‘Now, I know it’s the weekend and some of you will have made other plans, but any of you that carry on working the case will be paid overtime.’
There was laughter from the team. Overtime was banned with the government cuts slashing police budgets in all departments.
‘Yes I know, but this case is top priority with the suits on the top floor and our political masters’ reputations are on the line, so they will find the money. The media is just waiting to jump all over them for not putting the manpower in on a four murders case; as you know, I couldn’t care less about the top floor or the politicians, but I do care about this department and both mine and your personal competence being questioned. You lot are the best in the business; if you weren’t, you wouldn’t be in here. So, if some thug or thugs get away with this one then there’s not much of a future for any of us. So they are not going to get away with it, are they? Go get ‘em.’
Palmer turned and sat down next to Gheeta at the computer servers, as the team left the room amid a cacophony of steel chair legs scraping on old lino and the hubbub of voices.
‘Should change your name to Churchill guv, if you are going to give those sorts of speeches.’
‘Everybody needs a little fillip sometimes Sergeant, and at the present time it’s those officers. They put their lives on the line every day, and for what – a one percent pay rise in five years and to be treated like rubbish by those posh overpaid twats in government. If the thin blue line broke, I wonder who’d be first screaming for help.’
‘Well the good news is that we’ve got a witness, guv. A homeless chap was sheltering in the warehouse when the van drove in and was torched. Just got a statement through from Rayson at East Greenwich who interviewed him; he’s a known alcoholic, but Rayson says he’s pretty reliable and has given good information to him before on drug dealers.’
‘Anything worth following up?’
‘It’s interesting. He says the van drove in followed by a car, no description; two men in the van and one in the car; a body was taken from the car boot and put into the van, and a man with a hood over his head brought out of the van and taken to the car; then the van was torched and the lot of them left in the car.’
‘What’s so interesting in that?’
‘The man who appeared to be in charge had a limp.’
‘Really? Now that does cut the suspects down a bit. Not that we have any at present.’
‘We have now, guv. Rayson says the only person he knows with a limp that could be involved is a chap called George East. East works for Frankie Alexander.’
‘Frankie Alexander, now there’s a name from the past.’
‘You know him, guv?’
‘I knew his dad, Ronnie Alexander; he was part of the Richardson gang. This case is like deja vu: first it’s Freddy Doorman, and now the Richardsons. They had a fight you know, two eighty-five year-old ex-gangsters.’
‘Who did?’
‘Freddy Doorman and Eddie Richardson, last February at Thomas Wisbey’s funeral. They had a punch up at the grave side.’
‘Who was Wisbey?’
‘One of the Great Train Robbers. You know about that, surely?’
‘Yes, I saw the film. That was Ronnie Biggs, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, Biggs made more out of selling his story and media appearances than he ever did out of the robbery. He was a small player; he was only in it because he knew a retired engine driver and paid the bloke a few quid to drive the engine after they’d stopped it. Trouble was, it was a new kind of engine and Biggs’s mate couldn’t start it, so they had to get the original driver back into the cab. Unfortunately they’d given him a wallop on the head, so it took time to bring him round and move the train to the bridge where all the transport was waiting. Anyway, that’s all history. This George East chap seems interesting.’
‘Shall I ask Inspector Rayson to pull him in for questioning, guv?’
‘No, get Johnson and Simms to quietly sniff around; it’s their turf. If something big is going down, then we don’t want to frighten them off by feeling collars just yet. Get addresses for East and Alexander; with a bit of luck Kershaw will turn up at one of their places.’
He blew out his cheeks.
‘But I still can’t see what Kershaw brings to the party; he has no known criminal skills. We are missing something here, got to be. Run some deep checks on Alexander, East and Kershaw: known associates, habits, family, finances; see if anything comes up.’
‘I’ve got the number back, sir,’ called Claire from across the room, stood at the printer which was tapping out a page.
‘What number?’
‘The one Foreman rang when you left him.’
‘Aha, well done. Whose is it?’
‘Haven’t got that, it’s an unregistered mobile.’
Gheeta pulled open a drawer and took out a mobile phone.
‘I’ll try it and see what we get, shall I guv?’
‘Yes, go on. Put it on speaker.’
They kept an unregistered mobile themselves, so that should they need to they could make a call that couldn’t be traced back to the Squad. Claire came over and gave Gheeta the paper. Gheeta keyed the number in and held the phone a foot away from her with the speaker turned on. The number rang. After two or three rings, a male voice answered.
‘Yes.’
‘Hello?’ said Gheeta.
‘Who’s that?’
‘I was told to ring this number about a job,’ said Gheeta.
‘Who by?’
Palmer mouthed: ‘George’.
‘George,’ said Gheeta.
‘George who?’ asked the voice.
‘East,’ mouthed Palmer.
‘George East,’ said Gheeta.
There was long silence on the line, then:
‘Is this a fucking wind-up?’
‘No, why?’ said Gheeta
‘I’m George East, and I don’t know you. Who are you?’
Palmer made a throat-cutting gesture with his hand, and Gheeta terminated the call. Palmer smiled a big smile.
‘Thank you Freddy, you’ve led us straight to the middle of the web. Now all we have to do is untangle it.’
‘So, it looks like Doorman was warning East about our visit then,’ said Gheeta.
‘And if East is Frank Alexander’s number two, that means Mr Alexander is more than likely pulling the strings.’
‘Inspector Rayson said Alexander would only be interested in something big, guv.’
‘Something big enough to silence four people and kidnap one other. I think we ought to go and take a look at East; with a bit of luck, we might find Kershaw with him.’
CHAPTER 10
‘My dad knew Palmer, he put him away once. Tough bastard.’
Frank Alexander sat at his office desk and pondered for a minute on the news that East had given him.
‘He was one of Marks’s ‘young bloods’ who cleaned up the Sweeney in the eighties; he wouldn’t be nosing round here unless he had good reason to believe the murders were done on this manor.’
‘Doorman reckons that was what he was snooping around for,’ said East.
‘Well, if he’s snooping around for information it means he hasn’t got much to go on so far, so we should be able to do the job tomorrow before they cotton on. Anyway, Palmer’s looking for a gun and a murderer, not a big job going down. I take it you ditched the gun in the Thames?’
‘No, can’t do that – it’s a rental. The bloke we got it from is coming down from Manchester for it next week.’
‘Okay. Forensics will have matched the bullets with other jobs it’s been used on in the past by now, so that will keep them busy.’
‘I’ll need the rest of the rental money for them next week. Five grand.’
Alexander laughed.
‘After tomorrow night, George old friend, five grand will be peanuts.’
CHAPTER 11
The next afternoon in the Team Room it was quiet, unusually quiet with an a
ir of expectancy. Surely things had to break soon? Claire was trying every avenue she could think of to find a link between the victims, but all that came up was their past criminal activities together. She went through all of those with a fine-tooth comb… nothing. Nothing was pointing to a reason for their murder.
In his office across the corridor, Palmer was going through the files he had asked for on Frank Alexander.
‘He’s a clever sod. A very clever sod.’
‘Who is, guv?’ said Gheeta, who was checking the reports from the team on the ground.
‘Frank Alexander, he’s as clean as a whistle. A very clever bloke… His dad was like that too. He was an original ‘two stepper.’
Palmer had explained that term to Gheeta before when they had come up against an old adversary from the Brinks Mat caper called Harry James in the Loot case. A ‘two stepper’ was a clever villain who asked somebody else to arrange for something nasty to be done, and that person in turn asked somebody else again, somebody who had no connection with the original person, thus keeping that person two steps away from the deed and unknown to the final person who did the deed, and therefore unidentifiable.
‘Something is going on in Greenwich, guv,’ said Gheeta in an excited manner. ‘Johnson has just texted that half a dozen known ‘faces’ have been gathering inside a snooker hall.’
Palmer stood.
‘Get him on the phone and put it on the screen in the Team Room’
They both hurried across the corridor into the room as Gheeta speed-dialled Johnson. She spoke to him when he answered.
‘Hold on a moment, I’m going to loop you into a speaker so we can all hear you and see what’s happening.’
She put a jack plug into her phone and connected it through a modem on a server. The screen on the wall above it showed a busy Greenwich street.
‘Okay, go ahead. The Chief can hear you and see the view from your mobile. Can you hear us?’
‘Yes, loud and clear,’ said Johnson over the speaker.
‘What’s happening?’ asked Palmer.
‘We had George East followed, sir. He met a couple of local faces at a café, and then the three of them came here to a local snooker club; it’s one of Alexander’s businesses so we pitched up outside to see what was next but they are still inside, and the local chap with us has spotted another three known lags go in as well. All six are better known for their muscle than their brains: club doormen and loan shark debt collectors. I’ve got the back exit covered but I don’t want to send anybody inside on the pretence of playing snooker as we’d stand out a mile. And in any case, there’s a chap on the door who is turning genuine punters away but letting the faces in. Simms buttonholed a punter who wasn’t allowed in and apparently the chap on the door said it was an electricity failure and wouldn’t be repaired until tomorrow. I’ll show you on the phone’s camera.’
The view changed to the club entrance.
‘Can you see?’
‘Yes, we can see him. They’re obviously having a meeting in there or getting ready to go on a job. Is Kershaw in there, do you know?’
‘Haven’t seen him go in Chief, but he could have already been inside. Hang on... A cab’s pulled up, can you see it?’
The screen altered as Johnson tried to get a picture of the cab’s occupants, who were shielded from view by the cab and a bus passing by.
‘Can you get across the road? We can’t make out anybody.’
Palmer was growing exasperated.
They watched as the screen jolted around as Johnson slipped through the heavy traffic and crossed the road. Then it steadied as he held it up as though making a call with the lens towards the club entrance; two men left the cab and went into the club as it pulled away.
Palmer smiled.
‘Frank Alexander and Robert Kershaw. Well, well, well, looks like the gang’s all here. Well done Johnson, well done. Stick with it and let us know if anybody leaves.’
‘Will do, sir.’
‘Don’t do anything other than follow them, understood?’
‘Understood.’
‘Good man.’
He nodded to Gheeta, who cut the link and removed the jack plugs.
‘I wonder what they are up to. I don’t suppose you’ve got a wonder beam amongst your box of tricks that we can aim at that snooker club and hear every word they are saying inside, have you?’
DS Singh’s advanced knowledge of IT, cyber and anything technical never ceased to amaze Palmer. He was fully aware that some of the databases and websites she could access were strictly illegal, and turned a blind eye when they were used; as far as he was concerned, if it helped catch a killer then it was good to go, and two fingers to the human rights and politically correct numpties.
Gheeta laughed.
‘I’m working on that one, guv. But I can access George East’s phone and read any text messages he sends and see his photos.’
‘How can you do that?’ said Palmer, sounding slightly amazed.
‘Well, you got Freddy Doorman’s phone number and the trace on that first call he made after we left was to George East, as we know; so I got East’s number, and using an American override system I can get into it and see everything. I get flagged up when he uses it, but so far he hasn’t – not for texting or photos anyway. It’s a bit like that big News of The World hacking scandal a few years back, when they got into celebrity and royal mobiles and got the texts.’
‘If memory serves me right Sergeant, the man from the paper who authorised it got seven years for that.’
‘For what, guv?’
Gheeta feigned ignorance and innocence.
‘For phone hacking, Sergeant.’
‘Don’t know what you are talking about, guv.’
The smiles they exchanged needed no words.
Claire turned with just as broad a smile on her face.
‘I hope I’m not an ‘accessory’ to this. I was hoping for a fortnight in Madeira this year, not six months in the Scrubs.’
Gheeta’s mobile rang again. It was Johnson.
‘Okay… Yes, hang on. I’ll ask the boss.’
She turned to Palmer.
‘Johnson’s got somebody round the back of the snooker hall and he’s reported a large van has turned up at the back entrance, and it looks like the gang is going to leave in it.’
‘Right, looks like we have some action then,’ said Palmer, rubbing his hands together. ‘Tell him not to do anything except follow the van, and don’t lose it.’ Then as an afterthought he added: ‘Let me know if Alexander is in the van. If they’re off to do a job, I bet he’s not going with them.’
‘Two stepper, guv?’
‘Dead right, he’s no fool.’
Gheeta relayed the orders as Palmer used the internal phone to order a plain squad car to meet them at the front. He rubbed his chin.
‘I wonder where they are going – that’s a fair-sized team for a small job. I reckon our Mr Frank Alexander has a fairly big one planned for tonight. I wonder where Robert Kershaw fits in as well; he seems to be getting priority treatment for a small-time thief.’
‘Let’s hope he doesn’t end up like his mates in the prison van,’ said Gheeta.
‘No, I can’t see that happening; not unless whatever it is he has that is making him so useful to them runs out.’
Gheeta’s mobile rang again. It was Johnson. She plugged him into the speaker.
‘The van has left with six of them in the back; Kershaw and George East have left in a black BMW with a driver, and Frank Alexander has left on his own from the front of the building in a taxi. We are tailing the van in our squad car, and I’ve got Simms following East and Kershaw in another. We’ve no transport to follow Alexander, but I’ve got the licence plate. Ready?’
‘Go ahead,’ said Gheeta, as Claire picked up a biro and pad and gave her a nod.
‘32HYX145, grey Honda CRV.’
Palmer was pleased.
‘Good work son, good work. DS Singh
and I are getting a car from the Yard and we’ll get comms to patch us, you and Simms into one network, so hopefully we all end up at the same place.’
‘Okay, sir.’
Palmer thought for a moment. Anything he’d missed? He didn’t think so.
‘Right then, let’s go and get the show on the road.’
Gheeta thought he had missed something.
‘We had better patch Claire into the comms too, guv. Never know when we might need some intel.’
‘Yes, good idea Sergeant. Good idea.’
On hearing that, Claire’s first thought was that she’d better ring home and tell her husband she didn’t know what time she’d be home. Palmer had been bollocked so many times by Mrs P. for taking Gheeta and Claire for granted that a little bell rang in his head.
‘Are you okay with that, Claire? Could be a late night.’
‘I’m fine, sir. I’ll let hubby know; he’s used to it, so no problem. The check I did on the taxi number plate that Alexander is in shows that it’s legally registered, fully licensed.’
‘Good, that means we can check the driver’s log and see where he drops off Mr Alexander. Right then, come on Sergeant, that car will be waiting at the front.’
CHAPTER 12
In the squad car they called Johnson and patched him in along with Simms.
‘We are on the road now. Where are you, Johnson?’
‘We seem to be heading west, sir. We’ve come over the Thames and are going west along the Embankment.’
‘And you Simms, where’s East heading?’
‘Same direction, sir. On the A4 heading for the motorway.’
Palmer’s car headed up to Hyde Park Corner and left along Knightsbridge towards the M4. Soon, all three were heading west on the M4.
Johnson called.
‘Simms is just behind us sir, and East’s car has slotted in behind the van in front of us.’
Palmer thought for a moment.
‘Okay. Simms, drop back a hundred yards; keep back and turn off at the next exit, and go back and do a surveillance job on Alexander’s home. Claire will give you the address.’
Burning Ambition (DCS Palmer and the Serial Murder Squad Book 7) Page 5