The Dirty Dozen

by Lynda La Plante

  “What about the keyholder’s card for GR Motors?” Murphy asked.

  “There’s no alarm on the premises or keyholder’s card at Tottenham. The authorizing vehicle inspector’s signature on the inspection is ‘G. Smith.’ ”

  “You reckon he might have had a key cut in order to steal the car?” Dabs asked.

  Bax nodded. “The traffic officer’s conclusion also supports that theory.”

  Teflon looked at Jane, who nodded.

  “Jane and I got some stuff that ties in with what the Colonel just said re GR. Nick, the cafe owner, said M1 is George and M2’s called Tommy and they’re brothers. He also said Tommy was the new owner of the snooker club, who we know, thanks to Jane, is Thomas Anthony Ripley.”

  “That’s good information, but we need some documentary evidence to prove GR Motors is owned by or connected to George Ripley. Have you run a PNC check on him?” Murphy asked.

  “Yes, sir, and I got a few hits. I was going to print them off and go through them after the meeting. We also got some information about a Graham Smith from an estate agent’s in Wanstead,” Teflon said.

  “I don’t recall authorizing any enquiries at an estate agent’s.” Murphy frowned.

  Jane interjected. “It was my idea to go there and make enquiries about the previous owner of 40 Edgar House. I thought I’d mentioned it at the last meeting, but obviously I didn’t,” she said, knowing that she’d informed Kingston and he’d told her to visit the estate agent’s.

  Murphy sighed. “OK, tell us about Graham Smith.”

  “He bought flat 40 for his mother Elizabeth about a year ago and paid just over ten thousand pounds cash—”

  “That’s a lot of dosh,” Stanley remarked.

  Jane continued, “Then he inherited it when she died, and sold it through the Wanstead estate agent’s for a tidy profit. Garage 29 was owned by Mrs. Smith, who, as far as I’m aware, didn’t have a car, though she may have rented the garage out—or her son Graham could have used it and kept a key when he sold the flat.”

  “That’s all very interesting, Tennison, but Smith is not exactly an uncommon name, and you don’t have any firm connections between the Colonel’s G. Smith and yours.”

  “I think she does, sir—”

  Everyone looked over at Cam.

  “Sergeant Tennison asked me to check out a phone number with the PO—it turned out to be registered to GR Motors Ltd. in Lordship Lane.”

  “Bloody hell, this gets better and better!” Baxter exclaimed.

  “The estate agent had it as a contact number for Graham Smith when he was selling the Edgar House property,” Teflon added.

  “Another thing you forgot to mention to me, Tennison,” Murphy growled.

  “She didn’t know—I forgot to give her the result when she got back to the office,” Cam explained.

  She gave him a subtle nod of thanks and made sure the bit of paper with the phone number details was still in her pocket.

  “Any description of your Mr. Smith, Tennison?” Murphy asked.

  “Not yet, sir.”

  “Make it a priority to get as much as you can on him.”

  “Yes, Guv. Would you like me to go over what the cafe owner told us?”

  “After we’ve heard what the snooker champions have to tell us,” he said drily, raising a few chuckles of laughter.

  Stanley put on a stern face. “The most important thing I have to tell you, sir—and everyone else in this room—is don’t play snooker for money with this short-arsed bandit!”

  “Didn’t you know Dabs played for the Met?” the Colonel laughed.

  “No, I did not!” He scowled at Dabs, who grinned back.

  “Apart from you getting fleeced, what happened at the snooker hall?” Murphy asked.

  Stanley gave detailed descriptions of Aidan, the manager, and the Spanish barmaid, Maria. Based on the registered keyholders for the snooker hall, he concluded that they were Aidan O’Reilly and Maria Fernadez.

  Dabs emphasized the recent cut to O’Reilly’s forehead and the blood trail at the Woodville Road scene and on the door sill of the Cortina, suggesting that the passenger in the getaway car had sustained a head injury.

  “Any sighting of someone who might be Tommy Riley?” Jane asked.

  Stanley shook his head. “No, but Aidan told Maria that Tommy wanted to speak to her in his office, so he must have been on the premises.”

  Murphy looked pleased. “Good work, you two. Keep digging and see what else you can find out about them.”

  “If O’Reilly is involved in the robbery, and the one who started shooting at the police car, it’s hard to believe he hasn’t any previous convictions,” the Colonel remarked.

  “He could be using a false identity,” Bax suggested.

  “It’s possible, but when we were in the snooker hall it struck me that the Aidan O’Reilly we ran a PNC check on might not come up if he’s only got a criminal record in Northern Ireland or the Republic—their PNC systems aren’t linked to ours. I tried the Garda in Dublin first, but it was like pulling teeth—their systems are from the Stone Age. I then tried the RUC criminal records office in Belfast. Based on the detailed description and age range I gave them, they had four hits on the surname O’Reilly. I asked them to send the results through with copies of their fingerprints—that’s why the fax machine’s been whirring away.”

  “Have you got something to compare the prints to?” Murphy asked.

  “O’Reilly served me a drink, so I nicked the glass. I’ve already dusted it in my office and managed to lift a couple of good prints onto acetate, which I can compare to the ones the RUC fax over.”

  “Nice work, Dabs. You and Stanley get the stuff off the fax and have a look through it while we continue the meeting.”

  Dabs nipped out to get the fingerprints he’d lifted, while Stanley grabbed the sheets of paper from the fax machine and started to go through them.

  Murphy looked at Jane. “Let’s hear what else the cafe owner had to say.”

  She went over the details about the younger man, Carl, and the man in the brown camel hair coat.

  “Is Carl related to any of them?” Murphy asked.

  “He could be, but Nick didn’t know for sure,” Teflon replied.

  “Maybe Carl’s the man who’s marrying George’s daughter Tina,” Dabs suggested as he examined the fingerprints.

  “Did you find out any more about the wedding?” the Colonel asked.

  “Nick knew about it, but not when or where it’s going to be,” Teflon said.

  “What about using his cafe for surveillance?” Murphy asked.

  “It wasn’t suitable due to the viewing angles, but the newsagent’s on the corner of the road overlooks the cafe and snooker hall. We spoke to the owner, who’s happy for us to use the upstairs and didn’t ask any questions.”

  “I asked Nick about doing some UC work as a waitress,” Jane added. “He said I could start Monday—”

  “That’s an option worth considering, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves—”

  “We got a fucking hit!” Stanley shouted, waving one of the fax sheets in the air. “Connor Aidan O’Reilly, aged thirty-six, born Belfast 1944, six feet four inches tall, with dark brown hair.”

  He handed the sheet to Murphy, who squinted at the photo of O’Reilly.

  “This mugshot looks old and the fax is blurry,” Murphy complained.

  Stanley wasn’t fazed. “I know, but I can tell you it’s him—and Dabs reckons the prints match, too.”

  Dabs held up the sheets. “I can’t make a full sixteen-point identification—the prints aren’t clear enough on the faxes.”

  Stanley frowned. “Are you now saying they’re not a match?”

  “From what I’ve got in front of me I can only identify twelve points that are the same, so—”

  “That doesn’t answer my question, Dabs.”

  “Calm down and let me finish, will you? What I can say is that the source of the finger
prints on the glass is a highly probable match to the prints held on file by the RUC.”

  “Christ! So they are a match!” Stanley snapped.

  “In my opinion, yes,” Dabs explained patiently. “But I need a second fingerprint expert to confirm it for any arrest or court purposes. A decent copy of the prints from the RUC would help.”

  Murphy held his hand up. “All right, stop bickering. For now I’m happy with your ‘expert opinion’ that the prints are a probable match. Get the RUC to send a decent copy to the fingerprint bureau at the Yard, then another expert can examine them. What sort of criminal record has O’Reilly got?”

  Stanley looked at the rap sheet. “Not a lot, and mostly when he was a teenager—just theft and a couple of burglaries. There’s one for reckless GBH when he was eighteen, though. He did three years for that.”

  “Doesn’t exactly sound like the headcase we’re looking for, though,” Cam remarked.

  Stanley picked up another faxed page marked “confidential.”

  “It’s what he hasn’t been convicted of that’s more interesting. According to his intel file he’s a bare-knuckle fighter with a reputation as a hard man and ‘fundraiser’ for the UDA”

  “Who the fuck are they?” Bax asked.

  The Colonel shook his head in disbelief.

  “Christ, you’re an ignorant fucker, Bax. The Ulster Defence Association—they’re a paramilitary loyalist group who protect Protestant districts from IRA attacks. The reality is both sides are just a bunch of murdering thugs.”

  Stanley continued, “O’Reilly was suspected of running a protection racket in Belfast, where he blackmailed and extorted money for the UDA from construction firms, building sites, pubs and shops.”

  “Now that does sound more like the guy we’re interested in,” Cam remarked.

  “It gets better,” Stanley said. “In 1978 three businessmen decided to testify against him on the condition their identities remained hidden. Someone leaked it to O’Reilly and one of them was shot dead by a masked gunman in front of his wife and children. The others then withdrew their allegations and the case against him collapsed.”

  He handed Murphy the intel fax.

  “Was O’Reilly arrested for the murder?” Teflon asked.

  “Yes, but he was given an alibi by two of his henchmen, which the RUC couldn’t disprove, so they had to release him.”

  “Why did he come to London?” Teflon asked.

  Stanley shrugged. “Don’t know. The intel report doesn’t mention it, so the RUC may not even know he’s here.”

  “Could be he needed to lie low for a while,” Bax suggested.

  “Or he was worried the RUC would fit him up.” The Colonel grinned.

  Murphy handed the fax back to Stanley.

  “O’Reilly could have come to London for any number of reasons; it’s what he’s up to right now that we need to focus on. He’s clearly a dangerous criminal who will undoubtedly be surveillance conscious.” He paused for thought, then looked at Teflon. “Print off the PNC hits on George Ripley for me, and the recorded convictions.”

  “Yes, Guv,” Teflon replied, thinking he meant later.

  “Now, please. I want to see if he has any joint convictions and who with.”

  Teflon went over to the PNC terminal, sat down and started to type in George Ripley’s details while Murphy continued with the meeting.

  “You’ve all worked hard today and proved that good teamwork produces positive results. I think we can all agree there’s evidence, albeit circumstantial, that the Ripley brothers, Aidan O’Reilly and most probably Graham Smith, are involved in the Leytonstone robbery. We need to find out who Carl is as he may be part of the gang; likewise the man in the camel hair coat, and what was in the envelope he handed to George Ripley.”

  “Are we gonna nick ’em, Guv?” Bax asked.

  “Although Rachel Wilson appears to be a credible witness and her evidence is enough to arrest and interview them on suspicion of robbery, I believe—”

  Cam interrupted. “I’m not so sure about the Wilson sisters being credible, Guv.”

  “Why?” Murphy asked.

  Cam went to Katie’s desk to get the notes of the conversation he’d had about the twins.

  “I spoke to a nun at St. Cuthbert’s children’s home, who remembered young twins coming there in 1958 after a car crash, but their names were Emira and Rasheda, the children of Mehmet and Emine Osman, Turkish Cypriots who came to the UK in the early fifties and lived in Wood Green.”

  “Are you saying the Wilson twins are those two girls?” Jane asked.

  “Yes. The nun told me Rasheda became deaf as a result of the crash and Emira had a deformed left hand.”

  Murphy turned to Jane. “Does Emma Wilson have a deformed left hand?”

  “Yes, she does, she injured it in the car crash when her parents died,” she replied.

  “OK, carry on, Cam.”

  “Emine Osman didn’t die in a car crash—but I’ll get to that in a minute. I managed to speak to a home beat PC at Wood Green who’s been there nearly thirty years. He told me Mehmet Osman used the name Micky Osbourne, and had a fearsome reputation in the Turkish community as a loan shark and slum landlord. He exploited and harassed his tenants with physical violence and threats to get what he wanted. Sometimes he’d kill their domestic pets and hang them from a lamp post with their entrails dangling out. No one was prepared to stand up to him, but then he went overboard with his fists and put Emine in a coma. He told the hospital she fell down the stairs, but the doctor told the police her injuries were not consistent with a fall and she wasn’t expected to live, so Osman was circulated as wanted. Two days later a patrol car stopped him on the A20 heading towards Dover. The radio operator approached on foot and was standing by the driver’s door when Osman stuck a gun in his stomach and shot him dead. A pursuit followed and Osman crashed head-on into a truck, went through the windscreen and died instantly. No one knew his daughters were in the back of the car until afterwards.”

  “Bloody hell, our star witness is the daughter of a cop killer,” Bax said.

  “Looks like you might have been lied to, Tennison,” Murphy said with a hint of a smile.

  “But surely you can understand why they might want to hide their past,” she argued.

  “Did those girls ask for any favors in return for making a statement?” Murphy asked.

  She was in two minds about whether to lie, but she’d already spoken to Kingston about helping the twins get a move off the Broadwater, and he might have told Murphy.

  “Emma’s manager at the Co-op told me that she and Rachel were being harassed by local youths. He’d helped her write some letters to the council to get a move, but nothing happened—”

  “You’re not answering my question, Tennison,” Murphy interrupted. “Did either of them ask you to help them?”

  Jane knew she was in a corner.

  “Emma asked if I could write a letter to the council. I advised her it was best to report the abuse incidents to Tottenham CID, as the local police would be in a better position to assist them.”

  Murphy frowned. “They never reported any of these alleged abusive incidents?”

  “Only because they feared further harassment if they did.”

  “This raises serious questions about Rachel Wilson’s credibility as a witness. And offering to help her could be regarded as an inducement for her to lie.”

  “Rachel never told me about the abuse incidents or asked me to write a letter to the council—”

  “She could have been encouraged by her sister to make the whole thing up after they read about the robbery in the paper,” Murphy said.

  Jane tried hard to keep her emotions under control. She knew Murphy didn’t really believe what he was saying; it was just a way to belittle her in front of the team. But she was determined not to let him.

  “What she lip-read in the cafe was on the Monday before the robbery. If she’s making it all up, she seems to have
got a lot right.”

  Teflon stepped forward and handed Murphy a PNC printout.

  “I don’t think she could make this up. I just got a hit on a George Ripley, aged fifty. Previous conviction for robbing a jeweler’s when he was twenty-six and his co-defendant was Graham Smith, then aged twenty-four. Both men used hammers to threaten the staff and smash open the glass jewelry showcases—they both got ten years in Pentonville. They’ve also got form for handling stolen goods, theft and burglary. George Ripley’s been off the radar since the robbery, but Smith got nicked two years ago for assault on a customer while working at GR Motors. He claimed self-defense and was found not guilty. He fits the age, hair color and height range from Fiona Simpson for the man driving the getaway car. The mugshot taken when he was charged with the assault is remarkably like her artist’s impression.”

  Jane watched Murphy’s eyes widen when he looked at the mugshot. He then handed it to Kingston who, for the first time during the meeting, had something to say.

  “Simpson also said he’d got long sideburns, which he clearly has in this photo. If it wasn’t for Tennison interviewing the Wilson sisters, we’d still be chasing our tails.”

  There were nods and mutters of agreement around the room, but Murphy remained stone-faced. Jane now realized Kingston’s warning about Murphy had been genuine and gave him a grateful smile. Kingston gave her a quick nod in return, then turned to Murphy.

  “It might be best if Jane spoke to the Wilsons and asked about their parents before we make any judgement.”

  “Fine, but with another officer present.”

  “You could always consider re-interviewing Rachel Wilson with a court-approved sign language interpreter present,” Kingston suggested.

  Murphy frowned. “I’ll think about it, if and when we need her as a court witness. For now just find out more about her family background.”

  “Jane, did you say Rachel Wilson reckoned George Ripley said the name ‘Judge’?” Stanley asked.

  She looked in her pocket notebook.

  “Yes, he picked up the pepper pot, then slid it across the table as if it represented a vehicle and said, ‘Once I’ve robbed the van, Judge pulls up here, we fuck off and change motors up the road.’ ”