by Nick Louth
‘Ever had cause to arrest any of them?’ Gillard asked.
D’Angelo chuckled. ‘Yes, once, unsuccessfully. Three of them badly beat up a convicted abuser in a pub in Selly Oak. There were several witnesses, but once they heard on the grapevine who the target was, no one had seen a thing. Even the victim refused to press charges. It was a bit frustrating.’
‘What is your assessment of AVENGE’s effectiveness?’
‘Normally, six out of ten. But this, what you’re telling me about Rollason, well it’s incredible. Same day, and such a high-profile offender, with a new identity. I would say this is unprecedented. Inside job, you’d have to say. It’s usually a screw. There’s no end of them in AVENGE.’
‘That’s the way I’m leaning too,’ Gillard said. ‘I take it you have no intelligence about branches of AVENGE in Surrey?’
‘Nope.’
As they were talking, an email popped up on Gillard’s mobile.
‘Ah, speak of the devil, AVENGE has got back to me,’ Gillard told D’Angelo. ‘They claim they don’t know anything about it.’
‘Not surprised,’ he responded. ‘Whoever did it probably wouldn’t want the organisers officially involved.’
A minute later another email came through, about the trace on Rollason’s phone. It showed that the AVENGE text had been sent from Walton-on-Thames. The phone had been on for less than a minute. Gillard passed on the news to D’Angelo.
He sighed. ‘Well, given who it is they’ve abducted I think they would kill him. You’ll be looking for a body pretty soon.’
‘Thanks. I’ll add it to my collection,’ Gillard said and hung up.
* * *
It was almost nine p.m. Gillard, sitting in his office, rubbed his face in exasperation. D’Angelo had phoned around for him, and a whole series of emails from around the country were pouring into his in-box with bits and pieces of information about AVENGE. None of it amounted to very much. D’Angelo had agreed that West Mercia police would haul in the three Brummies who had been collared in the past for this kind of caper, but having looked at the videos on the website Gillard was far from convinced that they were responsible for something as crisply executed as this.
But who was? Perhaps this amorphous vigilante organisation had attracted new, more professional types, operating as freelancers. The trouble was it could be anybody. He looked again at the names of various prison officers who had been linked to AVENGE. There wasn’t anybody at Spring Hill, but there was one at HMP Wakefield where Rollason had served most of the last six years of his sentence. He couldn’t imagine getting a quick result by questioning him.
His gut told him that this was a local operation. Someone who knew Rollason was at Spring Hill. He wanted to bounce some ideas off the Special Branch officer. He walked upstairs and found DI Morgan in his office, on the phone. He waited out the call and then asked: ‘Graham, I’m increasingly convinced this is an inside job. It’s too damn quick for anything else.’
Morgan nodded in agreement. ‘I’ve just spoken to Verity Winter, one of the probation officers, on exactly the same point. She told me that PC Andrew Wickens was sniffing around in their office just a few days ago without a reasonable excuse.’
‘Wickens! I saw him mooching about here just a few days ago. He’d been upstairs, presumably to this office, looking for you.’
‘I know he’s interested in the Rollason case, because he made an attempt to talk to me about it in the refectory. But he’s not alone. I set a flag on Rollason’s PNC file so that I would get notified every time an officer accessed it. There’s nearly 1,000 hits across the country in the last two weeks, including Cottesloe, Wickens’ shift partner.’
‘That flag was a good precaution,’ Gillard said. ‘I know Cottesloe. He is reliable and honest. I would trust that he had a good reason for looking. What I’d be looking for are any vulnerabilities in how we hold the data. I could get our chief geek Rob Townsend to have a look.’
Morgan, used to running his own fiefdom for many years, bridled at the suggestion. ‘Well, the SB office is as rock-solid as I can make it. There’s a tamper-proof log-in and the filing cabinets have dial locks that even I find a pain in the arse. We shred everything from the bins once a week before we put them out. I don’t know what more we can do.’ He sounded thoroughly defensive.
‘What about in the probation office?’
‘It should be fine. I audited their case management system before setting this up and decided to keep all critical details back from it. All the documents that identify Rollason or the address he was going to are solely on paper, and kept in the safe at Swan House, just to make things simple.’
‘Who has access?’
‘Jill Allsop as manager, and whoever is the duty officer. The safe logs entry. Allsop tells me there have been no unexpected accesses.’
‘Which officer was in charge of resettling Rollason?’ Gillard asked.
‘Leticia Mountjoy. It was a bit of a surprise to me, actually, because she’s relatively junior.’
Gillard rubbed his chin. ‘Okay, let’s split the work this way. You crank up an investigation on the quiet into Wickens, and I’ll speak to Ms Mountjoy.’
As Gillard returned to his office on the ground floor, he couldn’t help but think about the connection between a splash in the Thames, a man with the life squashed out of him and a missing serial killer. Leticia Mountjoy was cropping up in a few too many places.
* * *
Leticia lived with Anton St Jeanne in a converted flat in a quiet residential street in Kingston-upon-Thames. Gillard pulled up outside in his unmarked Vauxhall with DC Rainy Macintosh in the passenger seat. Ten o’clock at night would seem like a good time to get Leticia alone. Her boyfriend would probably be at work in his restaurant. The registration plate on the Mini parked outside the flat matched that which Morgan had given him, and the lights in the first-floor flat were on. Good, she’s awake.
‘I’ve checked through the statements the lassie gave to Cottesloe and Wickens,’ Rainy said, putting her iPad down. ‘It’s pretty straightforward. And the location on her phone matched the bridge to Tagg’s Island.’ They both went up to the door and rang the bell. The woman who appeared was casually dressed in a T-shirt and jeans and looked sleepy. Having heard why they were there, she invited them in.
‘I don’t think I got much to tell you,’ she said. The two detectives were offered a seat on the sofa in the tidy and tastefully decorated flat. A bottle of white wine was open on the glass table in front of them, a glass half empty beside it.
‘The speed with which AVENGE seemed to have snatched Rollason rather beggars belief, given what we know of this organisation in the past,’ Gillard said. ‘They must have had help.’
‘I can assure you it wasn’t from me.’ Leticia described her journey from work to the house where she was due to meet Neville Rollason, the delay while she rang colleagues and then her return to the office. It fully accounted for her day.
‘Och, we’re not saying that it was you, hen,’ Rainy said. ‘But if you cast your mind back, was there anyone you noticed asking questions or anything odd at all?’
She shrugged. ‘Only the arrival of PC Wickens at the office,’ she said.
‘That’s been reported to us already and we’re looking into it,’ Gillard said.
‘And I don’t know what else I can tell you,’ Leticia said.
‘When you went to the house, did you notice that the back door was unlocked?’
She looked baffled. ‘Is that the door that leads from the kitchen to the garden? No. I just sat down and waited for him and checked through paperwork.’
‘And did ye nae go upstairs either?’ Rainy asked.
‘No. I assumed he couldn’t be asleep because of the number of times I rang the doorbell and the clatter I must’ve made coming in with heavy bags.’
‘He could have been out of his wits on spice. Or he could even have committed suicide,’ Rainy said.
Leticia lo
oked rattled by these accusations. ‘But he didn’t, did he? Otherwise AVENGE couldn’t have kidnapped him.’
‘Well, we don’t actually have any confirmation that they do have him,’ Gillard said. ‘Just the text you got.’
‘What do you think has happened to him?’ she asked.
Gillard shrugged. ‘That very much depends on the whim of the individuals who have him.’
‘They’re nae going to take him for a wee pint and steak and chips, that’s for certain,’ Rainy said.
* * *
It was 2:57 a.m. Gillard sat with DC Carl Hoskins in an unmarked car outside a block of tatty council flats in Farnborough. They weren’t alone. Squashed into a small unmarked van across the road were four uniformed officers in stab vests and baseball caps, with a door ram. The place they were keeping an eye on was on the third floor, number 302, a one-bedroomed apartment. Gillard looked again through binoculars. There was an apparently discarded settee and refrigerator on the balcony, and some flickering purple light from the curtained lounge. He had been hoping that the target would be asleep. The fact that a TV was on didn’t prove he was awake, but Gillard would have preferred he was in bed. The target was a violent man with a criminal record, who in the past had possessed an illegal firearm. Nigel Chivers, former bouncer, sometime construction worker, divorced father of two, aged thirty-seven. Gillard consulted the flat layout plan on his iPad. The external door went straight onto the lounge with no hallway. The chance of surprise was still good if they could get up there quietly.
In three minutes, a hundred miles north in Birmingham, West Mercia police were going to raid seven known addresses of AVENGE members. They were coordinated with Gillard’s raids, the one here and another being undertaken in Andover by Hampshire police for Chivers’ mate Terry Dalton. The whole operation had been very rapidly pulled together by DCS Nick D’Angelo. As the seconds ticked down, Gillard leaned out the window and exchanged a hand signal with the uniformed sergeant in the van. He got a nod in return. Back up in the flat, the TV was still on.
The last time he’d been involved in a raid, the uniforms had forgotten to bring a locksmith. The good news was that this time Gillard’s own reconnaissance had discovered that the block’s external lock was broken. The bad news was that the tiny lift was barely big enough for two people, or one if it was the twenty-five-stone PC Tony Tunnicliffe with the door ram. Gillard had given clear instructions that instead of a manic charge up six half-flights of concrete stairs, waking everybody with the sound of constabulary beetle crushers and heavy breathing, it was to be a slow and stealthy ascent. That gave them a much greater chance of catching Chivers unawares.
At the appointed time, the officers exited their vehicles and carefully clicked the doors shut. They made their way silently twenty yards along the pavement and into the block. Gillard led them furtively up the stairs, but despite his own silent tread he was aware that some of the larger constables didn’t seem to be able to move quietly, each heavy thud accompanied by wheezing. He was staggered at how unfit some serving officers were.
Finally, the gaggle of policemen were squeezed onto the landing. Gillard put his fingers to his lips, and rested his ear to the door of Chivers’ flat.
The heavy breathing and groans were quite distinctive. Gillard found it almost impossible not to laugh. ‘He’s watching porn. I can hear it from here,’ he whispered.
There was a cascade of barely suppressed giggles as the comment was passed from officer to officer. PC Tony Tunnicliffe took the door ram off his shoulder and rested it against his groin, giving some mock thrusts with the four-foot shiny red object against another officer called Craddock, who threatened to punch him by way of retaliation.
‘Shhh!’ Gillard hissed. ‘You’re like a bunch of bloody schoolboys.’ He orchestrated the positions, with Craddock and Tunnicliffe on the ram.
Finally happy, Gillard pounded on the door and bellowed ‘Open up, armed police.’
Tunnicliffe immediately responded with a falsetto cry of ‘Ooh, give it to me big boy!’ He slammed the ram hard into the lock, the door burst open first time, and Gillard raced in. Though the undulating and pistoning flesh on the forty-inch high-definition screen was an arresting sight, the truly unforgettable vision was Nigel Chivers’ balding head wobbling from side to side as he, naked below the waist, ministered to himself. As he turned his face to the intruders he only managed to get two words out before being thrust face and erection down on his own leather settee.
‘Oh fuck.’
Chapter Twenty-three
The previous morning
While his probation officer was waiting for him in Staines, the man now known as Neil Wright sat a few dozen miles away, at a rustic garden table at the Three Feathers pub in Great Missenden with a nearly empty pint of Old Hooky in front of him. It was 11:15 a.m. and the thatched Jacobean tavern, nestled among Buckinghamshire’s Chiltern hills, had only just opened. There were a couple of drinkers at the bar, but no others in the garden. Wright had positioned himself so he couldn’t be seen from the pub and sat with his arms folded and eyes closed to make the most of the sun, which warmed his head and neck. Birds were singing in the trees, and in the distance a motor mower could be heard. The remembrances of summers past stirred in ancient memory, together with more disturbing recollections.
He blinked and opened his eyes to banish those bad thoughts. Today was not a day for any of them. As the felon revelled in his freedom and thanked his lucky stars, he heard footsteps behind him, and the clinking of glasses on a tray. She had returned with another pint of Old Hooky for him, the packet of pork scratchings he had asked for, and her own glass of orange juice.
As she sat opposite him, and the lichen-scarred table resettled their respective weights, she looked at him, her large pea-green eyes assessing him. She was smiling, but it looked like something she had only just learned to do, and was trying out for size. The warmth certainly did not reach those eyes. ‘So what are your plans, outside of the probation meetings?’ she asked.
‘Not too much, really. I’ve got forty quid of prison discharge cash, and I need to get the bank account open for my benefits. But after that, I shall probably spend most of the summer lying in my new garden trying to forget about everything.’
She hooked a hank of her long tea-coloured hair behind one ear and sipped her drink. She seemed even more nervous than he had been, looking left and right as more customers arrived at adjacent tables. Neville Rollason had only ever pretended to be attracted to women, even when he was married. It was only boys, and generally the subset that was slim, pale, shy and underdeveloped, that he desired. But now as Neil Wright he was able to see that slim, pale, boyish women were worth a look too. This one, he now decided, was beautiful, an almost ethereal Pre-Raphaelite. Late thirties, perhaps. He took a long draw at his beer, tipping the glass into the air, and felt the sweet cool malts caress his gullet.
He put the glass down and let his eyes wander her face. ‘So, are you married?’
Her face tightened, and he feared he shouldn’t have asked. She looked away as she muttered a reply. ‘Not any more, thank God.’
‘I’m surprised. I would have thought there would have been plenty of boyfriends.’
The flick of one eyebrow to no one in particular indicated that there was a story there of some kind, almost certainly a tragic one.
‘No kids?’
She looked at her watch. ‘I think we have to go soon.’
‘What about my gammon and chips?’ he asked. ‘You ordered it, didn’t you?’
‘And I paid for it,’ she said; then she leaned closer to whisper. ‘But we don’t actually have time. Plans have changed, and as I said, you are going to have to trust me.’
‘Aw, pet, I thought you were going to give me a kiss.’
She bridled and pulled back a little. ‘Neil, listen. As you are aware, there is quite a well-organised group called AVENGE, which is after you.’
‘I know. Bunch of bastards.’
‘We’re having to move you at short notice to protect you, as your identity has been partly compromised. I don’t think it’s safe to remain here. In a moment we’re going to leave, do you understand?’
He looked up at her and felt reassured. The sun behind her had produced a fiery shimmering halo around her hair. She was a saint from a stained-glass window, a woman who had come to rescue him. ‘You are really quite beautiful, do you know that?’ he said. ‘Like an angel.’
‘I’m no angel, I can assure you,’ she said, gathering her bag and mobile phone.
He wasn’t used to the beer, and his head was swimming a little. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I think I’m a little bit drunk. Must be out of practice. I used to be able to handle three times that, easy.’
‘Listen carefully.’ She instructed him as if he was a child. But then at the moment he did feel as if he was a child. ‘Stand up gradually, Neil, I don’t want you falling over and making a scene.’
He untangled his legs from the bench and stood up. He definitely felt woozy. ‘I need to go to the toilet. All that beer.’
‘No, not here,’ she said firmly, sliding her own arm through his to steer him. ‘We’ll stop somewhere behind a hedge for you.’
He nodded. She guided him into the car park, and to her car, parked right at the far end. She opened the door and helped him slide into the passenger seat. She took her place behind the wheel and leaned across to do up his seat belt. The smell of her hair was intoxicating. Banana, avocado?