End of the Line

by Robert Scragg

  ‘Now, either you give me who was driving the car that killed my wife or every man that works for you will get a copy. Won’t matter how much you paid the Thai Police then. Starting with those two. You’ve got ten seconds.’

  ‘How the f—?’

  ‘Nine, eight, seven—’

  ‘OK, OK,’ Tyler growled, giving Porter a glare that could kill an elephant at ten paces. ‘You win, all right. You win.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Not here though.’

  ‘Six, five—’

  ‘Look, they see us talking, then you storm straight off and pick someone up, you don’t think they put two and two together? Give me until tomorrow, noon. Make some space between now and then. You’ll have a fucking name.’

  Porter met his angry glare with one of his own, fuelled by nearly four years of bitterness and grief. He reached inside his jacket, pulling out a business card, shielding it from Tyler’s men as he passed it over.

  ‘I don’t have a name by twelve-oh-one, I’m going to do a leaflet drop that’ll make your streets look like a blizzard.’

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  Porter had taken the Tube to the Tate, so he hitched a lift back with Nick and Gus.

  ‘I know,’ said Styles, ‘You’re pissed cos I followed you.’

  ‘What if something had happened to you? How do I explain that to Emma?’

  ‘Same way I’d have to with Evie if you keep breaking promises to not run around like you’re Batman cleaning up Gotham.’

  ‘Gus, I … Thanks for tagging along. Better if you don’t ask too many questions in case Milburn gets wind, but thank you. Both of you.’

  Tessier shrugged. ‘I don’t need to know, but fuck Milburn all the same.’

  Bursts of nervous laughter all round.

  ‘How did you know to follow me?’ Porter asked. ‘Am I really that bad a liar?’

  ‘Let’s just say you should never join the office poker game.’

  ‘Look, boss,’ Tessier said, ‘whatever you’ve got going on ain’t none of my business, but you, the team, you’re family. You need anything, we’re here.’

  Gus was a man of few words, so his sentiment caught Porter off-guard, ramming home what a fool he’d been to charge around like this on his own. He’d do it for them, every last one of them, yet he’d taken that choice away from them. Nearly the end of this particular road now though. Hours, not days.

  ‘While you’ve been playing Lone Ranger, Glenn’s come up trumps. Home addresses on Twyford and Forrester, both empty though. No sign of Finch either, but you’re not gonna believe this next bit. Dom Twyford’s phone pinged a mast right next to the courthouse the day of the murder, two hours after to be precise.’

  ‘They were still there? Where the hell were they hiding out?’

  ‘He was in a hotel around the corner. One of those Hilton DoubleTree ones. Turns out he checked in the night before, checked out the morning after.’

  ‘What about Finch and Forrester?’

  ‘Glenn spoke to the manager. No rooms booked under any of their names, but he picked out Twyford on their CCTV. Checked in as Stephen George. Manager recognised Finch and Forrester as well. Reckons he saw them all having a drink in the bar Sunday night, then the other two were there having a coffee in the morning. We reckon they all dossed in one room. No cameras behind the hotel, so easy access to and from the rear of the courtrooms.’

  ‘They sat there supping a bloody pint while we were around the corner.’

  They sank into silence, letting that percolate, before Porter spoke again.

  ‘Let’s think this through then. If you’re Finch, you do this to try and scare people, play on their fears and drive them towards the EWP. Why would you do it independently of Winter? They’re all ex-forces, used to following orders. Why strike out alone, why now, and why plant the memory card in Winter’s office?’

  ‘That version doesn’t add up for me, boss,’ said Styles. ‘Finch does the wet work, but Winter is the one who benefits from it all. Course he knew, I just don’t see it any other way.’

  ‘If he knew, he put on a bloody good performance,’ said Porter.

  ‘Wouldn’t be the first,’ Styles warned. ‘Could even be their contingency plan. Things unravel, Winter puts on a show, and Finch falls on his sword to keep his boss out of it.’

  ‘Maybe. Either way, Winter is still a person of interest until I say otherwise. What do we know about their military service history?’ Porter asked.

  ‘Bugger all at the moment,’ Styles admitted. ‘Work in progress. Nothing on their whereabouts at the moment either, but you’ve got to assume they know we picked up Winter again, maybe even that we found the micro SD card. Can’t see them sat with a cuppa waiting for us to turn up, can you?’

  ‘Finch doesn’t strike me as the kind of man who wouldn’t have a plan B lined up,’ said Porter. ‘At least we’ve got faces against this now, regardless of whether Winter’s one of them.’

  They lapsed into comfortable silence for a few minutes.

  ‘Is it bad that I’m looking forward to seeing Milburn’s face when he realises he has to backtrack on the whole terror angle?’

  ‘Still a win for him though, isn’t it? He spins it so he solved the case, while not just paying lip service to the terrorist angle. Slippery bugger is our super.’

  ‘Speaking of slippery buggers, how was our little friend at the Tate? You get what you need?’

  Porter shook his head. ‘Not yet, but it did the trick. I’ll know by tomorrow, or I air his dirty laundry.’

  ‘You not tempted to air it anyway?’

  ‘Course, but he doesn’t need to know that yet.’

  ‘Sarge, you there?’ Kaja Sucheka’s voice crackled out from Styles’s airwave radio.

  ‘Yep. On my way back in. With you in five. What’s up?’

  ‘We’ve had a tip off about Finch and his buddies. SCO19 are en route now.’

  ‘Give us the address,’ Styles said, and Porter felt that unerring sense of momentum, the tipping point, where a case started to rush head first at you. Even with SCO19, the Met’s Specialist Firearms Command on board, taking down three trained soldiers, ones who’d already shown how far they’d go for their cause, wouldn’t be an easy task.

  Kaja fed them the address. Victory Services Club, a prestigious military members club on the edge of Hyde Park. Stone’s throw from Buckingham Palace. Milburn’s blood pressure would be off the charts even if it all went to plan. If.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  A pair of armed response vehicles had beaten them to it, out of their cars and prepping on Stanhope Place when Styles pulled up onto the kerb. Six AFOs, Authorised Firearms Officers, head to toe in black, Kevlar helmets in hands, running one last weapons check on their Glock 17s. One of the six detached, coming over to meet them, gloved hand outstretched.

  ‘DS Holt, sir. We’ll be good to go in sixty seconds. Spoke with one of your team on the way over and sighting confirmed now with the club manager. All three targets located in the main bar area. Approximately three dozen civilians and staff present. Orders are to hold our position until numbers thin out.’

  Milburn had already stated that position when Porter had called him on the way over. No way of knowing if the three men were armed, so steaming in guns out wasn’t the play, not yet anyway. Porter checked his watch.

  ‘It’s early evening,’ he said, turning to Styles. ‘Only going to get busier for the next few hours.’

  Styles nodded, picking up on Porter’s meaning. ‘I’ll go in with you.’

  Porter shook his head. ‘Only needs one of us.’

  The look he got back was loaded. ‘You remember the chat we had by the river just now, yeah?’

  A moment’s hesitation, then Porter relented. ‘Fine, but if Emma asks, I tried.’

  ‘Gus, you up for keeping the doorman company and watching the front while we go in?’

  Nod and a grunt from the big man. DS Holt didn’t look convinced. ‘That
puts you at least thirty seconds from us if things go bad, sir. My advice would be to hang back, see how things play out, just for a while.’

  Porter walked past him, peering both ways up Seymour Street. ‘Over there, that entry to the back lane behind Lanchester Court,’ he pointed to what looked like the opening to an alleyway down the side of the building opposite the club. ‘You could take up position there, cuts your distance in half.’

  Holt walked forwards, staring for a moment. Shrugged. ‘Your call, sir.’

  Porter nodded, feeling the buzz as adrenaline started to do its thing. The three of them strapped on their stab vests, Tessier’s big enough that it would look trench-coat-size on someone like Kaja.

  They turned the corner, heading towards the club entrance, hearing the dull drumbeat of boots on tarmac behind them as the AFOs moved into position. The red-brick and sandstone front made for a Battenberg effect, Union Jack hanging limp on a flagpole jutting out above the entrance. A bored-looking doorman glanced their way, doing a double take as they crossed the road towards him. Porter held his warrant card out, keeping his voice low.

  ‘DI Porter, Met Police. I need you to keep anyone else from entering, can you do that?’

  ‘Yeah, of course, I … um … What’s going on?’

  ‘DC Tessier will stay out here with you for now.’ Porter ignored the question. ‘Where do I find the lounge bar?’

  The bemused doorman gave him directions, Porter breezing past and into the reception area. Marble effect floor didn’t make for the quietest entry, waist-high desk, a couple of inches of hair and forehead poking over the top of a pair of monitors. Skirting the edge of the desk, he and Styles followed the doorman’s directions, corridor opening out into the bar. Low slung bucket seats clustered around polished metal tables. Finch stood at the bar over to the left, his back to Porter but enough of his face visible in the mirrored wall behind it.

  ‘Two o’clock,’ said Styles. ‘Over by the pillar.’

  Porter chanced a glance, seeing another familiar face. Forrester. He recognised Twyford from the pictures that had been circulating. All three of them variations on a theme. All with short back and sides, jaws you could use as a spirit level. The three of them had served together in Afghanistan. Left under a cloud, but exactly how dark a one had been beyond the limits of what his team could dig up at short notice.

  ‘Stay here and keep an eye on those two while I have a chat with Mr Finch.’

  Porter picked his way between tables, weaving past the few that had chosen to stand, zipping his jacket up to hide the Kevlar body armour. Finch was shooting the breeze with one of the bar staff, a young brunette, smiling at whatever joke he’d just cracked like he was the first guy to ever try and come on to her.

  She placed three bottles in front of him, wedging chunks of lime in the necks. Finch had just tapped his card to pay when Porter leant an elbow on the bar beside him.

  ‘Finch, didn’t know you drank here.’

  Finch whipped his head around, instant recognition, eyes flicking past Porter, sweeping the room. Styles was out of sight, behind a pillar from where they stood, and Finch seemed to relax a little.

  ‘I could say the same,’ Finch answered, turning back to his bottle, stuffing the lime inside with a thick sausage finger. ‘Where did you serve?’

  ‘1st Battalion Coldstream Guards. You?’

  ‘40 Commando. You get out to Helmand?’

  Porter nodded. ‘Only did the one tour back in 2010. Wasn’t it 40 Commando that turned the lights off on the way out of there in 2013?’

  Finch nodded, taking a long pull on his beer.

  ‘How long you been out?’

  ‘Too long.’

  ‘Are you being served, sir?’

  The brunette was back, looking at him while pouring a pint for someone else.

  ‘No, I’m OK, thanks.’

  ‘Another Corona, please, darling,’ Finch said. ‘This one’s on me.’

  ‘Thanks, but I’m fine, honestly.’

  ‘House rules. Nobody turns their nose up at a free beer. You wouldn’t be turning your nose up at me, would you, Detective Porter?’

  Porter paused a beat, before smiling at the barmaid. ‘Corona’ll be great, thanks.’

  ‘What brings you here today, then?’

  ‘You actually, Leo.’

  ‘It’s Leo now, is it? We mates all of a sudden?’

  ‘You generally buy a beer for people you don’t like?’

  ‘Oh, you don’t want to know what I do for people I don’t like.’

  ‘That’s where you’re wrong, Leo. I already know what you do to them. What you did to Ross Henderson. I’m here to give you a choice, to walk out of here with me now, the three of you.’

  ‘Let’s say I don’t like that option,’ Finch said, ‘what’s behind door number two?’

  ‘Oh, you don’t want that one, Leo, trust me. I’ve got armed response teams with itchy trigger fingers just dying to pile in here.’

  ‘You think they can pile in fast enough to save you?’ Finch asked, in a voice that might as well have been asking what was for dinner. ‘Looks like you need your battles fighting for you anyway,’ he said, nodding at the strapping on Porter’s fingers.

  ‘Don’t you worry about me, Leo,’ Porter said, pinpricks of sweat popping across his back, eyes fixed on the bottle the barmaid set in front of him, trying to look nonchalant, feeling anything but.

  ‘Ah, I’m only messing. Besides, we’ve already done this dance down at the station. You should be out there looking around a few of the mosques instead of bothering men who’ve fought for their country. Keep following me round, I’m gonna have to ask my solicitor to apply for a restraining order.’

  ‘You sure you can afford him on your own? Can’t see your boss picking up the tab this time. Not with what he knows now.’

  Finch chuckled, tipping his bottle skywards again. ‘Come on then, I’ll bite. What exactly do you think you know that I don’t?’

  ‘There’s no think,’ Porter said, turning away from his untouched bottle. ‘I know you killed Ross Henderson. I know you took that call in Winter’s office. I know we’ve matched your voice on both to the clip of you manhandling Ross. I know what that’ll look like to a jury.’

  Finch smacked his lips, placed his own bottle on the bar, cradling it between bricklayer’s hands.

  ‘Go on, call him,’ Porter said. ‘Don’t take my word for it.’

  Finch’s eyes flicked off right, and Porter risked a glance over. Twyford and Forrester were still seated but staring across. Finch gave an almost imperceptible shake of the head.

  ‘You’re full of shit,’ he said, pulling out his phone, but Porter sensed more than just irritation in his voice.

  Finch’s reflection stared back in the mirror, waiting for Winter to answer the call. Finch suddenly stood up a touch straighter.

  ‘Boss, it’s Leo, I—’

  Finch listened, stared so hard at his drink Porter half expected the bottle to shatter from the weight of it. The bodyguard’s mouth twisted into an ugly sneer.

  ‘Yeah, well, fuck you too.’

  He slapped the phone back on the bar, picked up one of the two remaining beers and necked half of it in five thirsty swallows.

  ‘What time’s your solicitor getting to the station, then?’ Porter asked, not trying too hard to keep the smile from his face.

  ‘You’re a laugh a minute, aren’t you?’ Finch said, looking his mirror image in the eye. ‘You’ve served. You must have seen stuff, things you wish you hadn’t.’

  ‘Some,’ Porter agreed, no elaboration.

  ‘Then you know.’ He nodded. ‘You know that in a war, you sometimes have to do things you don’t like, that civvies would refuse, if you want to change the world for the better.’

  ‘That what you were doing in Greenwich, Leo? Changing the world?’

  Finch gave a wistful smile. ‘We’ve each got our part to play, Detective. There’s a tidal wave coming that
’ll wash all this shit away, let us rebuild from scratch. I’ve done my bit. Doesn’t much matter what happens to me now.’

  ‘You think the EWP is going to survive this?’ Porter asked. ‘You’re dead in the water.’

  ‘They may well be,’ Finch agreed.

  ‘Why try and make your boss take the fall though? That’s what I don’t get.’

  ‘Hmm? Oh, him? He wanted this as much as anyone. Just never had the balls to do anything about it.’

  Finch drained the second bottle. The background hum of countless conversations seemed to ebb away.

  ‘What now, then?’ he asked.

  ‘Now? You and your boys come outside, we head back to Paddington Green, and it’ll be what it’ll be.’

  Finch turned to face him, elbow resting on the bar. ‘You got a favourite film, Detective?’

  Porter stared him out, no idea where he was taking this.

  ‘For me, it’s got to be Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Always saw myself as more Butch than Sundance.’

  ‘Didn’t end so well for either of them though, did it?’

  ‘Depends how you look at it,’ Finch said, another glance at his men. ‘Lot to be said for going out on your own terms.’

  Porter shook his head. ‘Not worth it, Leo.’

  Finch’s gaze bored into him, the kind of hard stare that had likely backed plenty of men down before. Only for a few seconds though, then he surprised Porter by letting rip a loud laugh, like Porter had just slung a punchline his way.

  ‘Ah, the look on your face. I mean, it’s not like I’m armed or anything,’ he said, pulling back his jacket to show nothing but a white cotton shirt. He lifted up the hem, rotating clockwise. Nothing tucked into the small of his back either. Porter felt the tiniest release of tension. Finch looked back across at Twyford and Forrester as he continued his slow-mo twirl, shrugging as if to say What can you do? Porter glanced at them again, surprised they hadn’t made their way over already. A sign of Finch’s authority perhaps? Hold your position unless summoned.

  He was still looking at them when everything sped up, as if someone had pressed fast forward. Finch became a blur, arm whipping round, holding an object. All happening too fast to see, whirling towards his head. No Kevlar vest to protect that. No way to stop it.