes passed by and the sinking feeling in Coach’s stomach started to nag at him even more. He looked down at the pistol on the passenger seat and considered heading inside but something told him not to. Instead he gently put his foot down on the accelerator and slowly pulled away from the Diamond Exchange. Something was wrong. Things were too still. And then he heard it in the distance. The sound of an engine starting. The listing taxi began to pick up speed and a scowling Crowder sped his way in the direction of the sound. He saw Freddy Fingers clambering his way into a car with two bags in hand. There was no sign of Bobby, Charlie or Red. As Fingers reached to shut the door behind him, he locked eyes with Coach for the faintest of seconds. “Oh no, you bloody don’t.” Coach’s taxi bore down on the burgundy-coloured coupe at speed. He managed to block it in. Freddy and he were staring at one another dead in the eye, with only two panes of thin glass keeping them apart. Next to Freddy was a handsome-looking blonde haired woman with piercing blue eyes. Coach opened his mouth to shout abuse in Freddy’s direction and was cut-off as the coupe crashed into the driver’s side. The impact sent Coach sliding over and when he looked back, Fingers was pointing a pistol at him. “Bollocks.” Two bullets tore through the driver’s side window of Coach’s taxi. Crowder ducked beneath the door in time and was rooting around the passenger seat for his own gun. The coupe scraped across Coach’s taxi, with each second of metal rending metal a dagger in the old cabbie’s heart. He spotted the pistol on the floor of the passenger’s seat and reached for it. Finally the blonde behind the wheel managed to tear the coupe free and steal off ahead of Coach’s now-battered taxi. Coach started after them with pistol in hand. There wasn’t much time. Even in the dead of the night the racket they had made would bring Old Bill running. He’d make that bastard Fingers pay for double-crossing them – and more importantly he’d make him pay for wrecking his fucking cab. Coach made sure to make a mental note of the coupe’s license plate as his ailing taxi gave chase. “Coach,” Bobby’s voice sounded from the radio on the dashboard. “Where are you? We need you here.” “I’m after Fingers,” Coach shouted into his radio. “Forget him,” Bobby’s tinny called out. “Red’s hurt bad. Freddy hit him over the head with something. There’s lots of blood. We need to get him to a hospital.” “But the diamonds,” Coach started. Bobby made to speak but it was clear that Charlie had wrestled the radio free from his fingers. “Fuck the diamonds. Get back here.” “Fuck,” Coach cried as he hit the brakes. He watched as Freddy and the blonde’s burgundy coupe disappeared off into the horizon. The chase had left bits of broken metal scattered about the streets and Coach spotted stirring from bedroom windows. He hightailed it back to the Diamond Exchange rendezvous-point where he found Bobby and Charlie waiting. Propped up against the wall was a barely-conscious Red. “What the fuck happened?” Coach said as he leapt out of the taxi. “That sod Freddy tried to shoot me in the face.” Charlie’s face turned a deep shade of red. “Don’t you worry about him. We’ll make sure that backstabbing prick gets his before the weekend’s out, I promise you that much.” A weak groan slipped from Red’s lips. “He needs to go to a hospital,” Bobby repeated, with all the concern of a son seeing his father sick for the first time. “No,” Charlie said with a shake of the head. “No hospitals. That’s the first place the Old Bill will start. Don’t be so fucking naive.” Coach knelt down beside Red and gestured to Bobby to do the same. They placed their arms beneath Red’s armpits and lifted him to his feet. “I know a place,” Coach said as they slid Turner into the backseat. “But don’t expect a friendly welcome.”