The Crime Trade

by Simon Kernick

  ‘I know, I know,’ he said, and made his excuses, citing the usual: workload, lack of staff, etc. But it didn’t sound convincing, and he knew it. She told him she understood all that but that maybe he ought to think about changing careers so that he could help a bit more, and he said he had to go, that his boss needed to see him. ‘We’ll talk in the morning,’ he said.

  She sounded down as she hung up the phone with Luke’s wailing continuing in the background, and it made him wonder why she’d wanted to have kids. He’d tried his hardest to convince her that they were better off continuing as they were, childless but reasonably well off, with her nurse’s and his copper’s wage, but she’d been adamant, and he knew that part of the reason for her desire probably stemmed from the need for some companionship, given the fact that he was hardly ever there. You reap what you sow, and he was reaping.

  He drove back to Barnet on the M25, but instead of turning off on to the East Barnet road and heading home, he carried on going until he reached a pub just off the Whetstone High Road. He found a parking spot about fifty yards away and walked through the driving rain to the battered front door. It was ten to eleven.

  The One-Eyed Admiral had a one o’clock weekly licence but was one of those places that was never going to be that popular because (a) it never looked very clean, and (b) it had never been able to rid itself of its low-life clientele, probably because they were the only people who’d frequent it. It wasn’t a rough place, but one look through the smoky haze at the middle-aged petty criminals clustered round the tables and the fruit machines told any self-respecting punter that it wasn’t a pub he wanted to be seen in. Which was one of the reasons Stegs liked it. Because he knew he’d always get a seat at the bar, and people wouldn’t pay him too much attention.

  He’d been going in there for years, ever since he’d been introduced to it by a small-time gun dealer who’d been a regular. Stegs had been undercover at the time, investigating the dealer, whose name was Pete, and the One-Eyed Admiral had been their main meeting place. After Pete had got nicked, along with several of the other customers, Stegs had continued to drink there now and again (no-one had ever suspected that he’d been the one who’d put them behind bars), and it was always the place he adjourned to when he needed time to think. They knew him as Tam in here, and thought he was the son of Irish immigrants hailing from County Cork.

  The pub was busier than usual and all the tables were full, although there were still seats at the bar. Stegs nodded to a couple of blokes he recognized, then took a seat at one end – his usual spot, if it was free – and waited for Patrick, the barman, to come and take his order.

  ‘All right, Tam. Long time no see,’ grunted Patrick in that less-than-charming manner of his. He’d been here for years and Stegs had never seen him smile once. ‘What’ll it be?’

  ‘Pint of Stella,’ said Stegs, thinking that he should be thankful for men like Patrick. A lot of barmen’ll take it as an invitation to talk if you sit at their bar, and talking was something Stegs had done enough of for one day. At least he knew Patrick would leave him alone.

  He took the pint when it came to him, and handed over the exact money. He gulped down at least a third of it, savouring the much-needed taste of alcohol, before putting the glass down on the bar and sparking up a Marlboro Light. The missus was always on at him to give up the fags, even though she continued to smoke three Silk Cut Ultras religiously every evening (giving her teeth a ferocious clean after each one). Stegs never smoked in the house any more; apparently the residue on his breath could potentially be harmful to an infant (hence the missus’s tooth cleaning). It was the same with the booze. Next she’d be telling him not to eat curries.

  He dragged on the Marlboro and looked at the clock on the wall. Two minutes to eleven. Gill Vokerman would have been told by now what had happened to her husband, and Stegs wondered how she’d be coping. Badly probably. They had two kids: Jacob and Honey (not a name Stegs would have chosen – too gooey). Jacob was six and Honey either two or three, he couldn’t remember which. Gill was a committed Christian, so maybe her beliefs would help get her through it. He hoped so. She’d always struck him as a stoic sort, one who could call upon the old ‘spirit of the Blitz’ to help her through adversity, but losing a husband suddenly, violently and unexpectedly was as adverse as you were likely to get. He was going to have to go and see her, offer his condolences. It wasn’t going to be easy, especially as she didn’t like him anyway. Vokes had told him once that she looked upon him as a bad influence, although quite how he’d deserved that accolade, he didn’t know. Perhaps Vokes had blamed him for the occasional night the two of them had stayed out late. That was the problem with their job. You spent so much time living on the edge, acting out roles in environments where things were always on a knife-edge, that you had to be able to unwind. That meant sinking a few beers, coming in late, sometimes not making it in at all. Whatever Gill Vokerman might have thought, there was no way round it. If you couldn’t unwind with your mates, you’d go mental.

  He was going to miss Vokes, who’d been a good mate to him. They’d known each other for about three years, ever since they’d been thrown together on an assignment to trap a team of luxury-car thieves. That particular case, in which the two of them had posed as potential buyers with heavyweight contacts in the Middle East, had lasted close to two months, and with its successful conclusion (four members of the team had ended up with prison time totalling twenty-three years), so their partnership had been cemented. They’d worked together wherever possible since and each had learnt to cover the other’s back in even the most dangerous situations. When you’re an undercover copper, everything’s based on trust. If you’re working with another SO10 operative you’ve got to know that they won’t crack whatever the provocation, that they’ll continue to hold on to their identity even with a gun against their head, and it takes a special kind of person to be able to handle that sort of pressure. Vokes was one of them, so was Stegs.

  One time, eighteen months ago, that capability had been put to the ultimate test. The two of them had been working on an assignment to infiltrate and gather evidence on a south London-based coke and cannabis smuggling gang led by a psychotic thug named Frank Rentners. Rentners, an ex-boxer who’d served time for manslaughter, had ambitions to tie up the dope and coke market in his patch of south-east London, and he ran a sophisticated and lucrative operation in which the drugs were brought in on lorries overland from Spain among consignments of fruit and veg. At the time of the assignment, it was estimated that Rentners and his crew were turning over close to a million a year in sales, and were expanding fast thanks to their policy of undercutting (quite literally in one case) the competition.

  Once again, the two of them had posed as buyers from the provinces looking to set up an ongoing business relationship with Rentners to purchase quantities of his imported gear. An informant had introduced them to a small-time player called Jack Brewster who knew someone else within the gang. This is usually how it works in the criminal world: word of mouth. Somebody knows somebody who knows somebody else. It’s a good way of working because so many people get involved that by the time the bad guys are nicked they’re not sure who it was who actually grassed them up. That was the theory anyway.

  Brewster, who’d had no idea that the people he was representing were police officers, had been promised a commission by Stegs and Vokes if he could get his contact within the gang to set up a meeting between them and Rentners. Feelers had been put out and eventually Rentners had agreed to see Stegs, Vokes and Brewster in a pub in Streatham for an initial chat. If all went well, then they’d take it to the next step: a test purchase.

  So when they’d gone to the pub, there’d been no reason to suspect that things were going to go wrong. It was just a first meeting. He and Vokes weren’t even wearing wires, relying instead on the fact that officers from SO11, Scotland Yard’s intelligence-gathering unit, had put a tracking device under Rentners’ car, just in case they
changed venues. Brewster, who’d met the two of them in a Burger King just down the road, had been laughing and chatting, and was keen to know when he could expect some money. Stegs remembered that he’d told him it wouldn’t be too long and that he had nothing to worry about because he, Stegs, was a man of his word. Brewster had seemed happy enough with that.

  Rentners had been in the pub with three of his men. They all looked pretty much identical: shaven-headed, powerfully built, and togged out in three-quarter-length black leather jackets, black jeans and Timberlands. Like a doormen’s barbershop quartet – not that Stegs expected this lot to break out in song, not unless it was the Funeral March anyway. Rentners had been shorter than the rest, and older – probably about forty-five – but you could tell from the way he stood in the middle of the group, one elbow resting on the bar, that he was the leader. He had a black goatee beard modelled along the lines of one Satan might wear, and a similarly fiendish half-smile. All that was missing were the horns and forked tail.

  He’d looked the three of them up and down slowly and silently, trying to maximize the menace, then said straight away that they were going somewhere else. No-one had argued, this sort of welcome being par for the course, and the seven of them had left the pub through the back entrance that led out to a tiny car park. Two Mercedes, both black, were parked next to each other. Brewster was ushered into one along with two of Rentners’ goons, while Stegs and Vokes were invited into the back seat of the other. Rentners sat in the front passenger seat while the fourth member of the group drove.

  ‘Where are we heading?’ asked Vokes, who on this particular occasion was acting as the senior of the two of them.

  ‘Just for a little drive,’ growled their host, with that same devilish little half-smile which was not designed to make the recipient feel any better. ‘Sit back and relax.’

  And with that, he pressed a button and a tinted partition came down, making further communication impossible. The two SO10 men glanced at each other, but remained calm. In the end, Frank Rentners was a businessman and they were potential customers with some serious money to spend, so neither of them expected any real problems. They’d done this sort of thing plenty of times before.

  They drove through the streets of south London for close to three-quarters of an hour, losing the other car in the process. The driver kept to the quieter roads, occasionally doubling back on himself until eventually they were into the suburbs. They passed through Orpington, crossed the M25 at Swanley, and continued in a south-easterly direction. There was still no sign of the other car, and Stegs wondered whether they were going to see Brewster again that day, and whether the SO11 men were also on their tail.

  An hour and five minutes into the journey by Stegs’s watch, they suddenly pulled off the road they were travelling on and drove up a dirt track through woods until they came to a modern two-storey red-brick house set back on its own behind a small, neatly trimmed garden. The other Merc was already there, parked up on the driveway, along with a red Golf. They pulled up behind the Merc and the driver cut the engine.

  Rentners got out along with the driver, and beckoned them to do the same. ‘Are you hungry?’ he asked, when they were standing on the driveway.

  It was one o’clock in the afternoon and they both said they were, so Rentners, his smile a little more welcoming now, ushered them towards the house. Stegs noticed that he had his own key which he used to let them in, and he wondered briefly if this property was in Rentners’ name.

  The interior was surprisingly sparse. There were no pictures or ornaments in the hallway, and the unfashionable black carpet looked cheap. Rentners led them through to a large dining room that looked out on to trees. A large table took up most of the room and it was laid for seven people. Two bottles of Ty Nant mineral water were in the middle of the table along with a bottle each of red and white wine. Even eighteen months on, Stegs Jenner remembered all these little details. He remembered everything about that day.

  Brewster was already sitting down at the table along with the other two. He greeted them with a slightly confused smile, as if he too wasn’t a hundred per cent sure what was going on. Stegs and Vokes took seats opposite him.

  ‘Help yourselves to drinks,’ said Rentners, and disappeared out of the room.

  Stegs helped himself to a glass of red. He wouldn’t have drunk on duty normally but it was Châteauneuf du Pape. Whatever else could be said of Rentners, he had good taste in wine. Vokes shot him a sideways glare and poured himself some water.

  ‘Well, this is very nice,’ said Stegs, not really meaning it at all. It wasn’t nice. It was weird. He’d been working with SO10 a long time, and no-one had ever fed him at a first meeting.

  ‘It is, isn’t it?’ said Brewster, an excruciatingly ingratiating smile on his face as he looked around. Stegs thought then that he really didn’t like Brewster. He had the furtive air of a child molester.

  Nobody else spoke.

  A few minutes later, Rentners returned carrying a huge pot. A big, blonde-haired woman in a kitchen apron came in behind him. She was carrying bowls which she put down in front of everyone without speaking. Stegs thanked her but she ignored him, not even looking his way.

  ‘Spaghetti al araba,’ said Rentners, who must have thought he was John Gotti or Tony Soprano, lifting the lid off the pot. ‘I hope you all like chilli.’ He then doled out a portion of spaghetti in a tomatoey sauce to each and every one of them while the blonde came back several times bringing salad and garlic bread. ‘Bon appetit,’ he growled when he’d finished, before sitting down at the head of the table and proceeding to stuff his demonic face.

  As they ate (and Stegs would always remember that the food was excellent), Rentners asked the two of them questions. What sort of quantity of gear were they after? How were they raising the funds needed? Where’d they done time? Did they know so and so? The questions were probing but nothing unusual, and the two of them answered confidently and without hesitation. Only once did Rentners speak to Brewster, to ask him if he knew how a mutual acquaintance of theirs was doing. Brewster, between sizeable mouthfuls of spaghetti, said he hadn’t seen the bloke for ages. Rentners nodded, as if accepting the answer, and carried on talking to the two SO10 men. Vokes did most of the talking, but Stegs had entered the discussion where necessary, and he remembered thinking, as he poured himself a second glass of the Châteauneuf du Pape, that it wouldn’t take more than a few meetings to reel in Rentners. He obviously rated himself very highly, and they’re always the easiest to bring down because they never see it coming.

  Rentners was the first to finish. As he did so, he gave his belly a satisfying rub and raised his glass. ‘To crime,’ he chuckled.

  ‘To crime,’ said everyone else with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Stegs even raised his glass.

  Then Rentners lifted up the empty bottle of white wine and smashed it over Brewster’s head. Brewster didn’t even know what had hit him, he simply slid off the chair and fell to the floor. Stegs and Vokes stared at Rentners, wondering whether they’d missed something. Vokes began to speak, but their host stood up and pulled a long-barrelled Browning from the waistband of his black jeans and pointed it at him.

  ‘Shut the fuck up, cunt!’ he hissed, his face dissolving into a malevolent glare, which hadn’t required much of a transformation.

  At the same time, Stegs felt something warm and metallic being pushed against his temple as the bloke next to him – the one who’d driven them down there – produced his own gun. Stegs carried on chewing. When he’d finished, he turned to Rentners and glared right back. ‘What the fuck is this? What are you trying to do?’

  ‘Shut your fucking mouth, copper!’ snarled Rentners, moving the gun round so it was pointed right between Stegs’s eyes.

  Stegs felt his heart shoot up to his mouth and he silently thanked God that he had Vokes with him because he knew his partner was experienced enough to handle this sort of situation.

  ‘What the fuck are you talking abou
t?’ he yelled, indignant. ‘Who the fuck’s a copper? How do I even know you’re not a fucking copper?’ He stood up, flinging his serviette onto the table and ignoring the gun to his head, a picture of righteous anger.

  Bluff, bluff – it’s always bluff.

  ‘Get fucking down!’ roared Rentners, his gun hand shaking with rage.

  ‘All right, Steve,’ said Vokes. ‘Sit down and take it easy.’ Stegs slowly sat back down while Vokes turned to Rentners and spoke calmly but with barely suppressed irritation. ‘What the fuck is this, Mr Rentners? We came here to do business. We don’t like having weapons pointed at us, and having accusations made that are, quite frankly, fucking insulting.’

  ‘Don’t fucking try that one. You’re coppers. I know you are. And him’ – he motioned with the Browning towards the prone form of Brewster – ‘he’s a fucking grass. You’re here to fucking set me up.’

  ‘Bollocks!’ yelled Stegs. ‘I can’t believe you’re doing this to us.’

  ‘Is this the way you treat all your customers, Frank? Because if it is—’

  ‘SHUT THAT FUCKING MOUTH!’ roared Rentners. ‘NOW! BOTH OF YOU! YOU HEAR ME? NOW!’

  The whole world had probably heard that. It left Stegs’s ears ringing, and he knew that this was serious. Very serious. Rentners had killed before. Knifed a man in the heart over an alleged drugs debt. He’d got off on manslaughter charges because the bloke had also slept with his missus, which meant extenuating circumstances. Nineteen times he’d stabbed him, the defence barrister at his trial describing it as a passionate rage in search of an outlet, which seemed a very generous way of looking at it. Some fucking outlet. The point was, though, that this was a bad situation. Rentners was unpredictable, he was violent, and he had a gun. Stegs was as scared as he’d ever been, but he knew it would be fatal to show it. He gave Rentners a look that said that he wouldn’t forget this sort of treatment.