by Paul Finch
‘You can’t tell what they’re saying,’ Gemma chipped in. ‘The sound quality’s poor, but at least it proves that both of those guys together were at a meeting with Green Van Man.’
But the SIO still looked unimpressed.
‘Ma’am,’ Heck said, ‘we can check this easily enough. We just need to do some forensic work on these documents. I’d like to guess that they perfectly match whole batches of stationery that are sitting on the shelves in Morgan Robbins’s office right now. I bet they’ve been handled by all kinds of his people – probably innocently in most cases – but there’re bound to be fingerprints. We might even get DNA from the envelopes …’
‘Heck, stop!’ Gwen raised a hand. ‘There is way too much betting going on here.’
‘It’s not like it doesn’t add up,’ Gemma said. ‘Morgan Robbins was a prosecutor for years and years. He dealt with some of the worst of the worst. He probably lost plenty of important cases that left him deeply frustrated.’
‘And that’s given him an abiding hatred of criminals?’ Gwen sounded more than a little sceptical. ‘If so, how come he’s now a defender?’
‘We all get pigged off with the system, ma’am,’ Heck said. ‘Perhaps he decided one day that it wasn’t worth worrying about any more and that he’d take the big money instead. That decision would have been made easier if at the same time he’d found another way to punish these villains …’
‘For heaven’s sake, Heck!’ Gwen exploded. ‘Think about what you’re saying … that Morgan Robbins and Ray Marciano have formed some kind of vigilante ring, kidnapping and killing wanted criminals? And that Green Van Man is their partner? If that’s the case, why has Green Van Man taken these pictures and videos? Why was he carrying them round with him? Like you said, it’s a treasure trove of evidence. If he got pulled over for a simple traffic stop, the whole operation could have gone down the plughole.’
Heck mused. ‘All I can think is that he kept it as a kind of insurance.’
‘You mean against prosecution?’ Gwen snorted with contempt. ‘If he gets pinched, he offers us all this? If that was his plan, it wouldn’t make much sense for him to then resist us with deadly force.’
‘When I say insurance … I mean against his own people. Consider the possibility, ma’am, that these filmed gladiatorial combats were never intended for public consumption. Remember Green Van Man’s threat to kill the Friths if they put the movies online? Isn’t online the obvious place to display your wares if you want to make real money? The Dark Web would be perfect for this.’
Gwen regarded him dubiously but continued to listen.
‘Clearly, this was never intended to be a form of underground entertainment.’
‘But he was selling them,’ Gemma said, one of her own doubts finally surfacing.
‘Yes,’ Heck agreed. ‘Because he’d broken ranks.’
‘Trying to make some money on the side, you mean?’ Gwen said.
‘Yeah,’ Heck replied, ‘and keeping all this documentation was a shield against punishment if his bosses ever found out.’
‘You mean he’d just threaten to drop them in it?’
‘Yeah, but only if he had to. He was on a good number, selling to the Friths – but he didn’t want it to go further than that, to reduce the chance of word getting back.’
Gwen kneaded her forehead. ‘So much of this is pure conjecture.’
‘With respect, ma’am, I disagree,’ Heck said. ‘Look what we’ve got. Photographs and descriptions of the targets. If they correspond with the deaths captured on film …’
‘Which we haven’t confirmed yet, because we haven’t had a chance to peruse all the contents of the pen drives seized from the Friths,’ Gemma said, ‘but the chances are that they will.’
‘We’ve even got the postcodes where they were picked up,’ Heck added.
‘Ah, yes … where Ray Marciano set them up like ducks in a row.’ Gwen’s face clouded with doubt again. ‘After he’d tracked them all down. Seriously, Heck … Ray Marciano may have been a good detective with lots of contacts, but are you trying to tell me that, completely alone, he managed to get somewhere the whole of Operation Sledgehammer couldn’t?’
‘Ma’am, we’ve been on the case less than three weeks. Ray went to go and work for Morgan Robbins six months ago. He could have been doing the spadework a lot longer than that. Either way, he’s had a bit of a head start.’
She sighed long and hard, before something else on the desk caught her attention. It was a set of three photos that Heck hadn’t bothered to show her.
‘What’s this supposed to be?’ she asked.
Each image took a slightly different angle on a large, Gothic structure. A building of sorts, though at first glance it was all turrets and pinnacles, much of it clad in scaffolding.
‘That … I have no idea,’ Heck admitted.
The images had been taken on super-zoom and displayed only the building’s arcane architectural features, catching none of the encircling landscape, so there was no real context or reference.
‘I suppose it must be relevant,’ he said. ‘It may even be where the fights are taking place. We’ll need to pin down exactly what and where it is, though initially I’d suggest we have bigger fish to fry.’
‘Well, you’re right about that, at least …’ Gwen stood with hands on hips. ‘Look … I appreciate the work you’ve put in here. And yes, I do think that all this bears further investigation. But … I’m afraid it’s way out of our league.’
Heck glanced at Gemma, who returned his gaze blankly, as if she was thinking the same.
‘Come again?’ he said.
‘It’s the Morgan Robbins factor that worries me most,’ Gwen said.
‘I admit there’s no smoking gun where he’s concerned …’
‘Pictures of him talking to Ray Marciano are worthless, Heck.’
‘What about the video taken in the pub?’
‘That’s intriguing, but Robbins could argue that was legit too … especially with no Green Van Man around to refute it.’
‘Ma’am!’ Heck pleaded. ‘Why would Ray Marciano be doing all this on his own? It’s a hell of a lot of legwork for him.’
Gemma interjected again, ‘You were right, Heck, when you said that it’s probably costing these crims a lot of money … but maybe that’s the whole thing? They thought they were buying safe passage out of the country, but in reality, Ray and Green Van Man were pocketing the cash and then killing them. I can buy that easily, but that doesn’t prove that Morgan Robbins is involved.’
‘They’re not just killing them,’ Heck said. ‘Why go to all the trouble of setting up this gladiatorial thing? Is it even possible that two men alone could do that? It feels bigger to me.’
‘I agree,’ Gwen said, rather to his surprise. ‘And Ray works for Morgan Robbins, and we’ve got the video of them meeting Green Van Man, and we may well lift some DNA profiles from all this stuff which will implicate staff at his office, and sometimes two and two do indeed make four. But think about it, Heck … if we seriously suspect that Morgan Robbins, who heads one of the most prestigious law firms in London, is organising the abduction and murder by gladiatorial combat of numerous wanted criminals, we’d better be one hundred per cent sure of our facts before we move on it. And …’ she gestured at the desktop, ‘in that regard, this is nothing like enough.’
‘No arguments there,’ he said. ‘We need to do a lot more digging.’
‘Someone does,’ she replied. ‘As I say … not us.’
He regarded her solemnly.
‘Don’t look so worried,’ she said. ‘I’ll admit to being sceptical about some of this, but there’s enough here for me to take to NPCC.’
‘NPCC. Ma’am, you’re not serious?’
‘Heck … we can’t deal with it, OK? Operation Sledgehammer has been badly sidetracked as it is.’
‘But this is part of Sledgehammer.’
‘Only inasmuch as it’s led us to several of the fugitives,’
she said. ‘Or to what we think was the fate of several of the fugitives …’
‘Fourteen, ma’am,’ he argued. ‘Hardly several.’
‘Even if that proves to be the case, we’d still have several outstanding. And it’s our job to catch them.’
She moved to the door as if that was all that needed to be said.
‘So, what happens when you go to NPCC?’ Heck asked. ‘Won’t they just authorise the formation of a completely new task force?’
‘Hopefully.’ Gwen tried to smile. ‘Look, you’ve done a good job, Heck. Our contribution won’t go unmentioned.’
‘I’m more worried about how long all this is going to take. I mean, the top floor don’t exactly rush about, do they!’
‘I’m well aware that we need to expedite this thing.’
‘If we don’t, we risk losing everything we’ve fucking got.’
‘All right!’ Gwen’s expression hardened. ‘Mind your bloody tone, Sergeant! I know exactly how urgent this is, because I’m the one who’s told the world a bare-faced lie that last night was a terrorist incident. I’m the one who’s going to cop it first if this thing goes belly-up.’ She glanced from Heck to Gemma, then back to Heck. ‘I’ll ring Joe now and try for another meeting with NPCC today. Assuming that’s OK with you?’
His mouth twisted shut with frustration, but he said nothing else.
She left the office, banging the door behind her.
‘You know,’ Gemma said, ‘most detectives would be happy not to get involved in a case where the main suspects are part of the country’s “Magic Circle” of legal eagles. This has got the air of being more than a minor ball-acher.’
He slumped back into the chair. ‘I thought you were onside.’
‘It’s not about being onside. Gwen’s right. We can’t push things any further on our own.’
‘Especially if we don’t try.’
‘She’s trying now. Hey … do you want to be the one to face that bunch of bureaucrats on the top floor? I wonder how far you’d get.’
Heck couldn’t help sulking, but everything Gemma said was correct. This vigilante business, and now the potential involvement of a very big fish like Morgan Robbins, was likely to swamp Operation Sledgehammer. The two cases were connected, but one was threatening to become so much more massive than the other that it was already destabilising the enquiry. Not that this made him feel better.
‘And I want to thank you again,’ Gemma added, ‘for what you did for Jack Reed.’
‘You’ve already thanked me for that. Why do it twice?’
‘Because you’ve been on your game this last day or so. And, sometimes … well, maybe you don’t get enough slaps on the back.’
‘Ouch.’ He rubbed his left shoulder. ‘That was some slap.’
‘All right … as you’re determined not to let me be nice to you …’ Brusquely, she handed him a pile of forms bound with elastic bands, ‘take these, please.’
‘OK, I’m sorry, I’m sorry …’ He held up a hand for peace. ‘I just … I …’
He was too dog-tired even to articulate himself, he realised, or to rein it in when he ought to. You can’t keep doing this, he told himself. Getting pissed off with her won’t help. What do you expect: hugs and kisses for doing your damn job?
‘It’s just that …’ he made a hapless gesture, ‘the only thing I’ve got to offer is … this. Going with leads and making scores, I mean.’
She regarded him stonily.
‘I want to get a result here,’ he said. ‘For all the reasons you already know. I must get a result. But … given what it’s taking to do that …’ he couldn’t resist a chuckle, ‘I’m not getting much back, am I?’ He shook his head. ‘Seriously, ma’am … I’m sorry.’
‘Does this not illustrate to you, Mark,’ she said, ‘how truly ill-advised it is to allow one’s love life and one’s working life to become entangled, especially in this job?’
He couldn’t answer.
‘What did we say only yesterday about professionalism?’
This time he didn’t bother answering; the question was rhetorical.
‘Look, you’ve not exactly been an exemplary officer during the whole of this case,’ she said, ‘but you were hot stuff when it mattered, and as such, you’ve brought a significant part of it to a kind of conclusion. And once again, whether you accept it or not, thank you for saving Jack Reed’s life. And as I said,’ she indicated the elastic-banded documents, ‘these are now your responsibility.’
Heck looked down and saw that they were photocopied notes relating to the pursuit of prostitute-strangler, Malcolm Kaye, in Liverpool.
After everything else, this felt like the ultimate kick in the nuts.
‘I’m being reassigned?’
‘Only in a couple of days. I’m clearing you to resume duty, as you requested, but you’ve been involved in a police shooting incident, so, even if it’s only technical in your case, you will be needed for further post-incident enquiries. As such, stay put at the office and familiarise yourself with the Merseyside enquiry. As soon as everything’s sorted here, you can high-tail it up there and assist Charlie Finnegan. You won’t need me to point out that Malcolm Kaye’s name is not in the paperwork we got from Green Van Man … so there’s no reason to assume that he’s not still at liberty.’
‘There’s definitely no one else who can go?’
‘No. I’m sorry, Heck, but I’ve got to juggle the few resources available.’
‘Gemma … we can cross fourteen names off that Most Wanted list. With Reed’s pinch, there’re only five left. That frees up a lot of people.’
‘Like Gwen said, we’ve yet to establish the facts surrounding those fourteen names. And when we do, everyone who gets freed up will be reassigned just as you’ve been. One by one, we’ll be able to strengthen each enquiry. Do you really have a problem with that?’
‘My only problem is that if we’re intent on dragging the top floor into this, nothing’s going to happen quickly enough. You know that as well as I do.’
‘Heck, there are procedures, OK? I know that’s an alien concept for you, but when you’re dealing with someone like Morgan Robbins, who knows more legal tricks and turns than the whole of the Met put together, you don’t go stamping all over it with your size elevens.’
Realising there was no point arguing further, he trudged to the door.
‘Take the rest of the day off,’ she said. ‘You’ve earned some sack time, if nothing else. Report back here tomorrow. You can work a nine-till-five.’
He made no reply as he opened the door.
‘Look … it may be that NPCC decide to bring us back in at some level. They may even decide we should take point on it, but until then we’ve got other stuff to deal with.’
‘I hear all that, but …’ he held up his photocopies, ‘this feels like a punishment?’
‘Don’t be a child, Heck. It doesn’t suit you.’
‘The Liverpool enquiry’s getting nowhere.’
‘Maybe that’s why I’m sending you.’
‘And Charlie Finnegan’s the biggest slimeball in the whole of National Crime Group.’
‘Perhaps you can teach him the error of his ways by demonstrating the error of yours.’
She met his gaze boldly, daring him to respond further.
He didn’t bother. Yet again, the die was cast.
Heck left the building, fully intending to head back to his flat in Fulham, to get some sleep. But by the time he’d got there, having first collected his Megane, a new idea had started niggling away at him … which, given that he wasn’t officially back on duty until tomorrow morning, he had time to explore.
But only if he moved extra quickly.
Chapter 33
Heck was home long enough to grab a shower and a shave and to don some clean clothes. After that, he threw some trainers and a fresh set of scruffs into his grab-bag – just in case – chucked the bag into the boot of his Megane and hit the road again, head
ing back to the North Circular, which he joined at approximately 11:00 a.m.
By the time he’d arrived in Newham, it was just past noon, though from here on his progress slowed. The streets surrounding the lorry park were all closed. He couldn’t even use the slip road to exit the North Circular at that point, as it was bollarded off with cones and Police Incident notices, so he pressed on south for another mile before diverting and having to negotiate his way back through residential estates. That way too, he encountered problems, several side streets adjoining the lorry park sealed with incident tape and guarded by constables or bottled up with press vans.
He made use of his warrant card, but though that got him through the outer cordon, he was restricted to travelling on foot the rest of the way. Walking down the ramp into the lorry park itself, having to show his ID at yet another checkpoint, he was struck by how different the place felt in daylight, with significant numbers of police personnel on site. The majority of the lorry park had been fenced off with yet more incident tape, though a small area on the railway side had been turned into an officially designated investigation team parking area, much of which was already occupied by divisional cars, CSI vans and photographic units.
Heck had only just arrived there when he had to step aside to allow a hearse to pull out. There was no fanfare or ceremony, though one or two of the watching uniforms had removed their helmets. The only assumption could be that these were the last mortal remains of Inspector Jake Renshaw. Heck watched the car glide past with the usual indifference he tried to affect when it came to cop killings. You really couldn’t afford to let it get to you, though that was always easier said than done.
As he stood there, his phone buzzed in his pocket, indicating that he’d received an email. When he checked, it was from Gemma:
Professional standards remind you that a full statement is still required. You may want to confer with Jack to get the facts right on that, under their supervision of course. Neither of you fired a fatal shot, so it’s only a formality. But it’s got to happen. As supervisory officer on the scene, Jack has already claimed full responsibility for taking you forward into an unofficial support role with the firearms team. Joe Wullerton wants to see you too. No need to panic on that. Just checking you’ve taken the requisite legal advice. He also intends to send you for counselling, but you can fit that round your regular duties.