Deep Cover

by Leigh Russell

  As he began to relax, reassuring himself that he was in no danger, Emily put down her crocheting and turned to him.

  ‘What happened to that old van you had in the garage?’

  ‘What? Oh, that old thing,’ he replied, speaking in as casual a tone as he could muster, and keeping his eyes fixed on the screen.

  As he spoke, he flicked rapidly through the channels, searching for something to distract her. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest and his face felt hot. He wiped his brow on his sleeve and realised he was sweating. The room seemed to close in on him and he felt as though he might suffocate.

  ‘Yes, that old thing,’ she concurred. ‘What happened to it?’

  ‘I returned it to the owner. I only borrowed it briefly to move some stuff for the garden. What do you want to watch?’

  But she refused to let the subject drop.

  ‘What stuff are you talking about?’

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing. I was planning to buy some bushes for the back garden but in the end I decided against it,’ he said, improvising quickly. ‘So I took the van back. Why do you ask?’

  He cursed himself for having forgotten that she had noticed the old van in the garage. He should have been thoroughly prepared for this conversation. Instead, he was caught off guard, and floundering.

  ‘Thomas, I think you need to speak to the police,’ Emily said.

  ‘The police?’ Suddenly he felt sick. He struggled to maintain his composure. ‘What are you talking about? What do we want with the police?’

  He gazed at the television screen, keeping his face impassive and hiding his consternation. He had a creeping cold feeling, as though he was sitting beside a complete stranger, all connection between them severed by an overwhelming need to protect himself. After all the care he had taken to avoid being seen driving the van, his own wife had noticed it, and was becoming suspicious of him. He tried to ignore what she had said, hoping she would forget about it.

  ‘Didn’t you hear what they were saying just now?’ she persisted. ‘They showed a picture of an old van and they asked if anyone had seen it. But you know what? I could swear it looked exactly like the one that was in our garage.’

  Thomas’s mouth felt dry, but he managed to force a laugh which sounded almost natural.

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ he said. ‘There must be thousands of vans just like that one knocking about in York.’

  ‘Even so, I think you should call the police and tell them about it, and who you borrowed it from. You could be passing on vital information.’

  He laughed again. ‘Don’t you think you’re being a touch melodramatic? Vital information? We’re talking about an old van I borrowed from a friend, that’s all.’

  Emily turned to him, her blue eyes troubled, and it occurred to him that if he refused to contact the police, she might do it herself. Somehow he had to stop her from interfering. With a sigh, he nodded.

  ‘Well, if it means that much to you, I’ll phone them now.’

  ‘Here,’ she said, passing him a magazine. ‘I made a note of the number to call. Can you see it there, at the top of the page?’

  With a shiver, he realised that she had been ready to phone the police to report seeing a grey van in their garage. Standing up, he offered her a drink. Then he went into the kitchen to pour himself a cold beer and pretend to call the police. He fiddled with his phone, and held it up to his ear, in case she walked in.

  ‘Hello, hello? I’m calling about the van you mentioned on the news a short while ago,’ he said, raising his voice enough to be audible in the living room.

  Emily was watching television and probably couldn’t hear a word he said.

  ‘Yes,’ he went on, as if in reply to a question. ‘Yes. Registration number? I can’t remember. The thing is, I borrowed an old grey van from a friend and returned it a few days ago and I thought – that is, my wife thought – I ought to report it, after we heard the appeal on the telly.’ He paused again. ‘His name? Yes.’

  Feeling foolish, he mumbled a fictitious name and a non-existent address into his silent phone. When he returned to the living room, Emily was absorbed in her quiz programme, and barely glanced up at him.

  ‘I called and told them about it,’ he said. ‘They asked me a few questions, but they didn’t seem very interested.’

  Emily grunted. ‘Well done, anyway.’

  Thomas sat down with a tremor of relief. Emily was totally oblivious to the danger he had just averted. He took a long gulp of his beer and felt it slither down his gullet, refreshingly cold.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want one?’ he asked.

  Emily shook her head. ‘No thanks. Too cold. America! The answer’s America.’

  Thomas turned to look at the show on television. It was an innocuous enough quiz with fairly easy questions, but he was too shocked to take anything in. He had a horrible sensation that he had lost his way. Even his wife had abandoned him, leaving him to face his difficulties alone. Well, so be it. Whatever happened, the police were never going to catch him. They would neither catch up with him, nor catch him out because he would do whatever was necessary to save himself. He glanced at Emily who was absorbed in the quiz show, busily crocheting with her eyes fixed on the screen. He wondered how her fingers could work so fast to produce so neat an outcome without her even looking at what she was doing.

  ‘What are you making there?’ he asked.

  ‘A scarf. It’s nearly finished,’ she replied, without taking her eyes off the screen.

  An image flashed across his mind of his blackmailer, the strap of her bag tightening around her neck, and he shuddered.

  ‘I need a refill,’ he said.

  He stood up and went to the kitchen. Emily didn’t even look up as he left the room. Crossing the hall, he did his best to dismiss the image of a dead prostitute lying on the floor, her eyes staring glassily up at him. A gulp of cold beer restored him to his senses, and he began to relax. All of that horror was behind him. He just had to hold his nerve and keep his head down. As long as he was careful not to break the law, he had nothing to worry about. It was possible the police had found traces of his DNA in the old van, but that was of no consequence. They had no way of tracing it back to him. He had never been charged with committing a crime, and so had never been asked to supply a sample of his DNA. Calmly he returned to the living room where Emily was still watching the quiz and doing her crochet as though he had never left the room. With a smile, he sat down and began watching the show.

  ‘Do you think he’ll be caught?’ Emily asked.

  Thomas shook his head. ‘No, I think I’ve got away with it.’

  ‘I hope so. I quite like him.’

  With a start, Thomas realised she was talking about the contestant on the quiz show but he had answered for himself, and he made a mental note to be more careful of what he said in future. He could so easily be fooled into giving himself away. From now on, he resolved to drink less and remain constantly vigilant. He couldn’t afford to make any mistakes.

  52

  Ian spent an anxious weekend alone in his flat, not daring to go out in case one of Tod’s men was watching him. He tried to call Jack several times, but his senior officer didn’t pick up, and Ian left more than one cryptic voicemail without hearing back. He checked his messages repeatedly and watched the news online, but could find nothing about the club being searched, nor did he see anything about a drug gang being busted. By the time he was called in to Jack’s office on Monday morning, he had begun to suspect something had gone badly wrong at the club, and the raid hadn’t happened after all. Taking care not to be seen, he hurried to the police station, satisfied that he had completed his part of the job, and excited to finally have an opportunity to discuss the success of the mission which had so far been kept quiet. Expecting to be greeted with enthusiasm, he was disappointed to be kept waiting in the corr
idor outside Jack’s office, like a school boy in trouble with the headmaster. At last he was summoned and, taking a deep breath, he entered the office.

  ‘How’s the eye?’ Jack asked, without looking up. ‘You all right?’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Ian replied. ‘I’m okay.’

  ‘We’ve been through all the contacts you sent us,’ Jack said, without any further preamble. ‘And we’ve sent samples of the gear off to the lab. Jesus, Ian, there’s enough there to supply a small army.’

  His next words shocked Ian.

  ‘Now you need to return it all, exactly as it was handed to you.’

  ‘I’m not sure I understand, Guv.’

  ‘It’s a simple enough instruction. You’re to take the case back to Tod. He thinks you had it stashed in your lodgings, doesn’t he?’

  Ian nodded. Of course he hadn’t been able to tell Jack about his conversation with Tod. No one but Tod knew that Ian had revealed his true identity to him.

  ‘Now we’ve finished going through every corner of the club, he’s going to want it back, isn’t he? We’ve replaced everything exactly as it was and locked the case again, so he won’t suspect we’ve been through it. There’s not a tab missing, not a gram. It’s all there, at least as far as anyone can tell. He can check through the whole damn lot and not spot any sign that we’ve been through it all.’

  Ian frowned. ‘You’re telling me you want me to take it back?’

  ‘Yes. I think I made that clear. You can return the case. It’s all there.’

  ‘I don’t understand what’s going on,’ Ian protested. ‘Aren’t we going to arrest them all and be done with it? You’ve got plenty of evidence. You said so yourself. There’s no point dragging it out, and the longer we delay, the greater the risk they’re going to smell a rat. I know Tod trusts me – he would never have handed me all that incriminating evidence if he didn’t. But guys like that can change their mind on a whim. Believe me, I’ve spent enough time with Tod to know that he’s volatile. No, he’s worse than volatile. He’s crazy. You can’t rely on anything he says. He can change his mind like flipping a switch. One minute you’re his best friend, the next he’ll have you taken out and shot. Now you’ve got enough to put him away for a long time, I don’t understand why you would want to delay and give him an opportunity to slip through our fingers. As long as he’s at large, there’s a chance Frank will manage to get a message to him and alert him to what’s happened. These people have spies everywhere.’

  Jack shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Ian. I understand you’re keen we jump in right away and make as many arrests as we can. In your shoes I’d be thinking just the same. But it’s not that simple.’

  ‘It seems perfectly simple to me,’ Ian replied coldly, feeling increasingly uneasy. ‘You’ve got enough evidence to put the whole lot of them away. What’s the problem?’

  ‘Just take the stuff back,’ Jack said. ‘Those are your instructions. We’re not done with Tod yet.’

  ‘What are you talking about? How can I take it back? This is it. We’ve got them. It’s over.’

  ‘It’s over when I say it’s over. Come on, don’t look so down,’ Jack said. ‘We just want you to keep up the pretence for a while. It won’t be for much longer. We’ll have them all behind bars soon enough.’

  ‘Why on earth would you want to leave a drug dealer like Tod at liberty when you’re in a position to lock him up for life? It makes no sense. It’s madness,’ Ian blurted out, losing patience and momentarily forgetting the deference due to his senior officer.

  Jack stared resolutely at Ian, his eyes sharp. ‘All right, you might as well know. I’ve spoken to Tod, and we’ve come to an accommodation.’

  ‘An accommodation? What the hell does that mean?’

  ‘There’s no need to look so shocked. It’s the best possible result. In fact everything’s worked out perfectly. Don’t you see, with the mass of evidence we’ve got on him – the evidence you gathered – we’ve got Tod bang to rights. In exchange for us backing off, he’s going to lead us to the really big fish. So far all we have is the chain below him. We want to move higher up the line, and find out who’s behind the drugs flooding the city, and where they’re coming from. You have no idea how useful Tod’s going to be.’ He tapped a file on his desk and smiled. ‘We’ve got so much evidence against him, Tod’s going to sing like a bird for us until we’re ready to haul him in.’

  With a shiver, Ian recalled Tod saying Ian would ‘sing like a bird’ before Frank slit his throat. ‘Slowly.’

  ‘You’re no better than he is,’ he muttered crossly.

  ‘You know that’s not true,’ Jack replied, clearly stung by the accusation. ‘Scum like Tod are in it for profit. Listen, this is the break we’ve been waiting for, Ian. It’s taken us a long time to get to where we are today. Thanks to you, we’re in a position to blow the whole damned set-up apart.’

  But Ian had heard enough. He was furious to learn about the deal Jack had struck with Tod. After everything Ian had been through, Tod was getting away with it. Not only that, but Jack had used Ian shamelessly, without revealing what he was up to.

  ‘You played me,’ Ian said. ‘This is what you had in mind all along, isn’t it? You never intended to arrest Tod. You wanted to use him to get to someone else, just like you used me to get to Tod.’

  ‘That’s the nature of the job,’ Jack replied quietly. ‘I warned you right from the start, this is a dirty game we’re involved in. If you’re not tough enough to play, return to your former post and carry on with your duties there. I can take it from here now I have evidence of Tod’s involvement.’

  ‘You’re involved in the dirt yourself, right up to your neck,’ Ian said, fuming. ‘Well, do what you like with the evidence I brought you. I quit.’

  Jack barely reacted to Ian’s outburst. ‘That’s your choice,’ he said quietly. ‘This line of work isn’t for everyone.’

  ‘It’s not for anyone with a shred of decency,’ Ian retorted.

  ‘You’d rather we sat back and allowed a few scruples to stop us doing everything possible to stop these drugs flooding our streets?’

  ‘So you’re saying the ends justify the means, whatever those means might be?’

  Jack nodded curtly. ‘And if we step outside the law from time to time, it’s for the greater good. Can you honestly claim you never do the same when you’re tracking down a murderer?’

  Ian stalked out of the room and waited until Jack could no longer hear him before he muttered under his breath. ‘Two wrongs don’t make anything right, and you know it. Or are you too far gone to remember we’re supposed to be on the side of law and order? At least I can tell right from wrong.’

  But he wasn’t sure that was still true. He had been as disingenuous as Jack in pursuing his own ends. At least Jack’s agenda had been professional, while Ian’s was purely personal, which made it far worse.

  53

  Geraldine spent the entire weekend poring over CCTV footage with the visual images identifications and detections team, searching for the battered old van in which Pansy’s body had been transported to Acomb Wood. Nothing the VIIDO team had watched so far had given them a single sighting of the vehicle they were looking for out on the road, but Geraldine refused to let them relax the search.

  ‘We’re not going to give up until we find it,’ she said. ‘That van has to be out there. It didn’t fly into Hagg Wood. Someone drove it there.’

  She ignored the looks her colleagues exchanged, and their raised eyebrows. It didn’t matter to her if they thought she was crazy, as long as they kept searching until they found what they were looking for.

  ‘It has to be here somewhere,’ she insisted. ‘No vehicle can travel on the streets of York without passing a single camera anywhere. It’s just not possible. It has to be there, and we’re going to find it.’

  When she and her co
lleagues failed to come up with anything useful after searching for three days, she broadened the search instructions.

  ‘Show me any grey van at all, even if it looks nothing like the one found in the woods. Isolate any shots of any grey van on the road. I want to see them all, every single one. Don’t be selective. Any grey van.’

  ‘There may be an awful lot of them,’ one of the constables objected. He yawned. ‘We have to be a bit selective, or we could be at this forever. At least we know the registration number of the van we’re looking for. That narrows it down.’

  ‘That’s just the problem,’ Geraldine replied. ‘We’ve been narrowing it down too much. Now we start again, and this time, don’t discount anything.’

  ‘But what if we spot a van with a different registration number?’ one of her colleagues asked. ‘I mean, if we can see the number plate, surely there’s no point in spending hours trying to find out where it comes from.’

  ‘Ignore number plates,’ Geraldine said.

  ‘But we know the registration number of the van,’ the first constable repeated.

  ‘Never mind that,’ Geraldine insisted. ‘The number plates could have been changed before the van was driven on the road, and then changed back once it was hidden in the trees.’

  The VIIDO officers exchanged another glance, and then set to work again with a will. Geraldine worked with them, studying every frame of every image containing a grey van. After four days, she was seeing grey vans whenever she closed her eyes, and wondering why on earth she had embarked on this futile exercise, when her attention was caught by a detail that looked faintly familiar. Comparing the image of a grey van driving past a sports club near Dunnington with pictures of the van that had been used to transport Pansy’s body, she hesitated. The van that had been found in the woods was covered in multiple dents and scratches, and was clearly going to look very different now to when it had first arrived at the woods, before it had been taken on its damaging drive through the trees. But there was one detail that appeared to match in the two images she was comparing.