Larry had made a few phone calls. Rasta Joe had been his primary contact, but he still knew two other members of his gang. ‘What’s the deal with Rasta Joe?’ Larry said over the phone after it was eventually answered.
‘We’re not around,’ Jimmy said. Larry remembered him as the skinny man who always kept in the shadows whenever he had met with Rasta Joe.
‘Why did they kill him?’
‘He was too friendly with you. You’re poison.’
‘I’m your only hope now.’
‘We can look after ourselves.’
‘Is that why you’re not answering the phone? Where are you, hiding out, under your bed? Great real, Jimmy, we need each other.’
‘There’s going to be trouble. Some of the other gangs want to unite to take down Negril Bob. He had no right to kill Rasta Joe.’
‘Jimmy, don’t take the law into your own hands. If you kill someone in revenge, it’s still murder. We can deal with him, and whoever else was there. Tell us where the man is, and we’ll arrest him,’ Larry said.
‘79 Wellington Street. If he finds out that I told you, you know what will happen?’
‘Jimmy, you’d better hide under your bed until I call you again,’ Larry said.
***
‘What’s this I hear about a gang war down in your neck of the woods?’ Commissioner Davies said. It was the phone call that DCS Goddard had dreaded.
‘There’s no war yet. DCI Cook has the situation under control. They have an address for those who murdered Rasta Joe.’
‘What kind of stupid name is that?’
‘Joe Brown, but they prefer to use their street names.’
‘What do you know about the man who was killed?’
‘Isaac Cook went to school with him. We know a lot about him. He’s helped us before.’
‘Very well. It’s strange bedfellows you keep down there. What about those that killed him? It sounds as though he needs help down there, or maybe your DCI’s compromised. He’s not related, is he? A lot of them are.’
‘There’s no relationship,’ Goddard said. He was tired of the phone conversation, anxious to get down to Homicide. A police raid, set up according to the book, was something to be involved in; dealing with an unpleasant commissioner of the Met was not.
‘I’ll be keeping a watch on what you’re up to. If this escalates, and I’m asked questions, I intend to have the right answers,’ Davies said.
‘There’ll be no gang war.’
‘That’s what you said with the serial-killer woman, and she still kept killing. I’ve met your DCI, and believe me, he doesn’t do much for me. Sure, he scrubs up clean, puts on a good show, no doubt loved by his team, but where are the results? The man’s all smoke and mirrors.’
‘I’ll resist any attempts to move him out,’ Goddard said, in defence of his DCI.
‘He’s yours for the time being and don’t stuff up. And if there’s a press conference, make sure that Cook is there; you’re a wet blanket in front of a camera.’
The phone line went dead. Richard Goddard was pleased that the conversation had been short. He left his office and headed downstairs.
‘Isaac, are you sure about this?’ Goddard asked. He was sitting in the chair closest to the door in his DCI’s office.
We’ve set up roadblocks in the vicinity. No one’s leaving.’
‘And the house?’
‘A nondescript terrace house.’
‘Is your man inside?’
‘According to our information, he is. We’re staking out the house from a block of flats opposite. There are three inhabitants.’
‘Negril Bob is one of them?’
‘Unconfirmed.’
Bridget came in with two coffees. She gave one to Isaac, the other to their senior.
‘I’ve had the commissioner on the phone.’
‘The usual?’
‘He was remarkably calm. He had a go at you though.’
‘Derogatory?’
‘Smoke and mirrors, that’s his description.’
‘It’s an improvement. Any sign of his man coming back to claim my seat?’
‘Not yet, and I suspect never.’
The two men had known each other long enough for Isaac to ask more. ‘What does that mean?’
‘The pressure for Davies to resign is mounting.’
‘Confirmed?’
‘If my contact is correct.’
‘And you’re for Counter Terrorism Command?’
‘That’s the idea. I’ll need good men.’
‘I’ve got enough to deal with here.’
‘We’ll talk about it another time. What’s the agenda for the raid?’
‘At 6 p.m. we’ll commence the operation.’
‘It’s a busy time of day.’
‘It can’t be avoided. Ten minutes later, we’ll send in our specialist firearms command to secure the place. We can’t rule out those inside not having weapons.’
‘After that?’
‘Once the place is secured and we have the occupants in custody, we’ll return to the station. If it’s Negril Bob, and we can identify the others from finger and shoe prints at Rasta Joe’s murder, we’ll charge them all with premeditated murder.’
‘They’ll claim they were provoked.’
‘Three against one, and besides Rasta Joe’s hands were tied.’
‘What about the other murders?’
‘We believe that Samuel Devon was killed by Negril Bob.’
‘Proof?’
‘Only from Rasta Joe. If we can prove Negril Bob is guilty of one murder, he may confess to the other. Although we don’t think that it was his gang that the young boy cheated. Negril Bob is there for extreme violence. The gangs in the area, their rank and file are not too bright, and most are cowards on their own. Negril Bob isn’t.’
Larry came into the office. ‘It’s time.’
‘Are you coming, sir?’ Isaac asked his senior.
‘Not this time. I’ve got to protect our positions in case it goes wrong.’
***
On the drive over to Wellington Street, Isaac’s phone rang. ‘Are we still okay for this weekend?’ It was Ann, Phillip Loeb’s personal assistant.
Her phone call brought a smile to Isaac’s face. ‘I’ve booked a place,’ he said.
The phone call ended. Larry looked over at his DCI. ‘It’s looking up for you, guv. Pretty, is she?’
‘Aren’t they always?’ Isaac replied. ‘How about you and your wife?’
‘She’s fine. I’ve lost ten pounds since I’ve cut back on the food and the beer, feel much better for it, as well.’
On arrival at the end of the street, Isaac showed his ID. To either side of the house, armed officers wearing body armour waited. It was a well-rehearsed team; there was not a lot of conversation. Around the back of the house, by a brick wall with a small gate out into a common walkway, another group of armed men waited. As the residents in the street had left, they had not been allowed to return. Some had complained, most had agreed. Inside the house, all was quiet.
‘They know we’re here,’ the lead armed response officer said.
‘Any sign of weapons?’
‘We’ll not know until we break the door down.’
‘A frontal assault?’
‘This time. There’s not a lot of space around the back.’
Isaac and Larry stood back, about forty feet from the front door of the house. A voice, amplified by a megaphone, could be heard. ‘This is the police. Lay down your weapons and exit the house.’ No response. One more time. ‘This is the police. Please lay down your weapons and exit the house.’
After sixty seconds, the front door of the house was knocked open with an enforcer, a specially designed battering ram. From in the house, a shot. ‘Back off,’ the lead officer ordered. The police retreated out of the line of fire.
‘Throw out your weapons,’ the lead officer shouted. Inside the house, no noise, bar a door banging on its hinges.
‘We can’t use tear gas,’ the lead officer said as he came over to Isaac and Larry. ‘If there’s someone old and infirm or with breathing difficulties in an adjacent house, it could do them harm. We’ll just have to rush the house.’
‘You’re the experts. Just let us know when it’s clear, and we’ll come and take charge of them.’
Twelve minutes later, watches coordinated, one team entered at the front, another held firm at the rear. A brief flurry of gunfire, and then the all clear. Isaac and Larry moved forward once the signal had been given. Three men came out of the building, securely wedged between the police officers, their hands cable-tied.
‘Where’s Negril Bob?’ Isaac asked as he looked at the three men.
‘He’s not here,’ one of the three replied. Isaac had seen him around before. The man had a scar on the left-hand side of his face and a surly manner.
‘Which two of you were with Negril Bob when Rasta Joe was killed?’
‘None of us,’ one of the other three said.
‘Samuel Devon? What can you tell me about him?’
‘Never heard of him. What are you doing here, arresting us? We were watching the television, having a few drinks. We were going to get a few women over tonight, as well.’
‘They can visit you in the cells at Challis Street,’ Larry said.
‘Very funny,’ the first of the three said, ‘a regular comedian. Our lawyer will deal with this false arrest. He’ll haul your sorry arses through the courts.’
‘There’s nothing false here,’ Larry said.
Isaac made a phone call to Wendy. ‘Get over to Charisa Devon’s place with some uniforms, check that she’s alright.’
‘Problems?’
‘We’ve not found Negril Bob.’
Chapter 15
Jeremy Brice’s radio programme was enjoying record ratings, his contacts within the political arena were firm, and his biting invective was at its very best. It had been some time since his daughter’s death; enough time to get over the initial sorrow and to move back into the house where she had died. Nevertheless, he had a sense of foreboding.
That day, he had had the prime minister in his studio; the man was floundering in the polls, and another scandal was about to engulf him, and he had let him off. There would be criticism from the other political commentators, aspersions about why Jeremy Brice, the most vexatious interviewer, had let the prime minister off when he had him on the ropes. The chancellor of the exchequer had fudged the figures on unemployment to portray the state of the economy in a better light than it was. It was a lie given in Westminster; a lie that should ensure a resignation, but the numbers were tight between the governing party and those on the opposition side, and the prime minister could not afford to lose an experienced debater, let alone someone who supported him in the party room.
Brice knew this, having regarded the PM and his chancellor as personal friends, though it wouldn’t stop him laying into them when the situation demanded, and it certainly did that day, but he had let the man off the hook.
‘What is it, Brice?’ the owner of the radio station asked. ‘Have you lost it? You had the man where you wanted him.’
Brice did not like the man, regarded him as charmless and uncouth, but he knew that he was right. On the one hand, he was in the studio with a microphone in front of him and on the other, he was reading the messages on his phone, checking the latest news on the internet: a shootout in London, not far from where he lived.
He knew that his daughter, knowingly or otherwise, would remain a thorn in his side, and he cursed her. He had loved her as a father loves his child, but she had grown into a mature woman who couldn’t keep the one man she should have married. And then there were the men she spent time with: gangsters, hustlers, pimps. He never knew if Amelia had sold herself, but why the men? The scum of society, lacking in finesse and class, a world laterally opposed to the upbringing that she had had. The best of schools, trips to the continent, skiing in Switzerland in winter, the Caribbean in summer. And in the end, after Quentin Waverley had moved on to Gwen Happold, she had found love and lust in the arms of the criminal classes, downing drinks in the pub, no more than a serving wench, no more than a whore.
It had been the same with her mother; as beautiful as the daughter. Jeremy Brice remembered when they had met; he, the up-and-coming political reporter, she, a fashion designer. They had instantly been attracted to each other, made love that first day, and had been inseparable, their lives blessed with a beautiful daughter. And now, mother and daughter were both dead.
The love for his wife had faded after ten, or maybe it was eleven, years. Her need to stay young, to take young lovers; his need to focus on his career, to put a roof over their heads. Then, one day, he found a note attached to the fridge with a magnet. The marriage was over, and she was going to the south of France with her latest paramour, a younger man.
He had never forgiven her: not for leaving, or the young lover, but for discarding their daughter.
He had brought her up, and she had been a joy until her late teens, and then, the drinking, and the parties, and the men. He had tried his best, but he came to realise that she was her mother’s daughter, not his. The behaviour that he had attempted to steer her away from was not acquired through example; it came through DNA, the mother’s DNA, and even though she was a thousand miles away, with one or another lover, her influence was there with Amelia.
And now, a lecture on how he had lost it from a man who was crude and obnoxious, a man he detested. Brice left the radio station and headed home. For once, he would seek salvation in a bottle of whisky.
***
It was known that Rasta Joe had a wife and a family and that they were not living with him. Larry was aware that not a lot would be gained from the wife, but there was still a formal identification of the man’s body to be arranged.
Larry pulled up outside the wife’s house, a twenty-minute drive from Challis Street. The garden was tended, the area looked clean. All in all, Larry had to admit, it was not what he expected. He knocked on the door, a small child opened it.
From the back of the house, a voice said, ‘I’ve told you not to open the door to strangers.’
‘Detective Inspector Larry Hill,’ Larry shouted, to allay the woman’s fears.
The door to the room at the back opened. A woman, neatly dressed, and with rubber gloves on her hands, came through. ‘Sorry, I was washing the dishes. I’m always on to Cindy here not to open the door. You never know who might be around.’
‘Mrs Brown?’
‘I don’t use that name, not around here anyway. It’s Joe, isn’t it?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘I knew he would always end up dead in a gutter somewhere. That’s what’s happened?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Larry said. Rasta Joe’s wife, Jamaican heritage like her husband, did not have the affected Jamaican accent; she was pure Cockney.
‘I’ll make us a cup of tea.’
‘You seem remarkably calm.’
‘I’m not, but Cindy’s here, and I’ve another two home from school soon.’
‘They’ll need to be told.’
‘Eventually. We haven’t seen Joe for nearly two years, and we’ve not been living together for four.’
‘Why?’
‘Did you know him?’
‘We used to meet occasionally.’
‘A police inspector and Joe.’
‘Symbiotic. He needed me; I needed him. Tell me about your husband,’ Larry said, as he looked around the kitchen. It was neat, functional, everything in its place. The woman he was talking to had come as a shock. He had been used to Rasta Joe and the women he went around with. His widow seemed to be a law-abiding person, and no attempts at portraying herself as anything other than a respectable middle-class housewife and mother.
‘We met at school. He was a good man then.’
‘Not into gangs?’
‘I knew he was into ganja, but who wasn’t?’
‘Were you?’
‘When you’re young, you’re foolish, try anything once. I grew out of it; Joe never did, and now he’s dead. Tell me about it.’
‘He fell foul of another gang. They killed him.’
‘Violent?’
‘I’m sorry, but yes.’
‘That was Joe, always pushing the boundaries. Can I see him?’
‘We need someone to conduct a formal identification. Are you up to it?’
‘I’ll need someone to look after the children. I still loved the man, even after what he had become. He never failed to pay the rent on this place, and he always ensured there was money for the children’s school uniforms and anything else they wanted.’
‘But they never saw him.’
‘That was what we agreed. He knew what was best for us, and he kept away. He’d phone sometimes; I’d send him photos of the children. Did you like him?’
‘I did. I know what he was, and I should not have.’
‘That’s Joe. A good man, not really suited to being a gangster, but then, life takes us down different roads. How’s Isaac?’
‘He’s fine. You know him?’
‘I remember when he and Joe were great friends. Isaac turned out alright, Joe didn’t.’
‘DCI Cook is in charge of the investigation.’
‘Do you know who killed him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where are they?’
‘We’ve arrested two of them; the third is still evading capture.’
Two children entered through the back door; both were polite and asked who the strange man was. Rasta Joe’s wife made an excuse that Larry was a friend of their father’s.
After another forty minutes, a friend came around from the house next door. ‘Gloria will look after the children. We can go now.’
On the way back to London, and relieved of her children, Rasta Joe’s wife cried.
***
Quentin Waverley struck his wife. It had been going on for days – her niggling him about his relationship with Amelia Brice.
He realised soon after he had married that he did not love Gwen in the same way that he had loved Amelia.
DCI Isaac Cook Box Set 1 Page 135