Night of Fire: (DI Angus Henderson Book 6)

by Iain Cameron

  He called Walters and explained his findings.

  ‘Excellent, all we need to do now is nab them.’

  ‘How’s the research going?’

  ‘We’ve got the reg of the car.’

  ‘Fantastic! How did you find it?’

  ‘Phil Bentley picked the car up from a camera in the Steine. It is a green Vauxhall Vectra as our witness thought and it’s registered to a cousin of Ajay Singh. We’ve put it up on ANPR.’

  ‘Any response?’

  ‘None yet.’

  ‘With the car on the system and officers knocking on the doors of relatives and friends of Singh and Solomon, it’s only a matter of time.’

  **

  The afternoon dragged by in a monotonous fug. It was the worst part of being a DI, waiting for a result to emerge, and not able to go out there and make things happen himself. Henderson ploughed through paperwork that relentlessly appeared in his in-tray with the alacrity of a virulent disease, regardless of his involvement in a big case or not. During a murder enquiry, it would be overtime sheets, claims for damaged clothes, car insurance claims and complaints from the public, and in the hiatus between cases, invites to seminars, committee reports, Home Office diktats and expense forms.

  He had been about to append his signature to yet another form when his phone rang. He reached for it with undue haste, thankful for the interruption.

  ‘Afternoon Angus, it’s Steve Rhodes, Robbery Squad.’

  ‘Afternoon Steve, how’s it going with Fenton’s? Anybody in the frame yet?’

  ‘No, not a dicky. It doesn’t help when CCTV shows bugger-all and the perps are all wearing gloves and balaclavas.’

  ‘It’s not what you call playing fair.’

  ‘Why I called is I hear you think the victim of the murder from the other night is one of the robbery team from Fenton’s.’

  ‘Where did you hear this?’

  ‘I can’t remember.’

  Henderson sighed. He’d wanted to keep this information back until the suspects were in custody. ‘We found the murder victim in a house where we also discovered some items of jewellery. We requested the list of the items stolen from Fenton’s from your team to check if any recovered from the house matched those on the list.’

  ‘And do they?’ Rhodes said, his voice failing to disguise his enthusiasm.

  ‘They did–’

  ‘What? Does that mean you know who the jewellery thieves are? When were you–’

  ‘Hang on, Steve. I said we found jewellery in the house, I didn’t say we know who the occupants are. Also, we don’t know if our murder victim is part of the robbery team or went to talk to the robbers and things turned sour. He might be innocent for all we know, in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘At the moment, we’re trying to locate two men that we know were in the house at the same time as our victim and I’m confident it’ll happen soon. When we have one or both of them in custody, the story should become clearer.’

  ‘Do you know their names?’

  ‘No,’ he lied. ‘We only have a partial on the car registration number and even if I did know their names, I still wouldn’t tell you as it would be idiotic for us to have two teams out there competing to find the same suspects.’

  ‘Fair enough, but if you could tell me I could run their names against one of our in-house lists; see if they’re on our radar.’

  ‘If they’ve both got form, I’m not sure your analysis will tell us anything more than we can find out ourselves.’

  ‘Yeah, but maybe we’ve got some proprietorial knowledge that might tell us where to find them. When something like this goes down, we hear rumours and stories all the time. A name helps the rumours make sense.’

  Henderson had to admit it sounded sensible. ‘If in a day or so my enquiries have drawn a blank, I’ll give you a call.’

  ‘Let’s assume you do find them, when do I get a crack?’

  ‘Steve, I’m investigating a murder. My first priority is to find out who killed the victim. My energies will then be focussed on obtaining as much evidence as we can to gain a conviction. I’m not interested in the robbery except if it provides motive.’

  ‘I’m pleased to hear it. So, when will I get a crack at them?’

  Henderson was getting tired of this. He imagined the words ‘murder’ and ‘victim’ would evoke some sympathy in Rhodes; they did not. The disappearance of a large cache of jewellery was evidently more important in his mind.

  ‘When the murder case is done and dusted, not before.’

  Henderson’s mobile rang. He looked at the screen: DS Walters.

  ‘If it’s all right with–’

  ‘Steve, I’ve got another call, I need to go.’

  ‘But can I ask–’

  ‘No. I have to go. Talk to you later.’

  ‘Who are you being so rude to?’ Walters asked. ‘It’s usually to me.’

  ‘Steve Rhodes from Robbery. He’s frightened we’ll grab all the glory for the Fenton’s robbery. He’s trying to muscle his way in.’

  ‘Well, this might be over before he realises. I know where our two suspects are hanging out.’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Henderson approached a grubby Vauxhall Astra, parked in a busy Brighton street. He walked to the driver’s door and bent down as the window slid open. Inside, DS Walters and DC Emma Jenkins looked over at him.

  ‘Good afternoon ladies. Have you seen any movement?’

  ‘Afternoon sir. No, not for a while. A young skinny guy who looked like the mug shot I have of Fletcher, walked down to that shop over there,’ she said, nodding her head in the direction of a Mace mini-supermarket, ‘about an hour ago. He bought a few things and headed straight back to the house.’

  ‘Do we know if both our suspects are in there?’

  ‘I think so. We noticed an Asian-looking guy coming to the window a few times and looking up and down the road as if trying to spot us or looking out for someone. From here, it’s hard to tell for sure, but it looked like Singh.’

  ‘That’s good enough for me.’

  Henderson glanced up and down Goldstone Road. They were in Hove but it could have been any number of streets in Brighton or Hove, cars parked on either side of long rows of terraced houses, as every resident owned one and often two. Even an anonymous police white van containing four firearm officers didn’t look out of place among delivery vans and those belonging to firms of builders and carpenters doing some work further up the street.

  ‘We go in five minutes,’ Henderson said. ‘Are you ready, Emma, your first armed raid?’

  ‘I’m feeling a bit nervous, sir, but I’m sure I’ll be ok.’

  ‘Don’t worry, it may be noisy but the guys with the guns and the bullet proof vests will be doing most of the work.’

  ‘That’s reassuring.’

  ‘Given that one of our suspects is coming to the window at regular intervals,’ Henderson said, ‘don’t run towards their building when you get the green light. Amble over as if you’re looking for an address, in case they spot you. We don’t want them legging it down the fire escape.’

  ‘Will do,’ Walters said. ‘What if he isn’t looking out for the police, but he’s waiting for someone; another member of the gang or a fence to buy the jewellery. Shouldn’t we wait and see who turns up?’

  ‘No. Our priority is to nab Guy Barton’s killer. I’m not willing to leave it any longer than necessary and run the risk of them getting away.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Good. I’ll see you in five,’ Henderson said. He looked over at the target house before standing, put his hands in his pockets and walked if heading for the small supermarket on the corner.

  Uniform had been checking the addresses of Singh’s numerous uncles and cousins. They walked away from this one believing it to be empty, when a neighbour told them about the recent arrival of two young men. The house belonged to an uncle who spent the British winter in India but fe
ll out with his nephew over his criminal convictions and banned him from sight. Clearly, Singh had copied the key and stayed there while his uncle was away.

  Henderson reached the van housing the Armed Response Unit and was about to climb in when he noticed two men crossing the road and walking as if looking for a specific house. The two men caught the DI’s eye as they looked a mismatched pair. A small dapper man with gold spectacles, grey thinning hair and carrying an attaché case, beside him a man the size of a rugby front-row forward with a bashed-in face. His radio crackled. He touched the ear piece to activate.

  ‘Are you seeing this?’ Walters said.

  ‘Yep,’ Henderson replied. ‘They look like a couple of villains to me.’

  ‘The Little and Large Show more like.’

  Henderson ducked behind the van as the door to the target house opened. A thin Asian guy stood there and invited the two men inside. They disappeared into the house and before the guy shut the door, he scanned up and down the road. Henderson got a good look at his face, it was Ajay Singh.

  Henderson opened the back door of the van. Four faces, their bodies clad in black Kevlar vests and holding badly scratched Heckler and Koch short barrel MP5 carbines, turned to look at him. ‘Change of plan gents, our suspects have just had a couple of visitors and I want to hit them before they get comfortable. Can you be ready to go in a minute?’

  ‘We’re ready to go now, sir, if you want,’ Sergeant Billington replied.

  ‘Excellent, let’s move.’

  He stood to one side and allowed the bulky individuals to pass, then using the radio, called Walters and told her about his revised plan. Henderson closed the van door and ran after them.

  The white painted house consisted of a basement with a separate entrance, a reception room and kitchen on the ground floor and three bedrooms upstairs, all gleaned from estate agent details of similar houses nearby. To reach the door, they needed to climb a small flight of stone stairs, exposing the visitors to anyone inside who looked out of the front bay window. To minimise the chance of this, the door banger went up alone, while the other men crouched out of sight.

  The door flew open after two bangs and they all piled in, Henderson at the rear. The armed response officers seemed to have achieved the element of surprise, perhaps the activities of the door banger being attributed to the noisy builders a few doors down. Whatever the reason, the four individuals kneeling on the floor looking at jewellery spilling out of two sports holdalls, looked up in disbelief.

  ‘Who the fuck are you?’ the uglier of the two earlier arrivals said, a much punched-in face shoehorned into a tight tweed suit, with a thick Brummie accent.

  ‘Shut up, and don’t move,’ Sergeant Billington barked.

  Using the cover of four carbines pointing at each of their heads, Henderson and Walters pulled out handcuffs. He hauled Fletcher to his feet, pushed him against a wall and patted him down. In his pockets he found a bag of pills and some cannabis. Officers from two patrol cars Henderson had waiting nearby were standing in the hall and after reading Fletcher his rights, Henderson passed him over to them.

  Singh came next, and from his waistband, the DI pulled out a weapon: a Beretta 9mm. A 9mm slug had been extracted from Guy Barton’s chest at the P-M and while he knew it was common enough ammunition, he would bet this was the gun that killed Guy Barton.

  Holding it by the finger guard he handed it to a member of Billington’s team. With the weapon’s safety on, he ejected the ammunition cartridge and pulled back the slide to eject any round still in the chamber. Then, flicking a switch, he separated the barrel from the body of the gun and held out the pieces. ‘Clear,’ he said.

  Jenkins walked towards him with an open evidence bag and the Firearms Officer dropped the items inside.

  ‘What’s going on here?’ Henderson asked Singh.

  ‘What does it–’

  ‘Shut the fuck up, Ajay, if you don’t want your throat cut,’ the Brummie in the tweed suit said.

  ‘Speak when you’re spoken to,’ growled Billington from a position behind his trusty MP5.

  Henderson handed Singh over to another copper and walked over to deal with the big man. The DI believed he was the minder and his smaller companion the buyer, therefore the black case beside the buyer would contain cash. He would take a look at it in a minute.

  Henderson attached handcuffs and raised the big guy to his feet. He started to struggle and the DI avoided the backwards head-butt, a common tactic with aggressive suspects, but failed to anticipate the elbow to the gut and the heel to the shin. He yelped in pain as the big Brummie broke from his grasp and lurched forward. He barrelled into the two armed response officers but Billington was as big as his assailant and didn’t flinch before dropping him with a practiced thump to the head from the butt of his carbine.

  Henderson walked over, his leg throbbing, and pulled the big guy to his feet using the handcuffs.

  ‘Hey, careful with my fucking wrist copper, that’s a gold watch.’

  ‘They’re ten a penny around here, mate,’ Henderson said. ‘Did you nick one while your mates weren’t looking?’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  Henderson patted him down and found a gun in an inside pocket. It was a scratched and marked Remington, perhaps a weapon he’d owned for years or one handled by many others. ‘Where did you get this?’ Henderson asked. He handed it to Jenkins, who passed it over to one of Billington’s team to make safe. ‘Is it rented?’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  ‘You’re a man of few words and not all of them pleasant.’

  In various cities across the UK, guns could be hired for short periods, used for their intended purpose and then passed back to their owner. By doing a test firing and comparing the ridges and marks on the bullet with bullets recovered from other firearm incidents, they might be able to tell if this one had been involved in the furtherance of other crimes.

  Henderson handed him over to a cop. He was young, but looked as though he could handle himself. ‘Be careful with this one,’ he said, ‘he tried to escape.’

  ‘He’d look a right sight running down the road with his hands ’cuffed behind his back. C’mon mate, let’s go.’

  Henderson turned to deal with the last man sitting, the jeweller, when he heard a scuffle outside. He walked back into the hall to see two coppers dragging the big man to the car, his body inert between the two officers as if he’d just been punched in the gut.

  Henderson went back into the lounge and reached for the other guy. Slightly built with silver spectacles and grey receding hair, he had the look of hard steel in his eyes. The man made a move to grab the handle of the small case but Henderson pushed his arm away.

  ‘It’s mine.’

  ‘It was,’ the DI said, ‘but it’s mine now.’

  As expected, his pockets contained nothing incriminating and he offered no resistance.

  ‘What’s going on here?’ Henderson asked before he handed him over to another constable. ‘You came here to buy jewellery stolen from Fenton’s in Lewes, didn’t you?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m saying nothing until I talk to my lawyer.’

  Henderson smiled. It didn’t happen often that such a comment would make him happy and he wanted to savour it. ‘Fat lot of good it’s going to do you, mate. Everything I need to send you and your gorilla to jail for a very long time is sitting here in this room.’

  ‘We’ll see about that.’

  ‘Take him away,’ Henderson said.

  With the last of the suspects out of the room he thanked the armed response officers. They trooped back to their van while he walked into the lounge to await the arrival of the SOCO team. Walters began to sift through the evidence on the floor while Jenkins looked around the room.

  ‘How’s your leg?’ Walters asked.

  ‘Throbbing like a Fat Boy Slim soundtrack, but if it solves a murder and a robbery, it’s a small price to pay. How much is in the case?’

&n
bsp; ‘It’s all fifties bundled into thousands. A hundred grand I would say.’

  ‘What did the Robbery Squad say this stuff was worth, about four million?’

  ‘Fenton’s said eight which Steve Rhodes said would be retail prices, but at wholesale prices it would be around four.’

  ‘In which case, a hundred grand or even two hundred grand, doesn’t come close.’

  ‘You’re right. Do you think our two Brummie boys were trying to pull a fast-one?’

  ‘What, strong-arm Fletcher and Singh into accepting their first offer?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Not with so little cash and not with Singh armed with a shooter. Maybe they wanted to take a look at them first, see what kind of people they were dealing with. Mind you, if they did decide to roll them over, the big Brummie bloke is about the size of Fletcher and Singh combined.’

  ‘Why do I have the feeling you’re thinking about something else?’

  ‘What if the hundred grand is a down payment, a gesture of goodwill perhaps, with the rest of the money to come after seeing and verifying the merchandise?’

  ‘Sounds more like it.’

  ‘Which means what, Detective?’

  ‘It means they must have a stash of money nearby, being looked after by an associate or lying in the boot of their car.’

  Henderson reached into his pocket and held up two sets of car keys: one on a Vauxhall key ring, the other, Mercedes.

  ‘Where did you get those?’

  TWENTY-SIX

  DI Henderson walked into the interview room with DS Walters. On the other side of the table, Solomon Fletcher. They had already interviewed Ajay Singh with DS Hobbs handling the unenviable task of interviewing the two Birmingham boys, otherwise known as Gerald Rattigan and his gorilla, Barry Forshaw.

  Armed with both of the Brummies’ names they interrogated the PNC with predictable results. Rattigan had been a fence for over thirty years, buying stolen goods from all over Europe and selling them to a network of corrupt jewellery shops. It was a fantastically lucrative business, jewellers were happy to take the goods from Rattigan not only because they would pay less than the wholesale price, they also received exquisite pieces of jewellery they couldn’t buy anywhere else.