‘Jesus, you gave me a scare today,’ I said, trying hard not to get too emotional in her presence as once again the sense of relief flooded through me.
‘It’s all right, John,’ she whispered in my ear. ‘I’m OK.’
I let go and sat down on one of the other chairs, bringing it closer to the bed. I wanted to lecture her about her recklessness that morning, but resisted the urge, knowing that it wasn’t what she wanted to hear. Instead, I told her how good her detective work had been. ‘You’re the toast of the squad at the moment. I think you’re going to end up getting used to champagne.’
She smiled, and it was one of the nicest sights I’d seen in a long time. Tina Boyd was a survivor, that was for sure, but only just.
‘So, what’s the latest news?’ she asked with a yawn.
‘Something you’ll want to hear. We’re bringing in Stegs.’ I briefly explained his relationship with Trevor Murk.
The smile grew wider. ‘I knew, John. What did I tell you? I knew the trail would lead back to him. I think you’re going to have to rename me Philip Marlowe.’
‘There’s more.’ I then told her about the gun lead and how it had involved Vokes.
‘So there’s a possibility both of them were involved?’ Tina shook her head. ‘I can’t see it myself. Vokerman just wasn’t the type.’
‘It’s still very strange, though. And coincidental. And I’ve never been a one for coincidences. It’s going to be very interesting to hear what Stegs has to say.’
‘I’d be more interested in kicking him very hard in the nuts. The bastard almost got me killed.’
‘He’ll get more than a kick in the nuts if he is responsible for everything that’s happened. We’ll make sure he goes down for the rest of his days, I promise you that.’ I shook my head. ‘Christ, what a day. I was scared out of my wits when Murk had the gun against your head. How the hell were you feeling?’
‘Scared,’ she said, thinking about her words. ‘But also, I don’t know, exhilarated. I can’t work out whether this morning was the best few hours of my life or the worst. It just feels strange, like a dream. Even my leg doesn’t hurt that much. I just feel very, very tired.’
‘Did they say how long you’re going to be kept in?’
‘Another three or four days so they can check for infections. I can go back to work in about a month if all goes well.’
‘You’re not going to leave, then?’
She sighed and gave my hand a squeeze. ‘Not just yet, no. Why? Do you want me to now?’
‘I want you to do what you think is right,’ I lied. ‘Same as I always have.’
There was silence between us for a few moments. She yawned again, and turned her head away, her eyes starting to close. I took that as a cue to make a move, and I was just about to say my goodbyes when she asked me if I’d meant what I’d said earlier.
‘About what?’ I felt my heart leaping like it does the first time you ask someone out and they say yes.
‘You know exactly what.’ She turned her head so she was facing me again, a coy expression on her face.
I grinned. ‘Yeah. I did.’
‘I think we should maybe take that holiday, don’t you?’
‘Too right. Safari followed by the Seychelles?’
‘I think we deserve it.’ She yawned again, a longer one this time. ‘Let me know what happens with Stegs, won’t you? Straight away.’
I told her I would, but she’d already shut her eyes.
I sat there for a while watching her sleep, thinking that I’d experienced some serious highs and lows that day.
And it wasn’t even finished yet.
Outside, in the car park, it was a mild evening. Darkness had just about fallen, and the sky glowed the unhealthy pink of the city at night. The time was twenty to seven, which meant I’d been in the hospital a lot longer than I’d thought. I switched on my mobile and saw that I had a message. It was from DCI Woodham: Stegs Jenner had arrived home; I was to proceed to his address immediately and to wait out of sight of the house if the rest of the team hadn’t yet arrived. The message was recorded at 6.38, so I’d only just missed him. I pressed 5 for recall and phoned him back.
45
Malik had had just about as much as he could take of Jack Merriweather.
The way the gangster turned informer talked, you’d be forgiven for assuming that he was doing the CPS and the police some sort of favour by testifying in the Vamen trial, rather than simply saving his own skin. Merriweather had been Neil Vamen’s right-hand man and a member of the Holtz set-up for at least fifteen years, probably more. It was inconceivable that he hadn’t committed murder on their behalf, and, given the evidence against him for more recent crimes, he’d had no choice but to turn against his former allies and employers. Now he was denying any knowledge at all of the whereabouts of Terry Duffy, a small-time thief and thug who’d gone out one morning for some cigarettes and never been seen again. Duffy had left behind a pregnant partner and a two-year-old son. It was known he owed Neil Vamen money over a drug deal and was having difficulty paying him back. In the last week, a potential witness had come forward and claimed that she’d heard Merriweather say he’d been one of those involved in the kidnapping and disposal of the body. The family were desperate for news, even if it was simply the location of the remains, so that they could get some sort of closure on the case. Unsurprisingly, Merriweather was denying any knowledge of the incident.
‘I knew the bloke,’ he’d told Malik, ‘but that’s all. I didn’t have nothing to do with killing him, and I don’t know who did. Or even if he’s dead.’
It was bullshit of course, but there wasn’t much Malik could do about it, and now it was a quarter to seven and he was finished there. It hadn’t been a very satisfactory visit. Merriweather had also never heard of Stegs Jenner, which wasn’t going to help the case against the SO10 man, especially since very little had gone on in the Holtz set-up that their chief witness hadn’t known about. It left Malik with a flicker of doubt about Stegs’s guilt, which was something he could have done without, but he was also aware that Merriweather had never given up the names of any police officers involved with the Holtzes, so either it was an area of the business he’d steered clear of or, for whatever reason, he’d made a conscious decision not to say anything about them. Once again, inconclusive.
But right now, Malik’s home and family beckoned. He left Merriweather sitting in the office they’d been using at the back of the house. The discussions had moved on to the upcoming trial, and the ex-gangster was in good cheer, swigging happily from a can of taxpayer-funded Foster’s, seemingly unworried about the ordeal ahead. ‘Don’t you worry about a fucking thing, Asif,’ he bellowed after the SO7 man, in a tone of camaraderie that Malik could have done without. ‘It’ll be a doddle.’ Malik lifted a hand to acknowledge that he’d heard Merriweather’s boast but kept walking. It had better be a doddle, he thought to himself, because if their star witness didn’t come through the case was in a lot of trouble.
Luckily, Merriweather was a resilient character. He had to be, given that less than two weeks before there’d been not one but two attempts on his life, and that, whatever happened in the coming weeks, he was a marked man for the rest of his days. Already his wife had left him, unable to equate the man she knew with the man he’d become, and had taken the kids with her, and it was a possibility that he’d never see any of them again, because to do so would be such a security risk. He was truly on his own (particularly now that his request for visits from his girlfriend had been turned down), which was a lot for a man to live with. But so far Merriweather was managing, and managing remarkably well. In that respect, he was a perfect witness. In every other respect he was an arsehole, and a nasty one at that.
As he walked past the lounge on the way to the front door, Malik waved at the two plainclothes officers who were acting as Merriweather’s guards. ‘Thanks for that, gents. It’s been a pleasure.’ He rolled his eyes.
�
�Take it easy, Asif,’ said the younger of the two, Dan Harold, a guy Malik knew vaguely. He didn’t know Harold’s colleague, Bill Cheek, who simply nodded.
‘Fat chance of that,’ Malik replied with a chuckle as he opened the door.
His mobile rang, and it made him wonder, not for the first time, what anyone had ever done before the advent of the mobile phone. Had a lot easier time of it, probably. Shutting the door behind him, he put the receiver to his ear.
‘Malik.’
The voice that spoke to him was artificial, robotic. Slurred a little. ‘Jack Merriweather is in imminent danger. There’s a leak within SO7. The leak is DCS Noel Flanagan. He’s in the pay of Neil Vamen and has released Merriweather’s current location.’ The voice reeled off the address.
Malik froze. It was correct. What the hell was going on? He opened his mouth to say something but the voice continued.
‘Neil Vamen has arranged through his solicitor, Melvyn Carroll, for assassins to visit his premises in the very near future to carry out Merriweather’s killing. You are advised to act accordingly.’
The phone went dead and Malik was left staring at it, wondering exactly how near the near future was.
46
With the worst part of rush hour over, the traffic up to Barnet was less heavy than it had been from the station to Charing Cross hospital, and I turned into Stegs’s road at twenty past seven, focused completely now on the job ahead.
I was the first there, and the street was quiet. I could see lights on in the Jenner household but there was no sign of the two officers keeping watch on the place. I hadn’t been told how they were conducting their surveillance but presumed they were probably camped in one of the houses opposite in order to make themselves as inconspicuous as possible. If they were here on the street, then they were doing their job very well.
I picked up my mobile and dialled Woodham again.
‘We’re just coming into the estate now,’ he told me. ‘ETA one minute. We’re going to park outside and go straight in. I’m sending a marked patrol car round to the next street, just in case he tries to escape out the back, but I’m confident he’ll come quietly.’
‘Let’s hope so,’ I said, and hung up.
One minute later, the lead car containing Woodham drove straight past me, followed by a second unmarked one – a Ford Orion – with a patrol car bringing up the rear. Woodham’s vehicle parked right outside Stegs’s house, and the second car managed to squeeze in behind it; the patrol car found a slot about twenty yards further up. Two more figures, whom I recognized as DC Wrays and WDC Farland – the officers watching the place – appeared from the other end of the street and made their way towards the house.
Exhaling loudly, and wondering what we were about to find out, I got out of my own car and crossed the road, catching up with Woodham and four of the other detectives from the squad as they decamped and started up the drive towards Stegs’s front door. I remembered then that I’d promised to phone Malik when I’d got any news. I asked Woodham if he’d been in contact with him.
‘Not yet,’ he answered as he approached the door, hammering on it with a copper’s authority. ‘He’s not answering at the moment.’
A few seconds later the door opened and Mrs Jenner stood there, looking at us all with some apprehension. She spotted me but gave no obvious sign of recognition. ‘Yes?’ she said with genuine surprise. In the background, a baby started crying. It sounded like the cries were coming from up the stairs.
‘Police, Mrs Jenner,’ said Woodham gruffly, showing his ID. ‘We have a warrant to search these premises. We also have a separate warrant for your husband’s arrest. Would you let us in, please?’
Her face seemed to crack under the strain. ‘What are you talking about? My husband is a police officer.’
Woodham was unmoved. ‘You’ll see that everything’s in order,’ he stated without emotion. With his other hand, he produced the warrant and thrust it under her nose, then stepped inside the door. ‘Where is your husband, Mrs Jenner? Is he upstairs?’
She moved aside to let him in, her face still a mask of shock. ‘No,’ she said, with a hint of desperation. ‘He isn’t here.’
‘We have reason to believe he is,’ said Woodham evenly as he stepped onto the stairs. Two of the other detectives moved into the hallway and started off in the direction of the kitchen.
‘No, honestly, he isn’t. He went out about ten minutes ago. We had an argument when he came home. He hadn’t told me about his suspension, and now I’m kicking him out.’
Woodham, who wasn’t the most diplomatic or tolerant of people, clearly didn’t believe her and carried on up the stairs. ‘Your baby needs you,’ he called down to her, and she pushed past the other detectives on the stairs, her face a picture of humiliation. It looked like, in the life of Mrs Stegs Jenner, things couldn’t get much worse.
The rest of us piled into the house. I opened the door into the sitting room. The lights were on, as was the TV, but the room was otherwise empty.
A few seconds later, there was the sound of heavy footfalls on the stairs, and I came back into the hall to see Woodham reappear looking none too pleased. Mrs Jenner was following him, holding the grizzling baby.
‘I told you he wasn’t here,’ she said.
Woodham glared at Wrays and Farland who’d come in behind me. ‘I thought you were meant to be watching the place,’ he said accusingly.
‘We were,’ said Wrays, sounding not unlike a chastised schoolboy. ‘We must have looked away for a moment and missed him.’
I noticed Farland blushing. Obviously, office romances were all the rage.
‘I’m not a liar, you know,’ continued Mrs Jenner.
Woodham turned to her angrily, in no mood for pussy-footing around. ‘Where the hell do you think he is, then?’
‘I don’t know,’ she snapped, tears in her eyes.
I could understand the DCI’s frustration but I didn’t think he was going about dealing with it the right way. ‘Where’s the most likely place you can think of where he’d go if the two of you had an argument, Mrs Jenner?’ I asked her.
‘The pub probably. That’s where he spends most of his time. There’s one at the end of the estate on Church Hill that he drinks in now and again. The King’s Arms, it’s called. Or otherwise, if he’s on foot, he might take a walk up to his old school. He goes there sometimes when he wants some peace and quiet. It’s just over the back of the houses opposite. There’s an entrance at the bottom of the road.’ Her gaze moved from me to Woodham. ‘What are you arresting him for? He didn’t have anything to do with what happened to Paul, did he? Paul Vokerman?’
‘We can’t discuss it at the moment, I’m afraid,’ Woodham told her. ‘All right: Wrays, Farland, you get up to the pub. John, you and me’ll go up to the school with the uniforms. The rest of you stay here and carry out the search.’
The baby howled loudly and angrily in Woodham’s direction, evidently not happy with this man’s intrusion on to his territory, and Mrs Jenner finally burst into tears.
Woodham didn’t notice. He was already heading for the car, with me following.
47
Malik went back inside the house, slamming the front door behind him. The two detectives were still sitting where he’d left them, playing a game of cards. Both had cans of Foster’s open. They looked up as he reappeared.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Dan Harold.
‘We’ve got a problem. A big one. Vamen’s on to us. He knows Merriweather’s at this location.’
‘Christ almighty,’ he cursed. ‘How?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Who told you?’
‘That’s the thing, I’m not sure. I just got an anonymous call a few seconds ago.’ He didn’t add the bit about Flanagan being the alleged leak.
‘How do you know it’s authentic?’ asked Bill Cheek, reaching into his jacket and fingering his shoulder holster nervously.
‘He told me the address. It�
�s an authentic call, take my word for it.’
Cheek got to his feet, Harold following.
‘What’s going on?’ called Merriweather from the other side of the house, his voice booming down the hallway. ‘Whatchoo doing back, Asif?’
‘Let’s get all the lights off,’ said Cheek, switching off the lamp by the chair he’d been sitting in. ‘And pull the curtains. Dan, go down and make sure Merriweather stays put.’
‘Do you want me to let him know what’s happening?’
‘Yes.’
Malik had put the number of DCI Norman Thackston of Crawley Police, the nearest station with armed support, into his mobile a few days earlier, just in case of this eventuality, even though he’d always thought it unlikely in the extreme. He speed-dialled it now, at the same time flicking off the hall light. Thackston wasn’t there, but after a dozen or so rings, someone else picked up.
‘Thackston’s line, DS Kamal speaking.’
Malik strode into the kitchen, switching off the light and pulling the curtains across. As he did so, he told Kamal as rapidly as possible what was happening, and how urgent the situation was, before giving him the address. Twice. ‘I need armed response units here immediately. We’re going to have to move our man as soon as possible, but I’m not doing anything until you get here. Be quick, for God’s sake. We lose the target and heads’ll roll, I promise you that.’
He hung up before Kamal had a chance to get a word in edgeways, then headed back into the hall. In the darkness, he could make out Cheek standing there with his gun drawn. It brought home the danger of the situation to him. They were in trouble, serious trouble, and because he was unarmed, having never had the desire to take up firearms training, Malik was going to have to rely on other people to bring him out of the situation alive and unhurt. It wasn’t a situation he was either used to, or relished.
The Crime Trade Page 30