by Iain Cameron
‘I have also received another tempting offer.’
Alarm bells were ringing in Wood’s head and he hoped Lamar was feeling rattled too. ‘Who from?’
‘It does not matter, what matters is what they have asked me to do.’
‘Which is?’
‘Make you an offer for your business.’
Wood didn’t flinch from eyeballing the Russian. ‘Who told you it was up for sale, because it isn’t?’
‘At any price?’
‘At any price.’
‘In which case…’
From the corner of his eye he saw Mikhailov reach into his waistband. Without waiting to see if he was about to slacken his belt or scratch his balls, Wood pulled a gun from his own and shot him twice in the chest.
Seconds later, about twenty metres away, the warehouse door burst open and a man entered. In his hand he held a sub-machine pistol. He opened fire. Wood and Lamar, already out of their seats, ran for cover. Neither of them were hit, but a stray or ricochet must have struck Stanilov, and judging by the gurgling noises emanating from his throat, it didn’t sound like a flesh wound. Good. Wood hoped the double-dealing bastard took a long time to die.
They ducked behind warehousing racking holding what they’d been told were machine parts for industry.
‘How many gunmen?’ he whispered to Lamar.
‘One.’
‘You sure? Three of them and two of us? They didn’t give themselves good odds.’
‘There could be more outside.’
‘Might be but we need to deal with this guy first.’ He thought for a moment. ‘We need to split up, make him work for his money. You go that way and sweep the warehouse from the top, and I’ll do the bottom. If he or anyone else opens fire on me, get back here pronto. Okay?’
‘You do the same for me?’
‘No chance. Now fuck off and nail the bastard.’
Wood edged forward cautiously at first, as the racks he was hiding behind didn’t offer much cover, then faster as the shelves in the next section were filled with large boxes.
He could see the entrance door and moved towards it, keeping in the shadows. When he reached it, he chanced a look outside. There were no gunmen loitering or suspicious parked cars, but that didn’t mean other gunmen weren’t hiding behind the numerous cranes and forklifts out there on the dock.
He turned and headed back into the warehouse. No lights were burning, not even security lighting, but as he approached the middle, the small portable lighting unit from the Russian’s makeshift table cast a weak illumination. He could see Stanilov, his head slumped into his chest, and beside him, the body of Mikhailov. They both looked dead. If he and Rod managed to nail the guy who’d come through the door, they would go over there to make sure.
He couldn’t criticise the Russians for trying to make more money by muscling in on his turf. Everyone working in the drugs business was there for the money, and anyone who said different didn’t deserve to be there. They’d seen a perceived weakness and hoped to exploit it, something Wood had been doing ever since he started out.
The light also helped him see the man with the machine gun. It wasn’t a clear view and as Wood stepped out of the shadows and raised his gun, the guy must have heard him. He spun round and before Wood could fire, he opened up with the machine pistol. Wood dived to the ground, skidding into the shadow of a tall stack, bullets pinging and zinging all around as they bounced off metal frames, sparks illuminating dark corners.
He could hear the gunman come running towards him. Wood scrabbled around the darkened floor, looking for his gun but it wasn’t where he thought it would be. He turned and scanned the area. He saw it on the floor, about three or four metres distant. He made to get up and make a dive for it when something hard hit him on the shoulder and he fell on his face. A boot pressed down on his back.
He managed to turn his head and look round at the gunman.
‘You think you can run away from me?’ a rough Russian voice said. He wore a poor excuse of a smile on his ugly, scarred face. He raised the gun and levelled it at Wood’s head.
Thoughts of his lovely wife, Ingrid, son Dan and daughter Heidi flashed in front of his eyes like a series of photos on Snapchat. Did it always have to end like this?
Bang! Bang!
The gunman toppled forwards. Wood rolled out of the way to avoid being flattened and lay there in the dust, tears streaking his eyes.
He heard the sound of Lamar’s footsteps running towards him.
‘Are you all right Simon?’ he asked.
‘What the fuck kept you?’ Wood said.
Chapter 9
Matt reached over and flicked through the stations on the car radio, searching for music that would suit his mood. If he’d heard the story once about the three men found dead with bullet wounds at Tilbury Docks, he’d heard it a dozen times. It wouldn’t land on anybody’s desk within HSA as first indications suggested it was yet another drug feud: malicious drug dealers killing equally malicious drug dealers. Good riddance, Matt thought and not for the first time tonight.
On the other hand, the shooting would concern the man whose house Matt was sitting outside: Detective Inspector Jack Harris. Maybe not the actual murder investigation, that would be the preserve of the Serious Crime Team, but anti-drug officers would be keen to find out how local drug organisations responded. Did it leave a vacuum that someone else would try to fill, or did the action of the killers indicate a settling of old scores and the start of a turf war?
Matt liked all sorts of music: folk and country because of his mother, pop music from his youth, and indie bands, his usual listening tastes from day to day. He found a local station that was more than likely being transmitted from a basement nearby, and settled back down, thinking about their neighbours and how they would be driven demented by the strange lines appearing on their television screens, interference from a powerful radio transmitter.
It was the third night he’d carried out his unofficial surveillance on Jack Harris’s house in Tufnell Park. It was a three-storey place, which hadn’t been converted to flats as many of the neighbouring houses had been, and worth over £2 million pounds. House prices in areas like this often rose faster than salaries and for some people, were a better long-term investment than many savings accounts.
He didn’t know many coppers who lived in such a nice house, did it suggest that Harris was on the take? Maybe, maybe not. There could be an innocent explanation, such as he’d been in receipt of a large inheritance from deceased parents, and nowadays people didn’t need to be members of the landed gentry to have large sums tied up in property, pensions and savings. If their parents had bought their first house in the 1960s in areas like Clapham or Ealing, they probably paid around thirty-five to fifty thousand pounds for it, a fortune in those days. Today, three- and four-bedroom semi-detached houses in those places were being sold for close to a million.
Nor was it unusual to find people who’d bought and sold houses at regular intervals to be now living in an expensive home. From small beginnings, they could trade up every couple of years, each time benefitting from London’s increased popularity with overseas buyers, and the inexorable growth in property prices. After five or six such moves, many people found themselves asset rich and cash poor. They were now living in a place worth millions, but the weight of the increased running and maintenance costs were forcing them into a monthly overdraft and maxing out on credit cards.
Matt got out of the car to stretch his legs. If engaged in an official surveillance operation against a gang of criminals, and not some bloke he thought wasn’t telling him the truth, getting out of the car would be a stupid thing to do. If the villains had a watcher, they would notice the movement, interior light switched off or not, and they would scarper or mount an attack on the watcher. In his defence, he had parked some distance away from Harris’s house, so neither his car nor his exit from it could be detected by a mere glance out of the window.
It wa
s a leafier street than many in London, he thought as he walked past several gardens resplendent with verdant trees and thick bushes, a legacy, no doubt, of days when most of the houses were family homes. It had been a sunny day, leaving a warm evening, but the fine drizzle he could feel now seemed to clear the air and remove some of the mugginess.
He hadn’t told Gill or Rosie about where he was going tonight, they would have told him to lay off. He had no basis for targeting Jack Harris and was in danger of smearing the reputation of a serving police officer. It was true, the facts were missing, but in this instance Matt trusted his intuition more. He could be wrong, of course, and find Harris was no dirtier than the next man and guilty of nothing more than accepting the odd backhander, but Matt had to find out for himself. Harris was his only lead.
He walked back to the car, ambling like any other bored dog walker, but all the time looking and listening. It wasn’t the busiest part of the city, the houses here were in the main, residences of professionals and young families, but it wasn’t quiet. It was nine-thirty at night and all around the air was filled with the noise of cars driving past, doors slamming, televisions blaring and the boom-boom of a powerful sound system in one of the apartments.
He’d just got back into the car and flicked the rain off the windscreen when the door of Jack Harris’s house opened. There followed a small vignette seen in many households around the country. He couldn’t hear the words being said for the ambient noise, but the body language of Harris’s partner, Sally Russell, were familiar enough. Hands on hips and wearing a face that could stop bread rising, she was no doubt asking, ‘Where the hell are you going at this time of night?’
The answer Harris gave, perhaps the one they had all used at one time or another, ‘police business,’ clearly didn’t satisfy Ms Russell, as she continued to berate him while he walked down the path. Seconds later the front door of the house slammed shut.
Matt smiled, not only at seeing someone else’s domestic car-crash, but because it would help his cause. Wherever Harris was going, walking to the pub or heading somewhere in his car, for the important first few minutes at least, his mind would be on his partner’s admonishment and not on who might be tailing him.
Harris climbed into a car parked on the street and started up. Matt knew the car Harris drove to work as he’d watched him leave the office where he worked several times. The one he used every day was a three-year-old blue Vauxhall Astra, but pulling out in front of Matt now was a new-looking black Audi A7. It was the sport variant with lowered suspension and tuned engine, another example of him flashing the cash.
Emma used to say Harris was the best driver in her unit. If both cars ended up on a fast road like the M4, the combination of a well-tuned engine and a good driver would leave Matt wallowing in his wake. Matt lifted his phone and took a picture. If he lost him, at least he would know the car he was looking for.
They reached Holloway Road and headed north. Soon, they joined the A1, the speed limit now forty miles-an-hour, and like a good citizen, Harris didn’t go any faster. In fact, he drove like a man with nine points on his license.
A few minutes later, he signalled left and turned into Winnington Road in Hampstead. Matt felt relieved not to be heading to Watford or Leeds, but he had to be careful here. The road before had been busy and he could easily keep a couple of cars behind, but only he and Harris had turned off. Nevertheless, Matt felt the advantage had swung in his favour, he hadn’t been rumbled, and Harris had lost the advantage of the faster car.
The animated exchange between Harris and his partner earlier may not have been about work as Matt originally thought, as he couldn’t imagine the sort of informers and contacts he used, living in a smart area like this. The gardens, parked cars and curtained rooms suggested to Matt that he was meeting an old girlfriend or lover. No wonder it had made his partner cross.
Halfway along the road, Harris turned into a driveway. If he’d looked in the rear-view mirror to ensure no one was trying to overtake, or had followed him there, he wouldn’t have seen Matt. He’d pulled in behind a car, a technique he’d employed every hundred metres or so.
Harris entered the house and, after giving him a further seven or eight minutes, he got out of the car. If anyone inside the house was wary of followers, an illicit girlfriend for example, in the minutes following his arrival they could be standing on the upper floor with the lights off and looking out. Matt couldn’t be sure, but he thought he’d detected a glint, maybe spectacles or binoculars from an upstairs window, a few minutes before.
He walked along the road on the opposite side and passed the house without turning around. It didn’t stop him using his peripheral vision, and what he saw was a substantial detached house, sheltering behind thick hedges and tall bushes. Harris’s car wasn’t the only one in the driveway. He could see another Audi A7, this time with black wheels, blackened windows, and murals on the bodywork. Emma would call it a drug dealer’s car, as who else would mess with the fine bodywork of a sixty-grand car but someone with money to burn?
He walked on for a further five minutes before pulling out his phone.
‘Hi Matt,’ Rosie said. ‘How’re you doing?’
‘No bad. Is Andrew back?’
‘He was, but he’s gone away again.’
Matt knew what it felt like coming home to an empty house, and wouldn’t choose to do so if given the choice. Their job could be stressful and dangerous, and without someone to talk to and unburden a mistake or discuss a shooting, solace could be sought in drugs or drink. Matt had chosen alcohol, not just for the stresses of work or his debilitating shoulder injury, but to blot-out Emma’s death. His trip to Epping Forest had exorcised many of those demons from his system, but he had no clear idea as to who or what he would lean on if the going got tough in the future.
‘I told you about Jack Harris and my suspicions?’
‘Yes.’
‘I followed him tonight to a house in Hampstead.’
‘You did what?’
‘I followed him.’
‘Why, because you think he’s dirty?’
‘He’s not telling me everything. I need to know what happened to Emma.’
Rosie sighed, as if biting her tongue.
‘What are you planning to do?’
‘Sneak round the back and take a look at the house Harris went in.’
‘Wait for me, I’ll come out.’
‘No, thanks for the offer but I don’t need you here. I’m just taking a look.’
‘What if he’s meeting criminals and they spot you?’
‘I’ll shoot them.’
‘I hope you’re joking, Matt.’
‘Don’t worry, at the first sign of trouble I’m out of there. Okay?’
‘Give me the address.’
A minute or so later, Matt put his phone back into his pocket and walked back the way he’d come. This was suburbia: parked cars, manicured driveways and designer furnishings. He watched to see if any curtains twitched, dogs barked, or if anyone was standing outside smoking. It looked the sort of place where bad habits weren’t tolerated indoors, but anyone standing outside and puffing a fag would spoil the look of the neighbourhood.
He didn’t see anything to alarm him, and when reaching the driveway of the house Harris had entered, he turned in. The hedge provided a good shield from the casual viewer; although a vigilant neighbour may have noticed him walking towards the house, but not approaching the front door. With neighbours like that, he deserved to be caught.
Rich areas like this were paranoid about burglary, and with good reason, so Matt wasn’t surprised to find the path leading to the back garden was blocked by a tall metal gate, secured with a stout padlock. Looks could be deceptive and Matt opened the padlock in less than a minute. His big worry now was the gate. A metal structure moving against a metal hinge would screech like a cat with its tail on fire if never oiled. Having a lock-opening kit in his pocket would be considered by many to be resourceful, but if h
e now produced an oil can and a rag, it would mark him down as anal and ripe for transfer to Siki’s research group. He pushed the gate slowly, and to his surprise, it moved with ease on well-lubricated couplings, making a soft sound that could only be heard by a bat.
Matt stayed close to the wall, making as little noise as possible. London was in the midst of a warm spell and many householders had left windows open, although, conscious of burglars, mainly on the upper floors.
He walked along the path and edged across the back of the house. The kitchen was lit, bathing the back garden with light, but not sufficient to illuminate its full length. With caution, he peered inside. It was empty and tidy with plenty of gadgets, reinforcing his ‘lover’ theory. He needed to be more careful here, the next room along looked like the lounge and equipped with a large panoramic window, emitting a softer light than the kitchen, as if lit by lamps. The glass extended over what looked like the width of the room, with a brick section a metre or so from the ground. A louvered window at the top was open and so were the curtains.
He crawled below the window and listened. He stayed there for perhaps five minutes, but either as a ploy, or by accident, the television was on and loud, drowning out anything the people inside were saying. He looked around and decided to move to the end of the garden. In the shadow of the bushes and shrubs, he would at least be able to see inside the lounge without being spotted.
He turned and started to crawl back the way he’d come when the back door opened. Someone walked out and sparked up. Matt could see him but he doubted he could see Matt as he was lying on the ground between the lounge and kitchen windows, hidden in deep shadow. That is, providing the smoker didn’t decide to look too closely, or take a walk over.
After a few minutes, Matt’s felt his body seize up, having to lie on cold paving slabs. Inconvenience aside, he was also considering if he could reach his gun before this guy. He could see one tucked into his waistband, a piece of equipment not normally carried by the average Hampstead householder stepping out for the last smoke of the night.
