It had occurred to Quintel that they could take over the address on a Friday morning, and just wait until Carstair walked through the door – how much fun would that be? But he knew it carried too many risks, he just liked the idea.
They’d spent yesterday rechecking the route from the motorway to Carstair’s home address, no problems. And today they had purposefully kept away from the area, it had been a long day, but the fun bit should start soon. Quintel glanced at his watch. It was nearly 8 pm; he hoped that all the prior reconnaissance would be worth it, especially after what had happened with Reedly. The exact timings were the only variable in Carstair’s routine, the time he actually left the capital could vary by several hours. Today, he’d left later than expected according to Quintel’s paid watcher in London, but no matter, it was still light and would be for an hour. They had found their spot and had been parked up for about twenty-five minutes when Jason spoke.
‘Long range view of a possible contact on the 4x4,’ he said as he sat up in the passenger seat and leaned into the small binoculars he was using.
‘I was bothered he’d stop for a piss, and with the bastard setting off late we would lose the light and have to abort for another week,’ Quintel thought out loud.
‘Me too, Boss. Wait one…Yes it’s a definite contact on the vehicle, with only a driver on-board.’
‘The bastard?’
‘Can’t see with the low sun bouncing off the windscreen - can you move to the junction, Boss?’
They were parked in a narrow lane and normally Jason would do all the surveillance driving, but not today. Quintel had already started the engine after Jason said he’d clocked the vehicle and slowly drove their hire car towards the T-junction with the A59 Longton bypass. It was a dual-carriageway stretch of road which led from Preston into West Lancashire and eventually to Liverpool. Quintel knew that this stretch only lasted a couple of miles before it returned to a single-carriageway, so he’d have to be sharp. Though one advantage of the lateness of time was that the road was now relatively quiet.
‘Go Boss, go. Confirming that the target is driving the vehicle,’ Jason said as he put the small binos into a nylon bag at his feet.
Quintel joined the main road without stopping, and quickly put his foot down in the two-litre saloon; he could see the rear of the 4x4 ahead of them.
‘Once he starts braking for the roundabout keep your foot down and brake as late as you can before the junction, but without causing a scene, Boss. We’ll make ground on him that way without him realising.’
Quintel didn’t reply, he knew this, he also knew what came next, but he’d forgive Jason in the rush of the moment.
‘Once he’s cleared the roundabout, we only have half a mile of dual-carriageway left.’
Quintel didn’t reply.
The 4x4 was held up at the roundabout as a tractor bumbled around it. It allowed them to catch up nicely. The 4x4 cleared the junction after the tractor left at a different exit and they followed the 4x4 straight on. They were right behind him now on the inside lane, not too close, but not too far away either. Their speed levelled off at fifty.
Before they had even joined the dual-carriageway Jason had climbed between the front seats and was now in position by the rear nearside window.
‘Ready? Quintel asked.
‘Ready,’ Jason answered, as Quintel looked at him via the driver’s mirror.
He could see Jason putting the stock of the three-quarter length shotgun into his right shoulder. Quintel turned his attention back to the road as he pulled out to overtake and slowly started to pass the 4x4.
‘Not too fast,’ Jason said.
Quintel checked the speedometer – fifty-five – perfect, and edged alongside the 4x4. He heard the window motor start to whirl behind him, letting road noise flood in, and felt his pulse quicken. He was desperate to look sideways, but Jason had stressed he should not. According to him if you even glance at someone when you pass them they will notice and instinctively look at you. A second’s warning could make all the difference. He resisted the urge, ceding to Jason’s skills from his past life. But before they were level, Quintel was deafened by the boom from Jason’s weapon going off. He couldn’t believe how loud it was inside the car.
‘Go Boss, as hard as you can.’
As Quintel floored the accelerator he allowed himself a glance to his left. He could see that the driver’s window of the 4x4 was gone, as was most of Carstair’s head Well, he assumed it was Carstair’s head as he hadn’t actually seen it beforehand; he’d have to take Jason’s word for it. The grisly sight excited him.
The shoulders of the body were leaning to their left and the car was starting to veer that way too. He’d asked Jason about this earlier; how he could be so sure that the 4x4 would veer left and not to the right, into their path? Jason had told him to be prepared to step on it to get out the way, as a precaution, but emphasised that the force of the shot should drag the body and steering wheel away from them. It made sense. He seemed to know his stuff.
As Quintel powered towards the next roundabout he checked his mirrors for following traffic –there was none. He also saw that the 4x4 had hit the nearside embankment and flipped, he realised how much he’d underestimated Jason in the past. He was much more than just a bouncer; he felt another twinge of guilt about that. And now that he’d proved himself, he’d definitely give him a pay rise, and endeavour to use his entire skill base in the future. At least this job had gone sweet; the client would be pleased.
Chapter Fourteen
Christine Jones had spent the first half of Friday catching up and clearing her emails. She wasn’t due to meet her contact until late afternoon at the earliest. She’d been working on this particular story for some time and her editor had kept reminding her of the need to get the balance right. The armed struggle by the Provisional IRA may have ended with the start of the peace process, but there was still plenty of hardliners out there that would never give in until Northern Ireland was back under southern Irish rule. And she knew that that would never happen whilst the majority of the population of Northern Ireland wanted to remain as part of the United Kingdom. The fact that the majority were Protestant by religion only antagonised the other side of the secular divide.
What she had found interesting through her research was the alleged way in which the police service had changed, and not just in name but in structure. The Royal Ulster Constabulary, as it was before the peace agreement, had been staffed by a largely Protestant workforce, and now it was split into two as the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), and the Northern Irish United Crime Squad (NIUCS). Both had far more Catholics among their numbers than the RUC ever had. Surely, a good thing.
She’d made the mistake of saying as much during an earlier visit to the Province where she’d sought comment from officers from both sides of the divide. One particular officer had vehemently informed her that he now felt unfairly treated - that it was politically correct to encourage and support Catholic officers to progress over Protestant ones. Or so it seemed.
As far as she could tell, each police force had equal standing. The PSNI covered everywhere at a local and regional level, whereas the NIUCS – or Nyucks as it was pronounced - operated only on a regional level, tackling serious and organised crime. The splitting up of the old Royal Ulster Constabulary had clearly been done for political reasons. She’d also come across the same biased accusations among local politicians. What was hard to establish was whether there was indeed, any fact to this, or was the bias being fuelled by false perceptions of those with unmovable beliefs on either side of the equation. She would dearly love to find evidence of this one way or another, as it would greatly enhance her documentary. Whether she ever would, she wasn’t sure.
Christine hated watching documentaries which asked a great question in its title and premise; only to find out an hour later that the question remained unanswered. She needed to dig deeper, and her interview with today’s contact just might pro
vide a lead into this, or so she hoped. It had taken a lot of time, many phone conversations and many promises from the programme’s producers to get to this stage; the first physical meeting. She was quite nervous, but also excited by the prospect. It wasn’t every day a retired assistant chief constable broke ranks and spoke to the press; or an unretired one for that matter.
*
Seven-thirty, the text had said, and her contact was already ten minutes late. Christine was starting to get fidgety as she forced herself to only sip from the large glass of white wine in front of her. Nerves always quickened her thirst but she was determined to stay clear-headed; if today went well, then this could be the first of many meetings, and her current angle aside, who knew where it could lead. She checked her watch once more before calming herself. It was only ten minutes past, it just seemed so much more because she’d been ridiculously early.
She’d arrived at the bar at seven. It was a non-descript pub situated down one of the many side streets off Deansgate in central Manchester. Most of these backstreet boozers had long gone, or been replaced with trendy wine bars, but this was one of the few that remained. She was sat in the front snug which was largely empty, except for a homeless looking sort in a large brown overcoat who was engrossed in the Racing Post and had made his half pint glass of what looked like coke last longer than her wine. She was sat in the far corner with several tables between them. Her back was to a rough brick wall and she had a good view of the outside through the large bay window, and sight of anyone entering the pub, as they who would have to pass the open doorway that connected the snug to the rest of the pub.
She saw a middle-aged man in a lightweight raincoat pass the window on a beeline for the front door. It was his ramrod straight back and mien that caught her attention. Seconds later he passed the snug doorway as he entered the bar proper. She waited, one minute, two, but he didn’t show himself. It was now seven-forty-five. She sighed. The man with the Racing Post got up to leave. He picked his coke up, and she figured he must be going into the main bar, but he hesitated in the doorway. Christine watched as the man looked both ways before turning around and then walked back into the snug. But he didn’t stop at the table where he’d been moments earlier, but headed straight to Christine’s and sat to one side of her.
‘Would you allow me to introduce myself, Christine; I’m Paul Bury, ex-RUC and NIUCS ACC.’
Christine just stared at him as he took the smelly overcoat off and slung it over a chair by the next table. He must have seen by her expression what she was thinking, as he then answered her unasked question.
‘Bought it off a tramp for thirty pounds, call it an act of charity, but I had to be sure you had come alone, and didn’t receive any unexpected visitors, I hope you don’t mind?’
Having got over her astonishment, Christine answered, ‘No, not at all, I was just a little surprised.’
‘You have to remember that during the troubles one learnt to be extra careful about everywhere one went. Can you imagine never standing with your back to a room full of strangers, always with your back to a bar when in a pub; never the other way around? Looking under your car every time you approached it? I learnt to be a cautious man and although times are different now, some habits are hard to break, that’s for sure.’
Christine accepted his explanation for what had seemed at first as a little eccentric, and then thought about what he’d said. No, she couldn’t imagine it.
‘I’ve done my homework on you, as you have no doubt done the same, and that’s why I’ve agreed to meet you. As you know the press and the police have had a turbulent relationship at times, so they have, but you seemed to be one of those who report fairly.’
‘It works both ways,’ Christine started, feeling the need to stand her corner, but without wanting to sound over-defensive; it reminded her of some of the chats she’d had with Vinnie. She continued, ‘In fact I currently have an excellent working relationship with a local detective inspector.’
‘I know you have, and if he’d have been a tosser, I wouldn’t be here,’ Bury said.
Christine was a little taken aback by this, and wondered how far into her life Bury’s “background” had encroached.
‘Look, I can see the surprise in your eyes, but please take no offence, you have to realise that during the troubles I worked in SB – Special Branch – so I’m a bit of a covert policing specialist, you might say.’
She smiled as she said, ‘Yes of course. Does all the sneaky-beaky stuff still go on?’
‘Yes, but it’s massively scaled down. After the peace agreement, the new chiefs wanted to leave the past behind and slashed some of the covert departments in both new forces. Most unit heads in the newly partitioned NIUCS – Northern Irish United Crime Squad - were past their retirement dates and encouraged to leave and enjoy the fruits of their efforts.’
‘Did the same happen in the PSNI – Police Service of Northern Ireland?’
‘Not sure, but it did in NIUCS, that’s for certain.’
‘And you think there was another agenda?’
‘Not at first; it made sense to downsize these units and as the officer in overall command of Specialist Operations at NIUCS I understood this. I even questioned my own tenure, but was told that I was needed to oversee the transition.’
‘Please go on.’
‘I soon started to feel side-lined. Decisions were being made on unit heads replacements, and I wasn’t being involved in the selection processes.’
‘That does sound strange. May I ask what religious persuasion you are?’
‘I’ve never been too persuaded by any religion, but technically I guess I’m a Protestant. And that is partly the issue. I noticed that all the unit head replacements were Catholic. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of these stanch secular types, I’m married to a Catholic lass, and at first welcomed the influx of Catholics at these new senior levels in this new force.’
‘But?’
‘But, one or two of them seemed to have Republican leaning tendencies – forget the religion, that’s irrelevant to me.’
‘So, you think there is positive discrimination in favour of Catholics, some of whom are still Republican in their political affiliation.’
‘Without doubt. But it might go further than that,’ Bury said, with obvious caution in his voice.
Christine didn’t pry straight away. She let the pause hang, hoping it would weigh on Bury. She smiled as sweetly as she could, but eventually broke the impasse herself. ‘As previously promised, anything you say to me is in confidence and you will have total control of the final edit. That said, I don’t want you to tell me something you are not comfortable with. Tell you what, why don’t I get a round in?’
‘You have to understand,’ Bury said, with a measured tone she hadn’t heard him use hitherto; ‘the units under my command were covert ones, undercover officers, touts, and suchlike. The access the heads of these specialist units had was total. And things started to go wrong.’
‘What sort of things?’ Christine said, trying to hide her excitement. This could be a whole new direction for the programme.
‘Without going into specifics at this stage, but for example, if an undercover investigation into a Republican sympathizer was suddenly compromised, what would you expect the outcome to be?’
Christine hadn’t expected a question, so she considered it carefully before she answered. She knew the IRA had given up the armed struggle but she also knew others in the Republican camp had not. ‘I’m guessing, even during this new détente, that a compromised undercover officer would be in grave, if not mortal danger.’
‘Exactly. Not only were jobs going wrong at an unprecedented level, and notwithstanding that the causes of such failings were never clear, no officer, or tout, fell foul. Sure, we put measures in place afterwards, but in some of the instances the bad guys had had plenty of time for a little summary retribution before we pulled the assets out.’
Christine wasn’t too sure w
here this now going, and said so.
‘It was as if some agreement had been reached. Someone at a senior level under my command was leaking information to scupper jobs, but on the understanding that no one got hurt. There, I’ve said it, so I have.’
Christine watched as Bury sat back in his chair, and exhaled loudly. She gave him a moment before she replied. ‘Did you voice your concerns?’
‘That I did. And I was told that I was being paranoid and destructive. They virtually accused me of being a closet Unionist terrorist, said there was no place for me in the modern northern Irish police service, and if I didn’t go I’d be shipped off to London on some bollocks, never to return. So I went. I’d done my time so I retired.’
‘I’ve one question left,’ Christine said, edging into it slowly.
‘I know what you’re going to say and no, I have no evidence of this, but by God I will. You still on board?’
This was turning into something else completely now, she couldn’t believe it. ‘Oh yes, Paul, am I. But we will need proof, proper proof, and we’ll no doubt have to tread carefully.’
‘That’s an understatement, so it is,’ Bury said, as he stood up and pulled the stinky overcoat on, before turning back to face her.
‘I’ll be in touch, but it may take a while. Give me a couple a minutes before you leave, and please say nothing of the latter part of our conversation to anyone, not your DI friend and not even your editor, until I have the proof. Just keep going as per your original story, then it’ll look no different.’
‘Sure, Paul.’
‘Promise?’
‘Promise,’ Christine said.
The Badge & the Pen Thrillers Page 32