by Graham Ison
Fox and Rosie Webster mounted the stairs to the sitting room at the back of the house. Despite there being four armed Flying Squad officers in the house, one of whom was a WDC, Fox considered it too risky to use the ground floor. Malcontents had been known to throw things through downstairs windows … like petrol bombs. ‘Everything all right?’ he asked.
‘Yeah, ta,’ said Sharon. ‘Want some coffee?’ Without waiting for an answer, she stood up and filled two more cups.
‘How come,’ said Fox, sitting down opposite the girl, ‘that you have a record of everything that Billie Crombie got up to over the last five years? Did he know you’d written all this down?’ He laid the diary on the coffee-table and lit a cigarette. The diary had been photocopied at the Yard and already teams of detectives were analysing its coded contents, but Fox wanted to hear Sharon’s interpretation of her notes first-hand.
‘It was Billie’s idea,’ said Sharon. ‘He always reckoned that he’d get topped one day. That’s what he used to say.
And he reckoned that if he did, Arlene’d be behind it. He never trusted her, you see, but she knew too much for him to dump her. Nor Gary and Kenny neither. They was too greedy. Always wanting more out of the firm.’
‘But he trusted you, did he?’
‘Yeah. He always said he could tell me anything and I wouldn’t let on.’ Sharon pointed at the diary. ‘But he wanted me to keep all that, so’s I could go to the police if ever anything happened to him.’
‘Surely you don’t think that Gary and Kenny killed their own father?’
Sharon shrugged. ‘Search me,’ she said. ‘And who said he was their father? I reckon that’s a tale what Arlene spun him all them years ago. They wasn’t nothing like him to look at. And Billie reckoned she wasn’t above going over the side a few years back.’
‘Maybe so,’ said Fox, ‘but could they have topped Billie?’
‘Not them personally, no. They was hanging round the house that night. Like, I mean they weren’t down the dogs. But they could’ve got someone else to do it, couldn’t they?’ For a moment Sharon looked wistful. ‘It’s not bleedin’ fair,’ she said. ‘I know he was at it, but he was a nice man. He was always good to me.’
‘What did Arlene think of your relationship with Billie?’
‘Weren’t much she could do about it. Billie always protected me. Even when he weren’t about, there was always a minder. I never went out on me own. But I know Arlene was just waiting. She weren’t no good for him, not in bed nor nowhere, and she hated me for it. For giving him what he wanted. I should’ve split the minute I heard about him getting killed, I s’pose. But I was like numb when I heard. Should have known those bastards’d come after me. Shouldn’t never have gone to the funeral neither, but I just wanted to say goodbye like.’
‘That’s all very touching, Sharon old love, but perhaps you’d get on with your spiel, eh?’
Sharon suddenly assumed a brisk and business-like manner. ‘All them lorry heists was down to Billie,’ she said.
‘Hold on a moment.’ Fox held up a hand. ‘We’re going to record this, and then we’ll have a statement typed up which I shall want you to sign. Is that all right?’
‘Yeah. Course it is.’
‘Right. How many lorry heists?’
Sharon picked up the diary and thumbed through it, searching for the entries. ‘I think it was six,’ she said. ‘Should have been seven, except that Harris muscled in on the last one … and topped Frankie Carter.’
‘Good gracious me,’ said Fox. ‘What an extraordinary revelation. And d’you know that for a fact?’
‘Course I don’t. But that’s what Billie reckoned. He was hopping mad when it happened. Reckoned he was going to do for Tango Harris. Rang him up and told him so an’ all. And he did.’
Fox’s face still bore its usual sceptical expression. ‘Did what?’ he asked.
‘Billie and the boys went up and threw a couple of petrol bombs in Morrie Isaacs’s restaurant. To teach him a lesson, like. He never minded Tango milking Morrie — and one or two others, like Siggy Hoskins — but he reckoned that the lorry jobs was his.’
‘So who was with him, the night he torched Morrie Isaacs’s place?’
‘Gary and Kenny. They was well at it.’
‘Who else was on the lorry heist? The one when Frankie Carter was murdered?’
‘Well there was Gary and Kenny for a start, and I think the other one was called—’ Sharon broke off and skimmed through the diary. ‘Harry Towler,’ she said at length.
‘And Wayne Parish, the driver, was the inside man.’ Fox tried out another of his suspicions.
Sharon looked up in surprise. ‘How did you know that?’ she asked and then laughed. ‘As a matter of fact, Parish got a bit arsey about it. Was straight on the blower whingeing about not getting his cut. Billie told him to piss off. He said that if he hadn’t cocked it up, like, then Tango Harris wouldn’t have had the gear away. Well that’s like basically what he said.’
‘And the other heists? Have you got the dates for those in that little book?’
Sharon looked up from the diary. ‘D’you think I could have a drink, Mr Fox?’
‘Why not,’ said Fox. ‘Look on it as a tax rebate. If you pay any tax,’ he added thoughtfully. ‘What d’you want?’
‘Bacardi and Coke’d go down a treat.’
Fox nodded to Rosie who walked across to a cabinet and poured the drink.
‘Yeah, here they are,’ said Sharon. ‘There was two before Christmas — one in November and one in December — and the rest was this year.’ She raced through the diary reeling off dates.
Fox looked up sharply from the occasional notes he was making. ‘Did you say the eighteenth of August?’ he asked.
‘Yeah.’
‘And who took part in that job?’
‘Like it always was. Gary and Kenny, Frankie Carter, and Harry Towler. Is that important then?’
Fox stood up. ‘You don’t know just how important, my flower of Catford,’ he said. ‘In fact, I think I’ll have a drop of the Commissioner’s Scotch.’ He walked over to the drinks cabinet and poured himself a whisky. ‘As a matter of interest, where was Billie that night?’ he asked.
Sharon referred to the diary once more. Then she looked up and smiled. ‘He was in bed with me. Why?’
‘Was he now!’ Fox gave the girl a sharp stare. ‘And did you make a note of all the times you slept with him?’
‘Not all of them. Just the good times.’ Sharon smiled wistfully.
‘What about the twelfth of October?’
Sharon bent to the diary again. ‘Yeah, I was with him that night an’ all.’ She glanced up sharply. ‘That was the night Gina was murdered.’
‘Yes, I know. What d’you know about that?’
‘Only that she was one of Billie’s girls. She used to pay him.’ Sharon shrugged. ‘Know what I mean?’
‘Yes,’ said Fox, ‘I know what you mean. Anything else of interest for the time being?’
Sharon sat back on the settee and took a sip of her drink. ‘There’s what Billie called an LF running down Twickenham. I never knew what that was, but I did know that Billie set it up, and Gary and Kenny are going to milk it for all they’re worth. What’s an LF, anyway?’
‘It’s a fraud,’ said Fox. ‘A long-firm fraud. The villains set up a shop, selling goods. They keep ordering stock and they keep paying for it. The order gets bigger each time, but they still pay. Then when they’ve got the confidence of the supplier and they’re allowed credit, they put in a very big order and disappear overnight with the gear … without paying the bill, of course.’
Sharon nodded seriously. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘That sounds about right for Billie. Very good at things like that, he was.’
*
‘D’you still maintain that on the eighteenth of August you were in Siggy’s Club and that during that evening Billie Crombie assaulted Gina West?’ Fox studied Danny Royce with a mild expression on his fa
ce.
Unfortunately, having once been interviewed about the matter, Royce had assumed that to be the end of it and had forgotten his lines. ‘If that’s what I said, then that’s it,’ he said. But he sounded unconvincing.
‘Very well. Daniel Royce, I am of a mind to charge you with conspiracy to murder Gina West and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.’
‘What?’ Royce leapt to his feet. ‘I never had nothing to do with that topping.’
‘Oh, but you did, my son. In making a false statement to police, which in certain circumstances can amount to perjury, in which you accused Billie Crombie of a serious assault on Gina West, you have attempted to throw suspicion on him for her murder. And that, dear boy, could earn you a lot of porridge.’
‘But I’m sure that—’
‘And I can produce a reliable witness who is willing to say that Billie Crombie was several miles away at that time, and that Gary Crombie was actually engaged in a criminal enterprise in the depths of Kent. What d’you say to that?’
‘I must have made a mistake.’
‘Yes,’ said Fox. ‘I think you must. Who put you up to this? Tango Harris, was it?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
Fox nodded slowly. ‘You’re playing with fire, my son,’ he said. ‘But for now, you can make a statement repeating what you’ve just told me. Then you and your mate Guerrini, who’s next door making a similar statement, can run back to Buckhurst Hill and tell Tango all about it.’
Royce looked relieved.
‘But,’ added Fox, ‘you will be on police bail to reappear at this police station one month from now … or earlier if I decide to nick you.’
*
The interrogation of Sharon Scrope had gone on all day and half the next. By the time that Fox had the statement in front of him, he knew also that he was much closer to capturing Tango Harris, as well as Gary and Kenny Crombie, their mother Arlene, and sundry other villains.
‘Denzil,’ said Fox as DI Evans appeared in his office, ‘I’ve got a special job for you.’ He tapped the pages of statement on his desk. ‘Don’t cock it up, there’s a good chap.’
Evans looked hurt. Whenever he was assigned to a task by Fox, the chief superintendent always had to throw in some cautionary instruction about doing it properly. But Evans was a good DI; he wouldn’t have stayed on the Squad otherwise. ‘What is it, guv?’
‘Sharon Scrope tells me … ’ began Fox. It was to be the start of many directions to the Flying Squad over the next week or so. ‘Sharon Scrope tells me that Billie Crombie financed the setting-up of an LF job down in Twickenham. Set up an obo on it and nick the principals
thereof at the precise moment you can be sure of them going down. All right, dear boy?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Evans despondently. ‘Where in Twickenham?’
‘Good heavens, Denzil, I don’t know. But Twickenham’s not a very big place. Put yourself about … but discreetly, mind.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Evans flatly. Not for the first time, he wondered why he hadn’t heeded his father’s advice and become an accountant.
*
Evans’s Flying Squad team consisted of two detective sergeants and nine detective constables. When they were told of the job that Fox had assigned them to, they muttered about long-firm frauds being the work of the Fraud Squad and nothing to do with the Flying Squad who went after real villains. A quick in-and-out job was what the Squad liked. But the truth of the matter was that Tango Harris was about to get his come-uppance, and they wanted to be a part of it. But as it happened, they were in at the kill anyway.
It didn’t take long to identify the shop that was being used in Twickenham, even though the Squad didn’t know precisely what they were looking for. But they knew the signs.
Roy Buckley, Evans’s senior detective sergeant, went for a stroll around the commercial centre of Twickenham. It took him twenty minutes to find the shop and his view was that they deserved to be caught. The previous tenants, obviously victims of the recession, had been replaced by traders who hadn’t even bothered to have a new fascia board made.
Buckley stopped and peered in. There were television sets and video recorders, most of them still in boxes, carelessly stacked everywhere and all marked down in price. It looked more like a warehouse than a shop.
Buckley crossed the road to another shop and bought a packet of peppermints. ‘That’s new,’ he said to the man behind the counter, and pointed at the television shop.
‘Been there about three months, I s’pose. Don’t know how they do it. Shouldn’t have thought they’d’ve got off the ground. Not these days. The UBR’s a crippler for a start.’
‘The what?’
‘Uniform business rate,’ said the shopkeeper. ‘Still, they’re the cheapest tellys I’ve come across. Something in that, I s’pose.’
‘Much turnover, is there?’ asked Buckley.
‘Dunno, really. Never seen a delivery lorry, but there always seems to be blokes in there buying. There’s a queue on Saturdays. What’s it to you, anyway?’
‘Trading standards,’ said Buckley.
‘Oh, right,’ said the shopkeeper.
Evans received this information with some reservation. ‘Might be the one, I suppose, Roy. Find out a bit more about them.’
*
‘We’re making progress, sir,’ said Evans.
‘I should hope so,’ said Fox. ‘And?’
‘There are two of them at it, sir, names of Cliff Adams and Barry Baker.’
‘Do we know them?’
‘Both got previous for fraud … long-firm fraud,’ said Evans triumphantly.
‘Well there you are then,’ said Fox as though possessed of divine insight.
‘They keep their stock at a warehouse in Feltham. The suppliers deliver the goods there and Adams and Baker transfer it to the shop in Twickenham … usually at night.’
‘Have you spoken to the suppliers, Denzil?’
‘Yes, sir. They afforded them credit facilities four weeks ago and made a delivery. Our two paid the bill, but they’ve just put in an order twice the size of the last one and bigger than anything they’ve had before.’ Evans was a much shrewder detective than Fox gave him credit for, and rather than waste time with fruitless surveillance he had approached the suppliers and told them what he thought was about to happen. They had been more than happy to co-operate … provided, they said, they didn’t lose any money.
‘The chickens are coming home to roost, Denzil. They are definitely coming home.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Evans, unsure what Fox meant.
‘When is this mammoth delivery?’
‘Tomorrow, sir. About four in the afternoon, according to the suppliers.’
‘Splendid, Denzil. I shall be there to help you.’
‘I knew that would happen,’ said Evans. But he said it to Buckley … and not until he was back at his temporary headquarters at Twickenham police station.
*
The attack had been carefully planned.
Two of the Crombie brothers’ accomplices had stolen the Ford Transit two or three weeks previously. Since then, in a lock-up garage under the arches of a railway line within easy distance of the Crombie residence in Catford, its chassis had been strengthened, its rear bumper reinforced, and false plates had been put on it.
During this time also, the Crombies had carried out several reconnaissances and made contingency arrangements.
The black Ford Transit drove slowly into the narrow Soho street. It was followed by a ten-year-old Vauxhall, but that apparently broke down just as it turned the corner and completely blocked the street. The driver got out, opened the bonnet and appeared to tinker with the engine.
The Ford Transit picked up speed and then braked hard before reversing sharply on to the pavement. There was a crash of breaking glass as the windows of the video shop were smashed in and the door, complete with doorframe, was pushed violently into the shop to be crushed and splin
tered beneath the wheels of the van.
Four men wearing stocking masks leaped from the back of the van. ‘You’ll piss off if you know what’s good for you,’ one of them shouted at the man behind the counter.
The man couldn’t get out fast enough, crunching over broken glass in his desire to escape from what was clearly some sort of vendetta.
The gang started on a wholesale destruction of the shop and its contents before the leader took a bottle from the cab of the van and applied his lighter to the rag stuffed into the neck. ‘Go!’ he shouted as he threw the bottle into the cargo area of the van on to a bed of petrol-soaked rags.
There was a violent explosion as the bundles of waste ignited and great sheets of flame shot upwards and outwards as the men ran into the street. They jumped into the Vauxhall, now cured of its fictional ills and waiting with its engine running a yard or two on the safe side of the now fiercely burning video shop.
The driver skilfully negotiated a maze of back doubles until the car skidded to a standstill several streets away. Its occupants leaped out and into another waiting car, pausing only long enough to set fire to the Vauxhall.
Round the next corner and driving at a sedate speed the arsonists ripped off their masks.
‘We’re getting quite good at that,’ said Gary Crombie. ‘I reckon the old man would’ve been proud of us.’
‘Pity that Tango Harris wasn’t inside it,’ said his brother Kenny.
‘Never mind,’ said Gary. ‘We’ll have the bastard yet, you see if we don’t. But at least that’ll have cost him a few grand.’
‘Yeah!’ Kenny Crombie laughed and lit a cigarette.
*
The warehouse was on an industrial estate. Evans’s team had secured the co-operation of the manager of another warehouse opposite and several Flying Squad officers were now inside it, keeping observation on the suppliers’ lorry that was unloading television sets and video recorders.
Fox, not believing in wasting time, was a mile or so away, in a pub with Gilroy. Outside, the complaining Swann was listening to the radio, waiting for the signal that would tell him — and Fox — that things were starting to happen.