by James Nally
I just can’t stop thinking about their final hours, left for dead … knowing no one was out there looking for them, or missing them or even thinking about them. They already didn’t exist …
No one I love even knows I’m here.
A yellow splodge floats and pulses before me, then morphs into the face I need to see most. She’s here. At last. She touches my face gently. Why didn’t you come before? I ask. She touches my lips to quieten me, toasts me with those smiling eyes. She’s in a good place. But she’s not ready for me yet. Mam’s eyes tell me I’m not going to die tonight. Or anytime soon. She came to let me know I haven’t inherited the dreaded family curse. I’m going to be okay! I just know it.
A motorcycle rev jolts me, roaring off in a spray of gravel as shouting sounds beyond the gate. The gunmen have fled. I clamber out of my shallow grave and sit dripping onto the gravel. I dodged a lot of bullets tonight. Thanks to Mam, I now know I’ve dodged the deadliest one of all.
It took a brush with death to make me realise something pretty bloody obvious. I don’t need to prove myself to Da, to Fintan, to Zoe or to anyone. I just need to start living my life on my terms. Be young, be foolish, but be happy.
Chapter 67
Central London
Wednesday, July 6, 1994; 01.00
Fintan’s first on the phone. I’d disobeyed Gary’s orders and pre-warned him about tonight’s ‘sting’, I just didn’t tell him where it was going down. Why? If I did get killed, I wanted the people who care about me to know it was for the agents of good. Secondly, if Chris St. John Green had been conspiring with Regan and co. to stitch me up, he’d have to explain himself to Fintan.
‘Are you okay?’ he asks.
‘Fine.’
‘I’ve just been told about it by a source. Fucking hell! Where are you now?
‘Getting driven home by the police. They’ve taken my statement. Now they’re letting me get some sleep.’
‘Sleep? You? Yeah right! Listen, you can’t go to your undercover address.’
‘Why not?’
‘Ron Regan will be looking for you, for starters. And you can bet he has sources. When he finds out Pat’s dead, he’ll want to know what happened. You’re the sole eyewitness to a gangland triple murder, Donal. God knows who might be waiting for you there.’
I divert the driver to Arsenal where Fintan hovers at the front door, clutching his customary Londis bag of piss-weak lager.
‘I’m going to need more than that tonight, Fintan.’
He smiles. ‘Fucking right, I’ve got four bottles of Shiraz in the boot.’
I talk him through what happened, wrapping up with Judas in the swiftly reversing German-built chariot.
‘That bastard St. John Green left me for dead. He set me up.’
I ask him what he’s heard.
‘My deep throat in the armed response unit says they had a team in position watching the E. Because the gunman used a pistol with a silencer, they didn’t hear anything until bullets started hitting the Porsche, and even that was only picked up because the Porsche was bugged.
‘Edwina showed up and pretty much called it right away. It was a highly professional job. The hitman shot Walsh first in the back of the head through an open rear door. Then he shot Shaw in the mouth, punching a big old hole in his jaw. He walked around to the other rear door, opened it, finished off Walsh, then Shaw. He then invited his accomplice to kill Pat Regan, who was shot in the head and chest.
‘By the time the armed unit got down to the gate, the hitmen had fled on a motorbike. Did those guys definitely try to kill you?’
My cheeks blow in disbelief. ‘There were bullets pinging all around me. When I rolled into that ditch, they spent at least a minute searching for me. I thought I was a goner. Thank God the back-up had been listening in on the Porsche, because those guys had no plans to leave until they’d killed me, I know that for sure.’
Fintan holds out his beer can: ‘That’s one hell of a back-handed tribute to your undercover skills. Whoever was behind these murders must have thought you were one of those scumbags.’
I clink. ‘Who do police think did it?’
‘They’re refusing to speculate, of course, but it must be Sheeran and Crossley. It was so professional. And they had the motive. Crossley must have heard about the E sting tonight through his police snouts. They couldn’t risk Pat Regan and co. getting caught and offered a deal, because their only leverage would be to shop Crossley and Sheeran, so they had them wiped out.’
The door knocks angrily. Fintan has to peel me off the ceiling. He looks through the spy glass, turns back, mimes a marauding monster and mouths ‘Bernie’.
I slump in tired resignation, nod.
‘He looks mightily pissed off,’ says Fintan.
Fintan unlocks but doesn’t get a chance to open the door. Bernie sees to that.
‘Fucking hell, Donal, what the fuck are you playing at?’
My hands shoot up as I stagger backwards through the sitting room.
‘Gary made me do it, Bernie. And he gave me strict orders not to tell you.’
‘How did you persuade Pat Regan to buy your E?’
‘I got them guns.’
‘What about the brown? You’ve just blown my fucking pension plan, you stupid prick.’
Bernie is still approaching, fists bunched, eyes wild, as the house’s furthest wall greets my back.
‘Now I’m gonna rip your fucking head off.’
‘Ah ah, Bernie,’ sing-songs Fintan.
Bernie grabs me by the throat, lifts me off the ground and spins around.
Fintan’s taking snaps with the tiny stills camera he carries with him everywhere.
‘I don’t fucking care,’ he says, casually tossing me over the back of the couch like a used beer can.
‘Bernie, I know when and where the brown’s coming in. And how,’ I pant.
He inspects me curiously, as a baboon might an insect that’s just crawled out of his hairy feet.
‘You better not be bullshitting me.’
‘They told me on the way to the E deal. That’s when I knew they were going to whack me. I’ll tell you if you stop battering me.’
He lets me live a little longer.
I gasp: ‘Friday morning, Felixstowe. In lead ingots.’
‘Fuck,’ he says.
‘What?’
‘Now I have to keep you alive, you little shit.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘We need to go to customs with this intel. They pay £1,000 per kilo seized, but the info has to come first-hand. You agree to a 50/50 split and I won’t batter you senseless.’
‘Sounds more than fair, Bernie,’ I squeak. ‘Why don’t we finalise plans over a piss-weak can of beer?’
Chapter 68
Arsenal, North London
Thursday, July 7, 1994; 01.45
I’m briefing Bernie about the brown when an incoming phone message catapults me to the front door.
‘What?’ say Fintan and Bernie in unison.
‘That snivelling prick St. John Green is outside.’
They chase after me. ‘At least hear him out,’ Fintan pleads.
‘Fuck that,’ says Bernie. ‘Give him a right-hander for me.’
Chris stands defensively behind the Porsche; both the car and his characteristic cockiness shot to pieces.
‘Sorry to inform you, Chris, I’m actually still alive, despite your best efforts,’ I scream, striding around the car towards him.
He lurches to the front, speaking fast.
‘I was trying to get you on the walkie-talkie. Why didn’t you answer?’
I make another lunge, but he’s lightning on his feet. I decide not to admit leaving my walkie in the Range Rover. What’s that got to do with his abandoning of me under heavy gunfire?
‘Funnily enough, Chris, I was a bit tied up dodging bullets. Why did you continue reversing when I was running towards the car?’
‘I didn’t see you unti
l I turned the headlights on. Then you went mental so I flicked them off again. I stopped for you, but you hit the ground and vanished. Then bullets started slamming into the car. If I’d stayed another second, I’d be dead.’
‘Bullshit. You stopped for a nanosecond, then broke the backwards land speed record. You wanted me killed, so you could have Zoe and Matt all to yourself.’
‘Check for yourself,’ he pleads, pointing to the car.
Fintan is already inspecting the damage, almost gleefully. ‘To be fair, it does now resemble a burnt-out colander,’ he smiles.
Reluctantly, I peel my glare from St. John Green’s pleading eyes to Fintan’s weather forecaster hands. Sure enough, the car’s soft top is riddled.
Bernie’s inspecting the damage, intrigued. ‘If any of these bullets got through, you were a dead man. I can’t figure out how a soft top stopped even one of them.’
Fintan knows the answer. ‘Because it’s been welded shut.’
Bernie looks at us in disbelief: ‘What?’
I can hardly utter the words. ‘Fintan got the roof welded shut. Those welds are what’s saved the life of the man who stole my fucking girlfriend.’
Oh and what a great old laugh they all had about that.
Chapter 69
Felixstowe Docks, Suffolk
Friday, July 8, 1994; 11.00
Me and Bernie sit in my car, drinking instant coffee out of polystyrene cups and waiting for our ship to come in.
‘How are you going to spend your fifty grand?’ I ask.
‘I’m putting it into my scrap metal business so I can give my Darren a job, get him away from that crowd he’s hanging around with. What about you?’
‘I’m going to put down a deposit on a flat in Crouch End.’
Bernie throws me a confused look. ‘I thought she was shacking up with this Chris fella?’
‘I just like the area,’ I smile.
‘You just want to show her she should have had more faith in you. Fair enough,’ says Bernie and I realise he doesn’t care two hoots. I’m just his cash cow and soon I’ll be milking.
Earlier, my customs ‘handler’ Will confirmed that search teams were ‘turning over’ the only load of lead due in for several days; thirty-six large ingots from Izmir in Turkey. Gary gave us his blessing to take the intel to Customs. Although our E mission hadn’t gone to plan, he could now categorically state that they’d identified the men behind the E that killed Molly Parker-Rae. Job done. He’s writing a letter to my boss recommending me for promotion. That fully-fledged, non-acting Detective Constable rank that has eluded me for two years is almost mine.
Yesterday, I found out that a haulage firm has already been hired to transport this shipment of lead to a storage depot just outside Atherstone in the Midlands. The company that owns that depot is based in the Cayman Islands and, two years ago, purchased three homes from Crown Estates in Croydon, via an agent called Julie Draper.
Forensic accountants can prove that the directors of that company are Mickey Sheeran, the gangster, and his handler, Commander Neil Crossley of the Yard. In other words, the drugs stashed inside these ingots can be directly linked to Sheeran and Crossley. As soon as the lead reaches the depot, warrants will be issued for their arrests.
Meanwhile, customs placed a tap on Ron Regan’s mobile phone and can already prove his key role in this heroin deal. Bernie’s convinced that, facing the prospect of twelve years inside, Ron Regan will turn Queen’s against Sheeran and Crossley to avenge the murder of his brother Pat in what has already been dubbed The Range Rover Killings.
‘The underworld would expect that,’ he explains.
According to the customs lawyer, this will be enough to charge Sheeran and Crossley with profiting from drugs trafficking, for which they’ll face sentences of up to twelve years.
In short, all that’s needed to trigger their downfall – and expose the nexus of crime at the heart of Scotland Yard’s top brass in the mid-1980s – is for those customs search teams to locate the heroin stashed inside the lead ingots.
It’s our best chance, but also our only hope of putting Sheeran and Crossley away. The taped confession of Alex Pavlovic, crime reporter and Prince of Darkness, that Sheeran and Crossley had commissioned the murders of Nathan Barry and Duncan McCall aren’t enough to charge them. And whoever eliminated Pat Regan, Shaun Shaw and Craig Walsh also wiped out any chance of charging Sheeran and Crossley with the kidnap and murder of Julie Draper.
It all comes down to these oblong hunks of lead.
My phone rings. My hearts stops.
Will from Customs says: ‘We’ve had to let those lorries go. We didn’t find a single speck of heroin, anywhere.’
‘Okay, Will,’ I say brightly. ‘Keep me posted.’
I tell Bernie ‘still no news’ and suggest he fetches more coffee. As soon as he’s out of sight, I say ‘Sorry Bernie’, start my car and speed off in the opposite direction so that he doesn’t murder me with his bare hands.
‘Fuck,’ I scream at my clean sweep of failures. Somehow, I’ve managed to lose the girl, the bad guys and the dough.
Chapter 70
Arsenal, North London
Friday, July 8, 1994; 21.00
‘Well at least there’s some good news,’ says Fintan. ‘The police now have to fix Jamie Benson-Smythe’s war-ravaged Porsche. You should’ve seen his face when I handed it back to him today.’
I sigh, going through the motions. ‘Raging was he?’
‘He was absolutely thrilled. He’s thinking of keeping it, as a trophy. No messing, he said it would provide a great talking point for his dinner parties. Can you believe this eejit?’
‘Oh yeah, another one of those eejits with a good job and loads of money. I dare say he has a knock-out girlfriend as well?’
‘He also has two special assignments from me this weekend.’
‘Hang on, Fint, you said you wouldn’t send him out for a packet of crisps.’
‘The connections these toffs have, you wouldn’t believe. They’re all interbred, basically, then they attend the same schools and colleges and give jobs to each other’s kids, who interbreed some more. Honestly it’s worse than parts of Offaly!’
‘You never quit do you, Fint?’
‘So, first Jamie BS casually mentions that George Field MP is an old family friend. Since we printed that story about Field and his cigar fetish, we’ve had a whole raft of rent boys contact us with all sorts of lurid tales, most of it unprintable. I’ve sent Jamie down there today to meet with George and “Total Brunt” to discuss how he can help salvage George’s political career, hinting strongly that if he’s willing to throw a bent Scotland Yard Commander under the bus, we’ll not run any more rent boy revelations and may even commend him for taking a stand against police corruption.’
‘Let’s hope the Commander he referred to on that tape was Crossley.’
‘It has to be. They’re all in the same Mason’s Lodge.’ Fintan’s looking at me expectantly, about to burst. ‘Guess who else Jamie’s great pals with?’
I struggle to hoist a single disinterested eyebrow.
‘Chris St. John Green. He’s known him since Eton. He’s heading down to their family pile tomorrow for the weekend with a specific brief from me: find out what the hell Chris is up to and who he’s working for.’
My head nods but my heart’s not in it.
‘I thought you’d at least be vaguely interested.’
Fintan’s like a dog dropping a chewed-up ball at your feet. He won’t quit until you throw. ‘It’s brilliant work, Fintan. It really is. I’m just sick of getting my hopes up and having them dashed again.’
This dog bites; Fintan grabs my arm and squeezes hard. ‘I’ve been treading fucking eggshells for two weeks and I can’t take another second of it. Things didn’t work out for you this time, but plenty of people are bending over backwards to make sure you get another shot at it. All you need is one lucky break for everything to start changing, Donal, s
o, in the name of all that is holy, get your head out of your hole and start using it, okay? Otherwise they’ll be no one left to give up on you, you selfish prick.’
Chapter 71
Arsenal, North London
Saturday, July 9, 1994; 09.00
The same images and phrases torment me all night, just as they have every sleep since Julie Draper last came to me Tuesday night. Matthew terrified in the dark. Zoe in her bridal gown, tossing great bundles of cash. Tania’s voice: Once you’ve had twenty-five, you don’t want less …
Chris in silhouette, turning slowly, malevolently.
Gary’s pearl of wisdom: They’re still petty criminals at heart … they have to try to mug off the other party in any deal.
A fresh twist this time; deafening bangs that turn out to be someone trying to hammer their way through our front door. Except those knocks are real, and furious.
The big red face gurning through the spyhole is just about the last I want to see right now, but he’s not taking an unanswered door for an answer.
‘Bernie, I can explain …’
‘Yeah forget all that,’ he says. ‘Ron Regan’s got greedy. Don’t they always? Not content with making a couple of million out of the 100 kilo heroin importation, he’s decided to double-cross Sheeran.’
I try not to look thick.
‘Instead of leaving the lead ingots buried in the ground as ordered, he can’t resist trying to fiddle an extra few quid on the side. Ron and his pal dug them up and they’re touting them around as scrap.’
‘So there was heroin in those ingots?’
Bernie nods impatiently. ‘Yeah! I don’t know what those Customs search teams were playing at. I offered Regan £700 for the lead. He wasn’t happy with that so he’s ringing round a few other dealers.’
‘Jesus, Bernie, all we need is a trace of heroin inside that lead and we’ve got them,’ I cry. ‘You’ve got to get hold of it. £700 is peanuts. Offer him more.’
‘If I suddenly offer him more, he’ll smell a rat. We need to find out why customs missed the brown. Call your handler and find out.’