“Yes, Gareth.”
“OK, well, um … It’s good to see you.”
“Yeah, you too.”
I smiled at her and nodded, but she remained where she was, the silence beginning to stretch uncomfortably.
“You OK?” I asked finally.
“You’re blocking the way …”
I felt my face redden as I stepped to one side, giving her room to pass me in the narrow corridor, which she did with an awkward smile and eyes firmly on the floor. I caught a whiff of her perfume as she passed, a familiar scent that drove a knife of loss and pain firmly into my heart.
“Sally,” I called before she turned the corner.
She stopped, eyes still down, then swung to face me.
“What?”
“It’s really good to see you.”
“You too.” She turned and was gone before the words were finished, almost running towards Dad’s room.
“All good?” The voice startled me, and I turned to see another firearms officer approaching from the opposite side of the hallway.
“As well as can be expected, I guess.”
“Well, don’t worry about your Dad, we’ve got this.”
I nodded my thanks and left, head full of thoughts of Sally, and so it wasn’t until I was almost at the car that I realised I was being watched.
I can’t tell you exactly what alerted me, but after years of surveillance and counter-surveillance, you develop a sense for these things. When I casually glanced around I caught a hint of movement in a place there shouldn’t be any.
My first instinct was to call out, but then I realised that would only give them a chance to escape. All I could see from here was a vague outline, the shadow of someone crouched in the foliage on the far edge of the car park. But with everything going on it had to be someone up to no good, perhaps hoping to pressure Dad into giving up Jake’s location. For a brief moment, I wondered whether it might be Jake himself, come to visit Dad, but I dismissed that thought the moment I had it. Of all the things Jake had said the night before, the only one I truly believed was that he didn’t want to bring his troubles to Dad’s doorstep. No, whoever was watching me, they weren’t friendly, of that I was sure.
The thought made me tighten my fist around the car keys. The sensible thing would be to go back inside, call the armed officers down and let them deal with it, but anyone who wanted to fuck with my family needed to be dealt with, hard.
Palming the car keys, I began to search my pockets, muttering to myself all the while. After a few moments, I swore and spun on my heel, hurrying back into the hospice as if I’d left something behind. Inside, I cut left and ran down the hallway, then slipped out through a fire escape that led to the side of the building opposite the car park.
A narrow concrete path led off towards a fenced bin area, but instead of following it I hopped the fence, taking me outside the grounds and out of sight of the lurker in the bushes.
Keeping low, I half-crouched, half-ran along the outside of the fence until I reached the road, then stepped out and strolled along the pavement as if just passing, gambling that the watcher would have eyes only for the hospice.
When I reached the point where I’d seen them, separated only by ten feet of grass verge, I suddenly darted left, sprinting across the grass and hurling myself onto the shadow in the bushes.
My outstretched hands hit flesh, and my target let out a surprised squawk as I barrelled into him, wrapping one arm around his throat and the other around his chest, rolling us both out onto the gravel of the car park.
He tried to twist free, but I unwrapped one arm long enough to slam an elbow into his stomach and the wind went out of him in a rush.
He curled into a ball, gasping, and I rolled off him and stood, stepping back to take a better look with fists up and ready in case he was faking.
“You arsehole,” my opponent wheezed, one shaky hand raising a clear wallet containing what looked like press credentials. “I can’t breathe!”
I realised my mistake at about the same time that the adrenaline started to leave my system, draining away to leave me feeling shaky and tired. Instead of a Russian mobster or local chancer, lying in front of me was none other than Pete Macarthur, the crime correspondent for The Argus.
“What the fuck,” I said, reaching down and hauling him to his feet, “are you doing skulking around in the bushes?”
Standing, Pete was a little shorter than my own 5’10”, with short grey hair that he kept in an almost military buzzcut. Bent over as he was, hands on his knees as he struggled to draw breath, I saw that it was also thinning badly.
“None of your business!” he gasped, carefully pushing himself upright, one hand held protectively over his stomach. The loose flaps of skin that hung around his face like the jowls of a particularly mournful bulldog quivered with indignation. “I’ve got as much right to be here as anyone.”
Just being near the man was a reminder of why I loathed him so much. The last crime correspondent had been a pleasant woman, interested in the truth of the matter, be it pro- or anti-police interests, but Pete was one of those reporters who wanted sensationalism and would go to any lengths to get it. Several times in the last eighteen months he’d done things just shy of getting himself arrested, and each time the officers who had dealt with him found themselves subject to witch hunts in the local press. He was, in short, scum.
I leaned in, making him scuttle back a few steps.
“You have a right to be here, sure,” I growled, “but I have a right to protect my family. And after that stupid fucking article you wrote last night, you’ve put them right in the firing line.”
“Oh really?” His eyes gleamed at the hint of a juicy story. “Why is that?”
I gritted my teeth and took a deep breath. I didn’t have time for this, but I had to be very careful what I said or he’d start following me around like a junkie looking for his next fix.
“Look, just leave us alone. If you want to talk to someone, call the communications department and they can tell you to fuck off politely.” I knew I should be picking my words more carefully but I was still annoyed that he’d been skulking in the bushes.
Pete straightened and crossed his arms.
“You can’t keep the people in the dark, you know. I heard what happened last night and I know your reputation. You’re into some deep shit right now, and I’m going to find out what.”
I shook my head and walked back towards my car, resisting the urge to barge him with my shoulder as I passed.
“I warn you, if you get in my way I’ll have you in a cell quicker than you can blink.”
“Really? Or will you kill me instead, like you did with Quentin Davey?” I slowed, fists clenching once again, but something in his tone warned me that he was looking for a reaction, and I suspected that he was now recording our conversation.
Instead of replying I threw my arm out behind me, middle finger up, then got in the car and drove away before I could give in to the urge to go back and do something I wouldn’t particularly regret.
Chapter 17
I walked back into DIU just as most people were leaving for the day. Nodded at the passing stream of exiting officers and headed for my desk. I was bone tired already, but I needed to gather the strands of this job into some semblance of order.
I slumped into my chair and began going through the haphazard pile of reports on my desk, discarding those that didn’t have direct relevance to the search for Jake. The resulting stack was depressingly thin, with nothing that might help me to find either my brother or those hunting him.
Ignoring them for now, I logged into my email and found the same, except for one good bit of news. They had managed to get a DNA sample from the blood of the big Russian that I’d fought in Dad’s bungalow, and had fast tracked it to try and get an ID. It would still take at least forty-eight hours but it was something.
The rest of the emails were from the officers who had checked the B&Bs and hotels, but
found no one matching the descriptions. I’d known that would be a dead end, but I’d harboured a small hope that they might have been careless enough to make a mistake.
I was double checking the paper reports when my phone rang: it was John Cooper.
“John,” I answered, praying he had a lead. “Give me good news.”
“I think I’ve found a way to get to your Russians.”
I sat bolt upright. “Go on.”
“Do you know a guy called Mark Jones?”
“MJ? Tall bloke with a mullet, fences stolen goods?”
“That’s the one. Turns out he’s also the one that’s been offering the reward for Jake. Told him I might have a lead if the money’s good enough and he’s offered to arrange a meet with the people paying.”
I felt a grin spread across my face.
“John, you are a fucking legend.”
“Don’t thank me yet. The meet is in two hours, but it’s in a pub in the centre of the city. Not the sort of place to send an armed response team.”
“But we could follow them from the meet.”
“Yeah, except I’ve spoken to the people I report to, and they’re refusing to let me go.”
“What? Why?”
“Because when whatever bullshit I give them about Jake doesn’t pan out, they’ll either come looking for me or it’ll blow my cover.”
I punched the desk in frustration. “Fuck. Let me talk to the Chief Super, see if she can change their minds.” I stopped as something occurred to me. “If you’re OK with doing it, that is? It’s a hell of a risk meeting with them.”
I could almost hear John shrug. “I’ve been in worse situations. It’s unlikely they’ll try anything somewhere that public.”
“Thank you. Let me speak to Striker and I’ll get back to you asap.”
“Cool. Good luck.”
I was already moving, pounding up the stairs to Striker’s office. I burst in without knocking, knowing that time was of the essence, to find the Chief Super sat with a pair of grim-faced men in suits. She scowled at the interruption, then saw my expression and turned to the two men.
“If you’ll excuse me gentlemen, something urgent has come up.”
She stood without waiting for them to speak and steered me out of the room and into the nearby boardroom.
“What?” she said without preamble.
“John Cooper has found them,” I said excitedly, then launched into a full explanation. As I repeated it back to her, it sounded more plausible than it had when John had told me, and together we hashed out a workable plan.
John would meet them, while I would have a team in the area waiting to tail the targets when they left. Firearms would have a sniper placed on a nearby rooftop in case things did go wrong, but they would only fire if given no other choice. Striker would speak to the Chief Constable to get Cooper involved. We still weren’t sure what Cooper would say to make the meeting worth the Russians’ time, but I could discuss that with him.
“Go and get kitted up,” Striker said finally, “and pick your team. I want our best on this, and I don’t care what it takes to get them in, just do it. I’ll speak to the Chief and get firearms authorisation and Cooper’s assistance, then I’ll come and find you.”
I nodded and made my way back down to the office, allowing myself to hope that we might actually get this group behind bars before they found Jake. Then, of course, we still had to locate my brother, but that would be a thousand times easier without a group of homicidal Russians trying to do the same thing.
Chapter 18
The best plans never survive contact with the enemy, only this time the enemy was the DCI in charge of the surveillance unit.
Even with the Chief Constable ordering him, he refused to let John Cooper go into the meeting without his own team there surveilling the targets instead of mine. I respected both the man and his decision, I would do the same for one of my own, but it relegated me to little more than glorified observer.
I sat alone on one of the benches outside the shopping centre in Churchill Square and watched the table outside the Prince of Wales pub where Cooper slouched, smoking cigarettes and sipping at a cool glass of lager while he waited for his contact to arrive.
Despite having been off the gear for years now, you could still see the heroin addict in him, and I knew that we couldn’t have a better person to convince the Russians it was a genuine meet. Cooper played the part perfectly, dropping into the nervous habits and mannerisms of a user with practised ease.
Nursing my now-cold coffee, I glanced around the square. Although the shops were closed, the area was still busy, the bus stops bursting with people waiting to go home. Groups of foreign students with bright backpacks filled the air with laughter as they sat around waiting for their activity leaders to arrive.
It was the students that made me realise how terrifying this would be if it went wrong. I resisted looking up at the place on the shopping centre roof where the sniper was hidden.
Instead I tried to spot the surveillance team, none of whom I had met before. I managed to pick out two of the eleven men and women I knew were nearby, or at least I thought I did, but then my attention was brought back to Cooper as he clicked his radio pressel three times to signal an approach.
I had been expecting one of the men from the other night to show up, and had been looking for a leather coat and gold jewellery. But the person who pulled up a chair and sat opposite Cooper was a woman, dressed impeccably in a black trouser suit a shade darker than her short, neat hair.
She had high cheekbones and the type of cold beauty you normally see in fashion models, but even from here there was something about the way she moved that warned me she was dangerous.
“You have information?” she asked bluntly, her voice brought to me through the covert kit that Cooper wore hidden under his shirt. Her accent was almost flawless, and had I not been expecting a Russian I doubt I would have heard the sharpened consonants that gave her origins away.
“I do,” he confirmed. “You have money?”
“I do, but only if the information is good.”
“You’re looking for Jake Bell, right?”
“We are. Do you know where he is?”
Cooper paused, glancing around and then leaning forward to speak quietly.
“I don’t know where he is now, but I know where he’s staying if that helps?”
“And where is that?” I saw the woman’s posture change, betraying her interest despite her casual tone.
“Somewhere nearby, but I want an advance before I say anything. Call it a goodwill payment.”
She considered this for a moment, then reached inside her jacket and pulled out a sheaf of £20 notes. With no attempt at subtlety, she placed them on the table and slid them across to Cooper, who scooped them up and counted them quickly before making them vanish.
“You understand that if this information is wrong, we expect our money back, or we will take it?”
Cooper nodded and grinned. “It’s not wrong, trust me. He’s staying on a boat in Shoreham Harbour, called the Calamity. It belongs to a mate of a mate who owes Jake a favour.”
“What an unfortunate name.”
“Not for me it’s not.”
“I suppose not. If we find him there, you will get the rest of the money as promised.”
“Fifty thousand?” The desperate greed in Cooper’s voice was worthy of a Shakespearean master.
“Yes. We will contact you through our mutual friend.”
Without another word she stood, striding away without looking back.
“She took the bait,” Cooper murmured, sounding satisfied, and so he should after that performance. It took a lot of guts to lie to someone that dangerous, and he’d done it with a flair that I knew I could never have matched. I just hoped he was right and she had gone for it. The Calamity was a boat that had been seized from a drug dealer a few weeks before as proceeds of crime and hurriedly transported to the harbour. The surrounding
boats had been evacuated.
It was a backstop, in case the surveillance team lost the woman or didn’t locate the whole crew, and a firearms team already surrounded the vessel in preparation. How Striker had managed to organise everything so fast I had no idea, but my admiration for her was growing by the hour.
It felt strange, being shut out of the surveillance team’s channel, but I’d been told that my only job was to be John’s cover officer, his link to the rest of us. As much as I wanted to be in on the follow, the team were used to working together and I would only unbalance it. Or worse, be recognised by one of the Russians from the night before.
“You heading back?” I asked over the radio.
“Not yet,” Cooper replied, raising his beer and taking another sip. “I want to give them a chance to move off first.”
“Well don’t take too long, I’m beginning to stand out.” It was true. The square was starting to quieten down now and the coffee hut I sat outside was closed, the shutters down as the staff cashed up. The students had moved on, and only a few people were left at the bus stops. Another five minutes and I’d look more than a little out of place.
I stood and walked to one of the bus stops, studying the timetable as I waited for John to finish his drink. A few minutes later he stood and walked away, and I let him get about twenty metres before drifting after him.
Instead of heading straight for his flat, which was only a few minutes’ walk from the pub, he crossed the road and walked up towards St Nicholas’ Church on Upper North Street. Only a fool would head straight back to their home address from an operation like this, and Cooper was no fool.
Even so, what happened next took us both by surprise.
Chapter 19
Cooper had just turned into the top of Church Street, with St Nick’s church on one side and a small walled playpark on the other, when the van appeared.
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