Hell on Earth

by Philip Palmer

  ‘You’re already a slave. Of your own fears.’

  ‘Cliché.’

  With a flicker of his face, Tom accepted that as a fair rebuttal.

  ‘If you don’t stand up for yourself, what’s the point of being free?’ Tom suggested.

  ‘The same cliché, rephrased.’

  ‘I could arrest you for obstruction of justice,’ said Tom, slyly.

  Hellion laughed. Then he stopped laughing.

  ‘You wouldn’t do that?’

  ‘I would. And it would stick.’ Tom was brimming with arrogant certainty now: his favourite mode. ‘You’re concealing information from a police officer, that’s an offence. I can give you a caution, right here, right now, I have grounds. And that would be enough to put a hole in your credibility. One more strike, that’s all it would take, and you’d be revoked.’

  ‘You’re threatening me?’

  ‘I’m threatening you.’

  Hellion snarled a second time, and his tongue flickered over his yellow teeth; but this time it wasn’t as effective.

  ‘Fuck you, copper! I’ve been threatened by experts, you’re just a fucking joke,’ he spat.

  ‘I rather think I am getting to be an expert,’ said Tom. ‘So do as I say you evil hellcunt, or I’ll fuck you over.’

  Tom’s tone was mild; he’d read enough to know that speaking softly is considerably scarier than shouting.

  Hellion did indeed look scared. ‘I won’t give evidence against these people,’ Hellion said.

  ‘I’m not asking you to.’

  Hellion was confused now. ‘What then?’

  ‘Where do you work?’ Tom asked.

  Hellion paused.

  ‘You know where I work. The factory.’

  ‘The incense factory?’

  ‘The incense factory.’

  ‘Licensed incense, I trust? All strictly legit?’

  ‘Get to the point,’ said Hellion wearily.

  Twelve hours later, Tom was outside Jagger’s warehouse with the armed response team, led by DCI Matt Stanley.

  Stanley was the soft-spoken type much favoured by SCO19, with a thousand yard stare and pale blue eyes; his sandy hair and firm nose and oval jaw made him look like the young T.E. Lawrence. Tom had spotted the resemblance immediately, when he and Stanley had first met in the briefing room of Peckham nick, late the previous night.

  Tom had spent twenty minutes briefing Stanley and his team on the raid. Using computer screens and red dots to indicate the location of the stolen property – which Ricky had told him was concealed beneath floors, behind walls, and inside sealed attics. Ricky had drawn the warehouse for Tom in intricate detail, enlivening it with stick figures and a giant stick figure to represent Jagger himself.

  Jagger. The Man. The fagin in charge of hundreds of joeys.

  Tom knew that once, many years ago, Jagger had been a joey himself. He’d been notorious in the late 1980s, and had featured on the front page of the Daily Mail wearing a balaclava and a smile. A ten year old cheeky urchin with a rap sheet taller than himself. Then when Jagger was fifteen, his fagin was found dead and Jagger had vanished without trace. And now he commanded an army of kids who were just like he had been back then. Doing unto them, Tom mused, as had been done unto him.

  Now the raid was imminent. The cold morning air exhilarated Tom. Dozens of armed police officers stood or crouched in position around Jagger’s gaff, waiting for the word from their guvnor. Stanley was a statue. Tom tried to emulate his stillness.

  Eventually, though Tom wasn’t sure what gave him his cue, Stanley decided the moment was ripe.

  ‘All units, this is Bravo One, position check, Over.’ DCI Stanley barked into his radio.

  ‘In position, Over,’ sputtered a voice.

  ‘In position, guv, Over,’ chorused a dozen other voices.

  Tom was brimming with excitement; consumed by the narcotic of action.

  ‘We have an eyeball on the back door,’ said a voice on the radio.

  ‘We are locked and loaded, guys.’

  ‘Ready when you are.’

  ‘All units in position,’ Stanley confirmed to Silver Command in the battlebus three streets away.

  ‘We’ll go on your command,’ came a voice from Silver Command.

  ‘Go, go, go,’ said DCI Stanley; and the boys in black struck.

  Mortars fired flashbang pellets. The flashbangs spat through the air and crashed through the windows and detonated inside the building. Lights flared crazily within the warehouse like a bonfire in a fireworks factory.

  Three helicopters plunged out of the clouds like hawks upon a drowsy field mouse. Six AFOs in black Kevlar and masks, two from each chopper, swooped down on wires, and crashed their way in through the top storey windows in a dazzlingly fluid manoeuvre. A mortar shell was fired and blew off the front door, leaving nothing but splintered frame. A police robot trundled up the steps and in to the warehouse, bullets ricocheting off its metal body. Once it was inside – its progress captured by the robo-cameras that scuttled in its wake - tear gas canisters were spat out of its mouth, and grey plumes of smoke billowed.

  Tom knew that all the exits and entrances were being breached simultaneously, with well practised skill.

  Meanwhile, a microphone had been hurled through a broken window, and a message spoken by a calm female voice was being broadcast to the suspects within: ‘This is a police raid. Lie down on the floor face down if you are holding a weapon you will be shot’, over and over again, in a non-stop loop.

  Tom had been given no intel regarding hostages inside, but even so the tear gas was the mildest possible, because of the age of the joeys. Within eleven minutes the warehouse was secured.

  Tom breathed again.

  ‘Come with me, lad,’ said Stanley, gently.

  Tom sauntered in to the scene of his first major arrest, shoulder to shoulder with one of the legendary men in black.

  When the smoke lifted, Tom could see that the warehouse was like a souk. Huge carpets were suspended on hooks from rafters, blazoned with rich colours and intricate patterns, still swaying in the aftermath of the flashbangs. The largest carpet was richly scarlet, the colour of rubies, inlaid with interlocking emerald patterns. It was companioned by a trio of dangling ocean-blue carpets in varied sizes, and by a silver and orange rug with patterns that evoked dragons brawling.

  Below the suspended carpets there were ranks of white goods - freezers and fridges and dishwashers. And also the big electricals - ovens and power barbecues. All lined up on broad shelves like Chinese terracotta soldiers. On adjoining shelves were the smaller leisure goods and kitchenware: pots and pans and mugs and knife racks and iPods and iPads, and e-berries by the thousand, none of them in boxes. All doubtless nicked from homes or lockers or handbags and reconfigured for new users.

  Then there was the furniture section. Sofas that had been lifted out of houses while their owners were on holidays, kitchen tables, even wardrobes. And clothes too. Jagger’s joeys had stolen suits and dresses and shoes for those too mean to buy their second hand clobber on e-Bay.

  The far end of the warehouse was bloated with parked cars of every kind and colour: BMWs and Fiats and Fords and an entire line of vintage Morgans and Lotuses, nestling bumper to bumper; maybe two hundred of them in all.

  Meanwhile, all around him, men in black were using sledgehammers to smash down the recently-built partition walls, or using claw hammers to rip up the floorboards. Searching for the provably dodgy gear that Jagger didn’t dare have in open view, since he hadn’t yet had their counterfeit bills of sale made up.

  Tom walked further into the warehouse. He saw Jagger, who was cuffed and appeared relaxed, sitting in an armchair, smoking a cigar. He was a thin and very tall man; as if his body had not stopped growing up when he became an adult, over-stretching the raw material. His hair was dusted with grey, and when he got closer, Tom saw he had one gold tooth.

  Tom remembered the ten year old who had been able to climb into
a house through a tiny kitchen window by folding his body like a circus contortionist. Now Jagger was a grey-haired man, and a professional corrupter of innocence. Tom wondered if he should feel any sympathy. He didn’t.

  Detective Inspector Fowler aka Silver Command arrived a few minutes later. He was a stocky bull of a man who pumped iron every day, and who – according to Tom’s sources - would have been trim and fit if he hadn’t been such an inveterate boozer.

  Fowler spotted Tom and glared at him. Tom knew that this was a senior detective who didn’t like uniform cops interfering with his CID operations. So Tom held back as Fowler took a status report from his team, and confirmed that Jagger had been read his rights, and had been shown the police warrant that authorised them to search these premises.

  At that moment, perhaps in response to Fowler’s curt tone, the thin man stood up and bowed, in a curiously old fashioned gesture.

  ‘Please, go ahead. Search. But you’ll find nothing out of place,’ said Jagger, courteously. ‘I got bills of sale for every item that’s here. Every single item.’ He wafted a hand at every single item; there were thousands of them, all around him, in a warehouse bigger than a shopping mall.

  ‘It’s all stolen gear,’ said Tom confidently.

  ‘Perhaps some of it was once,’ Jagger conceded with a shrug. ‘But it was all legit when I acquired it.’ He smiled. That was why he had the tooth, Tom realised. It gleamed when he smiled, and Tom would bet good money it was solid twenty-one carat gold, not dentist tat. ‘I’m a wholesaler, you see. I buys en masse and I sells bespoke. I provide a service, I truly do. And as I say, my paperwork is impeccable, and not to be pissed upon by the likes of you.’

  ‘There’ll be serial numbers on some of the goods, we can trace the provenance from that,’ Fowler said gruffly.

  ‘Oh I wouldn’t think so. Every item here has a brand new serial number that I guarantee will match my invoice.’ Jagger beamed. He obviously took pride in his forgers’ skills.

  Fowler was by now very tense; his neck was turning red. Jagger’s composure had him rattled. By rights, the suspect should be shitting bricks by now.

  Stanley was watching all this with the faintest of smiles on his lips, cool as a cucumber. He’d done his job, with no cock-ups: premises breached, suspect apprehended. It didn’t really matter to him if the bad guys went down or not, just so long as his lads had a good workout.

  ‘Oh and there are ultraviolet markings and coded smart water patches on many of the items, do watch out for those,’ Jagger advised. ‘That’s what clever householders do now, they mark their gear so that unscrupulous villains ain’t able to sell ’em on.’

  Fowler glowered.

  ‘But not me, of course,’ said Jagger silkily. ‘I’d never sell an item that was indelibly or invisibly marked; I’d always check first, and get the bleeding mark removed.’ A gold-toothed grin of delight flashed. ‘Hypothetically speaking I mean., ‘cos that’s the kind of fellow I am, see. Oh no, no, I’m afraid you’ll find nothing amiss or untoward here. Not even under the floorboards. Not even behind those false walls. Will they, Ricky lad?’

  ‘No they won’t Jagger. They’ll find bloody nothing, not amiss, nor nothing,’ a thin voice piped up.

  Everyone looked down.

  Ricky stared up at them all defiantly. Eight-year- old Ricky. Four foot high and full of beans Ricky. Grinning like the bloody rascal he was.

  ‘That’s ’cos there’s ain’t nothing amiss to find,’ said Ricky, mockingly.

  ‘No stolen gear,’ suggested Jagger.

  ‘Nothing dodgy under the floorboards.’

  ‘Nothing half-inched in the hidey-holes,’ confirmed Jagger, a golden grin scarring his skull’s face.

  ‘It’s all legit, see,’ said Ricky, looking right at Tom. ‘Fact of it is, I lied, see. ’Cos this copper’ – he pointed at Tom – ‘threatened me and made me fearful for me life, so I told a bunch of shitty little fibs. But the honest truth is, Mr Jagger here, he would never steal nothin’, nor would he harbour no stolen property, ’cos that would be wrong. And we’re his mates, us kids, he looks after us, and we’re free to come and go as we please, ain’t we Jagger?’

  ‘You are indeed, Ricky my lad,’ said Jagger, oozing avuncular charm.

  Fowler was bright scarlet by now. Only the ruthlessly clipped top of his head was its normal hue.

  ‘What the hell is going on?’ Fowler spat.

  ‘Don’t worry, sir,’ said Tom.

  Ricky laughed again and pointed at Tom. ‘Liar, liar, pants on fire!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Is this your confidential informant?’ said Fowler.

  ‘Yes sir,’ Tom admitted.

  ‘He paid me to tell lies about Mr Jagger and I did, but only ’cos I was terrified by the threats and the oppressive demeanour of the evil PC Tom Derry,’ recited Ricky.

  Jagger was grinning. He raised his cuffed hands and cigar ash tipped from the stogie he was clutching in his teeth. ‘You might like to release me, lads.’

  ‘We’ll finish our search of the premises first,’ said Tom confidently.

  ‘You’ll find nothing!’ Jagger chortled.

  A PC approached carried a brick shaped object. ‘Sir,’ he said to Fowler. Fowler took a look. He broke the plastic covering with a knife and sniffed.

  ‘Incense,’ said Fowler.

  ‘I don’t store incense,’ said Jagger, confused.

  Fowler licked the knife; and regretted it. His features distorted, his hands shook, as the pungent taste of human brains mashed and turned into perfume flooded his system. He dropped the knife.

  ‘Dark incense to boot,’ said Fowler.

  ‘Are you listening to me? I don’t stock bloody incense!’

  ‘You need a licence to sell incense, you have no license,’ Fowler said. ‘Even if this weren’t the illegal blend, which it patently is, you’d still be in serious trouble.’

  ‘There are hundreds of bricks, hidden behind a false wall in the stock room,’ said the PC.

  ‘It’s not mine!’ protested Jagger. ‘It’s a fucking fit up! Some evil fucker planted that!’

  ‘Don’t make me laugh,’ said Fowler crowing. ‘How much would you say is here, constable?’

  ‘About two tons, sir.’

  ‘That’s a lot of dug up corpses,’ said Fowler reflectively.

  ‘The crems don’t burn the heads any more,’ Tom informed him. ‘That’s become the major source for dark incense.’

  ‘Good work, Tom,’ DCI Fowler told him. ‘Now take this little scrote down the nick and process him.’

  ‘Yes guv,’ said Tom, with delight.

  Jagger turned and, still cuffed, he glared with rage at Tom. Then the glare become an appreciative smile.

  Tom blanked both glare and smile. He turned and looked at Ricky. But Ricky wouldn’t meet his eye. Tom didn’t push it. He’d known his CI would crumble. Hence, the fit-up.

  ‘I guess this means,’ said Jagger, ruefully, casting a respectful gaze upon Tom, ‘that you got me bang to fucking rights, you sneaky little bastard.’

  ‘I guess it does,’ Tom said, mildly.

  Chapter 11

  Gina and Dougie drove from Limehouse in silence, after concluding their One Squad and Three Squad briefings.

  Dougie parked up in the back of Leman Street in Whitechapel, where Five Squad were based. He and Gina entered via the back way, and double-stepped up the stairs to the first floor Major Incident Room at the rear of the building. Dougie used two palms to shove open the incident room door with his customary far too much vigour. And he strode briskly into his alma mater. The incident room where he’d cracked his first murder case as an senior investigating officer nine years ago.

  ‘Right, guv.’

  ‘Guv.’

  ‘Morning, sir.’

  The usual chorus of greetings from the telephonists and the Junior Document Readers in the smaller part of the L shaped room.

  ‘Right lads.’

  Dougie and Gina strode t
hrough into the larger part of the L. There, Dougie stood, commanding the room. He glanced at the Crime Wall. Nine photographs, nine biogs, nine lives lost:

  Melissa Anderson

  Tony Leeson

  Anthony McGinty

  Debra Johnson

  Davos Pamballis

  Robert Jenkins

  Dave Salthouse

  Matthew Baker

  Sarah Penhall

  He took a moment to look at the photo of Sarah’s face. The purple hair, the cheeky smile. He’d not yet seen a photograph of her in which she wasn’t smiling.

  He began: ‘What have you got for me, lads?’ he said.

  ‘Who is this twat?’ said Taff Davies. ‘Does he work here?’

  ‘Hi guv, we’ve concluded the full forensic analysis,’ said DC Alliea Cartwright, without skipping a beat, ‘of Sarah Penhall’s house. No fingerprints that we can’t account for, no blood splashes. Same old. He didn’t snatch her there.’

  ‘Anything from the CCTV at the pub?’

  ‘Nothing. Just twenty-three stuttery patches in the footage from the two cameras outside the Black Horse Pub where Sarah was found dead, and eleven ditto from the four cameras in the street,’ said DC Andy Homerton.

  Andy was unsmiling. He was a good looking young man and he had a trademark cheer-you-up grin - but not today.

  ‘What about the watch?’

  ‘No watch, governor,’ said RDC Fillide Melandroni.

  Fillide rarely spoke in briefings. And as a matter of policy, Dougie ignored her if he possibly could. Today, he could.

  ‘What about the watch?’ Dougie repeated.

  ‘No watch,’ said DC Seamus Malone, a young big Irishman with hard fists and a soft heart. He was pink-cheeked with embarrassment at the way Dougie had openly snubbed Fillide.

  ‘Theories?’

  ‘I called Dennis Knight,’ said Taff. ‘He doesn’t have any further notions.’

  ‘The one break in MO,’ said Dougie. ‘What does that signify?’

  ‘You mean the watch?’ said DC Ronnie Tindale, in ‘fuck you’ tones. With every other victim, a broken or stopped watch had given them the clue to time of death.