Informant
Page 1
For Sue, who makes it all possible and Jenny and Andy, who make it all worthwhile.
Contents
REGULATION OF INVESTIGATORY POWERS ACT 2000
PROLOGUE
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EPILOGUE
Acknowledgements
THE MOURNER
REGULATION OF INVESTIGATORY POWERS ACT 2000
Section 26(8)
a person is a COVERT HUMAN INTELLIGENCE SOURCE (CHIS) if—
(a) he establishes or maintains a personal or other relationship with a person for the covert purpose of facilitating the doing of anything falling within paragraph (b) or (c);
(b) he covertly uses such a relationship to obtain information or to provide access to any information to another person; or
(c) he covertly discloses information obtained by the use of such a relationship, or as a consequence of the existence of such a relationship.
PROLOGUE
Seeing them go, that’s what really did it for Joey. The moment of death, if he could just glimpse it. But the eyes had to be open; he liked it best when the pupils were wide with terror. Then, one click, the screen went blank. They were gone and that vacant stare shot through him like two hundred and fifty volts. Better than crack, better than charlie, way better than shagging. It was the ultimate hit. It was the power. Game over, you’d won. They were meat, you were the butcher.
Joey stood over Marlow, nerve ends zinging, his cock stirring in anticipation. Marlow fingered his broken nose, blood dripped onto the concrete floor. Joey unclenched his fist, rubbed his knuckles. He was in no hurry. He enjoyed a bit of foreplay.
‘So you gonna tell me the truth now?’
Marlow looked up at him, trying to gauge his mood. He had to make his next words count.
‘Seriously Joe, what is this about? Someone’s got their wires crossed here.’
Joey smiled. He seemed relaxed, unconcerned even.
‘You reckon?’
Built like a bruiser, face like an angel, Joey Phelps had charm to spare. Even as a small boy he had drawn people to him; those hypnotic baby-blue eyes under thick sandy lashes, his quirky smile. Joey reached into his jeans pocket, pulled out a neat wedge of folded tissues, squatted down beside Marlow.
‘Here. Clean yourself up.’
Marlow took the tissues warily, wincing as he pressed them to his nose.
Straightening up, Joey thrust both hands in his pockets and took a leisurely turn about the lock-up. The night air seeping under the door was chilly and dank. He gazed up at the vaulted arch of the ceiling, row upon row of blackened bricks, laid maybe a hundred and fifty years before to carry the railway from the smoke to the suburbs. Joey peered around; he knew he could take his time, savour his power.
‘Look at this place. You ever think about the blokes that built the railways?’
The remark hung in the air. Marlow glanced from Joey to Ashley. Ashley, as usual, was waiting on Joey’s next move. He was picking his teeth. He’d seen some actor do this in a clip from an old film he’d streamed, thought it looked cool.
‘All them millions of bricks to lay. Now that was grafting.’
Marlow eased himself up into a sitting position and rested his back against the wall. He could feel the dampness through his shirt; icy cold, it seeped through his flesh, chilling him to the heart. He knew that Joey was toying with him. He’d suspected for almost a week now that his cover had been blown. But when Joey and Ashley had called for him that evening, full of laddish high spirits, his fears had been allayed. They’d been clubbing, done a couple of lines, had a few beers. They were going on to a party, some soap actress Joey had been shagging. Then Joey announced he needed to make a quick stop.
Marlow cursed his own stupidity, he really should’ve guessed. He was twenty-nine years old, he had parents, retired now to Swanage, two older sisters. How would they cope with all this? Should he cry? Should he beg? He sucked in a few deep breaths to calm himself; exhaust fumes from the nearby main road, rancid fat from the kebab shop on the corner. The smells of London were suddenly all there, flooding his senses in both reality and in memory. And he was sure of one thing: he didn’t want to die.
‘Listen Joe, I dunno what lying bastard’s been telling tales about me, but—’
The silver toecap of Joey’s handmade boot caught him squarely in the temple. His head jarred with the impact and ricocheted back against the wall. Joey gazed at him calmly.
‘The Net’s a wonderful thing, innit? I got a couple of illegals who’re dead clever with all that. Hack into anything. They hacked into your file . . . Detective Sergeant. A Commissioner’s commendation. Ash was impressed. Weren’t you Ash?’
Ashley, intent on quarrying with his toothpick, simply nodded. Dazed from the blow, Marlow lurched forward and vomited on the floor. Joey watched, a smile of amusement and expectation spreading across his face, as if he were waiting for the punchline to a joke.
‘You ain’t gonna deny it then?’
Marlow wiped a shaky hand across his mouth, raised his head slowly. His gaze was watery but unflinching.
‘You’re a psycho Phelps. A real nut-job.’
‘Yeah?’ Joey laughed. ‘Hear that Ash? I’m a nut-job.’
Ashley slipped the toothpick in his pocket, glanced at Joey, the blue eyes shining iridescent, sweat beading on his upper lip. Joey smiled.
‘Nah mate, you’re the sucker here. No one plays me.’
Ashley pulled a pair of vinyl gloves from the back pocket of his jeans and calmly drew them on. Now it was really going to kick off. Joey selected a tyre iron from the tools on the workbench, weighed it in his hand. Marlow swallowed hard, glanced at the door and the tantalizing chink of neon beyond; it was worth a shot.
As Marlow scrabbled to his feet Joey slammed the tyre iron down on top of his skull, cracking it open. He lifted the iron and blood gushed up over splintered bone and the ruptured pearlescent membrane of the cerebral cortex. Joey seized Marlow’s jaw, twisted the face round to look right at him – the eyelids drooped. Marlow had already slipped into unconsciousness. Joey shook him with frustration. He wanted to see, but it was too late. Shoving him away Joey took another couple of swings. Ashley watched in annoyance. He was going to have to clean this lot up. He huffed.
‘Yeah all right. I think that’s done the trick.’
Joey paused and turned. Ashley caught a look of feral rage and quickly stepped back. Joey’s breathing was fast and shallow. His heart thumped. He closed his eyes. Ashley had seen this enough times before, yet still he never knew how to react. He focused on the blood puddling out round the lumps and bumps in the concrete.
‘I’ll get them bin bags out the car, shall I?’
Joey ignored him, the tyre iron clattering to the floor. He let his arms hang loose. He inhaled slowly. His shoulders sagged as the tension in his muscles slackened. Ashley stood rooted to the spot; he wasn’t going to risk the noise of the door. After a couple of moments Joey opened his eyes. Ashley held his breath then Joey grinned broadly.
‘Fuck me, what a blast!’
Ashley’s nerves evaporated. He grinned too and laughed. ‘Yeah! Wow!’
Joey filled his lungs, hooted with joy. ‘Fucking bastards! They think they can get me. Send all the fucking shit-eating filth you like. I’m Joey Fucking Phelps. And you’ll never get me!’
1
A pair of brown eyes stared directly at Kaz. Not solid brown, more muddy spiked with flecks of amber. The look itself was harder to read; some anger, resentment certainly, but behind that a void, a hollow of despair.
Kaz returned the look with her own searching gaze. Then she selected a pencil from the battered tin box, a 2B, she always started with a 2B. Opening the sketchbook to a fresh page she rapidly plotted out the main features. The eyes first. Her hand moved across the sheet of one-twenty gram cartridge with practised assurance. Her own eyes darted from the face in front of her down to the drawing and back again.
Yasmin’s brow furrowed.
‘Dunno why you don’t just take a picture.’
‘This is better. You see more.’
The contours of the head, the nose, the planes of the cheek were quickly taking shape. Kaz paused and forced herself to look harder. She was missing something. Was it in the angle of the chin? Somewhere deep in the gene pool below the whores and the drug mules, the servants and slaves, there lurked a Nubian princess, mistress of all she surveyed. And that pride was still there in the tilt of Yasmin’s battered jaw. Kaz smiled to herself, adjusted the line.
A key clanked in the lock and the cell door swung open. A prison officer stood there. It was Fat Pat. A short bundle of venom, she’d always had it in for Kaz.
‘You ready then Phelps?’
Kaz closed the sketchbook and slipped it with the tin of pencils into the plastic carrier at her feet. She stood up and smiled awkwardly at Yasmin. Yasmin rose stiffly and opened her arms.
‘Be lucky babe . . .’
Kaz stepped into the hug.
‘You be out yourself soon.’
‘Yeah and he be there waiting for me. Nah, I’m better off where I am. Least I got no broken bones.’
Fat Pat marched Kaz down the corridor. Being escorted was an all too familiar routine: walk in front, wait, the body odour and rasping Lycra as Pat waddled along behind. Kaz stopped at the door to the block and stood aside for Pat to unlock it. She towered over Pat by at least five inches. At first the daily sessions in the gym had been an outlet for her pent-up rage. Later it had become part of her discipline, the way forward, the way out. At twenty-five she was certainly the fittest she’d ever been; more importantly she was four years clean and sober. And she planned to stay that way.
Pat glared up at her. Kaz returned the look with a steady gaze.
‘Y’know Phelps, you may fool the shrinks, your offender manager and the parole board. But you don’t fool me. You’re pure evil. Clever, I’ll give you that. But underneath it all, evil.’
‘Well you know better than any of them, don’t you Pat? All them smarmy gits with degrees that get paid shedloads more than you.’
Kaz could see Pat rising to the bait, she always did. Her neck flushed, her cheeks reddened.
‘The Lord will smite thee Phelps! He will cast down the ungodly into the pit of hell!’
‘What’s that bit in the Bible, Pat? Something about more joy in heaven over one sinner that repents? You should check it out.’
Pat’s eyes glistened with hate.
‘You’ll be back on crack in a week. You won’t be able to help yourself.’
Kaz smiled equably. Through the door her freedom was waiting. She felt almost high, suffused with the natural joy of being alive. She took a deep breath and wished she could hold on to this precious feeling, this golden moment. For she knew one thing for certain: it wouldn’t last. Once she stepped outside there would be no respite, it would all begin again.
2
A fine drizzle was falling as Detective Chief Superintendent Alan Turnbull picked his way through the plastic bags, cans and tar to where SOCO had set up their tent on the foreshore. The river was still ebbing; steely grey, it stretched away into the morning mist. He could’ve stayed in the office twiddling his thumbs until the call came through from the SIO, but uncertainty made him nervous. If their suspicions were correct, he had to know. He had to know now because this could be the game changer he’d been waiting for.
He stopped at the outer cordon and as he signed the crime scene examiner’s chit Detective Sergeant Nicci Armstrong emerged from the tent, suited, booted and gloved. She pushed back her hood, registered his presence without a flicker and headed towards him. Turnbull frowned. She had an attitude about her – chippy, arrogant – to his mind not an attractive combination in a young woman. Of course you couldn’t say that nowadays, but he thought it anyway.
He surveyed the terrain with a professional eye; focus on the job, that had always been his technique for keeping uncomfortable feelings at bay. There were half a dozen people in protective gear, working quickly to stay ahead of the tide. He knew managing the scene, preserving every scrap of evidence, was important, nevertheless the rigmarole annoyed him. The cost of all this scientific expertise soon added up. In the end would it really tell them a single thing they didn’t already know?
Armstrong looked flushed and irritable; the Velcro fastening on the suit had chafed her neck. Turnbull scanned her. She could’ve done with a touch of make-up. As she joined him she painted on a smile.
‘Morning boss. Bit chilly.’
‘Is it him?’
Armstrong swallowed hard; bile stung the back of her throat. She’d seen most things, pulled enough corpses out of the river. But this was different. A ghost of familiarity remained in the face even with lamprey eels feasting on the brain. She gave Turnbull a curt nod.
‘Yeah we think so. We’ll need to run a check on DS Marlow’s dental records and DNA to confirm though.’
Turnbull nodded. ‘Still got his teeth then?’
‘The lower jaw’s intact. Well just about. Obviously the body’s been in the water for some time.’
Turnbull wiped a film of rain from his face, turned to stare at the cranes sedately swinging over the shell of some luxury apartments rising up on the far bank of the river. He wondered what the asking price would be; north of a million certainly. Then he caught Armstrong’s eye. Her face a rigid mask, she was waiting for him to speak. He shook his head.
‘Confident bastard isn’t he? But this time he’s overreached himself.’
Armstrong shifted her balance from one boot to the other. She could feel the squelchy silt sinking beneath her. She’d been up since six. This was hard enough, finding a colleague, a mate like this; she wanted to get on.
‘Can I organize you some kit boss, so you can take a look?’
Turnbull exhaled, he was wet and certainly not about to scrabble into a clammy plastic suit in the cramped confines of a SOCO van. He gazed out across the river, avoiding her eye.
‘No, I’m due at a meeting with the Assistant Commissioner. Email me a preliminary report by lunchtime.’
Armstrong nodded. ‘Do you want the digital recording as well? We’ve got some three-sixty spherical images on R2S.’
Turnbull shot her a belligerent look as he wondered what that load of high-tec
h kit was costing his overstretched budget. He sighed. ‘No, a written summary’s fine.’
She dipped her head. He could see she was struggling. Had she been close to Marlow? He had no idea. This whole thing was a grade-A fuck up. But he was certain of one thing: he wasn’t about to carry the can.
He reached out to pat her arm, felt her body stiffen, retreated into a perfunctory smile. ‘I realize this isn’t easy Sergeant, but . . . we’ll nail him. Don’t you worry about that.’
Armstrong watched him trudge back to his car. She didn’t know why he’d come. Maybe it was guilt; she supposed it was possible that behind the slick facade there lurked a conscience. As a rule the boss didn’t concern himself with actual detective work – he delegated. Armstrong had never had that much direct contact with him outside of team briefings and her gut feeling was that she wanted it to stay that way.
Turnbull allowed his shoulders to sink into the leather upholstery of his chauffeured BMW as he considered the potential fallout from Marlow’s death. Could he be accused of recklessness in placing an officer so close to a villain like Joey Phelps? There’d be an internal inquiry of course, but that was window dressing, he’d weather that. Undercover work was a dirty little secret and it was in everyone’s interests it remained that way. The one thing Turnbull didn’t doubt was that Phelps had murdered his officer. Knowing Phelps it would’ve been a brutal end but it didn’t do to dwell on that. DS Marlow had volunteered for the job. He’d been well trained, seemed tough enough. Turnbull tried to recall his first name; it was Phil, no, maybe it was Alex.
He stared at his BlackBerry, then tapped out a quick memo to his PA: make sure the DNA gets fast-tracked, set up a meeting with Marlow’s family. It was important he do this right, break the news himself. They’d want details, which of course they couldn’t have. He’d try to placate them with a speedy post-mortem and an offer of help with the funeral costs. He paused. He could put Marlow up for a medal, but then one of the broadsheets might start digging. That wouldn’t please the Assistant Commissioner and keeping her onside was essential.
Turnbull gazed out of the window; on an open stretch of dual carriageway the car was cruising at speed before hitting London traffic. A small, private smile crept over his features. This was also an opportunity he could never have foreseen. He was sorry Marlow was dead, obviously he was. Still, it opened things up, put the Phelps inquiry on a whole new plane. Turnbull knew it was his moment but did he have the balls? Carpe diem, a Latin tag from school, flitted through his mind. He’d hated that place, being a poor kid in a rich kids’ school. But the bitter memory galvanized him. He speed-dialled his office. His PA answered on the second ring. He didn’t bother with any preamble.