by Robert White
It gave me the creeps.
Being a category A prison, it had housed the most dangerous criminals in the country, infamously Ian Brady and Harold Shipman amongst its guests.
And, of course, Stephan Goldsmith.
My next port of call was the nearby pubs. Just as with hospitals and police stations, there is always one local, the staff would use post shift.
When I walked into the tap room of the Berwick Arms on the corner of Carnarvon Street, a pub just far enough away to avoid friends and relatives of the inmates but close enough to walk to, I knew I’d found that place. Half a dozen white-shirted guys and a couple of very beefy looking women were gathered around the old Victorian bar, drinking and talking shop.
Their conversation stopped the instant they heard my heels on the tiled floor.
My first impression, that outsiders would not be welcome, was to be well-founded, and the only snippet of information offered was that Colin Reed was on long-term sick leave due to work-related stress.
Posing as his long-lost niece, I pressed for his address and was unceremoniously shown the door.
As I was determined to prove Rick wrong and find our first piece in the jigsaw, this left me with only one option that I could think of, and it wasn’t the best idea I’d had in a while.
Levenshulme Police Station was almost as grim as Strangeways jail. I couldn’t decide if my stomach churned because of the stink in the public waiting area, or the company I was about to keep.
I checked my reflection in the two-way mirror, for the tenth time. I’d taken out my ponytail, applied some lipstick and considered I looked pretty good. Even so, Detective Chief Inspector Larry Simpson kept me waiting for just over an hour.
Finally, the door opened and there he stood. His lean frame only served to accentuate his height. He wore a crisp white shirt with an open neck, his sleeves rolled to the elbow, revealing his muscular forearms. He was indeed a handsome man, yet as my butterflies did back flips, I felt nothing but disgust.
I instantly hated myself for lowering myself to this visit. I wanted to slap the smug look from his face.
He read my mind. “Still not forgiven me then, honey?”
Even though the waiting room was empty, I didn’t trust Lawrence not to have his broken-nosed partner snooping behind the mirror to my right.
I straightened my back, pushed my hair behind my right ear and managed a smile of my own.
“I think, should I decide to make an official complaint regarding your unscrupulous undercover policing methods, forgiveness wouldn’t come into it, Lawrence.”
He waved away my bravado.
“Whatever it is you are here for, sweetheart, it isn’t to make a complaint, so I think it best we talk in my office eh?”
He turned before I could answer and I was compelled to follow. He had me at a disadvantage, and he knew it.
Two narrow corridors that bustled with uniforms, a flight of stairs, a sharp left and we arrived at a door that proclaimed Lawrence’s name and rank. He pushed it open, strode around his desk and flopped in his chair. The old boss’s trick of forming a pyramid with his fingers came straight out of the box and he gave me a big beaming smile.
I felt sweat drip down my spine for the second time in a day, and every bone in my body screamed at me to turn on my heels and leave.
I sat.
“Now,” he said, “please tell me that you are here to give me that bastard Fuller’s head on a plate.”
I was totally off-guard. My recent trouble with concentration and lack of nerve under pressure hit me like a Ricky Hatton body-shot.
“I…I’m not here for that…no.”
The pyramid disappeared and his hands lay flat on the table
“Then off you go,” he said, his smile disappearing like drain water.
I forced the butterflies to settle somewhere inside me and dragged some of my lost confidence from deep in my gut.
“Look…you owe me, Larry.” I said. “You deceived me, you lied and betrayed my trust. And as I don’t seem to have a single criminal conviction…not so much as a parking ticket, your behaviour was unscrupulous at best, if not fucking illegal.” My self-assurance flooded into my core. I pointed at him. “As I understand it, the IPCC guidelines are very clear when it comes to ‘relationships’ in undercover operations.”
Genuine anger rose in my throat. “How far would you have gone, Larry? Would you have had sex with me? Slept in my bed? Told me you loved me? Made plans for the future? Have you any idea how that made me feel?”
There was the merest change in his face. His ice blue eyes narrowed.
“I did what I had to do, Lauren. I didn’t want to hur…”
“Don’t!” I couldn’t believe what he was about to say. “Don’t you dare go there, Larry. You knew exactly what you were doing and why. You thought we were common criminals, when in fact, we were working for the Firm.” I snorted a derogatory laugh. “You lost and we won, it’s as simple as that.”
Larry was not so easily defeated. Raising his tone a level, he pointed at my face.
“Richard Fuller is nothing more than a drug-dealing murderer, that you helped escape police custody.”
I almost guffawed. “Oh, come on, Larry. Rick is a war hero that served his country well. And if he has ever taken a life since the day the service betrayed him, you should be bloody grateful, as I would wager they were the scum of the earth and made your life easier.”
Larry shook his head.
“You can’t just take the law into your own hands and top someone because you don’t like their morals, Lauren. There are laws…rules.”
I had him.
“Yes, Larry, there are laws, and rules…and you broke them too.”
He sat back in his chair and blew out his cheeks. There was an awkward silence before he leaned forward again, his tone conciliatory.
“I’m not a bad person, Lauren.”
“Neither is Rick.”
Another silence.
“What do you want from me?”
“The address of a prison officer that works at Strangeways.”
“Why not ask the Firm?”
“This isn’t Firm business, it’s personal.”
“Are you going to tell me why you want it?”
“No.”
“Are you going to hurt him?”
“No.”
He bit his lip and considered his options. He knew I had no power over him. He knew he could just throw me out on the street.
Finally, he spoke. “Give me the name…it will take me an hour or two. Meet me in the Old Monkey on Portland Street…let’s say nine o’ clock.”
He broke into that smile of his. The one that made me date him in the first place.
“It’s your round.”
Des Cogan’s Story:
We piled out of the Thirsty Scholar, much the worse for wear. Rick caught a cab, and a rather cross-looking Grace collected JJ. She had his wee boy in the back of the car in his pyjamas, obviously ready for bed. I reckoned JJ was in for a mouthful.
This left me smiling stupidly to myself, standing under the arches, surrounded by half-pissed students.
My head was telling me to go home and sleep, but my seemingly endless appetite forced my legs to walk across Oxford Road toward a banquet for one.
The night was warm and the city bustled with theatregoers, tourists and the usual mix of street dwellers.
I bought a Big Issue from a guy on Princess Street and strode onward toward the mixture of casinos, lap dancing bars and restaurants that is Manchester’s China Town.
I was about to cross Portland Street when I was stopped in my tracks.
Standing on the pavement outside the Old Monkey was Lauren. I liked the place myself. It was a good old fashioned boozer that served real ale. What stopped me dead was her company.
Facing her, gently holding both her hands and looking deep into her eyes, was none other than Detective Chief Inspector Larry Simpson.
I
hurried to the nearby tram stop and hid myself in the crowd of waiting travellers.
From my new vantage point, I watched Larry bend his head slightly and kiss Lauren on the cheek. Seconds later they both turned and went their separate ways.
Now, I know what you are going to say here. ‘Don’t jump to conclusions’, and I didn’t. But I’ll tell you this for nothing.
I’d fair lost my appetite.
Rick Fuller’s Story:
My head was thumping like my mother’s old twin tub, but I forced myself to take my morning run.
I’d earmarked the second bedroom in my new apartment as a gym. Thus far, I’d only managed to get the floor reinforced and some plastering done, but it was a cool, empty room to work out in. After my 10k, I stepped into the half-finished space, and spent another thirty minutes doing Ashtanga Yoga, a form developed in the Forties where you take up a sequence of postures and use breathing and internal muscles to get your results. There’s a risk of hamstring injuries, but the increase in upper body strength you can achieve far overshadows traditional weights.
A shower, four-egg omelette, a black coffee and, I was starting to feel my old self again.
My plan, was to go and visit Egghead, otherwise known as Simon, our friendly tech support officer, and see if he could access the Makris CCTV unit.
He lived in a one-horse town called Ramsbottom, just off the M60/66 junction. He and his elderly mother were the only residents in a house that was more suited to the Adams family than one of the brightest and best paid hackers in England. To make matters worse, Simon’s mother Ethel was a cat lover. On my last visit, I’d stood for three hours, rooted to the spot in a very nice Hugo Boss suit, surrounded by mewing hordes.
I came out smelling like a litter tray.
Even though I had the suit professionally cleaned, I could never bring myself to wear it again.
This was not a dress-up day.
I walked into bedroom three…my wardrobe, and selected Levi 501’s, a black Ralf Lauren polo and a casual collarless bomber I’d picked up in Ted Baker for a mere £239, and pulled on my trusty brogues.
I called Des to tell him my plans for the morning and arranged to meet him at our offices after lunch. He sounded troubled and a little reticent. I didn’t ask why. Looking back, I should have pressed him.
Hearing the sound of a horn outside, I strode out into the sunshine. The Aston was staying put, I was not about to chance hairy sharp-clawed beasts sitting all over it, so a cab it was.
It was a tad after ten as the surly taxi driver dropped me outside Egghead’s house. After an eternity of knocking, Mother finally answered the door.
“He’s in bed,” she announced, before disappearing back into the old farmhouse, leaving me surrounded by the cats from hell.
I’d made it halfway up the long staircase, gripping Spiros’s CCTV unit, tiptoeing around various deposits on the carpet and bawling Simon’s name every three steps, until he finally emerged on the landing.
Simon had the physique of a man who sat in front of a computer all night, and the pallor of an individual who slept the remainder of the time.
Behind each of his ears sat tiny electronic devices; these little gems were specially designed to keep his equilibrium. You see, Simon had revelled in a much misspent youth, his favourite pastime during his formative years being to indulge in copious quantities of class A drugs, beg, borrow, and quite often steal, high performance cars, and crash them into trees.
Simon had more steel in his head than grey matter.
I couldn’t imagine how brainy he would have been if he’d not had three fractured skulls.
He scratched his crotch and then disgustingly sniffed his fingers. “Hey, Mr Fuller, well this is a surprise.”
He held out the same hand for me to shake. I opted to put the CCTV unit in there. “How soon can you have a look at this for me, Simon?”
He took a quick glance at the unit.
“Windows based?”
“I think so.”
“Password protected then?”
“Yes.”
“Username?”
I shook my head. “I don’t have anything, but it is urgent.”
Despite his poor hygiene, Simon was always amiable once awake. He chuckled to himself.
“It always is, Mr Fuller, always. You’d better come up to my room.”
I was hoping to turn on my heels and return once the task was completed. I’d never visited Simon’s bedroom, and had no desire to, but it seemed it was going to be necessary.
“It will be a bag of sand, Mr Fuller.”
Simon also had this odd sort of rhyming slang going on. Being a London lad, I’d pretty much heard it all, but Egghead had some all of his own. This particular snippet however, translated into him charging me a thousand pounds for his work.
I nodded. “Okay, Simon, just get on it.”
To my surprise and not inconsiderable delight, Simon’s ‘room’ was not only cat free, but scrupulously clean and tidy. Neat benches held various monitors and gizmos that I could only guess at, whilst others had component shelving with alphabetical ordering labels on each.
He pointed to a hair-free swivel chair in one corner.
“Have a seat, Mr Fuller, while I get this baby plugged in.”
Seconds later, Simon sat in front of a monitor showing the entry screen to Spiros’s CCTV recorder.
“Now,” he said, cracking his knuckles. “What’s the mush called that owns this baby?”
“Makris,” I said.
“First name?”
“Spiros.”
Simon typed in SPIROS in the username box. Then hit 1234 for the password and the screen changed from entry mode to the menu box.
“There you go, Mr Fuller, all done.”
I was well pissed. Firstly, because I hadn’t even thought to try the simple option first, and secondly, I had just paid an arm and a leg for ten seconds’ work.
“And you expect me to pay a grand for that?” I blurted.
Simon shrugged his shoulders and beamed.
“Mr Fuller…some of these jobs take hours, some minutes, and some, like this one, seconds.” He gave a childlike chuckle. “Now, would you like to have a nosey at the content while you are here? I can leave you in peace…smells like Mum’s on with my full English downstairs.”
I nodded and ruefully handed Simon a thousand in cash.
He beamed again, kissed the money and pushed it in his back pocket.
“If you want to print anything, Mr Fuller, just pause the screen and hit Ctrl + P on the keyboard. It will come out over there under the window.”
He winked and made a strange clicking sound with his mouth.
“No charge for the paper.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or slap him, so did neither and began to search through the footage.
As I’d expected, the unit had somehow been switched off externally on the day that Spiros had met his death. In the few hours prior, there were no suspect vehicles at the gate, and no one about the house other than the Greek himself, shuffling from his study to the kitchen. I scrolled further and further back until I found who I was looking for.
The guy that dropped the cigarette packet bug in Spiros’s trash basket.
I paused the footage at various points, showing the guy at the door, in the hall, in the study, and leaving the house. Spiros had let the guy in and there didn’t appear to have been any altercation between them. That said, pictures only tell part of the tale.
I printed the images as Simon had suggested, then laid them on the table in front of me and studied the man.
As I scanned the shots, the door opened and Simon entered rubbing his stomach. “Hey, Mr Fuller. I’ll tell you what, the old girl does a mean full English. Two bacon, two sausage, egg, beans, tomato and fried slice…bloody marvellous.”
“Nice,” I managed.
Simon looked over my shoulder at the images spread on the table. “This the mush you are looking f
or then, Mr Fuller?”
I gave him a look.
Simon held up his hands. “I know, none of my business, Mr Fuller, just saying like, cos, that mush is in the car game like, mean fucker he is, foreign and…”
“You know who this guy is?” I snapped.
Simon shrugged and took a step back. The lad was definitely not one for the physical contest. However, Egghead knew how to make money and recognised every opportunity to do so.
“Now then, Mr Fuller, opening boxes is one thing, information on the contents of said boxes is quite another.”
I gritted my teeth. “Another five hundred?”
Simon hopped from foot to foot.
“I don’t know, Mr Fuller, I mean, if this guy ever found out I’d…”
I was losing patience.
“Okay, look, another bag of grain or whatever you call it.”
“Sand,” said Simon with a sudden smile. “A bag of sand, Mr Fuller.”
Lauren North’s Story:
Larry had been the perfect gentleman. He’d given me the address of Colin Reed and hadn’t asked any awkward questions; there’d been no sarcastic remarks, no references to our business or past misdemeanours, rather, he’d made conversation about anything but our lines of work and had kept me entertained throughout the evening. I wasn’t quite at the forgiveness stage, but it hadn’t been as much of a trial as I’d thought. That said, this morning I’d driven my Audi to our office riddled with a mixture of anxiety and a goodly portion of guilt.
Why can’t you be as keen, Mr Fuller?
JJ was waiting outside the front doors and jumped inside carrying a holdall and two coffees. He smelled of booze, and I took it the boys had been on a bit of a bender.
We crawled out of town in rush hour traffic in silence.
Eventually JJ handed me a Starbucks, leaned back in his seat and pushed his Ray-Bans up his nose.