Marius

by Laurence Todd

  “Yeah,” I agreed, looking at my watch, “probably about now.” I didn’t bother asking how she knew this.

  “Sally’d been vetted previously, of course, when she covered the mayoral election for the Evening Standard, which was gonna bring her into contact with leading political figures from right across the political spectrum. Came out clean. But, before she interviewed the Home Secretary, she was routinely vetted again, and the only major change we found in her circumstances from a few months back was” – she smiled wickedly – “it’d been red flagged she was now involved in a relationship with a Special Branch detective sergeant.” She raised her eyebrows.

  Red flagged meant that there was a connection to someone in security.

  “I knew she’d also been interviewed by Special Branch after her article about Blatchford’s insider dealing had been published,” she said with a shrug, “and I knew you were involved in the Blatchford case, so, when I saw the words relationship and Special Branch, I just knew it was you. I checked up on it and I was right.” She smiled. “That’s how I know.”

  I should have known.

  “Anyway, I’m pleased for you, Rob. Take care.” A quick hug and she headed off to the Foreign Office. I sat for a few more minutes thinking about what I’d just heard.

  I knew Harry Ferguson had had a stellar career inside the security service, but I’d often wondered why someone with his abilities never made it higher in the service. I remembered once asking him about this, and he’d replied it was because, despite being an Old Salopian and Oxford man, and satisfying all the criteria required for promotion to the top, he was thought not to be officer and a gentleman material by those in the higher echelons of the service, although considered eminently clubbable. But, if what I’d just been told was correct, this offered another interpretation.

  He’d spent the last several years of his career languishing as a training officer, taking fledgling talent and putting it through its paces. Nothing wrong with this; he had a considerable depth of knowledge and expertise he could pass along to young recruits. I for one had certainly benefited enormously from what he knew. But I also knew he was capable of so much better. Was this the reason he had never achieved it? More than anything, it made me wonder if what I’d just heard was true.

  But I decided not to make a run at Harry Ferguson just yet. I was going to start lower down the food chain. I still had unfinished business with Drake Mahoney, and it didn’t get much lower down than him.

  *

  I parked a few houses down from Mahoney’s flat. I rang the doorbell and a dishevelled, half-asleep Mahoney answered the door, looking like he’d been dragged backwards through a prickly hedge. He sighed.

  “Good morning, Mr Mahoney,” I said brightly, trying to annoy him.

  “What you want now?” he asked, almost in exasperation.

  “We’ve unfinished business,” I said as I walked past him. I’d got to the door of his flat when I noticed he’d run off.

  I turned back and, outside, saw him running along Pratt Street and about to turn into Camden Street. I sprinted after him. I was dressed for it in trainers and jeans and I soon caught up with him. As I caught him up, I nudged him off-balance. He lost his footing and fell heavily against the wall and dropped to the pavement. I hauled him to his feet and put him in an arm lock. There was an unpleasant odour emanating from him.

  “Now, that was pretty stupid, wasn’t it?” I gripped his arm very tight and twisted.

  “Okay, okay,” he gasped, breathing rapidly. I released my grip after a few moments and we walked back to his flat.

  He slumped down in his armchair, still with the clothes lying on it. He was breathing heavily, almost gasping for air. I poured him some water in a dirty glass as there were no clean glasses or cups. He drained it in one gulp. I gave him a few moments to get his breathing back to normal. He took out a cigarette and lit it, taking an unhealthily long drag, which seemed to relax him.

  “It’s disgusting to see a man your age so unfit.” I grinned at him.

  He didn’t say anything. He had the stunted breathing of a man seriously out of condition.

  “So, as I was asking yesterday, how do you know DI Glett? Why were you meeting him in Portobello Road Saturday?”

  “I just know him, you know?” He shrugged casually. “He’s busted me a couple of times.”

  “Oh, really? I’ve busted several people, but they don’t have my number on speed dial. So here’s the deal, Drake. Either you tell me what the score is between you two, or” – I withdrew the hand restraints from my jacket pocket – “I’m gonna arrest you right now and you’ll be charged with obstruction as well as on suspicion of being an associate of terrorists.” I’d adopted a serious tone. “You wanna know what time it is, pal? It’s make-your-mind-up time. Talk or I take you in.”

  He sat silently for a few moments, looking vacant and gradually realising there was no way out. It was either talk to me or face arrest. Depending on what he said, he might still be facing an arrest. This was what we in the trade referred to as a defining moment, where what happens in the next period of your life depends upon what you do and say in the next few moments. He sighed a few more times.

  “What do I get if I talk?” He sounded nervous.

  “You get my undivided attention and, if I like what I hear, you could get favourable consideration when arrests are made.”

  He thought for a few moments, then nodded.

  “Okay,” he sighed. “I met him Saturday because I had to give him his money.”

  This jolted me. It took a moment for it to sink into my consciousness. His money?

  “His money?” My voice rose slightly in disbelief. I moved closer to him. I remembered thinking I’d seen something being passed between them at the market Saturday afternoon.

  “I pay him off.” He suddenly sounded more confident, as though he were confessing his sins. “He’s in with the Chackartis, isn’t he? They pay him whatever it is he gets. They give it to me and I give it to him. He can’t get it from the top bosses, for obvious reasons, he’s a senior police officer, so they leave it at the club and I collect it from there. He can’t go to the club that often, and I’m too far down the pecking order to bother with, so he meets me and I pass it on to him. Officially I’m listed as his informant, though I pay him.” His face contorted into what I assumed was a smile.

  I was too astounded to speak for a moment. There were so many thoughts colliding in my head. “You’re telling me Glett’s dirty?”

  “Fucking right he’s dirty,” Mahoney said, now speaking with full confidence. He was warming to his subject. “He probably gets a couple thousand a month from the Chackartis, everyone knows that.” He adopted a disbelieving tone. “Don’t tell me you didn’t know.”

  I fucking didn’t know. Christ.

  “So what does he have to do for this illicit bounty?” I asked hesitantly.

  “Oh, come on, what do you think? He feeds them info tipping them off about ongoing investigations involving the family. Lets them know if police are getting too close, arranges for evidence to go missing, stuff like that. He carries out the odd task for them as well.”

  “Like what?” I was stunned at what I’d heard.

  He thought for a moment. “Like last Wednesday. He was told a couple of prats had nicked a policeman’s car, and they’d nearly implicated the family by taking it to one of their chop shops. So he arranges for one of them to get his head kicked in.”

  Chappy Watts. From his expression, I already knew the answer to the next question.

  “You were involved in that, weren’t you?”

  “Yeah,” he said after a few seconds’ pause. “Me and a mate. Glett gave us the address and told us to go kick the shit out of him for being so fucking stupid.”

  “You know who the victim was?”

  “No. Glett just told us where he lived, told us to work him over and tell him not to be so stupid again.”

  “His friend, the one he nicke
d the car with, was stabbed to death same night. Actually, hacked to death would be more appropriate. You know anything about that?”

  “I know it happened, but I didn’t stab anyone.”

  “But I’ll wager you know who stabbed him, don’t you?” I asserted confidently.

  He looked down on the floor. His body language told me he knew. I waited.

  “Someone answers for this, Drake, so, if you know, tell me. If not, I’ll arrest you right now, and I’ll add GBH to the charges, section eighteen, causing grievous bodily harm. The victim will ID you, that’s a fact.”

  He was looking worried. He was now out of options. “You won’t let on you got the name from me? They’ll fucking kill me if they find out I talked.”

  “If it’s the right person and we get a result, no, I won’t.”

  He paused for a few more moments. “I heard it was someone called Mick, don’t know his last name. All I know is he hangs out at Las Vargas. I’ve seen him there occasionally.”

  The one we’d met last Tuesday? “Mick. Tall, skinny, stupid-looking?”

  “Sounds like him.” He nodded.

  “Who gave him the order to stab this kid?”

  “Matey tells Glett to get someone and go kick this bloke’s head in, but Mick shanks him instead, doesn’t he?”

  “Glett and Barry Mates know each other?”

  Mahoney gave me a stare which seemed to say are you really that stupid?

  Not midday yet and I’d already learned Harry Ferguson was a suspect in the IRA’s acquisition of Semtex almost thirty years ago, my friend DI Paul Glett was dirty police, Mahoney and another person had seriously assaulted Chappy Watts and the gormless Mick was a viable suspect for killing Gary White. What a morning. Maybe I could find Lord Lucan before my shift finished.

  “So, my original question: why were you meeting Glett Saturday? Was it just to pay him?”

  “No. He wanted to tell me to keep a low profile. Apparently, police’ve found evidence connecting the family to the people causing the explosions, and found explosives that could be traced back to the person who’s organising whatever’s going on.”

  The explosives find in Tyler Watts’ lock-up had been kept under wraps for the time being, so how would Glett have known about this? Easy. The Chackartis had others like him on their payroll, and they’d told someone who’d told someone else, who’d told Glett.

  “And what do you know about that?” I asked.

  “I knew about the bombings, but not who’s involved. I didn’t even know Seamus had been involved till you told me last weekend.”

  “That everything? Anything else you wanna tell me?”

  “Can’t think of anything offhand.”

  I thought of a way Mahoney could be useful.

  “Right, you’re gonna do one more thing for me.”

  *

  I drove away, head reeling from what I’d learned. Glett’s dirty? I was finding this hard to comprehend, but there were too many unanswered questions surrounding his recent behaviour, not least an eyewitness describing someone of his appearance climbing over Ehmat Chackarti’s back fence after the shooting, plus his meeting with someone named Marius, whom I knew to be Harry Ferguson. Glett and I were going to have to talk. When we did, I’d hope he’d tell me he was working undercover and it was all under control.

  Thirty minutes later, I met up with Glett outside Las Vargas. I’d contacted his police radio rather than his mobile. I told him outside why we were there, and he nodded. He then stared at me enquiringly.

  “Appreciate it if I could make the arrest, Rob. I really wanna bring this bastard in. I’ll include the Branch’s cooperation in my report and I’d owe you one.”

  I agreed this was fair enough. Mick was his.

  We entered the club. With daylight pouring through the windows, the inside of the club looked even seedier than under artificial lights: tacky, unattractive and no place for any woman with even a modicum of class and self-respect. There was a smattering of lunchtime drinkers scattered around the main bar, mostly watching sport on the big-screen television. We saw Mick leaning against the bar looking bored and stupid. Both came easily to him. Sonia, the usual barmaid, wasn’t there. Probably why Mick was allowed in.

  “Mick, my man,” Glett said as we approached him. Glett stood directly in front of Mick, blocking his view of the TV. I waited to his right, two paces behind.

  “Fuck you want?” Mick stood up straight. “You caused me real grief last week; I oughta kick your fucking head in.”

  “You?” Glett scoffed. “Stick to jacking off over school-girls.”

  “Fuck you,” Mick shouted loudly.

  I looked around. Several of the lunchtime drinkers had become aware of what was happening and were watching the situation unfold. I kept an eye on them in case someone decided to intervene.

  Glett moved closer to Mick and produced a pair of hand restraints. “Stand up, put your hands behind your back, you little bastard, you’re under arrest.”

  Glett moved to apprehend Mick, but, as he grabbed hold of his left arm, Mick spun off the bar and swiftly produced a knife in his right hand. I saw the knife and knew what was about to happen a nanosecond too late and, as I shouted to Glett, “He’s got a knife,” Mick drove the blade hard into Glett’s stomach.

  “I owe you that, you bastard,” he shouted as he stabbed Glett once and pushed him away.

  Glett dropped to the floor, holding his stomach, groaning in severe pain. Several of the drinkers gasped in horror when they saw what’d happened, and recoiled. I shouted out to the woman behind the bar to call the emergency services, stressing officer down. In the same instant I leapt at Mick.

  He turned, shook off my grip and slashed wildly at me with the knife, which had a bloodied blade about four or five inches long. I quickly averted my head just as the blade swept past, dangerously close to my face, through the sharp point sliced the tip of my nose. I was aware of a sharp stinging pain and my eyes watering, and I could see several drops of blood falling, but I was too focused on the knife to be concerned.

  He was shouting expletives and coming at me, slashing wildly again and again, and I ducked out the way each time. I’d been trained in several self-defence moves against a knife attack, both in basic training and with Mickey, so I knew what to do if I kept my wits about me. I was fortunate I wasn’t facing an expert, someone who knew how to use a knife properly.

  I kept circling around so as not to present a stationary target. My eyes moved rapidly between his eyes and the knife. He had eyes like a feral wolf and he was shouting something like, Come on, cop, fucking come get some. I kept moving around, watching and waiting, moving, watching and waiting. After several nervous seconds I spotted my chance.

  He lunged at me and, as I stepped aside, I instinctively kicked out my right foot and jabbed him behind his right knee. His knee bent and he lost his balance slightly, stumbled sideways and dropped to one knee. In the same movement, adrenaline pumping, I swivelled around and kicked him in the chest. He fell to the floor and rolled over onto his back, and seeing my target I stamped on his groin, putting everything into it. He screamed loudly and rolled over onto his side, hands between his legs, groaning and muttering something like, Oh God.

  I pushed the knife he’d dropped away with my foot and shouted to everyone to stay exactly where they were. I was pumped and wanted to inflict more damage on Mick, but he was done. There were also far too many witnesses.

  I put hand restraints on Mick, tight enough to fracture bones in his wrists, and waited for the uniforms and an ambulance to arrive. I retrieved the knife, picking it up in a plastic bag. The barmaid had grabbed a bar mat and was attempting to staunch the loss of blood. I saw someone moving towards the exit. I flashed ID and repeated loudly that everyone was to remain where they were as we’d be taking statements from them. I was suddenly aware everything had gone deathly quiet.

  Glett was still alive, but only just, and he was drifting in and out of consciousness and
breathing erratically. He asked, “You get the bastard?” and I said I had. He was almost smiling and, through gasping, saying something like, Fuck, it hurts.

  I was kneeling alongside him, urging him to hang on in there. I tried keeping his spirits up, saying something like, C’mon, don’t die on me yet, you sod, you still owe me a beer, which at least got a grin out of him.

  Police, an ambulance and paramedics arrived. Glett was put on a stretcher and taken away, with a medic giving him oxygen as he was losing consciousness. One of them put a plaster on my nose before leaving. I told the uniforms what Mick had done and he was led away. I gave them the bag with the knife. Detectives then began questioning drinkers and bar staff about what had just happened and taking statements.

  I returned to my car and I realised I was still trembling slightly. I’d told Mahoney to tell Glett that McGraw had been to see him and knew who’d given the beating to that kid in Bethnal Green, and also knew about their meeting in Portobello Road. I’d wanted to gauge Glett’s reaction to this. That plan was now scuppered.

  The adrenaline was slowing down and my pulse returning to something like normal, but, as I sat back against the seat, a shiver went right through my body. Had it been me making the arrest, as per the original plan, I’d be the one in hospital with a serious stab wound.

  *

  I was sitting opposite Mick in the main interview room at Wood Green police station. His anger had seemingly dissipated and he was no longer wound up like a coiled spring. It was as though knifing Glett had been an act of catharsis and all his rage and hostility had disintegrated. He was nodding slowly, quietly contemplative, but sitting very uncomfortably, grimacing like he was in real physical pain. He leaned forward.

  “Ooohh God, my balls are aching,” he sighed slowly. He looked at me as if expecting pity.

  “Yeah, you know how much that really bothers me?” My voice dripped acid. I set down his file. “You aware the only reason the uniforms at this station aren’t in here kicking the living shit out of you is because there’s a Special Branch DS in the room?” I smiled at him. “Police don’t take too kindly to one of their number being stabbed, so you’d better hope I don’t have to go to the toilet any time soon, because I’m likely to forget to lock the door. I’m the only thing standing between you and the hospital. Think about that.”