Big City Jacks

by Nick Oldham

  The weather on the Belgian coast was horrific, gales and high seas preventing sailings across to England. All crossings were cancelled and rescheduled and Whitlock was informed by the port authorities that the soonest he could expect to get across would be eleven a.m. next day.

  It was six p.m. He had a night and a morning to kill.

  Best take full advantage of it, he thought.

  Whitlock had spent a lot of time in Zeebrugge over the years. He knew it well, where to eat and drink, where to find a clean prostitute, where to be entertained and where to get his head down, other than in his cab. Although he would rather have been on the ferry, he was content to while away the time in bars and finally a club where he knew he could get laid.

  He’d had too much to drink, the excellent Belgian lager slipping down nicely, followed by an Italian meal, then more beer. He was slumped in a club by eleven p.m., wondering whether he was capable of sexual intercourse at all. The beer was making him belch.

  The dark figure at the bar beside him was only a hazy spectre really. Whitlock was in his own world, one with few cares. The man was sitting on a bar stool, his back to the bar, elbows propping him up as he watched a lurid floorshow.

  He turned back to the bar, shaking his head, smiling, catching Whitlock’s very watery, bloodshot ones.

  ‘I would not have thought that possible,’ he said to Whitlock whilst sipping what looked suspiciously like a glass of water.

  ‘Wha—?’ Whitlock slobbered.

  ‘Her – that girl.’ The man indicated the raised stage on which a naked female was dancing.

  ‘Yeah, whatever.’ Whitlock turned to watch the show for a few moments.

  ‘You’re a driver, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yep,’ Whitlock said. It never crossed his mind to ask how the man knew this.

  ‘Bad weather, eh?’

  ‘Shockin’ . . . can’t get over.’

  The man looked him square on. ‘How would you like to make some extra money? A nice, fat bonus?’

  Part of Whitlock’s bonus included a three-in-a-bed romp with two of the most attractive prostitutes he had ever seen. They were experienced girls (though later, when he reflected, he would describe them as ‘slappers’) and gave him the full works, which, had he not been so inebriated, he would have appreciated more.

  They left him after an hour’s work.

  He fell straight to sleep, snoring loudly in the tiny room above the club.

  The man he had met at the bar, the one who had offered him a bonus, walked into the room and surveyed the naked driver. He shook his head, then lifted the camera and finished off the roll of film. The flash did not have any effect on Whitlock at all and he did not stir.

  ‘I don’t think I want to do this,’ Whitlock said. His head seemed to be a raging furnace and every time he moved, even slightly, pain creased the back of his eyeballs. It was a bad hangover, maybe the worst he’d ever experienced. Now regret was setting in, big style. He was back at the truck stop where his lorry had been parked overnight, having been driven there by the man who had approached him in the bar. Whitlock and the man were standing next to the lorry’s tractor unit and Whitlock was beginning to feel fear.

  The man, who said his name was Ramon, sneered and shook his dark-skinned head. ‘You have no choice, my friend. The deal is done and you will be travelling across with five hundred pounds in your pocket, a few extra guests for company, and something else to deliver.’

  ‘No – I don’t think so,’ Whitlock said in an attempt to assert himself.

  Without warning, Ramon spun and punched Whitlock hard in the stomach. Years of HGV driving had given Whitlock a substantial paunch, but not one big enough to withstand such a well-delivered blow from a man well used to handing out physical punishment. Whitlock’s breath steamed out of him and with a gasp like a geyser he doubled over, clutching his guts in agony. Ramon grabbed the driver’s collar, heaved him upright and ran him back against the lorry. He whispered in Whitlock’s ear. ‘There is no going back. A deal is a deal. If you say no, two things will happen. Firstly, your body will be found floating in the shitty harbour waters, and secondly, your wife will receive photographs of last night’s love-in.’ Ramon slammed him against the lorry again, then released him.

  Whitlock tried to catch his breath, hands on his knees, his head spinning. ‘OK, OK,’ he spat, saliva dribbling from the corners of his mouth. ‘What do I have to do?’

  Ramon consulted his watch. It was eight a.m. ‘Get into your truck and follow me.’

  ‘I don’t want to miss the crossing,’ Whitlock whined.

  ‘You won’t.’

  He followed Ramon’s car to the perimeter of Zeebrugge, to an industrialized section of the port full of low-rise factory units and grime, into a huge yard containing what looked like a million scrap cars piled high and dangerous, as though on supermarket shelves, and a vast number of container units for as far as the eye could see. Thousands of them.

  There was plenty of room for Whitlock to manoeuvre his lorry.

  Ramon stopped and jumped out of the battered Citroën he was driving and signalled for Whitlock to do the same.

  Almost immediately the yard came to life. Several men appeared from the inside of a static caravan. One jumped into Whitlock’s lorry, whilst others made their way towards a huge crane, the jib of which hung over a container. Two of the men attached thick chains around the container on the back of Whitlock’s lorry. The crane came to life and swung over the container. The men attached the chain to the hook and the crane rose, lifting the container off the back of the lorry and depositing it amongst the other containers. Another container was then attached to the crane, this was then dropped expertly on the back of Whitlock’s trailer and secured quickly in place.

  Whitlock watched the change with growing trepidation, his guts churning from the recent blow to them, and worry, because he knew why the change was being made. The replacement container was fitted with a unit which looked like one for chilling the air inside it, but was actually one which fed fresh air into it and sucked out stale air – air which would keep his new cargo alive. He wanted to be sick. The only thing he had ever smuggled back into the UK was some jewellery for his wife. The only thing! Once! Of course he knew all about the problems with illegal immigration and so far he had managed to steer clear of the problem, but now his own stupidity had caught up with him, his own weakness.

  He was going to smuggle people.

  Ramon approached him with a big smile on his face. ‘See – simple. Now all we do is collect the goods.’

  ‘Fuck you,’ blurted the lorry driver.

  ‘You do not need to worry, my friend. You will not be caught, if that is what is bothering you.’

  Whitlock was not assured by the words. All he wanted to do – still – was vomit. He nodded numbly, watching as the new container was finally fixed and the jib of the crane was raised away.

  A car drove into the yard, but it was nothing like Ramon’s beaten-up old banger. This was a smooth-looking black Mercedes, two men on board. It stopped near to the static caravan and both men climbed out. They were expensively dressed and a little incongruous against the background of scrap-heap cars and containers.

  Ramon hurried across to them, like a puppy.

  Whitlock thought, ‘Boss men.’ He climbed quickly into the cab of his lorry, feeling safer in the confines of his comfort zone, but kept watching the men, unable to stop his face contorting with an expression of contempt, and a feeling of looming disaster in the pit of his stomach. He swore continuously under his breath, hoping the repetition of that single, obscene word would somehow ease his burden.

  It was interesting to watch Ramon’s body language towards the new arrivals, as though he was a serf and they were lords of the manor.

  No doubt they were.

  The three men had an intense conversation. Ramon turned and pointed to Whitlock’s lorry, obviously explaining something. Instinctively Whitlock shuddered and ducked as the
two new arrivals looked across at him. He averted his eyes, still swearing.

  When he looked again, they were back in huddled conference. One of the men walked round to the back of the Mercedes and opened the boot. He heaved out three heavily packed holdalls and dropped them on to the floor. They were big bags, obviously weighty. Ramon and the other man gathered around them and Ramon listened as they spoke to him, nodding.

  The men then got back into their luxury car and set off with a scrunch of tyres, leaving a cloud of rising dust as they accelerated out of the gates and disappeared in the direction of Zeebrugge.

  Ramon watched them go. The tension which had been visible in his body was replaced by relaxation and the resumption of his role as boss. He barked a couple of things at the men who had fitted the container. They picked up the holdalls and put them into Ramon’s car, whilst he strode across to Whitlock, who lowered his window.

  ‘Follow me.’

  It was only a short journey. Two or three minutes at most, and once again Ramon led Whitlock into another industrial park, driving to a detached factory unit in its own grounds, surrounded by a high, chain-link fence. Ramon drove around the perimeter of the building, Whitlock following in his artic, coming right back around the front where they started from.

  Immediately shutter doors began to rise, revealing the inside of the building, nothing more than a concrete-floored warehouse.

  Whitlock caught his breath.

  The whole place seemed to be packed with people, levered in there like sardines in a tin. At least a hundred of them, possibly more. All blinking as the daylight hit them, all tired, all beaten. It was, literally, a transit camp, although it reminded Whitlock of the old photographs he had seen of people bedding down in the London Underground during the Blitz. People were laid out on military-style camp beds, others were standing huddled around free-standing gas heaters, warming themselves. Some were sat at trestle tables scattered throughout the floorspace. Their faces looked pale and uncertain, hopeless yet hopeful at the same time.

  Whitlock was staggered by the sight.

  Ramon got out of his car and entered the building, emerging moments later with two more heavies who opened the container door on the back of Whitlock’s trailer.

  Some of the people inside the warehouse moved forward expectantly. Ramon barked a warning. A gun appeared in his hand. They hesitated and retreated. In his other hand he had a list from which he began to call names.

  From the cab, using the wing mirror, Whitlock counted the number of people being herded into the container. Twenty poor souls climbed in, all men, he noticed. His heart pounded and he thought it was going to explode, that he was going to have a heart attack.

  As the last person scrambled inside, the door was secured. The cargo was on board and ready for transportation.

  Ramon swung up to the driver’s door window. ‘OK?’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘Just pretend they’re chunks of meat,’ Ramon said with a sneer. ‘And don’t worry about them. The ventilation system will work for about forty-eight hours, there’s a chemical toilet in there and plenty of food and drink. All you have to do is follow the instructions on this piece of paper.’ He pushed the said paper into Whitlock’s hands. ‘Simple.’

  The passenger-side door of the cab opened. Whitlock watched as the three tightly packed holdalls which Ramon had been given by the two boss men at the container depot were dropped into the footwell.

  ‘What the fuck’s this?’ the driver demanded.

  ‘Just something extra . . . don’t worry about it, and don’t worry about getting caught. The law of averages is on your side. Here . . .’ He dropped an envelope on to Whitlock’s lap. ‘Pounds sterling,’ he said with a wink.

  Whitlock sneered, engaged first gear and Ramon jumped down off the lorry as it began to move. Once again, the obscene word under Whitlock’s breath was repeated continually. But it did not make him feel any better, because whatever, he had just become a human trafficker.

  Six

  The identification of the body of Renata Costain had gone as well as it could have done, given the circumstances.

  Henry and Rik Dean drove Troy Costain to the mortuary at Blackpool Victoria Hospital and the dirty deed was carried out in the identification suite. Once away from the confines of his family, Troy had chilled considerably and been pretty indifferent to the point of apathy at the sight of his dead cousin, whom he had loved so deeply less than twenty minutes earlier. He merely blinked, nodded and said, ‘Yeah, that’s her,’ with a shrug of his shoulders. The whole of that family-induced emotion seemed to have evaporated in the early-morning sunshine.

  Back outside the mortuary Henry said, ‘Sit in the car,’ to Troy.

  ‘No, it’s right, Henry – I’ll be on my way.’ He made to walk off, but the detective clamped a heavy hand on his shoulder. A very worried expression smacked on to Troy’s face.

  ‘Uh-uh, no chance, pal,’ Henry said. ‘Let me rephrase that – sit in the fucking car – got that?’

  Troy wilted visibly under Henry’s hard hand and slunk to the car. If he’d had a tail, it would have been tucked between the cheeks of his backside.

  Rik Dean watched the interaction, puzzled, his dark eyebrows in a deep furrow over the top of his nose, trying to get the measure of the relationship between the two men. It was plainly obvious they knew each other quite well. Henry smiled corruptly at Dean, noticing his expression. ‘Old friends,’ he said, which in no way explained a damned thing to Dean.

  When Troy was seated in the car, out of earshot, Dean said, ‘What’s the plan, boss?’

  ‘Strategy, you mean?’ Henry corrected him. ‘Plans go wrong, strategies get tweaked.’

  Dean shrugged. ‘And the strategy is . . .?’

  ‘OK – the big issue here is that someone has died in a road accident after being pursued by the cops, yeah? The fact that it was a stolen car and they were joyriding doesn’t hold much sway anymore, and neither does the fact that it wasn’t much of a chase. The added complication is that the girl who dies and the offender who killed her and then legged it are members of the same shit-house family, a family who happen to be one of the biggest trouble-making clans in Blackpool.

  ‘They will blame the cops for everything, and therefore we need to handle this carefully with the media. We know we’re not to blame, but we’re never that good at proactively defending ourselves . . . so, as soon as we can, we get our heads together with your divisional commander and our media people and put a strategy together before facing the media out there. Are you with it so far?’

  Dean nodded.

  ‘So that’s the PR, public bullshit side of it – that and the community reassurance and hi-viz patrols on Shoreside to quell any disturbances that the Costains might like to ignite.’ Henry took a breath. His brain was feeling slightly woozy, having now been on the go for twenty-four hours. ‘The real policing side is to get good, strong statements from the officers who chased the stolen car and any witnesses in our favour; then we need to trace our chum Roy Costain and nail the little bastard to the wall. Still with me?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘And I need to speak to Troy here.’ Henry nodded at the cowed Costain in the back of the car. ‘Because I think I might have some influence on him.’

  Following the introduction of the Human Rights Act and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (also known as RIPA), the handling of informants by the police – now termed Covert Human Intelligence Sources (CHIS) – is tightly regulated. The days of informal ‘snouts’ are, by and large, long gone. Informants are now formally registered and dealt with by handlers who have day-to-day responsibility for dealing with the ‘source’, and by the controller who has general oversight of the source. All information or intelligence from these sources is then sanitized and forwarded to local intelligence departments who then forward it for operational action. It is a system commonly referred to as the ‘firewall’ or the ‘sanitized corridor’.

  How
ever, some informants slip through the loop. And one of them was called Troy Costain. He had been Henry Christie’s only unregistered informant for about fourteen years. Henry was acutely aware of the disciplinary tightrope he was walking with Troy, but he was loath to register him because he would lose him.

  He had first met Troy when he had arrested him for an assault, when Troy was a mere teenager. Troy’s subsequent introduction to the inside of a police cell had sent the youngster almost insane as he suffered from severe claustrophobia. Seizing gleefully on the condition, Henry had seen an opportunity. Troy was a member of the Costains, one of the most feared criminal clans in town, and Henry realized that an informant in their midst would be a godsend. So, with ruthless efficiency and calculated threats, Henry gave young Troy an option: get banged up and go mental or get talking and go free.

  A desperate Troy chose the latter option and Henry had exploited him ever after. Troy had provided Henry with masses of information about low-level crimes and criminals over the years, and some higher-level stuff too. At times, when it looked as though Troy was about to stray from the path of righteousness, Henry had administered an appropriate short sharp shock to keep him in line.

  The downside of the relationship was that Troy had moved into drug dealing. Though it was common for cops to protect and turn a blind eye to the activities of their snouts, Troy had gravitated into territory which Henry disapproved of and Henry knew that there could be problems if Troy’s activities got out of hand. It was a question of proportionality. Was it worth letting him carry on, weighed against the quality of information he could give? Henry had not yet decided Troy’s future.

  Henry slid into the front passenger seat of the car. He twisted round and scowled at Troy, whose eyes dropped.

  ‘I’m sorry about Renata.’

  ‘Yeah, sure you are,’ sneered Troy. ‘You’re making a habit of getting me in to ID my dead relatives, aren’t you?’ He was referring to a couple of years earlier when his younger brother had been murdered and Henry had got Troy to identify the corpse. ‘I think you get a kick from it.’