‘Instead of which . . .’
‘Yeah. It was us who was really for the chop.’
‘Why Bath? What does this man want with a provincial city?’
Mick shrugged. ‘Well, the punters are still loaded, I suppose. Quite a few of the big boys are moving out of town as you cops make life too uncomfortable for them.’
‘And you didn’t have enough in the way of lads for that night so you recruited a few illegal immigrants.’
‘They was desperate for money. Starving. Came in on a lorry hoping to get jobs picking fruit and veg and but couldn’t find nothing. A couple of them was killed.’
‘Sliced to ribbons by all accounts.’
‘It was murder. They was little more than boys.’
‘Don’t try to pretend that you actually care!’ Patrick bellowed, making Micky jump.
‘Yes, I do care!’ he shouted back. ‘They didn’t know English, perhaps just a few words, and one of them cried when I got him to understand that I’d give him a hundred quid if he mustered with a few other blokes and did one night’s work for me.’
‘You armed them, though.’
‘Well, I had to, didn’t I?’
‘Did they know how to fire them?’
‘We did try to explain,’ Mick muttered after a short silence.
‘Gill’s dead,’ Patrick said.
‘I know. He was a bloody fool. After the turf war he rang me and said . . .’
‘Go on.’
‘He said he hoped I hadn’t been hurt and he hadn’t known it would be like that, a shoot-out with people killed.’
‘Did you believe him?’
‘I did at the time. Not now. Then he said that Uncle – that’s a bloke called Brad Northwood in case you didn’t know – was going to make him his right-hand man plus a share of his London takings. It was an offer too good to pass by.’
‘If Gill used to be a chum of yours how come he sold you down the river?’
‘You’ve said it: money. Charlie could never resist the stuff. He didn’t have to brag about it to me though, did he?’
‘It was certainly Uncle who had him killed. Do you know anything about a woman called Joy Murphy?’
‘Only that she’s Northwood’s minder and will kill anything for a laugh. God, if only I’d known . . .’
‘He probably won’t give up until he’s removed all the opposition from the vicinity of Bath. That’ll include you.’ In offhand fashion Patrick added, ‘Of course, it’ll tidy things up wonderfully for us cops.’
‘I don’t see what I can do about it.’
‘There’s something you could do.’
‘What?’
‘Put it about as widely as you can that you’ve been forced into selling your outfit: your boys, loot, where you keep it and anything else important, to a guy who’s returning to this country from where he’s served a long prison sentence abroad and wants to find his roots. His great-grandad was a big noise in Bristol and Bath a long time ago and he wants to carry on where the old man left off at an early age, mostly because he was hanged for several murders.’
‘And who’s this guy going to be?’
‘Me.’
‘You!’
‘I’m pretty convincing as a mobster.’
‘I think I believe you. What do I get out of it?’
‘Not a lot. Revenge for the humiliation and loss of funds that Uncle caused you that night, perhaps. I can’t promise you freedom from prosecution for crimes you’ve already committed and my boss would never sanction the transfer of a large sum of money. I’ll think of something. But you’ll have to trust me and ask Captain Enrico to take you on a cruise. Just disappear for a while.’
‘And if I refuse?’
‘I’ll just carry on breaking your neck. Slowly.’
‘He might have agreed but then do nothing,’ I said later.
‘He’ll do it,’ Patrick replied. ‘It involves nothing more than having a few words in people’s ears in pubs and some phone calls. He’s keeping his head right down at the moment crime-wise anyway so it might guarantee that he goes off the map for a bit longer.’
‘I’m not too sure of Cookson either. I mean, you’d told him you had no intention of going to see Micky undercover but you could have changed your mind.’
‘I don’t think he’s bent.’
‘No, I wasn’t suggesting he is. But if he did happen to be getting backhanders from Micky and Micky tells him what you’re doing . . .’
‘It probably wouldn’t matter a lot. I can’t believe Cookson has a hotline to Uncle. No, I think he was seriously concerned about my welfare.’
Wishful thinking?
THIRTEEN
James Carrick seemed glad to be back at work but there was something about his eyes that hinted of less sleep than was good for him. Patrick gave him a file containing an account of our activities while he had been away, which he read carefully, occasionally glancing up at the pair of us as though in disbelief and uttering the odd muttered Gaelic expletive.
‘Bloody hell,’ he said, having finished the last page.
Patrick said, ‘I asked Ingrid to leave off the latest development as I want to talk to you before I do anything further with it. I’ve been to see Mick the Kick and asked him to spread the word that he’s been forced into selling his business to another mobster. Me – under another name, obviously.’
‘Right,’ Carrick said, drawing out the word for just about as long as possible.
‘And I’d like to stage some kind of large crime here to make Uncle believe I’m taking over Bath as well,’ Patrick carried on blithely.
‘Patrick . . .’
‘I’ve said nothing to Greenway yet.’
The Scot wagged a finger at him. ‘Through Murphy Uncle knows what you look like.’
‘By the time he finds out who he’s up against it’ll be too late.’
‘How the hell did you persuade Micky Fellows to do this?’
‘Just promised to kill him there and then if he didn’t.’
Carrick looked a bit shocked. ‘He might have called your bluff.’
‘I wasn’t bluffing.’
‘Bloody hell,’ Carrick said again.
‘But I knew he’d agree. He might turn Queen’s evidence too – if there’s something in it for him.’
Carrick pondered. ‘We have plenty of evidence to connect Charlie Gill to the case and now you’ve spoken to Billy Jessop, Murphy and Northwood are well in the frame. Billy was shown some mugshots yesterday and has positively identified both of them as the people in the big car driven down the pedestrian precinct that night, the woman having recruited him and his brother in the first place. He’d only seen Northwood once before. There is actually sufficient evidence to arrest these people without any theatricals at this end.’
‘Good, I’m happy to abandon that idea, but it never hurts to stir the brew a bit.’
Carrick looked relieved. He indicated the report. ‘Shall I get a copy of this sent to Greenway?’
‘We emailed it to him last night. He told me that surveillance points to the pair of them still being in London.’
‘Even better. The Met can arrest them then.’
I said, ‘We also have a tentative link to Adam Trelonic, someone Billy remembered calling himself Brian.’
‘But we need to be really careful there, don’t we?’ Carrick observed. ‘His widow’s promised to make trouble at Hinton Littlemoor if we keep questioning her and until we have more evidence there’s no point in doing so. We must be dead sure of his involvement before we try to make any connections as far as she’s concerned.’
‘The photograph of us taken on our wedding day that was in Murphy’s flat was in all the Bath papers,’ I told him. ‘Carol Trelonic could easily have accessed it from records and sent it to Murphy.’
‘Murphy’s pure poison,’ the DCI murmured, an unusually emotive remark from such a pragmatic detective.
It shortly emerged that the Metropolitan Po
lice had already put in place plans to arrest Northwood and Murphy and it had been discovered that previous intelligence had been wrong and the latter was living in an attic room that overlooked the road at the front of the Hammersmith property. We set off for London, Michael Greenway having said that we deserved to be ‘in at the kill’, as he put it. He made a point of adding that he had ‘thrown his weight about’ to ensure our presence.
It was to be the usual small hours raid, SOCA officially being there as observers, no more, and we would only be permitted to enter the house once arrests had been made. So, two hours after midnight the next day, we duly found ourselves loaded as cargo into the back of an unmarked van, one of several vehicles, and travelling blind as there were no windows in the rear of it, jammed in like battery hens with several heavily armoured members of an unspecified incident unit. I felt that should one of them so much as sneeze I would suffer several cracked ribs.
On arrival in a side street that I overheard someone say was a hundred yards from the target they all piled out, taking with them a battering down doors implement and other nameless devices. Under orders from a terse and also anonymous officer in charge, we stayed put. But after several long minutes the inside of the van, despite the brief opening of the doors, became extremely stuffy and still redolent of far too many brewed-up blokes.
‘I didn’t bring my sonic screwdriver,’ Patrick muttered, having tried the door handle to no avail.
‘Well, you can’t shoot your way out as it might warn Uncle and co.,’ I said, knowing the way his mind works and hoping to nip that idea smartly in the bud.
‘Perhaps it’s just stuck,’ Patrick said when another stifling five minutes had elapsed. ‘I’ll pull down the handle and we’ll both throw ourselves at it.’
This we did and bounced painfully back where we had started from.
‘Again!’ Patrick said.
Nursing a bruised shoulder I then noticed a ventilator grille in the partition between the cab and the rest of the interior. It was closed. I slid it open with little improvement as the windows in the front were probably all shut as well.
‘I think I’d far rather be sacked for buggering up the raid than suffocate,’ my working partner announced. Grabbing someone’s discarded anorak he pushed his Glock down one sleeve, forming a muffler with that and as well as he was able with the rest of the garment, tucking it into the interior bracing struts of the door. I was waved from the immediate area.
There was a loud boom that would have awakened several cemeteries and one door flew open to smash back against the rear of the vehicle. Observed from the outside moments later it did not look as though it would readily serve its intended purpose again.
‘We’ll probably have to walk back,’ Patrick said absent-mindedly after taking several deep breaths, tucking the weapon back in the shoulder harness.
London seemed to be going about its normal 2.45 a.m. business – that is, not much. Nobody appeared to be leaning out of windows, no one came running and I came to the conclusion that the noise had been fairly well contained by the body of the van and had possibly sounded like a vehicle backfiring. Despite having put my hands over my ears though they were still ringing.
‘Which way did they go?’ Patrick asked.
‘No idea.’
‘Do your oracle thing.’
‘Look, I’m not some kind of cop detection gizmo,’ I snapped.
His teeth gleamed white as he grinned at me in the deep shade beneath a tree. Ye gods, how the man loves this kind of enterprise.
‘I think they might have gone this way,’ I told him, pointing in the direction of the main road, which was around fifty yards away. In truth, I had no idea.
We set off, not really hurrying and, as far as I was concerned, quite content for other people to do the rough stuff. Something did tell me, however, that getting hold of Brad Northwood and his seriously bent harpy was unlikely to be this easy.
‘I hope Matthew’s not bored,’ Patrick murmured. ‘I’d hate it if he thought we’d just shovelled him off somewhere out of the way.’
‘We’ll have to get him a better computer for Christmas. Perhaps Benedict’s letting him use his.’
‘Lads don’t usually want to share things like that.’
In the distance, moments later and from the direction of the main road there were thumps and then a crash like the sound of a front door being smashed in. Then came the staccato cracks of three shots being fired quite close by. We ran.
On the corner before the wider thoroughfare we paused for a careful look at what was going on around to the right, the direction from which the shots had seemed to come. There was the wail of sirens in the distance, closing rapidly, but not necessarily anything to do with what was going on here. Suddenly there was the pounding of feet, approaching on the run.
‘Stop!’ Patrick bellowed, taking a stand on the pavement. ‘Police!’
There was a loud report as a gun was fired. Patrick spun around and I thought for a ghastly moment that he had been hit but it was a feint and as the gunman tore past, almost touching him, he was in a perfect position to strike him on the nape of the neck with the side of his hand. I ran out and collided heavily with someone else, a woman, who uttered a scream, choked off by the crook of Patrick’s arm around her throat.
‘Do we have handcuffs?’ Patrick enquired of me.
‘No, just a few cable ties,’ I replied.
‘Do you always carry cable ties, just in case?’
‘Only as of yesterday.’
The man, not unconscious but staying where he was on the pavement, was short and powerfully built with fair hair. His companion, wiry with short dark hair, looked mad enough to spontaneously combust.
They were the wrong people.
Wanted to help with other enquiries, no doubt, but still the wrong people. They had been the inhabitants of Uncle’s house that the police had recently been painstakingly monitoring, a couple closely resembling Northwood and Murphy. When this had been finally established back at the house after a full search had been made, which took over two hours while we kicked our heels, the Met gathered them up, expressed disappointment about their van and said they would be sending SOCA the bill. Everyone went away and we never saw any of them again.
In the first light of dawn we walked what seemed to be rather a long way back to our hotel.
‘They switched over four days ago,’ Michael Greenway told us when we saw him later in the morning after having had a couple of hours’ sleep. ‘And to be fair the replacements have been going in and out hiding their faces as much as possible with hats and, during the recent rain, umbrellas.’
‘All clichés along the lines of the birds having flown will be savagely punished,’ Patrick muttered to himself.
‘Coffee,’ the commander decided after a quick glance at his subordinate. ‘Did you have breakfast?’ he followed this up with.
We said we had not.
‘Croissants then.’ Never one to go to the door and shout or expect anyone to come running he went away and asked his PA to fix it.
‘They’re talking then,’ I said when he returned.
‘Non-stop apparently and now anxious to distance themselves from any connection with serious crime lords,’ Greenway answered.
‘But he was armed,’ Patrick said.
‘It was his own weapon. The idiot even bragged about it. Some kind of tinpot Mr Fixit. We know all about him and God knows he’s stupid enough to be recruited for the job without knowing who he’s really working for – if he’s even heard of Northwood. That hasn’t been established yet.’
‘What about the woman?’ I asked.
‘Just a hooker he knew – she’s a drug addict – who was glad to stay in someone else’s house, all paid for, plus a little pocket money for as long as required.’
‘Do we know how this man was recruited?’
‘Word of mouth – or so he’s saying. He’s not too stupid to know the best plan is to keep your mouth shut abou
t certain matters.’
‘Would you like me to talk to him?’ Patrick enquired.
‘The Met’s still working on him and I don’t think anything valuable would come of your having a go as well. Uncle’s far too clever to leave a trail of useful information with his bum-wipers.’
‘So where the hell are they then?’
‘I’m rather hoping that you’ll find out. You’re free to go and take a look around Northwood’s place even though I’ve been given to understand that it’s been gone over very thoroughly already.’ He gave me one of his big smiles. ‘Ingrid, you’ve been known to find things that other people have missed.’
‘He’ll have other bolt holes to go to,’ Patrick said. ‘And probably won’t ever return to Hammersmith to pick up his stuff except when the Met’s gone to their effin’ Christmas party.’
Luckily our coffee arrived just then.
‘No pressure then,’ I said as we approached the Hammersmith house.
‘You’ve given everyone very good leads in the past,’ Patrick said, definitely in a jauntier frame of mind. ‘But don’t worry about evidence against them, the Met can work on that. All we want is to find out where they’re hiding out now.’
There were the usual strands of incident tape draped between lamp posts and other street furniture and a torpid with boredom constable on duty at the door. Patrick flashed his warrant card, actually his driving licence, at the man and then gave him a furious and expletive-laden lambasting for letting us through. No, he really was not still in a mood, just an ex-military man who loathes lax security and sloppy conduct.
We went in and I walked into the first room I came to. Patrick knows my methods and left me alone to undertake his own investigations. The furniture: two large sofas, several chairs, a bookcase, empty but for a couple of cartons that had once held computing kit, and another set of shelves loaded with news-papers and magazines, was scruffy and had probably come with the property. The general impression was one of bareness, of no personal possessions.
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