by Iain Cameron
‘I dislike him already.’
‘You who can’t cook should feel ashamed not jealous.’
‘Who’s jealous?’
‘Darius, as Harriet’s man is called, was cooking on the barbecue when we arrived. Well, this soon put Andrew’s nose out of joint. He always does my mother’s barbecue, so he says, but as far as I can remember, he’s done it twice, and both times the chicken was like rubber.’
‘It must have been him who taught me.’
‘No one’s taught you, Matt, that’s the problem. So anyway, Andrew wanders over to the barbecue, casual like, but it doesn’t take long for snide comments to be traded.’
‘Had he been drinking?’
‘You bet. It was a hot day last Sunday, if you remember, and the beer was being downed faster than a table full of thirsty Germans at Oktoberfest. When at last we sit down for the meal, everyone, including me, couldn’t help but remark at how perfectly the steaks had been cooked. Well, if Andrew had been opposite me and not further down the table, I think he might have lunged over and stuck one of my mother’s sharp steak knives into my chest.’
‘Or into Darius’s.’
‘No, he would have done me first, then Darius. The mood he was in, it would be in for a penny, in for a pound.’
‘Not a good day all round, then.’
‘You could say that, but I’m so used to his black mood swings I try not to let them bother me.’
‘Very noble of you, I’m sure, but you had to suffer the drive home. That must have been fun.’
‘It wasn’t really a problem. I didn’t know this until a few weeks ago, but he’s wary of me, he says, because of my training and the fact that I carry a gun.’
Matt laughed. ‘What’s he afraid of? If he calls you something offensive, you might pull it out and shoot him?’
‘I might.’
‘Get away, Rosie, you’re much too controlled for that.’
‘I am controlled, I’ll admit, but press certain buttons for too long and who knows what might happen.’
Matt laughed. ‘It’s a good job I’m armed too.’
‘Oh, rile me up the wrong way, Matt Flynn,’ Rosie said smiling, ‘and you’ll soon see that wouldn’t stop me.’
The car went quiet for a spell, dance music on the radio competing with tyre noise. A few minutes later, Rosie’s phone rang.
‘Okay,’ she said before pausing.
‘Right. Who?’ A longer pause.
‘Okay. I want you to sit tight. Do not follow the car if it leaves, repeat do not follow the car if it leaves, understand?’
She waited for the response.
‘Fine. Thanks.’
Rosie put her phone down. ‘There’s been a development at the target. A car pulled up, a dark Audi A7 with darkened windows, so the watchers couldn’t see who was inside.’
‘Harris has a car like that.’
‘The watchers couldn’t confirm, but it looked like Simon Wood and Jack Harris have entered the house.’
Matt glanced over at the satnav; the Estimated Time of Arrival indicated was nineteen minutes. He pressed the accelerator.
‘Christ, that would be some coup,’ Matt said. ‘Lamar, Harris, and Wood all in one swoop. We’d be knighted at the very least.’
‘You wish. First, we need to neutralise the threat from the car. They’ve got a driver, and they can’t be sure if anyone else is inside.’
‘It won’t be empty, that’s for sure. With both Wood and Harris on wanted lists, the first sniff of trouble and they’ll be out of there like greyhounds, a good driver at the wheel.’
‘I agree, and we’ll have to assume they’re all armed.’
‘I don’t care if they are or they aren’t. I’ll put a bullet into any one of them if they give us any trouble.’
**
They reached the rendezvous, a detached house on the outskirts of a hamlet called Wickham St Paul, and parked the car. To Matt’s dismay, a subsequent phone call five minutes after the first told them about the departure of the Audi A7. Two people were seen getting into the car, and even though they couldn’t identify them, it didn’t look like it was the same two who’d arrived. Matt was annoyed. They’d been gifted a window of opportunity to rope in Simon Wood and his closest lieutenants, and if it wasn’t for minutes spent getting prepared, driving in congestion, or the slowness of the roads, they could have done it.
The collective team of HSA agents and Suffolk Police, led by DI Peace, didn’t need much briefing beyond a basic headcount, as they’d covered most of the details in several emails and a couple of Skype calls. They set off down Church Lane and stopped at the bottom of a long driveway. It was a perfect location for a drug producer: no near neighbours, and as far as Matt could see in the dark, the house was surrounded by fields.
They crept forward, conscious of the security lights which would illuminate at any moment and be noticed by those in the house, a large detached place with three floors and most of the lights blazing. Some of the officers made their way to the rear, and as soon as the security lights illuminated, Matt and the rest of the raiding party ran towards the front door.
Two door bangers were deployed, and with good reason as the door was thick and protected by four deadlocks. Even then, it still took a total of five bashes before the front edge of the door disintegrated and the door swung open. In a well-planned move, officers raced towards the stairs, others to the rooms on the ground floor, while Matt and three others ran towards the basement.
No seedy and damp cellar this. The steps were wide, clear of clutter, and well lit. The door at the bottom was closed, light leaking from its base. Activity could be heard inside; the noise of a radio or a sound system playing.
One of the Suffolk cops threw the door open and stepped back. The rest of the team filed past, part-crouching, part-walking, guns out front as they fanned out left and right seeking hidden dangers. They didn’t find any.
Matt and everyone in the raiding party took in the scene before them within a few seconds. A long table, white-coated people in facemasks lined on either side. Packets of finished product at one end. The table contained a strange mix of large chemical bottles, and bags of shredded plant leaves, leaving the air smelling of something Matt couldn’t place.
‘Put your hands up where I can see them!’ DI Pearce shouted.
Out of the corner of his eye, Matt saw movement. He turned to see a massive black guy wielding something that looked like a baseball bat above his head and coming towards him. Matt jumped out of the way just as the bat crashed into a table, scattering unknown bottles of chemicals on to the floor. He made to raise the bat again just as Matt levelled his carbine. Before he could fire a round, a quick-thinking officer beside him fired his Taser.
For an awful moment, Matt was convinced the jolt of 50,000 volts of electrical discharge, enough to incapacitate almost anyone ever targeted by it, wasn’t strong enough for this giant of man. Moments later, the muscles in his body began to spasm and, in almost slow motion, he sank to the floor. Two officers ran over and applied restraints.
Matt walked round the laboratory making sure there were no other exits, while Suffolk officers rounded up the technicians. Matt didn’t know much about Spice except that it caused huge problems in prisons, and he felt sure what they’d discovered here would make a large dent in its availability.
A few minutes later, Matt climbed out of the basement. He found Rosie in the hall.
‘They’ve swept every room and you guys have done the basement. No sign of Wood, Harris, or Lamar.’
‘At least one of them must be here, Rosie. We know Lamar was here. Then came two people in the car we think were Wood and Harris. With only two people leaving, it leaves one. Unless, of course, the watchers made a mistake over their identity.’
‘I agree with your arithmetic. Let’s search the grounds.’
Matt wasn’t an expert on fences, but he was sure this one would be a lively topic of discussion down the pub by local farme
rs. It was high, taller than him, and chain-link with tall concrete posts every three metres or so. It was a fence designed to withstand all weathers and be scalable only by the determined, but a formidable deterrent to the casual nosey parker.
They walked for several minutes before Rosie said, ‘I think–’
Matt held up his hand. ‘Quiet,’ he whispered. ‘I think I can hear something.’
They stopped to look and listen. All they could see were the dark shapes of trees, a half-moon poking through branches. Small animals made grubbing noises in the undergrowth. An owl hooted in the distance, a warning to their feathered cousins to stay away. Somewhere, behind this, a twig cracking and leaves rustling, despite the absence of a breeze. The movement of a fox or badger or something larger?
Rosie didn’t say a word, but pointed. They both headed into a thinly-spaced copse of trees. At about five metres in front of him, Matt could see a shadow moving slowly, as if trying to make little noise. It was human, not animal. Matt started to run, ignoring branches that slapped at his face and the rough, uneven ground underfoot. The fugitive started running too, but Matt soon caught up and reached out and grabbed a part of him.
Just then, his foot caught an outstretched root and he flew through the air before crashing into the ground and smacking his head on the trunk of a sapling. He felt dazed for a couple of seconds before leaping back on his feet. He could see the fugitive, looking crab-like as he tried to scale the fence. How he would get over the strip of barbed wire at the top, he didn’t know, but had no intention of waiting to find out.
Matt ran, threw himself at the fence and crashed into the climbing figure. They both tumbled to the ground trading punches. Matt was bigger than his opponent and when he landed a punch on the guy’s face, it seemed to knock the fight right out of him.
Matt leaned over to haul the guy to his feet, but he was either faking it or had found energy from somewhere, as he leapt up, punched Matt in the gut and squirmed away. When Matt looked up, he was facing him and in his wavering hand, he held a gun. Despite the darkness, Matt recognised him.
‘Harris, you bastard. If I’d known it was you, I’d have shot you on the fence.’
‘Lucky for me it was dark,’ he said, breathless from the exertion. ‘I’m sick and tired of you turning up all the time, Flynn, trying to spoil everything. What do you fucking care if we sell a bit of dope to a few coke-heads? It’s supply and demand, you tosser. Free enterprise, I call it.’
‘I don’t give a shit about the drugs business, this isn’t what why I’m here. I want you and anyone else who was involved in Emma’s killing.’
‘You’re full of crap, Flynn, but I told you at that abandoned warehouse, it wasn’t me. That should have been enough for you.’
‘You were there, you fucking liar You’re an accessory.’
‘Enough of this legal bullshit!’ he shouted. ‘I’ve said all I’m going to.’ He levelled the gun.
A shadow appeared behind Harris. The gunman turned at hearing the noise, and Matt swung a boot, catching him in the wrist. The gun sailed through the air. Before it disappeared into the bushes, Matt pulled out his gun and smacked Harris in the face with it. When he staggered back, Matt punched him in the stomach and pushed him to the ground.
He stood over him, his boot at his throat and his gun pointed at his temple.
‘Don’t, Matt,’ Rosie said, steel in her voice.
‘Why not? He tried to kill me.’
‘We don’t do things this way.’
‘He pulled a gun on me. No one would blame me.’
‘I know, but it’s not right.’
‘Why the hell didn’t you intervene earlier? He might have shot me.’
‘I thought he was about to confess his sins.’
‘He did, some of them at least.’
‘Nothing about the money or Simon Wood.’
‘He will when he wakes up.’
‘What makes you so sure?’
‘Remember in Spain I shot him in the thigh?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Judicious manipulation of that little pressure point will tell us everything we want to know.’
Chapter 47
Matt and Rosie walked into an interview room at Ipswich police station. HSA could have pulled rank and transported the prisoner back to London with them, but it wasn’t worth getting into an argument over. The man in front of them looked like a big fish due to his considerable bulk, but in Simon Wood’s organisation he wasn’t.
Rosie went through the formalities, explained why they were there and what they could do for him if he cooperated.
‘How are you today, Reno?’ Matt asked.
‘Not best pleased to be in this fucking dump.’
He spoke with a strong south London accent, although he looked to have come straight out of the Bronx. It wasn’t just because he was black, bulging with muscle, shaven-headed, and for someone like him, a Big Mac would be a reasonable starter, but the clothes and the bling around the Rhino-sized neck screamed the streets of the Big Apple.
According to Jack Harris, when Matt had pressed his boot into his injured thigh and his screams had shattered the calm of the Suffolk night, Reno and his friends were the muscle around the place. Hallelujah! Thanks for the heads-up, Jack. Matt could have avoided all possible charges of prisoner brutality by guessing this himself. One look at Reno and all thoughts of chemist, accountant, or lawyer went straight out of the window.
Harris admitted that Reno was present when Emma was killed. Matt now knew that Harris, Lamar, and Reno were present that night, but Matt needed to understand the individual roles of the three men. Harris had repeated his claim that it was Lamar who pulled the trigger. This was looking more likely as Matt realised that it was Lamar who tried to kill him with the Mac 10 at the warehouse in Fashion Street.
‘What do you do for Simon Wood, Reno?’
‘Never heard of him,’ he said, crossing his big arms in a ‘I’m telling you fuck-all’ gesture.
Matt opened a folder and extracted a small pile of photographs. He flicked them towards Reno.
Despite the interview taking place in a police station, Matt and Rosie were conducting it under HSA rules. No cameras, no lawyer at his side, and an armed guard standing at the back of the room. Suffolk police weren’t happy with this set of affairs, but they would be even unhappier if Reno cooperated and HSA instructed them to drop some of the charges.
‘What’s this?’ Reno said.
‘My holiday snaps. They’re good, take a look.’
The big guy’s deadpan fizzer took on an impressive series of expressions as he gawped at long lens, paparazzi-style photographs taken by a Met photographer. They showed images of Reno and Wood, Reno with Lamar and also with Harris, talking, laughing, smoking.
‘You’re a crap liar, mate, so don’t even try.’
‘Let me put the question to you again, Reno,’ Rosie said. ‘What did you do for Simon Wood?’
‘This isn’t like, for evidence?’
‘As I explained to you earlier,’ Rosie said, ‘we’re not cops, so the cameras are switched off and there’s a cover over the two-way mirror. Anything you say will not appear in any official statements and won’t be aired in court. This interview is for information-gathering purposes only.’
‘So, like, if I tell you something…’
Matt nodded. ‘It won’t be thrown back at you by any of the cops in this building unless you fuck us around. If you help us, as Rosie said, we’ll maybe do something about the charges.’
Reno nodded slowly. With a big head like that, Matt imagined messages took longer to penetrate. By rights, a bigger brain should have produced a smarter individual, but Reno was all quantity and little quality.
‘Okay,’ the big man said after about twenty seconds of silence, ‘I admit it, I know Simon. He’s a mate.’
Matt sighed, astonished at hearing yet another revelation of the obvious. ‘We know this Reno,’ he said a little more calmly than
he felt. He leaned over and tapped the photographs in front of them. ‘We have the pictures to prove it,’
‘Oh, yeah.’
‘How did you guys meet?’ Rosie asked.
‘I used to work for, you know, the competition.’
‘Another drug dealer?’
He looked at her in mock astonishment, as if to say, do you think I’m capable of doing anything else? ‘Duh yeah, a drug dealer.’
‘Go on.’
‘I was working for this guy and he… he got, you know, totalled.’
‘By Wood?’
‘Nah, he stopped doing that sort of stuff a long time before. Lamar.’
‘Roderick Lamar, Wood’s nephew?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What do you do in Wood’s organisation?’ Rosie asked.
He laughed. ‘Look at me, man, you think I sit there and do the typing or somethin’? I do the strong-arm stuff, like protecting the boss, intimidate people, beat up anybody thieving. You get the idea.’
‘Shoot anybody?’ Matt asked.
He gave Matt a sharp look. ‘Even with no cameras and all that stuff, I’m saying nuffin’ about that, right?’
‘I’ll take that as a yes.’
‘Take it any fucking way you like mate, but I’m still not saying.’
‘Did Wood’s escape from a prison van change him?’ Matt asked.
‘What? How d’ya mean, change him?’
‘I imagine he now moves house every other week, he must be nervous about cars stopping outside, he can’t be out dealing with his people or his contacts face-to-face, all of that.’
‘He was a wanted man before the escape, so it hasn’t made much difference. He still sees people but mainly at night and wearing stuff to hide his face.’
‘What about Jack Harris? What does he do?’
‘Dollar Harris I call him. He’s the money man. All the dough collected by the dealers, Harris puts it in the bank somehow, and then shifts it abroad away from them,’ he said, pointing up at the ceiling, meaning the coppers upstairs.
‘Do you see much of it?’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Enough to stop me asking for more, if that’s what you mean.’
