I drained my tea and stood up.
“Thanks for your help, anyway.” I left money on the table to cover the drinks.
“Yeah, see you around.”
I hope not, I thought as I left the café.
Back in the office I decided it was essential to find out everything I could about Louis and Paulie Phipps. What had they been doing in the past few months? If, as Rhodes had said, Gant had been hired to take out someone who was part of a scheme to blackmail someone in Government circles, where did the Phipps’ fit into this? I very much doubted either of the brothers knew how to blackmail anybody. Engaging in this would take skill and patience to carry out to a logical conclusion, and it required the kind of animal cunning and a degree of intelligence I suspected neither brother possessed. The likes of Louis Phipps would want instant gratification for their deeds, and I very much doubted that the long game, planning and executing a blackmail scheme successfully, was part of his thought processes.
Besides, would you really use someone like Paulie Phipps in such a plan? He was too weak and stupid to tie his own shoelaces, so helping to plan a blackmail scheme was out of his league. I also doubted either of the brothers could even spell Government if their lives depended upon doing so.
No, I had to find out everything I could about the Phipps brothers. Perhaps doing that would enable me to ascertain the likely truth of Richard Rhodes’ story about blackmail.
I already knew about their criminal records from the PNC. Neither Louis or Paulie Phipps were what could exactly be regarded as criminal masterminds. A conviction for trying to steal magazines and coloured pencils from WH Smith’s? Hardly likely to challenge the Kray twins or the Chackarti family in criminal infamy. Most of the cases they’d been pulled for were non-contentious. The assault case had turned on the issue of self-defence, with Phipps claiming he was the victim in this case, but he’d been found guilty. Similarly the marijuana he’d been caught in possession of had been a minuscule amount and he’d been fined for possession. Apart from shoplifting and a few other minor scrapes with the law, there was little else to excite the imagination. But what caught my attention was the most recent conviction earlier this year for stealing a car.
They’d seen a car, a brand new Toyota Prius, parked up in a multi-storey car park near Waterloo station. Looking through the car window Louis Phipps had said he’d noticed two bags, a leather official-looking briefcase and a woman’s shoulder bag. They’d broken the window, opened the door and started the car. They drove away and dumped the car by Herne Hill station, but kept the bags. So far, so typical.
But at this stage details became hazy. The car had been recovered and returned to the lawful owner but whoever that was had not been identified in the official report. The Phipps had been identified as the culprits, both from CCTV images and from fingerprints found on the steering wheel. They’d been prosecuted, found guilty and each drew a suspended sentence, with the magistrates saying that next time they would not be treated so leniently. It seemed the car owner was just pleased to have the car back and had decided that retribution was uncalled for, so had played no further part in the case.
Reading the transcript it occurred to me that nothing about either bag had been mentioned. From the make of car and the description of the two bags, I’d have expected to see at least some mention of them and some reference to the fact that neither had ever been recovered. Usually, the fact of property being stolen and unrecovered upon arrest was a factor in the sentencing process but that didn’t appear to have occurred here.
The details from the hearing were sketchy. The case gave all the indications of having been dealt with somewhat perfunctorily and the brothers had left court as free men after drawing suspended sentences. Reading about it, I formed the impression that the case had been disposed of with an almost obscene haste.
I couldn’t explain why but this case didn’t feel right. Trials usually involved transcripts and details of occurrences, lost property and other relevant information but that wasn’t the position here. The files gave more detail about stealing coloured pencils from Smith’s than about the theft of a valuable car and its contents. Given that this was not exactly a first appearance before a court of law, I’d have expected to see more details. I read down the page but was none the wiser when I finished.
The arresting officer in the case had been a Detective Mullins, based at West End Central, which was where I’d been initially based after completing basic training at Hendon Police College. Mullins was someone I was aware of as he was stationed there when I’d first arrived, though we became professional colleagues rather than friends. I phoned the station. He was at his desk and he agreed to talk if I came to the station. So I did.
He shared a congested office with a number of others of similar rank and below. The office was alive with activity; people were talking on the phone, shouting across the room to each other and typing on their laptops. Two officers nearby were attempting to talk to someone who, it seemed, was a reluctant witness to some criminal act, and trying to get him to embellish his story so it would stand up in court.
“Remember this?” Mullins said, waving his hand around the room. “It’s called police work. You used to do it before you started chasing shadows. Remember that?”
I grinned at him, told him to fuck off and poured a coffee from the pot nearby. I moved a pile of files from a chair and sat at the desk opposite him. We made small talk for a few minutes, about who’d been promoted, who was in line for promotion after kissing the right arses at the right time, cases where they’d nicked someone they’d been after for quite a while, and his apprehension about a forthcoming trial where he was convinced some left-leaning, Guardian-reading, human-rights quoting barrister would get the accused off on a technicality.
“So, how can I help the Branch out?” he asked. “Is this about that case you were involved in last night where those two blokes got shot dead?”
“Yeah, it is; grapevine works fast round here, doesn’t it? I wasn’t actually involved in it. I just happened to be standing nearby when they’d got shot.”
“How near?”
“Next to them.”
Over the next few minutes I gave some details about the case, and ended by describing the deaths of the Phipps brothers. For the moment I omitted any reference to Gant and my belief, my certainty, that his was the gun that killed the Phippses.
“Louis Phipps’s a real piece of shit. I’ve come across him a few times. A real pilgrim. I interviewed him after his drugs arrest and he’s a nine carat turd. No surprise he’s on the receiving end of a bullet. Someone like him was always likely to wind up dead sooner or later. It’s not a Branch case, though, is it?”
“Not for the moment, no. It’s being handled as a straightforward murder. The thing is,” I kept my voice down even though it was noisy in the office, “I’ve had a whisper from someone that the Phippses were targeted because they were part of a conspiracy to blackmail someone and that’s what got them killed.”
Mullins looked aghast at that comment.
“Blackmail? Nah, not Louis’s style at all.” He shook his head in disbelief. “Someone like him doesn’t do things like that. He’d be more likely to bang you over the head from behind and steal your wallet. Where’d you hear that?”
“Rather not say for the moment. I’m looking into his movements over the past few months. I’ve checked his record. It shows what he’s been done for. The only thing he’s done recently that got my attention, though, was being arrested and convicted for car theft.”
“What about it? It isn’t the first time that slimeball’s nicked a car. There was no problem with it. Car was reported missing from where it had been parked and later found abandoned. It was dusted and we found Phipps’ dabs all over the wheel. Got him easy as shooting goldfish in a bowl.”
“Yeah, I know all that. Fingerprinting isn’t routine in car thefts, though, is it?” I wondered. When I’d been a beat copper, any car we found that had been s
tolen was rarely fingerprinted, unless there was a suspicion it had been stolen to order, like a luxury sports car for instance.
“That’s true, but we were asked to do it, so that’s what we did.”
“Who asked you?”
“DCI Tomkinson.”
“A DCI? Really?”
“Yup. He was in charge of the investigation.”
“Interesting. It’s just a car theft. Why involve a DCI?
Another thing I don’t get is the lack of any substantive detail in the report.”
“What do you mean?” He sat back in his chair.
“Nothing about who the car belonged to or any reference to the bags that were taken, which it seems were never recovered. Things like that usually get included, yet they’ve been left out here. I was wondering why. Who did the car belong to?”
“I don’t know. As I said, car was reported missing, suspected of being stolen. The plate numbers were circulated and we were asked to keep an eye out. Pair of uniforms in a car found it parked a couple of days later down Herne Hill way, dumped by Brockwell Park. They call it in and, after fingerprinting, Phipps was identified, arrested and charged. Easy peasy, mate.”
“I don’t get why he didn’t go down either. He’s got a record long as your left arm yet he gets a suspended sentence. Doesn’t add up, does it?”
“Probably doesn’t, but when does it ever? But at least we added another notch to his belt and he’d have gone down next time, except someone beat us to it.” He said this in a deadpan manner.
I thought about what I’d heard for a few moments. I decided to raise the stakes.
“Off the record, strictly between you and me, was there any pressure put on you from above,” my eyes looked upwards, “to close this case quickly, you know, wrap it up with the minimum of fuss? You know the kind of thing, don’t probe too deeply, just get it done, something like that?”
“What are you saying?” His eyes narrowed.
“I’m not sure. The whole feel of this case is that it was dealt with as quick as possible. Who reported the car stolen? Things like that. None of this ever made it into any court report. ”
Mullins shifted slightly in his seat. The questions seemed to make him uncomfortable. I couldn’t work out why that was. He stood up.
“You want another tea or coffee?”
Before I could say no, he insisted I did and said we should get one downstairs. I followed him to the small canteen in the basement. It was still as tacky and in need of a fresh coat of paint as I remembered. He bought two cups of something that bore a passing resemblance to coffee, though not the actual taste, and we sat down. The Formica-covered tabletop told a story of many a stain from spilled drinks and cigarette burns, plus a few graphic designs etched from the edges of cutlery.
“This is off the record, Rob, you got that? You never heard this from me. Okay?”
I nodded my assent.
“The car was registered to a woman named Debbie Frost. It was her who reported it missing. Seemed quite frantic to get it back, she did. She also said there were a couple of items in the car, her bag and a briefcase belonging to someone she said she knew. We found the car but not the bags. The thing is,” he leaned forward and lowered his voice, even though we were the only two people in the canteen, “the car was found a few days later where I said it was. She was contacted and told we’d got the car back but as of yet no bags recovered, but by then she said they weren’t important and of no consequence so they didn’t matter. Seemed strange ’cause, when she reported the car stolen, she was almost hysterical. Implied something about her boss being real pissed off if the bags were lost. Yet a few days later she’s almost blasé about the whole thing. Says it doesn’t matter about the bags, she was just pleased to get the car back as it was a new one and she’d not had it too long.”
“Did she say who the other bag belonged to?”
“I don’t think she did, no.”
“Why she was parked up in Waterloo; she work in that area?”
“Don’t know.”
“How long had the car been there?”
“Not that long, couple of hours maybe.”
“Was it just Phipps’ prints on the steering wheel?”
“His and Debbie Frost’s. Hers were all over the place.”
“And I don’t suppose she said what was in the missing bags?”
“Got it in one.”
“Did she even give a statement? There doesn’t appear to be any record of one being taken.”
“No, I don’t think she did. I certainly didn’t take one from her. She reported the car missing but I’m not aware she gave a written statement to anyone.”
I thought about what I’d heard for a couple of moments.
“What does all this suggest to you?”
“At this point, nothing. Most people aren’t too worried about what was in their car; they just want the vehicle back. What was strange, though, was that the Phippses were initially brought in and questioned by me and another officer. During the interview, we get called to go see the boss, and the interrogation is continued by two other guys from Century House.”
That could mean only one thing.
“MI5 questioned the Phippses?” I was surprised.
“So it would appear. Soon after they get taken out and questioned somewhere else and that’s the last we hear until the case goes to the Magistrates’ Court and they get their knuckles rapped.”
Mullins drained his coffee and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“So maybe your story about his trying to blackmail someone isn’t as ridiculous as it seemed.”
Richard Rhodes had said that Gant was hired because Phipps was trying to put the squeeze on someone in Government circles. That suggested Phipps knew something about someone that that person would rather not have made known. Is that why Gant had been hired, to silence Phipps before he could disseminate whatever it was he’d learned from his theft? What could he have learned that someone was prepared to pay top dollar to an assassin like Gant to cover up? I was still in the dark.
“I think whatever’s in that case is what got those two killed. Something doesn’t add up here. Why involve MI5 in a car theft?”
“There’s no suspects so far, is there?” This was stated rather than asked.
“Nope. I’ve given a statement to a DI Harrow, so has Mickey. It was outside his bar the shootings occurred. There was nobody in the street so we’re the only witnesses to what happened. I’ve no doubt this will remain as an unsolved murder unless CID gets a break.”
Mullins looked at me for a few moments. He was weighing up everything said so far and putting his own slant on it. He nodded then grinned almost quizzically.
“That’s not what you think, is it? You know more than you’re letting on, don’t you?”
“Not sure,” I mused, “but I’ll be sure to keep you out of it whatever turns up.”
After a little more small talk about the failure of our respective teams to set the Premiership on fire this season, I thanked Mullins for his time and left to return to the Yard. My earlier suspicion about the case not being quite kosher had been mildly vindicated.
I went on the PNC again. I was re-covering earlier ground, looking at the files on Louis Phipps and his brother. Louis had been born in Naples but had moved to London with his family when he was one year old. Paulie had been born in London. The family name was Phipperanio but the father had Anglicised it soon after coming to this country.
The files gave details of scholastic achievements, which meant permanent exclusion at fifteen for Louis and Paulie leaving at sixteen before taking GCSEs. Their employment history showed they’d rarely kept any paid employ for long, with Louis often being sacked for insubordination.
Louis Phipps now had six court appearances to his name, with offences ranging from possession of a controlled substance and assault to the most recent, which was car theft. He’d never done time in prison, the nearest being an overnight remand when
arrested for assault occasioning ABH whilst waiting to be arraigned. Paulie had never seen the inside of a cell either and I’d no doubt that, but for what happened last night, they’d not last too much longer on the street.
I could sum up the life histories in their files as the chronicles of a pair of losers. In fact, had they been able to write their combined autobiographies, this would have been a good working title. It all made their alleged graduation to attempting to blackmail someone in Government somewhat hard to swallow.
I was still thinking about what I’d read when a voice disturbed my reverie.
“For someone on holiday, you’re in here a lot today.”
It was Smitherman.
“What are you doing? Aren’t you supposed to be catching up on your reading? That’s what you told me last week you were going to be doing.”
“Change of plans. That was before some gunman shoots the Phipps brothers in front of me and seems to be going to get away with it.”
Smitherman sat down by the side of the desk.
“If you’re alluding to Gant, I told you he was interviewed by MI5 early and his story that he was in his hotel checks with hotel CCTV. He was definitely there around midnight. He was seen in the hotel lobby talking to someone. There were no witnesses to the shooting other than you and your pal, Corsley, and you’ve both been eliminated from police enquiries as your gun hadn’t been fired, neither had the one Corsley had behind the bar. Both the Phippses’ guns hadn’t been fired either so, unless someone comes in and confesses, we’re stuck. We’ll keep the file open, of course, and CID are out and about talking to anyone who was known to Phipps to see if we can get a line on what he’d been up to, but I have to say the longer this investigation stretches out, the less optimism I have of a win.”
Gant! Page 5