Informant

by Susan Wilkins

  Kaz stared at him, she was beginning to see Ashley in a whole new light. He tipped a couple of pills into his palm, offered them to Natalie.

  ‘There you go Nat. Make you feel better.’

  Natalie didn’t hesitate for a second; pills, powders, this was what she knew. She hoovered them up like Smarties, even managed to give Ashley the ghost of a smile. ‘Cheers.’

  Ashley tipped out a third pill and handed it to her. ‘One more for luck, eh?’

  Natalie gobbled it down.

  The lift doors opened at the ground floor, Ashley stepped out into the lobby and did a quick recce. A crowd of people was gathering outside round the wheelie bins, someone was on a mobile, several kids were using their phones to take pictures of the corpse. People were milling about in an atmosphere of excitement and prurience. But that made things easier.

  A battered-looking CCTV camera was mounted on the wall facing the entrance, Ashley considered it. Then a gang of lads on bikes rode up, eager to see what was going on. This gave Ashley the chance he was looking for. He grabbed Natalie’s arm and, using the lads as cover, slipped through the outer door and along the wall until they were out of the camera’s range.

  No one gave them a second glance as they skirted round and back to the car park, but the Range Rover was long gone.

  Kaz stared at the empty parking space and huffed. ‘Oh that’s just great.’

  Ashley was on alert, his eyes scanning in all directions. ‘Don’t worry, he’ll be fine.’

  Kaz snorted. ‘He’ll be fine? He’ll be fuckin’ fine! What about us?’

  Natalie was standing, face upturned, blinking at the sky. It occurred to Kaz that she might not have been outside in full daylight for a while. Suddenly a shaft of sunlight burst from behind the scudding clouds and drenched them and the scrubby tarmac in blinding sunshine. Natalie pulled up her hood to shield her eyes and started to squirm. ‘Need a pee.’

  Kaz glared at her; the determination to rescue her baby sister had worn decidedly thin in the last half-hour. ‘You’ll have to wait.’

  Natalie pressed her knees together, she was bent almost double, her face contorted. ‘Need a pee.’

  A wailing siren announced the imminent arrival of a police car. Ashley put a guiding hand on Natalie’s elbow. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  ‘Need a pee.’

  Kaz and Ashley propelled Natalie down the road between them. Once they were out of sight of the flats, they allowed her to squat behind a parked car and take a piss. As she relieved herself Ashley got out his phone and made a call. Kaz paced the pavement and tried to get her jumbled thoughts in some kind of order. Two weeks out of prison, how the hell did she land herself in this unholy mess? She cursed her own stupidity. She should be sitting calmly and safely in her life drawing class, not running from a murder scene. Getting hooked up with her family was always going to be a mistake. How many times had she told herself that? She’d sworn never to go down this road again, but here she was, up to her neck in shite, courtesy of Joey.

  Natalie was fumbling to refasten her jeans, she couldn’t seem to coordinate her fingers. Kaz grabbed her by the waistband and hoicked up the zip none too gently.

  Natalie gazed up at her, her watery blue eyes met Kaz’s angry gaze. ‘Got a fag?’

  Kaz considered clumping her, but she held back. What had she expected anyway, when she came looking for her baby sister? Natalie was no baby any more, she was an eighteen-year-old drug addict whose life had gradually and inexorably spiralled out of control over the last six years. She needed help and she needed treatment. She needed someone who cared about her enough and was prepared to persist for long enough to see that she got those things. Their mother clearly couldn’t give a toss, Joey had issues of his own. That left her, Karen, playing the big sister once again, a role she’d vowed would have no part in her new life.

  Ashley clicked his mobile off and smiled. ‘Right, got things sorted. We need to head down to the front, wait for a pick-up.’

  A stiff breeze was blowing up the estuary, they walked away from the primped and paved esplanade until they found a shelter facing the beach. It was wrought-iron, much painted, a random piece of Victoriana left over from Southend’s glory days. Kaz swept abandoned chip papers from the seat and sat down. There were few people about aside from a Muslim family, the women wearing hijab, laughing and teasing each other as they attempted to keep the ends of their scarves from blowing in their ice creams. They seemed happy in each other’s company, the children buzzing one another on their scooters, one of the men swinging a toddler up on to his shoulders. An ordinary family on a day out at the seaside, Kaz felt envious.

  Natalie curled up in the corner of the shelter and stared into space. She seemed a whole lot calmer now. The benzodiazepine had kicked in. Ashley positioned himself with a view both up and down the promenade. The funfair was one way, the Sea Life Centre the other. Kaz watched him.

  ‘You knew what he’d do, didn’t you?’

  Ashley gave her a shifty glance. ‘Nah not really. Joey’s always full of surprises.’

  Kaz returned his look with her own searching gaze. ‘Thirteen? Unlucky for some? Ain’t that what your joke was about?’

  ‘I was being a prat.’

  ‘Strikes me Ash, you pretend to be a prat. That’s your cover. But you’re a lot more canny than you let on.’

  Ashley’s grin was lopsided but he seemed to appreciate the compliment. ‘Well, y’know what Joey’s like.’

  ‘I used to. But I reckon you got the drop on me now.’

  Ashley smiled. ‘Nah, ain’t no one matters to him as much as his sister.’

  Kaz snorted. ‘Yeah? Which one?’

  Ashley didn’t reply. They both knew the answer and it wasn’t Natalie. He spent the next quarter of an hour fidgeting, continually glancing up the road. Kaz left him to it. She needed time to gather herself and figure out a viable strategy to keep her from going straight back to jail. And Fat Pat would be waiting.

  Kaz felt her gut contract. She was imagining the screw’s gleeful greeting, when she noticed Ashley raise his arm at a big black BMW X5, which promptly drew up kerbside. A bloke, well over six foot, got out of the passenger door and strode towards them.

  Ashley smiled at him. ‘All right mate?’ The man nodded. Ashley glanced at Kaz. ‘Don’t know if you two have met?’

  Kaz looked him up and down. He was solid muscle with sleeve tattoos up both arms, head shaved to a dark stubble.

  ‘Kaz. Yev.’

  Yevgeny gave her a curt but respectful nod.

  ‘You do some serious time for a woman.’ His accent was thick as treacle, to Kaz’s untrained ear it could’ve placed him anywhere east of Krakow.

  She smiled. ‘Yeah. Reckon I did.’

  He nodded again, pondering this. Then he glanced at Natalie in the shelter. ‘Want me to carry her to the car?’

  Kaz looked at her sister. ‘She’ll be all right.’ She held out her hand. ‘Come on Nat, time to go.’

  Natalie got up and meekly took Kaz’s hand. She allowed herself to be led to the four-by-four. Ashley held the door open and she climbed in the back. He buckled her in as you would a child.

  Kaz glanced at the driver, he was a younger version of Yevgeny. He wore tight leather gloves, with the backs cut out. Yevgeny himself was still sizing her up. He smiled.

  ‘My brother. Tolya.’

  Tolya gave Kaz a friendly salute.

  ‘His English ain’t so good.’

  Kaz returned Tolya’s smile, then glanced at Yevgeny. ‘Little brothers eh? They can give you a lot of grief.’

  Yevgeny pursed his lips and gave a curt nod. A man of few words, Kaz reflected, though it was hard to say if this was because of his language skills or his temperament. Kaz looked at him, then at Ashley. She resented the fact that she was being rescued and protected by Joey’s minders. Yevgeny was holding the rear door of the Beamer open for her. She was a female relative of the boss; organizing her, controlling her, th
at was his prerogative, he was simply doing his job. Fuck this, thought Kaz. She folded her arms and stood her ground.

  ‘Right, well one of you two lads had better get that miserable little fucker on the phone, ’cause I want a word with him.’

  Ashley met her look nervously. Her gaze bored into him.

  ‘You heard me Ash. Now.’

  Then she opened the front passenger door of the car and climbed in beside Tolya.

  14

  Mal Bradley placed himself strategically at the very back of the room in the hope that Turnbull wouldn’t notice him. He’d spent the last three days attending a life drawing class at the Slade School of Fine Art, part of a summer school course that Karen Phelps had signed up for. She’d signed up but so far she hadn’t shown up and Bradley’s pathetic attempts to put charcoal to paper had earned him some sympathy and a slew of patronizing advice from his fellow students. Initially he’d assumed that sitting in on the class would be a doddle, staring at naked young women all day, he could manage that. But the model turned out to be male, muscular with a periodically tumescent penis, which embarrassed Bradley, although no one else in the class seemed to notice.

  Bradley spent the rest of his time hanging round the hostel in his assumed role of support worker. Only the SPO knew his true identity, everyone else simply accepted him. Karen’s stuff was still in her room, he knew that because he’d used the pass key to take a snoop. But Karen herself was proving evasive. She’d checked in with the SPO, the story was she was visiting her sick father.

  If Bradley was honest he didn’t know how to move forward or who to ask. When the boss had summoned him he’d been on the team barely a week. He’d had only nine months out of uniform, done a couple of courses, but mostly he’d been sitting on his backside all day listening to phone taps. The new skipper was DS Nicci Armstrong and he’d made the mistake of calling her ‘Skip’. She’d given him a disbelieving glare.

  ‘I’m not your bloody dog Bradley.’

  ‘Sorry Skip.’

  It was nervousness pure and simple, but she hadn’t seen it that way. She thought he was trying to be smart. Some of the other lads had laughed and that made it worse. Armstrong was one of these don’t-fuck-with-me women, she’d have your nuts in the wringer as soon as she looked at you. She was early thirties and had a kid, he only knew this because he’d overheard her bitching to one of the others about the cost of childcare.

  Turnbull had called everyone in for an emergency briefing, but all Bradley could glean from the rumour mill was there’d been ‘developments’. The boss walked into the room flanked by the DCI; Bill Mayhew was maybe ten years older than Turnbull and perpetually harassed.

  Turnbull surveyed the room with a thin smile. He was seriously hacked off, but not about to reveal that to his assembled officers until he was good and ready. Sharply suited, the tip of a white handkerchief peeping out of his top pocket, Bradley admired his style. Beside him the pot-bellied, scurrying Mayhew looked like a down-and-out. Turnbull continued his leisurely scan as Mayhew and another minion prepared the PowerPoint presentation. His eyes came to rest on Bradley for a second, then they moved on. A mugshot of a young man in round glasses with a mass of unruly dreadlocks came up on the projection screen. Turnbull glanced up at it then he turned to address the room.

  ‘Afternoon everyone. Jeremy Mark Harris, known as Jez. Twenty-two years old, known drug dealer and the former partner of Natalie Phelps. I say former, because this morning he plunged to his death from the thirteenth floor of a tower block in Southend. Question is did he fall or was he pushed?’

  Turnbull’s eyes roved around the room and settled on Nicci Armstrong, who shifted uncomfortably. Turnbull stared at her. He was pissed off because events had overtaken him, they’d moved out of his control. In his position that was dangerous at the best of times.

  ‘DS Armstrong, you were in charge of the surveillance team on Joey Phelps. Perhaps you’d take up the tale from here.’

  Armstrong cleared her throat. ‘Yes sir, well . . .’

  ‘Come up to the front Sergeant, so we can all hear you.’ Turnbull’s tone betrayed his anger and there was sympathy in the room for Nicci as she edged round the desks and her fellow officers. She took up a position with her back to the screen, as far away from Turnbull as she could manage. He didn’t smile.

  ‘In your own time Sergeant.’

  The sarcasm in his voice served only to galvanize Nicci. She glanced at the smug fucker and raised her chin defiantly. She was hardly the first person to have blown a surveillance and she wasn’t about to take the rap for this fuck-up.

  ‘Essex Police logged Jez Harris’s death at eleven-o-five this morning. Myself and DC Payne were in a surveillance vehicle which followed Joey Phelps’s Range Rover Evoque into Southend at approximately ten a.m. Unfortunately we were involved in an incident at some traffic lights and we lost Phelps. The Range Rover was clocked by an ANPR camera on the A127 heading out of Southend at eleven seventeen.’

  Nicci shot a look at Turnbull and waited.

  ‘Presumably you did get a look at who was travelling with Phelps in the vehicle?’

  Nicci nodded. ‘Ashley Carter was driving. Karen Phelps was in the back.’

  Turnbull’s gaze shot down the room and zoned in on Bradley. ‘Did you know about her trip to Southend DC Bradley?’

  Bradley felt like a rabbit caught in the headlights.

  ‘No sir.’

  ‘No sir?’ Turnbull raised his eyebrows. ‘How is it that not one of you was up to the mark on this? Karen Phelps gets out of jail and goes with her brother to visit their junkie sister in Southend. Within an hour of their arrival her sister’s boyfriend has taken a dive out of the window. And we know nothing about it until I get a call from Essex Police.’

  Bradley focused on a loose thread fraying from the cuff of his denim shirt. He sensed Turnbull was just getting started. ‘Come up here Bradley.’

  Bradley raised his head, jutted his chin to bolster his confidence and made his way to the front. He still felt like an errant schoolboy, which he knew was Turnbull’s intention.

  ‘Stand next to Armstrong. Now, tell me, what is going on here? Have we got a communications problem? Did your mobile run out of juice Bradley?’

  The young officer blinked. ‘No sir.’

  Nicci Armstrong took a deep breath, she’d had more than enough of Turnbull’s crap. She wasn’t about to be turned into a scapegoat to cover his arse.

  ‘Can I speak sir? Because there’s a hell of a lot more to this than meets the eye.’

  Turnbull put his hands in his pockets. ‘Okay, let’s hear it.’

  ‘First of all the surveillance. We’re trying to keep tabs on someone like Joey Phelps using one car, which is ridiculous. We follow him into Southend, we’re two vehicles behind at the traffic lights and we get rear-ended by a bloody great BMW four-by-four. It’s got French plates, which, when we finally get a trace on them, turn out to be false. It’s got two blokes in it, who speak not a word of English and from their tattoos look like they’ve been demobbed from the Russian army. The whole thing was no coincidence. Add to that the fact the tracker we placed on Phelps’s vehicle turns up at a motorway services on the M25 on a Tesco’s lorry. Phelps is running rings round us and will continue to do so until we’re provided with adequate resources to carry out a proper, professional surveillance operation.’

  The room was completely silent. No one moved a muscle. Bradley was close enough to Armstrong to feel the tension and the fury burning off her. A dozen pairs of eyes were focused expectantly on Turnbull. He pursed his lips, inhaled. He decided to go with the flow, in this instant it seemed the best option.

  ‘Well . . . glad someone’s got the balls to speak up.’ He swivelled round and focused on the unfortunate Mayhew. ‘One-car surveillance Bill? How was that ever going to work?’

  Mayhew sucked in a mouthful of air and hunched his shoulders. He could’ve announced to the whole room that in trying to manage with one
vehicle they’d been following Turnbull’s earlier instructions. But he knew better than to challenge the boss in public.

  Bradley followed the exchange intently; clearly when Turnbull had said they often had to busk it he hadn’t been lying.

  Turnbull gave Nicci an apologetic shrug. ‘What can I tell you Sergeant? The cuts are the bane of all our lives. Unfortunately we must soldier on with the resources we have.’

  Nicci smiled to herself, she knew she had him on the ropes. ‘Can I finish sir? Because this is not simply an issue of resources.’

  Turnbull folded his arms, she was an ambitious little bitch, but he was beginning to think that might work to his advantage. He gave her a smile, inviting her to continue.

  ‘DC Bradley is new to the case, we gather he’s been tasked to work undercover. But so far as I’m aware, there’s been no attempt to bring him up to speed with the rest of the operation. Okay, if he’s running a chiz I can appreciate that he must act independently and maintain a sterile corridor. But we still need a formal mechanism for the exchange of intelligence.’

  Bradley glanced sideways at her. She was the last person he expected to ride to his rescue. Turnbull rubbed a finger over his chin and pondered as if he were giving her words the most serious consideration. Then he nodded sagely, glanced at Mayhew. ‘Fair comment Bill?’

  Mayhew took a deep breath and ran his fingers round the inside of his trouser belt, easing the pressure on his paunch. There was an undercurrent of resentment in the room and everyone knew it. Alex Marlow wasn’t even in his grave and Bradley had been parachuted in.

  ‘Well of course boss, I think the whole team has been upset by the loss of Alex Marlow. He did a lot of good work. A number of officers, including Nicci, provided excellent backup. It was all running like a well-oiled machine. Which makes what happened this morning doubly unfortunate. But we need to learn the lesson, reorganize and regroup.’ He nodded to himself as if struck by the good sense of his own advice, then he glanced at Turnbull and waited.

  Turnbull was leaning against a desk, jingling his change. He knew what Mayhew was telling him: he’d pissed people off. But frankly he couldn’t give a toss, he needed to get the show back on the road. He nodded his head thoughtfully several times.