by Graham Ison
And so it went on until a quarter past eight when the first hiccup arose. Believe me, if anything is going to foul up a police operation, it’s usually the police who do the fouling up. Today was no different.
‘Trading Post from Trader Three, we have a problem. A Kent traffic unit has just pulled Jumbo into a lay-by for speeding between junctions ten and nine. It looks as though they’re taking an unhealthy interest in what Jumbo’s carrying. Over.’
Dave acknowledged the message, and turned to me. ‘What do we do about that, guv? It could wreck the whole operation.’
‘I’ll deal with it,’ said Kate, and grabbed a telephone. Within seconds, she was connected to the Kent Police control room via the direct link from the Yard.
‘This is DI Ebdon, Metropolitan,’ she began. ‘We’ve got an operation running on the M20 and your traffic guys have just given our target a pull between junctions ten and nine.’ She gave details of Jumbo before adding, ‘Could you ask them to lay off, otherwise the whole show could be a blowout?’
‘Well?’ I asked, when Kate had finished.
‘Done, guv. Kent have radioed their traffic car and told them to leave Jumbo alone.’
Three minutes later, we received another message from Trader Three. ‘Panic over. The Kent guys have suddenly lost interest and cleared off. We’re on the move again.’
I breathed a sigh of relief.
And so it continued, with occasional updates, until a quarter past ten. Then came the message we’d been waiting for.
‘Trading Post from Trader Seven, Jumbo has arrived at a warehouse at twenty-seven Cantard Street, Walworth. It’s a turning off the Walworth Road about half a mile south of the Elephant and Castle.’
Dave enquired what was happening, and was told that our suspect vehicle had driven into the warehouse, and that the doors had been closed. Significantly, they reported that Sharpe immediately left the warehouse and had made his way to a nearby coffee shop. Forty minutes later, the surveillance team reported that Sharpe had returned and that Jumbo was on the move again.
‘That’s about right, guv,’ said Dave. ‘That’ll have given them time to shift enough of the legitimate load to get at the secret compartment, and be on the road again.’
‘I wonder why Sharpe wasn’t involved in the unloading,’ I mused aloud, although he’d said previously that it wasn’t a driver’s job.
Twenty minutes later, the surveillance guys were on the air again to report another stop. Our suspect vehicle had pulled into another warehouse, this time in Broders Road, off Lambeth Road in Kennington, and was unloading. Once again, Sharpe had left the warehouse and gone for coffee.
‘That’ll be the wine they’re unloading, I suppose,’ volunteered Kate.
‘Dave,’ I said, ‘call up a traffic car to get us to Chiswick before Jumbo arrives there.’
As ever, it was a hair-raising ride with the Black Rats, as we of the CID call the Metropolitan Police traffic units, but I take some comfort in knowing that its drivers are the finest in the world. And they proved it by getting us to Kerry Trucking at twenty-five past twelve.
Bernard Bligh was occupying his usual place on the loading platform and appeared to regard the arrival of a white traffic car with the same apprehension as he had shown on the previous occasion that one had appeared on his premises. But perhaps I was imputing guilty knowledge where none existed.
Five minutes later, our suspect vehicle pulled into the yard. Billy Sharpe jumped down from the cab, raised his arms in the air and stretched.
‘All right, lads, you know what to do,’ I said to the traffic officers, having briefed them during our journey to Chiswick.
‘What the hell’s going on now?’ demanded Bligh.
‘These officers,’ I began, ‘are here to inspect Sharpe’s tachograph, Mr Bligh.’
‘Can they do that?’
I laughed. ‘You were a driver yourself once,’ I said, ‘and you know damned well they can.’
Bligh shrugged. ‘But why are you so interested in that vehicle?’
‘I think that your Billy Sharpe might be having you over,’ I said, drawing Bligh to one side. ‘It’s possible he’s been doing a bit of freelance carrying, and pocketing the profit.’ Apart from the possibility that Sharpe had brought in firearms, I had no grounds for thinking that to be the case, but I was determined to get Bligh on our side. ‘But my officers will soon know.’
‘D’you reckon he’s on the fiddle, then? I’ve always had my suspicions about that guy.’ Bligh’s expression was one of anger at the thought that one of his drivers was defrauding him; and he seemed even more annoyed that, as an experienced driver himself, he hadn’t spotted it. ‘Help yourselves, gents. You can take it apart, as far as I’m concerned.’
‘Oh, we intend to,’ I said, and walked across to Sharpe’s rig. Bligh followed me.
One of the traffic officers, a PC called Jamison, got into the cab and spent a few minutes studying the information that the tachograph had recorded. Leaning out of the cab, he addressed the rig’s driver.
‘You made a stop at ten fifteen, Mr Sharpe,’ said Jamison. ‘What was that for?’
‘Breakfast,’ said Sharpe.
‘Where was that?’ I asked.
Sharpe paused long enough for me to sense that he was about to lie. ‘Borough High Street.’
‘And the load you brought back from France?’ I asked. ‘Where did you deliver that?’
‘Folkestone,’ said Sharpe.
‘That’s right,’ put in Bligh.
‘And what did that load consist of?’ I asked Sharpe.
But it was Bligh who answered. ‘Tyres.’
That was interesting. The tachograph showed that Sharpe hadn’t stopped at Folkestone; in fact, he’d been nowhere near there, having gone straight on to the M20 from the A20. That raised the question of whether Sharpe was lying to Bligh as well as to us. But if he was lying only to us, that probably meant that Bligh was also involved in smuggling firearms. What’s more, I’d be extremely surprised if Sharpe had collected a consignment of tyres from a wine merchant in Marseille.
‘And then you stopped again at eleven fifteen,’ said Jamison. ‘Where was that?’
‘Er, Victoria Embankment, I think.’
‘You think?’ Jamison studied Sharpe sceptically. ‘Why?’
‘Call of nature. What’s this all about, anyway?’
‘Just a routine check,’ said Jamison with commendable aplomb.
‘That’ll be all the coffee he drank,’ said Dave, in a sarcastic aside, as he busily noted all Sharpe’s replies to Jamison’s questions.
The running commentary from the surveillance team had told us that Sharpe had not stopped at either of the places in London he’d mentioned, but I wasn’t about to say so.
‘Well, that’ll be all, Mr Bligh,’ I said.
‘As a matter of interest, Chief Inspector,’ said Bligh, ‘how does any of this help you find out who murdered Kerry?’
‘Mr Bligh,’ said Dave, ‘we don’t tell you how to run a haulage business, so I’d deem it a favour if you didn’t try to tell us how to do our job.’
It was two o’clock by the time we returned to Curtis Green, but there was no time for lunch. We needed to act swiftly if we were to mount a search on the premises where Billy Sharpe had made his stops. From the time involved, I was fairly confident that the first stop of forty minutes had been for the purpose of unloading the firearms; it would have taken that long to clear enough space behind the cargo of wine to get at the secret panel. The second stop was certain to be where the wine was unloaded assuming, of course, that there had been any wine on board Sharpe’s vehicle in the first place.
It was interesting that Bligh had said that Sharpe’s load had consisted of tyres, and that seemed to imply that he knew nothing of the importation of wine, and had only learned about Kerry Wine Importers when we had mentioned it.
It was also interesting that Sharpe hadn’t disputed Bligh’s statement, and that l
ed me to believe that wine importing was a private enterprise that had been set up by Kerry, and had been continued after her death. But who had taken it over? It had to be a legitimate business otherwise the customs people would have rumbled it by now, and Sharpe would’ve been nicked. The only fiddle I could think of was tax evasion. Not of import duty, but on the sale of the wine once it had arrived in the United Kingdom. But I don’t know much about the levying of tax, except that I pay too much.
I had a feeling that we were getting farther away from solving Kerry Hammond’s murder, but I couldn’t help feeling that her death was somehow inextricably connected to the firearms and the wine.
I sent for Kate Ebdon and Len Driscoll, another of my DIs.
‘Kate, get along to Westminster Magistrates’ Court and swear out search warrants for both the Cantard Street and the Broders Road addresses. Suspicion of storing illegal firearms. Len, I want you to arrange for the local Territorial Support Group to stand by for a raid on both those addresses as soon as Kate’s got the warrant.’ A sudden thought occurred to me. ‘And I suppose we’d better alert CO19. If there are firearms involved, and right now that seems to be a racing certainty, there might be some shooting, and it’d be as well to have the Firearms Unit standing by.’
‘Good as done, guv,’ said Driscoll.
‘When d’you intend spinning these drums, guv?’ asked Dave, once the two DIs had disappeared to complete their respective tasks. ‘Today, or tomorrow morning?’
‘By the time we’ve got the warrants and organized the attendance of the TSG and CO19 it’ll have to be tomorrow, Dave. So, we’ll go in bright and early tomorrow morning,’ I said, and ignored Dave’s groan. ‘If I were an underworld armourer, I’d want to move those shooters ASAP. I think it’s an odds-on chance that they’re brought in to order for a particular job. In fact, they might already be on their way to the end users, but that’s a chance we’ll have to take. I just hope we won’t be too late.’
‘But if they’re only brought in to order, guv,’ said Dave, ‘we might not find any firearms this time.’
‘If that’s the case, why would Sharpe have made a stop in Walworth and then lied about it? He might not always bring in firearms, but I’m certain that he did on this occasion.’
Kate Ebdon and Driscoll acted fast. It took Len Driscoll twenty minutes to put the TSG and CO19 on standby, and Kate was back with the warrants at half past three.
‘Right, we’re set to go,’ I said to my team of eight that I’d nominated for the raids. ‘Len, you take the Broders Road address where the wine was unloaded. But bear in mind that these guys might be playing a double bluff, and the firearms might be there.’
‘Where d’you want me to go, guv?’ asked Kate.
‘You’re with me and Dave.’
‘D’you want us to go in at the same time as you’re hitting Cantard Street, guv?’ asked Len Driscoll.
‘Yes, Len, five o’clock tomorrow morning, on the dot. We’ll liaise by phone in case there are any problems.’
Finally I rang John Fielding and told him the arrangements we’d made for the raids.
‘Thanks, Harry,’ he said. ‘I’ll have a couple of my officers meet you at the Cantard Street address just before five tomorrow morning.’ He paused, and I heard him rustling through paper. ‘Their names are Jim Foley and Don Bridger.’
The Territorial Support Group was already in place when we reached Walworth at half past four on the Saturday morning. The inspector in charge had parked his carriers in a side street, out of sight of the target warehouse. And it was bloody cold; there was frost on the surrounding roofs and the first snowflakes had started to fall. All of which made me wonder why I’d ever become a policeman.
‘Are you Mr Brock?’ asked the TSG inspector, as I approached him.
‘That’s me,’ I said.
‘Inspector Taylor, sir. We’re ready whenever you are.’
‘What’s your first name, Mr Taylor?’ We detectives are never too bothered about formality.
‘John, sir, but I’m usually known as Buck.’
I quickly introduced Kate Ebdon and Dave Poole, and then asked, ‘How many men have you got in your unit, Buck?’
‘It’s the usual, sir: me, one and ten,’ said Taylor. ‘My other skipper and ten PCs are at Broders Road with your Mr Driscoll. But my lot aren’t all men, sir,’ he added. ‘Four of them are women.’
‘Will they be all right, these women, Buck?’ I was satisfied that one inspector, one sergeant and ten PCs would be enough for our task, but I’m sufficiently old-fashioned enough to be concerned that policewomen might get hurt in situations that could turn violent. It was not unknown for them to have been shot on previous occasions.
Taylor ran a hand round his chin. ‘Let’s put it this way, guv: I wouldn’t argue with any of my girls. By the way, the CO19 firearms unit is tucked in behind my carriers with a skipper in charge.’
‘Ask him to have a word, Buck.’
While I was waiting for the firearms sergeant, a couple of men approached. Wearing jeans and heavy duty Barbour jackets, they had fur hats and scarves. They looked as though they’d rather be someplace else.
‘Chief Inspector Brock?’
‘That’s me.’
‘Jim Foley, Customs Division, Border Agency, and this is my mate Don Bridger,’ Foley said, indicating the man next to him. ‘John Fielding asked us to make our number with you.’
I shook hands with each of the customs men and explained what we were about to do.
‘It’s possible there might be some shooting,’ I said, ‘so it might be as well if you hung back until my chaps have gone in, and then I’ll give you a shout.’
‘Don’t worry, Mr Brock, I make it a rule never to be shot at before breakfast,’ said Bridger, as he and Foley retreated to the safety of the area behind Buck Taylor’s carriers.
‘PS Dan Mason, CO19, sir.’ The sergeant who appeared a couple of minutes later was wearing so much protective gear that he looked like a composite of the Michelin man and the Incredible Hulk. The reassuring part of his equipment was the Heckler and Koch carbine slung across his chest, and the Glock automatic pistol holstered at his belt.
‘Come and have a look at the target, gents,’ I said.
PS Mason and Inspector Taylor followed me to the corner of the street whence we had a good view of the warehouse. There were two large sliding doors with a wicket gate in the left-hand one. Fortunately, there were no windows that would enable the occupants of the building to see the street.
‘That’s the warehouse we’re about to bust,’ I said. ‘I’ve reason to believe that it’s occupied by a villains’ armourer. There might be some shooting, Dan.’
‘Sounds right.’ Mason just nodded, as though such a situation was normal for him, which it probably was. ‘By the way, sir, I’ve already checked out the venue myself. I like to suss out the ground before I take my guys in, so I wandered down yesterday evening and had a discreet look at it.’
‘How d’you think we should approach it, Dan?’ I always believed in leaving the planning of an operation like this to the professionals. That he had conducted a preparatory survey proved that they don’t come much more professional than CO19, although there had been one or two occasions in the past when they’d made a bit of a pig’s ear of things. I just hoped that this would not be one of those occasions.
‘I intend to deploy my team on either side of the wicket gate, sir, and get one of the TSG lads to open it up with a rammer. Then me and my lads will go in fast.’ Mason paused thoughtfully. ‘But if they start shooting straight away, I’ll have no alternative but to return fire.’
‘Understood,’ I said, hoping against hope that our search would proceed peacefully. ‘Can you arrange for the rammer, Buck?’ I asked Taylor.
‘Yes, sir. By the way, ten minutes ago, I arranged with the local Traffic OCU to close the road. We don’t want any of our villains to get knocked over if they do a runner, do we?’ said Taylor. ‘The
y might sue the Commissioner for pain and suffering,’ he added cynically.
We returned to the side street where the other officers were waiting.
‘Right,’ I said, ‘let’s do it.’
The PC with the rammer, and PS Mason and his team of six, raced across the now silent and empty road until they were stationed immediately adjacent to the wicket gate. The remainder of the TSG serial quickly followed and fanned out on either side of the small door. And my team of detectives ranged themselves behind the uniforms.
‘Right, lad, go for it.’ Mason nodded to the PC known as ‘the fourteen-pound keyholder’.
Swinging the rammer, the PC smashed in the door with a single blow. Within seconds, Sergeant Mason and company were inside the warehouse.
‘Armed police. Get down on the floor. Now!’ Mason’s shouts were followed by sounds of scuffling. Ten minutes later, after satisfying himself that there was no one else in the warehouse, he appeared at the broken gate, now hanging drunkenly on its hinges. ‘It’s all clear, sir,’ he said. ‘There were only two men in the warehouse and they’ve been cuffed. It’s safe to bring in the rest of the team.’
Buck Taylor, his sergeant and the ten PCs entered the warehouse, followed by me and my eight detectives.
Lying on the floor of the warehouse were two men, face down, their hands secured behind them with plastic handcuffs.
‘All right, Mr Taylor, we’ll have them on their feet, if you please.’
None too gently, the PCs of the TSG yanked the two prisoners upright.
‘Well, well, well!’ said Dave, as he walked across to one of the men. ‘Look who we have here. None other than Señor Miguel Rodriguez, otherwise known as Michael Roberts, former owner of the Spanish Fly nightclub.’
‘I still bloody own it, copper,’ snarled Roberts. His hair was ruffled and he was now without his pointed sideburns.
‘For the time being maybe, but I don’t reckon the governor of Parkhurst will allow you to carry on running it from inside the nick, señor,’ said Dave, laying particular emphasis on the señor bit. He knew that mention of the feared prison on the Isle of Wight usually succeeded in concentrating the mind of a villain.