by Jaime Raven
Both bullets had smashed into her chest and thrown her against the wall behind her. She’d slid to the floor as blood poured from the wounds onto her bright-green blouse.
Rosa had then stepped behind the counter to make sure that her victim was dead. And that was when she’d spotted the sleek black digital video recorder beneath the counter, the machine that no doubt stored the surveillance camera footage. It was a stupid place to put it and it took Rosa just seconds to unplug it from the mains and walk out of the shop with it under her arm.
The DVR had fitted snugly in one of the saddlebags and on the way back to the garage she’d dumped that and the overcoat in a commercial wheelie bin in front of a car park.
Now as she reflected on the completion of another successful job, the corners of her mouth lifted in a satisfied smirk. She was on a roll, for sure. Carlos would be pleased and so would the client. She now had to hope that the rest of the assignment went just as smoothly. If so, then she could start to think about ways of spending some of the half million dollars she was being paid.
29
Laura
There was no easy way to break the news to us so Drummond didn’t attempt to.
But before speaking to us he called DI Phil Warren into his office and got him to sit with a very distraught Graham Nash. Warren was Nash’s closest friend on the task force and they often worked together as a pair.
After the boss had closed his door on them he told us that Nash’s wife Marion had been shot dead in her bookshop on Clapham High Street.
‘It’s believed to have happened about two hours ago,’ Drummond said. ‘Her body was found lying behind the counter by a customer. The senior investigating officer at the scene has only just discovered that she was Graham’s wife and one of the people who received the death threat.’
There was a long, heavy silence during which nobody spoke or moved. We were all shocked and paralysed. My mind raced along with my heart. I thought about the death threat we had all received.
… I’m calling on you and the other detectives attached to the unit to step back from it. Those of you who refuse will suffer the consequences and either you or those close to you, including family members, will be killed …
Oh God.
First Dave Prentiss. Now Graham Nash’s wife, Marion. I couldn’t believe it. Didn’t want to believe it.
My mind seemed to shut down for a time and I was only half aware of what was going on around me. I heard more than one person sobbing. I felt my own tears threaten, but I squeezed my eyes closed and fought them back.
Suddenly there was a burst of activity in the room. Phones started ringing. People started talking and moving. Drummond’s strident voice rose above the sounds, telling us all to stay calm.
Time appeared to stand still for a while, but a lot actually happened. Drummond dispatched himself to the crime scene in Clapham, this time with Tony Marsden in tow.
DCI Nash, who was a total wreck, was escorted out of the room by Warren and two support staffers. I had no idea where they were taking him.
Janet Dean sat beside me and broke down and someone switched on the TV monitors so that we heard that reports were coming in of another fatal shooting in London.
I just sat behind my desk as the anger and anxiety balled like a fist inside me. I was trying to decide what to do when the Commissioner himself suddenly appeared in the office.
John Saunders was a tall, lean man with a thin face and pinched features. He was meticulously dressed in his uniform and he immediately seized our attention.
‘DCS Drummond has appraised me of the situation by phone,’ he said. ‘He’s asked me to tell you that he’ll be back as soon as he’s spoken to the SOI in Clapham and checked the scene for himself. He’d like you all to stay here so that he can brief you on his return. I realise that this is a difficult time, but it’s essential that we hold it together and don’t weaken our resolve in response to these terrible events.’
To his credit the man didn’t retreat when questions were fired at him about what protection would be provided for the rest of us.
But instead of listening to his answers I reached for the phone on my desk. I wanted to know that Aidan was all right. I also had to tell him there had been another murder – and that I wouldn’t be coming home any time soon after all.
30
Slack
On the way to the office Slack tapped out a message on one of his burner phones.
Call me on this number
Five minutes later his mobile rang and he answered it.
‘Can you talk?’ he said.
The voice on the other end of the line was barely above a whisper.
‘I can now. I’ve been trying to contact you, Roy.’
‘I know, but I’ve been busy. Where are you now?’
‘At the Yard. Just outside the office.’
‘So tell me what you know about the Clapham killing.’
‘But surely you already know that the victim was the wife of one of the detectives. Everyone here is gutted.’
‘Good. So any sign that the Met is about to roll over and close down the task force?’
‘Are you fucking insane? It’s never going to happen and you must know it.’
He laughed. ‘That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.’
‘I don’t get it. This is madness. You have to stop it.’
‘Don’t tell me you’ve suddenly developed a conscience,’ he said. ‘You’ve never given a shit about your colleagues before.’
‘But this is different. When I gave you the list of names and contact details you didn’t tell me what you were going to do with it. If I’d known you were going to start killing people I would never have done it.’
‘You had no fucking choice,’ he snapped. ‘It was either that or I was gonna let it be known that you’ve been on my payroll for the past five years and that a while back you were involved in the murder of a police officer. So stop whinging and stay the fucking course. If you don’t I’ll see to it that you spend the rest of your life in a cell.’
‘But I don’t understand what you’re hoping to achieve by doing this. It won’t stop the Met from going after the firm. You’re still the prime suspect despite your denials. And why are you so set on seeing the task force wound up if you’re not going to be around for much longer? It makes no sense to me.’
‘It has nothing to do with the task force or the firm,’ he said. ‘This is me getting my own back against your lot for all the grief I’ve suffered over the years. I want revenge before I die.’
He waited for a response, but all he heard was a sharp intake of breath.
‘There are things that have been done to me that you know nothing about,’ he said. ‘But eventually it’ll become clear to you and everyone else. In the meantime stop pretending that you care about your colleagues and do what you’re paid to do – which is whatever I say.’
Slack pressed his thumb against the call-end icon and heaved an almighty sigh.
Bent coppers never ceased to amaze him. They were happy to take the bung and shaft their mates. And yet at the same time they tried to convince themselves that they were still good people.
Fucking pathetic.
It was another reason he hated the Old Bill so much. They were hypocritical slags who had fewer morals than most of the people they pursued.
The meeting got underway as soon as he arrived at the office, and he found it hard not to feel sorry for the men sitting with him around the table. They were his loyal lieutenants, after all. Several of them – Frank Piper, Adam Clarke and Johnny Lightfoot – had been with him for years. And they had done their bit to ensure that the firm thrived and prospered.
But they now faced an uncertain future through no fault of their own.
After he was gone the firm would in all likelihood fall apart. Danny had made it clear that he wasn’t going to hang around with a view to taking over. As soon as Slack gave him the go-ahead – and the rest of the money he’d
been promised – he was going to flee to South America and carve out a new life for himself.
The rest of the lads were going to be left to pick up the pieces. And that wasn’t going to be easy. The Old Bill would no doubt seek their own form of retribution after the bloodbath finally ended and they got wind of his suicide note.
Piper and the others were going to find it hard to convince anyone that they hadn’t known that their boss had ordered the killings. The cops might well accuse them of being involved. And even if there were no formal charges, the lads were going to be in for a rough ride.
But none of this stopped Slack from lying through his teeth when he was asked if he knew anything about the murder of DI Dave Prentiss and the threats against other members of the task force and their families. The media hadn’t yet linked these with the murder in Clapham earlier in the evening.
‘Believe me, I’m as much in the dark as you are,’ Slack said, sounding as sincere as an evangelist. ‘I don’t know who’s behind it. So I can only assume it’s one of the other outfits, probably the Russians. They know the task force will be going after them as well.’
It was a plausible enough explanation and the guys appeared to accept it. But then why wouldn’t they? Slack had always been up front with them in the past and he had looked after their interests. They also knew that to question his honesty was a sure way to wind up in hospital.
The thing was, he didn’t feel that he owed them anything beyond what they’d already had from him. Under his leadership they had made pots of money. It was how they could afford to live in fancy houses and drive around in flash cars.
It’d be different if they were family. But they weren’t. Thanks to the Old Bill he didn’t have a family.
The meeting was constructive only in the sense that they covered a lot of ground. It was agreed that while they were under unusually high levels of police surveillance they would put the brakes on some of the operations, including the riskier aspects of the drugs distribution network and the collection of protection money.
‘It’ll cost us a fucking fortune,’ Frank Piper said, his voice stretched with tension.
Slack nodded. ‘I realise that, but it can’t be helped while all this shit’s going down.’
Slack ended the meeting with more lies about how he had their interests at heart and how he was confident the task force would not topple the firm.
He wasn’t feeling well suddenly and he knew that if he didn’t take his medication it was going to get a lot worse. There was already a pain at the base of his spine and it would soon work its way up his back.
The problem was he’d left his tablets at the flat so it meant skipping dinner and heading straight back there.
‘Go downstairs and enjoy yourselves lads,’ he said. ‘I have some business to attend to so I won’t be joining you.’
After they’d left the meeting room he asked Danny to join him in his office and there he explained why he couldn’t hang around.
‘I’ll be fine once I’ve dosed myself up,’ he said.
He dictated a short text message that he wanted Danny to send to the task force detectives. Then, before leaving the office, he sent a text to the phone he’d given to Rosa Lopez.
Good work so far. I’m adding another name to the list. Deal with this one asap. Details to follow.
31
Laura
Aidan reacted to the news of Marion Nash’s murder by saying, ‘Oh God. This is terrifying.’
I told him that I didn’t have the details and that I wasn’t sure when I’d be home.
‘I don’t know what’s going to happen.’ I said. ‘Things are moving so fast we can barely keep up.’
I had never been in this position before. None of us had. We were not only police officers. We were also victims. And so were those who were close to us. It made it difficult to know how to respond.
‘You should go and get some sleep,’ I said to Aidan. ‘Don’t wait up for me. And please do what you can to make mum feel safe.’
As I hung up, my throat got tight. It was becoming harder for me to keep a lid on my emotions. Coppers were supposed to remain detached and objective. Calm under pressure. But, under the circumstances, that simply wasn’t possible.
The fear was bunching up inside me and I was feeling emotionally raw. Two people were dead – one a close colleague and friend, the other the wife of another colleague.
I’d met Marion Nash on several occasions. And her husband had never tired of telling the rest of us how she had given up her job as a librarian to open her own bookshop. Her only son had flown the nest so she had put her heart and soul into making it a success.
Her death was indeed a terrible, pointless tragedy. The second in less than twenty-four hours. That in itself was enough to make the blood curdle.
It told us that we were dealing with a cold, calculating killer. A true professional. Someone who planned ahead. Someone who researched his victims and knew where they would be at any given time.
I thought it sensible to assume that the assassin was male. Most contract killers were, certainly in this part of the world. In South America and Mexico it was different. There women were just as likely to be gang leaders and hired guns.
But in Europe and the US it was a male-dominated profession. Some hitmen even advertised their services on the dark web. Many of those were rank amateurs, though, and they were often hired by men and women who wanted their spouses or business partners bumped off. They usually ended up getting caught and their subsequent trials were becoming regular features in tabloid newspapers.
But the real pros managed to ply their trade for years while raking in huge amounts of money. They were the guys who crime lords like Roy Slack turned to when they wanted one or more executions to be carried out cleanly and efficiently. They were like ghosts who appeared only when they were summoned and then disappeared again after their work was done.
It was possible that the killer now on the rampage in London had been brought in from abroad. If so then it was doubtful that he had ever appeared on the radars of any of our law enforcement agencies.
It would therefore be difficult, if not impossible, to identify him. So the only way we stood a chance of catching the bastard was if he made a mistake.
And how likely was that?
Before leaving the office, the Commissioner assured everyone that a plan would be drawn up to provide protection for all of us. But he reiterated what he had announced publicly – that the task force operations would not be suspended.
‘We cannot give in to this lunatic’s demand,’ he said. ‘If we do there’s no telling what will happen. He might well turn his attention to one of the other task forces or specialist units. Would we then be expected to close those down as well?’
It was a point I hadn’t considered because I’d been assuming that the motive for the threats and the murders was simply to halt our investigation into Roy Slack’s firm. If there was more to it than that then I couldn’t for the life of me think what it could be.
I was still of the view that Slack had a hand in what was happening, either alone or as part of a consortium of crime syndicates that had got together to fight back against the Met.
After all, across the various divisions we’d inflicted considerable damage on the London underworld during the past couple of years. It was therefore conceivable that they were now aiming to cause fear and panic within our ranks in an attempt to limit our effectiveness.
This was an issue we discussed among ourselves while waiting for Drummond and Tony Marsden to return. When they did, at just after eleven o’clock, they both wore sombre expressions. Drummond explained in heartbreaking detail what had happened in Clapham. How the killer had entered the shop and fired two bullets into Marion Nash’s chest while she stood behind the counter.
‘None of the people working in neighbouring premises heard gunfire,’ he said. ‘That suggests a silencer was used. We’ll know for sure if it was the same weapon after foren
sics have checked it.’
But there was no doubt in any of our minds that it would be the same gun.
‘There’s a single surveillance camera in the shop, but the killer took the digital video recorder with him,’ Drummond continued. ‘CCTV cameras in the street have still to be checked.’
DS Marsden then told us that Graham Nash had been taken to the crime scene at his own insistence. He had identified his wife and was now at home.
‘He’s obviously in a very bad way,’ Marsden said. ‘We’ve managed to contact their son, and Graham has a brother who’s flying in from Dublin as we speak.’
We were all far too shocked and exhausted to carry on working in any meaningful way so Drummond told us to go home and get some sleep. The office would be manned by a handful of support staff who were on the night shift.
But as soon as he finished speaking there came a further shock. It arrived in the form of another text message on the phones of all the detectives. And once again it made us realise that we had absolutely no control over the situation we found ourselves in.
Next time it could be you or someone you love. You know what you have to do to stay safe. And by the way, any officers assigned to protect you will themselves become targets.
32
Rosa
This time they returned to Alice’s apartment just before midnight. They’d spent the evening dancing and smooching at the Vichy Lounge, and not once did Rosa think about the assignment. Instead she gave into a passion that consumed every bit of her mind and body and left no room for anything else.
The pretty young Londoner had that effect on her. Rosa could not recall the last time she’d been with someone with whom she felt so compatible.
They were lying on their backs now, having spent the last hour feasting on each other’s flesh. Above the bed the glow from a scented candle flickered on the ceiling.
‘I’m really going to miss you when you go back to Mexico,’ Alice said.