by Owen Mullen
Jazzer pushed the door open and staggered out into the night. A thin sheet of rain fell silently – he didn’t have a coat and couldn’t have cared less. Jazzer was drunk and he’d been drunk every day since London. He was at the befuddled stage, slurring his words, losing his line of thought, struggling to keep his balance. The pub he’d been in wasn’t his usual haunt. He couldn’t go there any more – they’d barred him after he’d given that loser what he deserved.
It was no loss. Liverpool was full of fucking pubs. Ronnie and Tosh were no loss either, if it came to it. All they did was remind him. Remind him of her.
A taxi with its ‘For Hire’ light on turned the corner at the end of the road. Jazzer stopped unsteadily at the kerb, leaned against a lamp post, and held his arm out. The driver slowed, saw the state he was in and drove on – his shift was finishing in an hour; he could do without somebody being sick in the back of his cab. Jazzer gave him the finger, mumbling.
The world was full of bastards.
He didn’t realise he wasn’t alone until the baseball bat cracked against his shin, breaking it in two. The pain was instant and unbearable – Jazzer dropped to his knees; a second well-aimed blow snapped his collarbone like a dried-out twig at the end of a long hot summer. Powerful hands dragged him to his feet and laid into him. No words were spoken. When he was on the ground, bloodied and beaten, boots replaced fists.
Jazzer’s eyelids flickered and closed – the pain meant nothing to him.
Everybody had to die some time.
Oliver Stanford loosened his black bow tie and poured himself a very large whisky; he needed it. Elise was expecting him to make love to her when he came home. Not tonight – he’d too much on his mind for sex. The chance meeting with the commander, barely able to stand, had rocked his world. Tomorrow, assuming Bremner remembered the conversation, he’d regret it. Was offering him a role in Operation Clean Sweep just the booze talking? Or a clumsy attempt to cover the slip of a drunken tongue? Either way, it didn’t matter – Stanford was in the shit. Big time.
His relationship with the Glass crime family, first with Danny and now with Luke, had been going on for years. And Bremner was correct. Danny couldn’t have travelled as fast and as far without someone in the know. That someone had been him.
He’d taken care to keep contact minimal – not always possible with the hot-headed older Glass brother demanding to see him at a moment’s notice. That said, there was no paper or digital trail from the gangster to Stanford’s door. The few times he’d been in the club he’d made sure it seemed like an innocent night on the town, and when he’d called, he’d used the burner phone he kept hidden in a book in his study.
But with an insider recording times, dates, meetings and conversations, none of it would save him. All it needed was for his name to slip out and it would be over. His colleagues were hardest on their own; they wouldn’t rest until they’d nailed him. In prison, criminals he’d sent down would have him exactly where they wanted him. He’d be tortured, raped and beaten. Until one morning, the guards who’d been paid to look the other way found him hanging in his cell.
Just another bent copper who’d got what he deserved.
Stanford was sweating, close to losing it, barely holding on. His thoughts raced to the past and the brown envelope from Danny Glass – the first of many. How heavy it had felt in his palm. It was an opportunity – that was the lie he’d told himself – only a fool would turn down. His girls were growing up; he’d wanted the best for them. What father wouldn’t? And Elise had hated where they lived. For doing almost nothing, they could move. Then, it had been a bigger place in a better neighbourhood, private schools for his daughters – the holidays, the cars, the house in Hendon. Right or wrong hadn’t come into it. A man provided for his family any way he could. There was nothing more to be said. Until the conversation tonight in the lavatory with the drunk officer, Oliver had been in denial, refusing to consider how the end game, when it came, would play out.
Then Glass had moved the goalposts and come to his home in broad daylight. Dangerous and reckless – the action of a man under pressure. Stanford recalled the heat of the grill and the sun on his face, then peering through a cloud of blue smoke to see the south London gangster standing at the side of the house. Fucking Christ Almighty! His eyes had run frantically over his guests, patiently waiting for their lunch, paper plates and plastic cutlery in one hand, glasses of wine in the other, chatting, enjoying the day.
Getting Glass out of the garden before anybody recognised him had been the priority. Luke hadn’t appreciated being ushered away. Too bloody bad. He’d forgotten the rules, rules that had kept both of them out of jail.
When he’d left, Stanford had plastered on a smile and rejoined the party, studying every expression, suspicious of the slightest look, analysing each exchange.
Did that mean he’d got away with it? Or had somebody at the barbeque recognised the south London thug, put the pieces together, and made the phone call that would end life as Oliver Stanford had known it? If the answer was yes, he’d lose it all – the job, his freedom; his girls would disown him. Divorce wouldn’t be far behind.
Paranoia got the better of him and he imagined himself as Clean Sweep’s first major scalp, his picture on the front page of every newspaper in the country.
They’d make an example of him. Throw away the key.
The clock on the wall ticked away the minutes, the hours. Stanford willed it faster so he could call Luke Glass, forcing himself to take deep breaths, calm down and think it through: the only thing that could screw him was Glass. If he’d dropped his name, someone would’ve reacted. Above all else, coppers hated bent coppers who got caught; one of them would’ve had to let him know they were onto him. His brain searched for an off note, a snide remark, a sneer that said, ‘You’re dirty.’
If there had been one, he’d missed it.
He’d call Bremner in the morning, get himself on the investigation, get the name of the insider and hope to Christ it was closed down soon.
Whatever else, the relationship with Glass was doomed. If by some miracle Stanford avoided exposure, he’d look out for himself from now on, because nobody else would.
A noise behind him startled his already frayed nerves. The study door opened. Elise wore the scarlet bra and pants he’d bought as a Christmas present. She’d dressed for him and Stanford felt a pang of guilt.
‘Oliver, why haven’t you come to bed? I’m waiting for you.’
Stanford snapped at her. ‘For Christ’s sake, Elise, don’t sneak up on me like that.’
‘I wasn’t. I spoke. You mustn’t have heard.’
‘I’m sorry, darling, my nerves are a bit on edge.’
She repeated her question. ‘Aren’t you coming to bed?’
He thought on his feet and tried to appear calm. ‘I can’t. I have to go out again.’
‘But you’re off duty.’
He took her in his arms, praying she wouldn’t hear his pounding heart. ‘They need me.’
She looked up at him. ‘I need you. Doesn’t that count for anything?’
‘Of course, it does.’
‘The job. Always the bloody job.’
He kissed her forehead. ‘I’ll make it up to you, I promise.’
‘You’d better. I hate this underwear. I only put it on for you. Women never buy red. It doesn’t go with anything and shows through your clothes. If I’d had the receipt, I’d have exchanged it.’
Stanford smiled. ‘Next time, I’ll get white. You go back to bed and I’ll see you in the morning.’
At the door she turned and for a moment the girl he’d married two decades earlier was in the room: trusting and kind and too bloody good for him.
With Elise gone, the house was quiet. Stanford toyed with his whisky, considered having another and changed his mind. He crossed the study, removed the hollowed-out book from the shelf and opened it. The mobile inside had only ever been used to call one number – the num
ber he called now.
Luke Glass answered on the fourth ring. Stanford heard the familiar voice on the other end of the line and hated himself for what he’d become. He’d sold his soul and the debt was coming due.
He kept it short. ‘Fulton Street in one hour. Be there.’
34
As I bumped the car onto the broken pavement overgrown with weeds the memories that came were jarring and painful: a tin door hanging at an angle on a crumbling brick wall; a rusty padlock welded by time to the metal; the sour smell of disuse and decay; the beating of wings in the rafters above a cold concrete floor and opening my eyes to find Danny grinning at me like the madman he’d been.
Inside, shafts of dawn pierced what little remained of the roof. In the half-light, Oliver Stanford waited, hands thrust into the pockets of a dark-green wax jacket. The dinner suit and bow tie hanging loose at his neck said he’d spent the previous evening on the tiles, probably pissing it up with his police cronies. I’d seen him drink to excess in LBC, when the booze – my booze – was free, and wouldn’t have been surprised if he was drunk. His terse call in the middle of the night, ordering rather than asking me to meet him, could only have been made by somebody who’d had a tincture or three too many in the pub with his mates to give him courage.
But Stanford was sober.
I walked towards him, my steps echoing in the silence, conscious of the revolver’s weight at my side. He stayed where he was, nervously balancing on the balls of his feet. As the distance between us closed I saw his eyes were strained and tired, the skin around them tight and lined. He was a good-looking bastard, if smug and condescending was your thing. But overnight, the copper had aged.
I looked at my watch. ‘Five o’fucking clock in the morning! This better be good, Stanford!’
His mouth opened and closed like a guy who’d had a stroke trying to speak. Driving through the deserted streets, I’d struggled to keep my thoughts in check. But fear was contagious and Stanford’s had infected me. Seeing him wrestle with what he had to say, knowing it had to be bad, I felt it slither in my belly like a serpent.
I said, ‘Why’re we here?’
He whispered, ‘I need out.’
‘Say again.’
‘Out. I need out. They know.’
I lost it and slapped his face, hard. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘Operation Clean Sweep.’
‘What?’
‘They’ve got an insider.’
‘An…’
The serpent’s forked tongue caressed my insides. I shuddered. Stanford caught my arm. ‘You’ve seen what they do to police in prison. I’d die in there. And Elise would be—’
I dragged him across the floor by his lapels, crawling on his hands and knees, hauled him to his feet and pinned him to the wall. He clutched his chest, head lolling from side to side.
‘I can’t breathe. For God’s sake, I can’t breathe.’
I slapped him again. He slid down the wall. I hauled him back up.
‘Talk, copper, or I’ll kill you, right here right now.’ Stanford moaned. ‘I need you to calm the fuck down and start at the beginning. Word for word.’
His eyes were wild; pleading. ‘I’ll lose everything. I can’t go to prison.’
‘I heard you the first time. Spit it out.’
It didn’t take long to tell his tale. When he’d finished, I made him go back to the start and tell it again. The story was the same, the important details unaltered, and it didn’t sound any better the second time.
The attack on Bridie O’Shea’s men meant we were still under the cosh. Stolen money, even gun battles in broad daylight, were events we could respond to. The bombshell Oliver Stanford had dropped blew all that out of the water. He was terrified of losing his freedom and the nice life he’d built as a bent bobby, apparently unaware that not six feet away was a bigger threat. Me. The lily-livered copper was the weakest link in an already weak chain. There would be no happy ending for him.
Stanford rested his hands on his knees, his breathing almost back to normal. From somewhere he found a spine, looked up and said, ‘Don’t contact me again, Glass. I’m out.’
I blinked – surely this fool couldn’t really believe it worked like that?
Apparently, he did.
‘The only ones who know about me are the family. Danny isn’t around. That just leaves you and Nina.’
‘And George Ritchie. Don’t forget George.’
He hadn’t included Felix Corrigan. Or Vincent Finnegan and two or three dozen foot soldiers who’d make persuasive witnesses for the prosecution. I let him run with his fantasy, until he saw the pity in my eyes and reacted.
‘What? What? You can’t seriously think we can carry on. We’re fucked. It’s over.’
He opened his palm and I saw the dull glint of a bullet – the one from the shoebox on the front seat of his car, turning it over in his fingers, his face shining with sweat.
He had a speech rehearsed and was determined to make it. ‘They’re coming after you, Glass. Just like somebody came after me and my family.’
A thin smile played on his lips; there was no pleasure in it. ‘Doesn’t feel nice, does it?’
‘Apples and oranges. That wasn’t the police.’
‘Of course, you’re right, it wasn’t.’ He held the cartridge up. ‘I’ll take my chances with whoever left this. At least, that’s a war I might win. This isn’t. My side won’t give up. Not ever. Even if you beat them this time, they’ll come back. With lawyers and warrants and judges. Resources you can only dream about. Until they nail you. If you’re smart, you’ll shut everything down. Why not? You’ve made enough.’
Stanford’s face shone. He couldn’t know I’d had the same conversation with myself during the long nights in Wandsworth. And, lying on my bunk in the darkness, come to a decision: when they let me out, I wasn’t going back.
Except Rollie Anderson had been waiting to kill me for what I’d done to his father.
Now I was here. And when I did quit, it would be on my terms.
Stanford wiped his forehead on the sleeve of his jacket. The next words out of his mouth sealed his fate. ‘If I go down, every one of your low-life family is going down with me. All the way to the fucking bottom.’
A bent copper who had lost his bottle was a sickening sight, and threatening me was a huge mistake – I wanted to strangle him with my bare hands. But he was correct about the arrangement coming to an end – just not how he imagined it. I’d inherited this creature from Danny; the man was a reptile who should’ve been put out of his misery when I had the chance.
Too late to cry about that. I needed him to get it together. Danny had insulted and humiliated Stanford constantly and publicly. At the time, I’d just come out of prison and thought it was Danny being Danny, putting the boot in because he could. Now I got it.
Seeing the gun in my hand concentrated his mind. It did with most people. I said, ‘This is how it’s going to be. The commander’s bound to be rough as a badger’s. Let him have time to come round, then give him a call.’
‘But if they already know…’
‘Obviously, they don’t or Bremner wouldn’t have spoken to you.’
‘He was pissed out of his head. He didn’t realise what he was saying.’
I pressed the barrel of the gun under his jaw and saw it etch a perfect circle on his skin.
‘A name, Oliver. Bring me a name. Nothing is more important than the insider’s identity. Got it?’
‘Yes… yes.’
‘Then we understand each other. Any questions?’
‘No, no questions.’
‘Oh, one more thing. This idea of yours about quitting. Sorry, but it’s a non-starter. Forget it. Once you’re in, there’s no way out. Ever. Didn’t Danny explain that? Remiss of him. My brother was a big-picture guy – details bored him.’
I pointed the gun at the roof and pulled the trigger. The sound was deafening, reverberating in the empty space
; birds flew noisily into the air above us as the bitter taste of cordite caught the back of my throat.
‘Deliver a name and we can talk about renegotiating your deal. Now fuck off out of it before I change my mind, shoot you and make it look like suicide. Come to think of it, that’s not a bad idea. It’s you they’re after, Ollie.’
I stood at the tin door half off its hinges and watched him race up Fulton Street, trailing a thin line of blue smoke behind him. It never rains but it pours, so they say – Stanford’s nice car was burning oil. His life and everything in it was in serious danger of going down the Swanee and he was terrified. His tall frame hunched over the steering wheel, wild eyes fixed on the road; at that moment hating me more than anyone on the planet. I hoped so. It would mean I wasn’t like him.
Oliver Stanford was a pathetic coward, a hollow man with no redeeming vices. And he was right: prison wasn’t an option for him. Suicide would be the easy way out.
I knew it and so did he.
But the news he’d brought was bad. The worst. Infiltrating an organisation like mine, insidiously burrowing to the heart, was every undercover detective’s dream. Corruption would only be the start of what an insider would find. I slid behind the wheel and switched on the ignition, sweating under my collar although it wasn’t warm, and listened to the engine purr. A helluva lot of people on both sides of the river worked for me. Those close enough to do real harm I could count on my hand.
One of them was a traitor.
Stanford would do what he’d been told. Later this morning, he’d call his drinking buddy and take him up on his offer of joining Operation Clean Sweep.
And the games would begin.
Security around the identity of the mole would be difficult – maybe impossible – to break and Stanford would be starting at the bottom. I’d made a big deal about him getting a name. In truth, it was unnecessary – something to get the policeman back on track. You could never be sure; he might get lucky and get intel we could use going forward. I wouldn’t hold my breath.