London Large: Blood on the Streets

by Robson, Roy

  ‘Nice to see you looking so spritely guv, how are you feeling?’

  ‘Hello Ames. I’m fine, what’s happening?’

  ‘Well guv, do you want the good news or the bad news?’

  ‘Bad.’

  ‘If you switch the TV on just now you’ll find your friend Joey being interviewed.’

  H prayed silently that one day he’d meet and get the chance to deal one-on-one with this little wanker; but, nonetheless, he was finding him impossible to ignore, like a bad groin rash he just had to scratch. He picked up the remote and hit the ON button.

  ‘What on earth has happened in this world when ignorant, two-bob ponces like Jupiter can air their fucking propaganda on TV?’

  Amisha said, ‘He’s a social media superstar who now has over a million followers on twitter. We can’t ignore him.’

  As the TV flickered into life H saw that Jupiter was already waxing lyrical.

  ‘So what should be done?’ asked the chirpy, dolled-up presenter with a tone of reverence and admiration for the ‘superstar’ who sat before her, wrongly assuming that this epitome of social media emptiness possessed a detailed knowledge of gangland London and the policing methods needed to combat it.

  ‘Well, it’s very clear that The Met have lost control of London’s streets and that their methods and tactics are outdated. We need to…’

  H hit the OFF button, looking about as happy as a small dog revolving in a microwave.

  ‘Ames, you said you had some good news.’

  ‘Yes guv, I’ll get you up to speed en route. We have to be at the Yard for a full debrief after lunch, but we have a little detour first.’

  H kissed Olivia on the cheek, finished up his coffee and looked forward to the ‘good news’.

  38

  H jumped in and banged the car door shut.

  ‘So, what have you been up to Ames. Where we off to?’

  ‘Head for Camberwell Green, I’ve followed up on some tip-offs from some pals of Confident John. I’ve got a warrant to search some premises there.’ She flashed him the address. The lockups behind the back of Camberwell New Road. He knew them well. Lot of history there. H lit up the car and put his foot down.

  ‘So fill me in Ames.’

  Amisha had been busy. Very busy. During H’s bender she had made a few trips to Bermondsey, getting to know some of the other colourful characters Confident John hung out with, getting close to him, seeing what she could see. This was one of H’s maxims.

  Have a little mooch about. See what you can see.

  Eventually she had been put in touch with Pete ‘Pitbull’ Patterson. She’d met him in a pub in the Walworth Road. She recounted to H how she was filled with trepidation as she entered it. The sunlight barely pierced the grimy windows. A heavy, old-school fug hung over the place. It seemed that the smoking ban hadn’t reached this part of town. The few customers the pub still managed to pull in sat in isolated pockets in its murky corners. It felt like the waiting room at the end of the world.

  Pitbull sat in the far corner downing a pint of lager. Three little monsters sat obediently at his feet. Confident John’s friends were right; it would be obvious to her who Pitbull was when she entered the pub. Apart from the dogs his thickset neck, busted nose and sunken eyes told the story of an old-school street fighter who had been bashed up one time too many.

  She sauntered over, doing her best to look like she belonged in the place but in reality as out of place as the Dalai Lama in a Texan whorehouse. John had not warned her to dress down; in these parts, the only smart people were plainclothes coppers.

  ‘Pitbull?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I’m Ames. Confident John said I’d find ya in ‘ere.’ She was dropping her T’s and H’s faster than a privately educated, champagne socialist politician visiting a cement factory on the run up to an election.

  ‘Can I get you a beer?’ She knew social obligations had to come before the verbal. She bought Pitbull a pint and got herself a glass of disgusting and undrinkable white wine. Fortunately she never intended to drink it, but thought it was the standard for a young lady in this part of town.

  ‘Alright fella, Confident John informs me you might have some info I’d be interested in?’ She winced with regret when she used the word ‘informs’; she knew it was a mistake but she thought she’d got away with it.

  ‘Yeah, he called me. Listen, I ain’t no grass. I don’t want any comeback. This conversation never fucking happened. Got it?’

  ‘Yeah, got it.’

  ‘Well, the night of the Soho Massacre, I saw them.’

  ‘Saw what?’

  ‘The vans. They came down here, along Walworth Rd. On their way to the West End.’

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘Well, it was two in the morning. I don’t sleep well so I was out walking the boys.’ He patted each of the three dogs in turn.

  ‘Two transit vans were coming down from Camberwell. They were the only traffic on the street so I clocked ’em. They were the ones in the papers, no doubt about it.’

  ‘Why didn’t you come...’

  ‘Listen love. No comebacks. You understand. If you hadn’t found me I wouldn’t have come forward. John asked me to talk to you so I’m here. Get this sorted. It’s gone too far.’

  ‘One more question,’ said Amisha. ‘Have you ever seen this man?’ She passed a picture of Dragusha across the shattered oak table.

  Pitbull held his best poker stare and considered the implications of his next move. No doubt this was the man in the lead vehicle. He’d made eye contact. It was the kind of face you don’t forget in a hurry. Still, he was already in deep so he played his hand.

  ‘Don’t ever come back to me. I’ll deny ever having met you, but yeah, he was in the passenger seat of the leading van. Those eyes, that face, no fucking doubt about it sweetheart.’

  As she recounted the story H started to view Amisha in a new light. A 28 year old Cambridge educated Indian girl in and out of the boozers of Bermondsey and Walworth, working his patch while he’d been out on the razzle. He’d always known she was clever and she’d been very useful translating the mysteries of the world of social media. But now she was revealing a whole new side of herself, stepping up to the plate while her partner was out of the game.

  Good girl. She’s worth ten of that prick Miller-Marchant.

  ‘Fucking hell Ames, you’re starting to have the makings of a half decent copper.’

  She smiled, and continued her story.

  ‘That was yesterday. I pulled every CCTV camera from Walworth and Camberwell and traced the vans back to their starting point. The search warrant came through but we decided to monitor the premises through the night. Nobody has come or gone. Right here and then second left’, she said.

  H pulled up outside the garage. A posse of Police Constables and officers from the armed response unit were already in attendance.

  ‘Do we know anything about the owners Ames?’

  ‘That’s the thing guv, they boarded up and left over a year ago. Emigrated to Australia. As far as the records show the place has been left empty since then.’

  39

  Police Constable Frank Jones had heard H was on the way so came prepared, handing him a decent cup of builder’s tea from the local greasy spoon on arrival: strong, two sugars.

  ‘Thanks Frank.’

  H sipped gratefully as another PC, a young and eager new recruit by the name of Duwain McGregor, took out the bolt cutters and cut through the padlock that secured the garage door. H sipped on his tea and released a sigh of pleasure. Old brains do love a cuppa.

  H bent down, lifted the aluminium rollover garage door and stood at the entrance to the lockup. His breathing was relaxed and gently rhythmic as he felt inside, flicked on the light and surveyed the scene.

  The place smelled musty and stale. Mouldy sandwiches turned blue with fungus were left on a table in one corner. Two rats loitered in the shadows, unperturbed by the new arrivals a
s they munched away on crumbs from the feast. In the other corner some wooden crates were stacked in a pile.

  But smack bang in the middle of the garage was the piece de resistance. The main prize. The two transit vans had made their way back to their starting point, the false number plates matching those of the two vans witnessed at the massacre in Soho. What secrets would they reveal wondered H, as he downed his tea and flicked on a pair of gloves.

  Forensics were on the way and H wanted them all over the place, like flies around a turd on a hot summer’s day. But he wanted to check everything himself first.

  He made his way over to the sandwiches. They were wrapped in some old newspapers. He carefully started to peel away the sandwich wrapping. He’d expected the paper to be a tabloid, maybe The Sun or The Daily Mirror, but the font size and sheet size showed it to be a broadsheet.

  ‘Ames, looks like one of our murderers is a Times reader, that’s a turn-up for the books.’

  Amisha looked on and noticed H go wobbly as he held up the page to the light and surveyed its contents.

  ‘What is it guv?’

  ‘Fucking hell, it’s Tara’s obituary’, he said as he handed the paper to her, ‘what the fuck are stale sandwiches in a lock up in Camberwell frequented by a band of murderous thugs doing wrapped up in a copy of Tara’s obituary?’

  ‘Don’t read too much into it guv. News of Tara’s murder has been in every paper for the last ten days.’

  But H didn’t believe in coincidences. The picture of Tara had shocked him but he was holding it together. Amisha noticed that rather than rendering him helpless, as the sight of Tara’s body had done in St James’ Park, it was actually livening him up, spurring him on.

  In unison the detectives moved over to the crates.

  Used to transport the arsenal of weaponry these bastards took to the party in Soho, H surmised correctly as he lifted the lid on the boxes. Useful as evidence when they nicked the bastards but probably not much would be revealed to forensics.

  Now for the vans. H tried the back lock of the first of them and found it to be open. He looked inside. The van had been cleaned recently, that much was clear. He stepped back and made his way to the driver’s seat at the front. He was about to try the lock when he noticed a piece of paper from the corner of his eye, protruding from the front wheel. He bent down to pick it up. It was a cut-out from another newspaper. He wasn’t sure which one; it didn’t really matter.

  ‘Fucking hell this just doesn’t make sense. No fucking sense at all. A lockup in Camberwell used to plan the biggest criminal assault between two feuding gangs in the history of London, sandwiches wrapped up in a copy of Tara’s obituary from The Times and a cut out of a picture of Tara and Jemima laying stuck to a wheel.’

  He passed the picture to Amisha.

  ‘Oh my God guv, do you think Dragusha and his firm targeted them? Why? It doesn’t make sense. There’s no connection, no motive.’

  ‘Not at the moment Ames, no’, H said thoughtfully, ‘not at the moment.’

  40

  H and Amisha pulled up outside Scotland Yard. H braked the car to an abrupt halt and leapt out. He was agitated and itching to get up to speed on the Tara case, and to speak to Hilary about the discoveries in Camberwell. The queue at the lift irritated him further. H barged past the crowd, made his way to the stairwell and started the climb to the seventh floor. He was knackered by the time they got to the third, but his agitation drove him on. Amisha's smooth and regular breathing, as she bounded up behind, stood in stark contrast to H's heavy panting.

  H reached the seventh. Ignoring the faces surprised to see him turning up at work, he steered a path through the open plan office and burst his way into the incident room, where an update on the Tara case was in progress.

  ‘Inspector Hawkins, how nice of you to drop in,’ said Hilary. ‘This is not your case - please leave immediately and make your way to my office. When I’m finished here you can update me on your case and explain where the hell you have been these last few days.’

  H believed in the chain of command when he felt it was necessary. At this moment he didn’t. He stared hard at the officer in charge of the Tara case and went straight to the crux of the matter.

  ‘Marchant, you got anything yet?’

  Miller-Marchant remained silent. H knew what that meant.

  Hilary said, ‘Inspector, I just gave you an order. In case you hadn’t noticed, orders are still followed in this Police Service. You have a full debrief on what your team have on the Soho Massacre in thirty minutes. I suggest you go and prepare for that.’

  His dislike of Miller-Marchant allowed his pride to get the better of him, and he exaggerated the progress made on the massacre.

  ‘We have a highly reliable eye witness who can pinpoint the gang member who led the raid on the Russians and, oh yeah, I have evidence that links the two cases.’

  H had gained their full attention. He was in control of the room. The massed ranks of detectives looked on, eager and impatient for more information.

  ‘I’ll see you in your office guv, when you’re ready,’ he said, and exited the incident room.

  The outburst had had the desired effect and a few minutes later Hilary and Miller-Marchant entered Hilary’s office.

  ‘Now Inspector, where the hell have you been while your team has been working hard on this? The media have been all over us and upstairs are a hair’s breadth away from hanging you out to dry. I’ve had to put some effort on keeping you on the case. H, the truth, please.’

  H considered his response. He could say he had been underground working the case and he knew Amisha would back him up. But it wasn’t part of his makeup to steal someone else’s thunder, and he wanted the bosses to start realising just how good she was getting at the job. He went for the truth.

  ‘Well Hilary, after the Tara murder I was in bits. I was having a drink with Ronnie when all the shooting started… The truth is the whole last few days have really got to me. I needed to let off steam. I met a few mates for a drink.’

  Hilary was not amused.

  ‘So, in the midst of two of the biggest cases The Met have ever had to deal with you decide to go on a three day bender while your partner and the whole team flounder around in chaos. There are a lot of powerful forces inside and outside the police that want you out Harry. I don’t know if I can protect you much longer. You better have something good.’

  Hilary had been aware that Amisha had found the CCTV of the transit vans following an anonymous tip off, but was unaware that the informant had identified the ringleader.

  H filled her in. He explained that Amisha had worked the patch under the radar, found an eye witness and this was the lead that allowed her to trace back the vans to the location from which their deadly journey that night had commenced.

  Hilary said ‘And who, pray tell, did he identify?’

  ‘Basim Dragusha, the leader of the Albanian firm on The Island. We have no direct proof he has been involved in anything, but the informant positively identified our top suspect,’ said Amisha.

  ‘That’s enough for a full scale raid, I’ll arrange the warrants,’ said H.

  ‘Hang on Inspector. Is this informant willing to testify?’

  ‘No way,’ said H.

  ‘I promised to keep him out of it’ said Amisha.

  ‘I’m not sure that will be enough. We’ll have to wait. With luck we’ll find some forensics in the lock up in Camberwell’, said Hilary. ‘Well done Amisha, great work.’

  ‘And’, Miller-Marchant said, ‘what about this link between the cases?’

  H looked at Miller-Marchant with his usual contempt as he took out the plastic bag that contained the evidence and explained how he had found the obituary wrapped in a bag of sandwiches and the cut-out of the two sisters stuck to the wheel of one of the vans.

  Miller-Marchant was, after his last experience of being in Hilary’s office with H, slightly more cordial. But his nature was to try and take the moral
high ground whenever the opportunity presented itself.

  ‘Harry’, - unusual, thought H, he’s never called me that before - ‘are you suggesting that Dragusha had Tara killed so he could read about her life story?’

  ‘No, soppy bollocks. I…’

  ‘H!’ shouted Hilary.

  H flashed a wry smile and changed his tone.

  ‘No, Inspector Miller-Marchant. What I am saying is that I have a hunch. Gangsters don’t read obituaries in The Times. In fact they don’t usually read The Times at all. It’s just not a paper they would have lying about when one of their henchmen wraps up some cheese and ham on white. Someone was reading this and my hunch is that someone knows something. That’s all. Hilary, let’s bring Dragusha and the whole fucking lot of them in for questioning. We have the vans and an eye witness that has fingered this bastard. I realise the obituary is just a hunch but bring the fucker in and I’ll get it out of him.’

  ‘Calm down inspector. If the witness won’t testify it might not be enough but I’ll put the evidence before a judge and see if we can do a full search of “The Island”, and get a warrant to arrest him. Given the profile of this case we should have enough, even before the forensics on the van come through.’

  ‘One other thing,’ said H. ‘I saw him. As he was pulling his firm away, just as I arrived in Peter Street. He looked at me. He was balaclava’d up, but those eyes… I know it was him.’

  41

  2am the following morning. The streets of Bermondsey were deadly silent. Hilary had been true to her word and got the warrant in double quick time.

  Fifty officers sat in unmarked vehicles, scattered throughout the large car park in Surrey Quays - or Surrey Docks, as H still called it. The essence of the plan was to drive unobtrusively to the site, block the three exits from The Island, encircle the camp and then go in hard and fast.

  H was on the blower to Miller-Marchant going through, once more, the final details of the raid. Graham had managed to get involved after discussion of H’s suspicions that the Soho Massacre might be linked to the Murders in St James’ Park, and was leading one of the three teams. H ended the conversation and Amisha heard him mutter something about a one legged man at a turkey-kicking contest.