The Crime Trade Page 7

  They all fucked up in the end.

  Stegs drained his drink and, catching Patrick’s eye, ordered another one.

  6

  At 6.45 on the morning after the failure of Operation Surgical Strike, I was woken by the shrill bleeping of the alarm. Immediately, my thoughts went back to the events of the previous day and I wondered if we’d got hold of O’Brien. They then moved on to the woman lying next to me, which served to cheer me up a bit. Tina Boyd’s a very attractive woman. I’m not bad-looking (honestly), but I can’t help thinking she’s a league or two above me. Still, if she wants to slum it, I’m not going to complain. I leant over and kissed the pale skin of her back; she groaned painfully, then mumbled something about me getting the kettle on. I took pity, hauled myself out of bed, and went through to the kitchen to do her bidding.

  We’ve been together a few months now, Tina and I, even though it’s always been a rule of mine not to get involved with work colleagues after a particularly bad experience a long time ago. But sometimes you’ve just got to make an exception. You don’t get that many chances to get yourself into a decent relationship with a good-looking woman, and as the years fly by they get fewer and fewer, so one night last November when we’d been sat together in a car, staking out the home of a well-known local sex offender, I’d decided that it was now or never. I’ll be straight with you, I’m one of the world’s shyer people when it comes to making my feelings known to the opposite sex. Having been married for thirteen of the previous fourteen years, and involuntarily celibate for the other, I was a long way out of practice, but I’d had this feeling for a while that Tina might have some of the same feelings for me as I had for her, so it wasn’t an opportunity I wanted to miss.

  But how do you go about it after fourteen years? I’d said, ‘Hey, look over there,’ and pointed in the vague direction of the house we were watching. She looked, and I leant over and kissed her on the neck, catching her unawares.

  She’d then swung round and shot me an expression of shock, the sort I would imagine her pulling if a favourite uncle had just pinched her arse, and I got the sort of terrified sinking feeling I haven’t experienced since school.

  ‘John?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you just kiss me?’

  ‘I couldn’t help it,’ I said, trying without success to sound casual. ‘You’ve got a nice neck.’ Not a great line, I admit, but the best I could come up with in such difficult circumstances.

  ‘Oh, shit.’ She wasn’t looking at me as she said this, but rather over my shoulder in the direction of the pavement.

  ‘What is it?’ I demanded, turning my head.

  Which was when she grabbed me by the short and curlies and gave them a squeeze that was halfway between affectionate and bloodthirsty.

  ‘Now we’re quits,’ she said, laughing.

  There then followed one of those movie silences when we both looked at each other, wondering whether a fleeting kiss and a painful grope were going to lead to anything else.

  After three seconds they did, and we kissed. Properly this time. Then finally carried on with the surveillance (which, unlike the relationship, never came to anything), and so far we haven’t looked back.

  I came back into the bedroom with two cups of strong coffee. She was sat up in the bed now – naked, groggy and very desirable. I briefly thought about trying to get her interested in a bout of morning glory but knew that it would be a lost cause. Tina Boyd was not a morning person.

  ‘Are you feeling a bit better today?’ I asked, handing her one of the cups.

  The previous night, when we’d got back to my flat in Tufnell Park, she’d talked about leaving the Force, saying she’d had enough of working so hard for so little reward, only to have everything blow up in her face. I think she felt that what had happened yesterday was partly her fault, and since it had cost the lives of six people, it had hit her pretty hard.

  ‘Not a lot,’ she answered, sipping her coffee. ‘The people killed yesterday are all still dead, and one way or another we’re going to have to prove that it wasn’t us who messed things up.’

  ‘Don’t blame yourself. Yesterday wasn’t your fault or mine. We did everything right in the build-up, and in the end we had nothing to do with setting up the final meet, so we’re in the clear. Remember that.’

  She sighed loudly. ‘I know, but at the moment it doesn’t make me feel any better.’

  I sat down on the bed and gave her a supportive smile. ‘You’re not still thinking about leaving, are you?’

  ‘How would you feel if I did?’

  ‘Are you going to?’

  ‘I’m thinking about it. I’ve got a degree, I could get a decent job. Something that pays more but with a lot less stress.’

  ‘We could do with you staying. You’re a good cop. We’re losing too many of them as it is. Soon there’ll only be me and Knox left.’

  ‘That’s the way it goes sometimes, John. It’s just not working for me at the moment, that’s all, and I can’t see it getting any better. It might do us some good as well. It’s hard work trying to keep the whole thing quiet at the station, and we do see a lot of each other. I don’t want either of us to start getting bored.’

  She had a point, and I was pleased to hear that she thought our relationship was going somewhere. We didn’t live together yet but slept in the same bed more nights than not, and, although we never talked about the future and what it would bring, I’d already upped the ante by introducing her (fairly successfully) to my twelve-year-old daughter, Rachel. The idea of us making something of it was a nice one. I still didn’t want to lose her from the job, though. I meant it when I’d said she was too much of a good copper, and I also meant it when I said that they’re getting rarer.

  ‘Just don’t make any hasty decisions,’ I told her. ‘Yesterday was a bad day. I don’t think either me or you’ll see a worse one, not on the job anyway.’

  ‘I’m thinking about it, that’s all.’ She took another sip of the coffee. ‘In the meantime, I want to get hold of that arsehole O’Brien.’

  Which was as good a place to start as any.

  In the car on the way into the station we didn’t speak much, letting BBC Radio 5 Live do the talking. The events at Heathrow appeared to be the hot topic of the day. By now most of the main details were in the public domain and it had become clear that a Scotland Yard sting had gone horribly wrong; that one police officer (name as yet unreleased) had been killed; and that, incredibly, the targets of the sting had themselves become a target for a group of armed robbers, one of whom had managed to shoot someone dead before he himself had been killed by armed officers. From the DJ to the breathless people phoning in, no-one could quite believe what had happened. Some of the callers bemoaned the fact that this sort of thing could take place in England, others seemed genuinely pleased that the police had finally become what Derek from Brent described as ‘trigger-happy’. He claimed that it was about time the coppers started hitting the criminals. ‘Normally the bastards’ll do anything not to hurt them. It’s pathetic. The law’s a joke. All softly softly and make sure you don’t upset anyone.’ He’d continued on with this rant for several more minutes, veering between supporting and criticizing the police, but remaining happy that they’d managed to kill three gunmen. ‘I bet they was all black as well,’ he’d added, at which point the DJ had cut him off, saying that there was no need for that sort of talk.

  When the eight o’clock news headlines came on, all the newsreader talked about was the shootings. She didn’t even bother with an ‘in other news’ section. It was like a domestic September eleven story, something for them to talk about endlessly, along with all the obvious offshoots like gun control, rising crime, drugs, etc. In the end Tina announced she could take no more and leant over to switch to Capital. Celine Dion was warbling meaningfully about true love, and for once in my life I was actually pleased to hear the sound of her voice.

  ‘I’m really beginning to get tired of this,
’ she said.

  ‘They’re just a bit short of a decent story at the moment. Something else’ll come up soon enough.’ I hoped so anyway. Like her, I could have done without the constant reminder of our part in such a bizarre and tragic event.

  We were stuck in heavy traffic on the Holloway Road on our way to her place so she could pick up her car, and it had started to rain again. The weather forecaster at the end of the news said that it was going to be mild with heavy showers and cloudy skies for the next three days, getting brighter towards the end of the weekend. I didn’t believe her. I never do. Weather forecasters are like prison visitors. Nice people, but usually misguided.

  I pulled out my mobile and phoned Berrin to see if there’d been any sign of O’Brien during the night, but he wasn’t answering, so I called Knox’s office extension. He wasn’t answering either so I tried him on his mobile, and this time I struck lucky. Or unlucky, depending on your view of the news he had.

  ‘Sir, it’s Gallan.’

  ‘John, where are you?’

  ‘In a car on the Holloway Road moving very slowly and getting rained on.’

  ‘We’ve had a development. A major one.’ He sounded breathless and pissed off.

  ‘What is it, sir?’

  ‘Your man O’Brien. The one who started all this. Someone’s only gone and topped him. And his grandma.’

  ‘His grandma? That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s a harsh world.’

  ‘Where did it happen?’

  ‘Over in her apartment. She lived opposite him, in the same flats. We only got the call ten minutes ago, so I’m still at the station. We’re going over to the address now. You need to get over there too. We’ll need a positive ID, although we’re ninety-nine point nine it’s him.’

  ‘I know where he lives. I’ll meet you there. Do you want me to try and get hold of Tina Boyd?’ I glanced at her as I said this, rolling my eyes. With our relationship a secret down at the station, it wouldn’t have done me any favours to let on that she was sat in the car beside me that early in the morning.

  ‘If you can, it’ll be a help. Tell her to get over there too.’

  I said I would, then hung up.

  ‘It’s O’Brien, isn’t it?’ she said straight away.

  No flies on this girl. I nodded. ‘It looks that way.’

  ‘Any details?’

  ‘Nothing at the moment. They only found the bodies twenty minutes ago.’

  ‘Bodies?’

  ‘His grandma got killed as well.’ I explained that she lived in the same building as O’Brien.

  She sighed. ‘That sounds like a professional job.’

  ‘I can’t see the timing being coincidental. Let’s get over there. There’s no point going to collect your car. I’ll say I picked you up.’

  ‘OK, but weren’t Berrin and Hunsdon meant to be watching his place?’

  I shrugged. ‘That’s what I thought. Maybe they just weren’t paying attention.’

  I indicated, pulled into the bus lane and turned down a side street, taking a short cut in the direction of Slim Robbie and his grandmother’s temporary resting place, wondering just how much more complicated things were going to get.

  7

  Slim Robbie O’Brien lived in a first-floor apartment in an immense Georgian townhouse that stood regally on an upmarket residential street just north of Highbury Corner, and an area he knew well, although he’d actually been born a mile away in the less upmarket Barnsbury, one of six children of Irish immigrants from south of Dublin. His parents had died young – his father of a heart attack, his mother of cancer – and his grandmother had come over from Ireland to look after Robbie and one of his sisters, the two youngest of the brood. Robbie had been fourteen at the time and had lived with his beloved gran for four years, before finally moving out to become a violent and integral member of the Holtz crime family, who were already well established in the area. He’d never forgotten what she’d done for him, though, and when he’d bought his current place five years earlier, he’d bought the apartment opposite for her. He’d never been much interested in women, due in part to his size, and the story went that when he wasn’t out drinking or on business he’d be round at her place watching the box and eating her ample helpings of traditional Irish fare. Some of the braver members of the Holtz fraternity had even taken to calling her his girlfriend, which wasn’t an entirely inaccurate summary.

  I’d never met her but had heard that she was a good-hearted woman who, though she’d always refused to see any bad in her undeniably sadistic grandson, had never been in trouble in her life, and was spoken of fondly by those who knew her. It seemed a pity that she’d met such an ignominious end, and I hoped that she hadn’t suffered unduly.

  When we pulled into Robbie’s street twenty minutes later, a uniformed officer I didn’t recognize in a fluorescent jacket immediately stopped us. Up ahead, the road was closed in front of the house where the murders had occurred and the houses on either side of it, scene-of-crime tape sealing it off from the public. A number of police vehicles and two ambulances were double-parked on either side, while small groups of residents watched the proceedings with rapt, nervous interest from their doorsteps.

  I brought down my window and showed the uniform my warrant card. ‘DI John Gallan, and DS Tina Boyd. Any idea how they died?’

  ‘Shot, I heard,’ he replied, a tone of boredom in his voice.

  People get shot all the time these days, particularly in Greater London. Twenty years ago it would have been front-page news. Today, it barely raises an eyebrow.

  We parked up behind one of the ambulances, whose two-man crew were leant against it, smoking cigarettes. Over by the front door of the house, I could see DCI Knox standing talking to one of the white-overalled scene-of-crime officers. Knox was looking pissed off, which wasn’t surprising. When you’re as busy as we were, and after a day in which our original legwork had led to a meeting that had ended in six deaths, a double murder in the heart of our patch was not what you’d call helpful.

  We got out of the car and walked over. Knox saw us approach and nodded curtly. ‘Morning, John, Tina. This is Sergeant Andy Davies, SOCO. They’re up there now.’

  We shook hands all round and I asked Davies what we’d got so far. ‘Two bodies, both IC1. One female, mid to late seventies. One male, early thirties. Both shot in the head from close range. From the look of the injuries, I’d say it was a smallish-calibre weapon, probably a .38. The bodies are in separate rooms. The male appears to have been killed where he’s fallen in the living room, but, from the position of her body, we think the female was moved to the bedroom after she’d been shot.’ He spoke matter-of-factly, in a curiously high-pitched voice that didn’t fit with the rest of him. He was a big man, late forties, with a thick beard and very brown, intelligent eyes. As far as I was concerned, his voice should have boomed.

  ‘Were they killed at the same time, do you think?’ I asked.

  ‘Too early to say. The doctor’s up there now doing tests, so we should know fairly shortly.’

  I nodded, knowing we wouldn’t be getting any theories out of Davies. Like a lot of scene-of-crime officers, he only liked to deal in bald facts, and it was still very early days, with the inquiry less than an hour old, so there weren’t even very many of them.

  ‘We haven’t had a final positive confirmation,’ said Knox, who’d also met O’Brien before. ‘I haven’t been up there yet. But I can’t see it being anyone else, and it would certainly fit, given the events of yesterday.’ Davies looked at him quizzically when he said this, but Knox didn’t elaborate. ‘We’re going to be coming in a few minutes to ID him, if that’s all right.’

  ‘OK,’ said Davies, ‘but you’ll need to get kitted up.’

  Knox nodded, then led us over to a police van with its rear door open. A young uniform handed all three of us sterilized overalls, hats, overshoes and hoods to put on so we didn’t contaminate the scene in any way. Fully togged up
, we headed back in the direction of the house.

  ‘This is looking bad,’ said the DCI, turning to us both. ‘Very bad. Operation Surgical Strike, and I can’t think of a more inapt name, was badly compromised, and there’s going to be a huge amount of pressure to get a result. If the body in there is O’Brien, and I’d bet my mortgage that it is, then we’re in a lot of trouble.’

  I didn’t say anything. Neither did Tina. There wasn’t a lot to say. He was right. Not only did it suggest that O’Brien – our informant – was the source of the leak, but also that we’d been powerless to prevent him being eliminated from under our very noses.

  Which was the crux of Knox’s concern. Our station had had its fair share of negative attention over the years, most famously (or infamously) when one of Knox’s men in CID, a DS Dennis Milne, was unmasked as a contract killer with at least five, and probably many more, corpses to his credit. That nasty little affair was two and a half years old now and finally sinking into the past. The last thing Knox needed was something like this to throw it back into the limelight.

  An attractive blonde woman in her late twenties stood in the doorway of her apartment as we stepped inside the building. She was dressed in a smart business suit and looked worried. ‘Can you tell me what’s going on? I’ve got an important meeting in the City at half-nine, and I’ve been told by someone that I’ve got to stay here.’

  Knox smiled at her, unable to stop himself from sliding his eyes down to her shapely, nylon-clad legs, and not even being very subtle about it. ‘I understand you live here, is that right, miss?’

  ‘Williams,’ she answered. ‘Dana Williams.’