by Adam Croft
‘Right, is everyone ready?’ he asked, well aware that there would be a mixture of excitement, anticipation and nervousness amongst the officers. These were the sorts of things people went into the police force for. The adrenaline before a dawn raid was unbeatable. But there weren’t many people who could be anything other than nervous at the thought of kicking down the door of an establishment like this, knowing what was inside and that they were likely to face gunfire.
Once everyone was assembled into their groups and pairings, he waved for them to follow him silently. The next words spoken out loud would be to announce their presence to those inside.
56
The atmosphere of anticipation was palpable. They were approaching the moment when all of the planning and waiting would be over. The moment the first battering ram hit the door, everything would swing into action. The occupants would be immediately aware of what was happening, and getting in as quickly as possible would be vital. Every second gave them a chance to dispose of evidence or try to make a run for it — or even reach for weapons — so they had to make sure the entry was as swift and diligent as possible.
Doing it whilst everyone was likely asleep was a tactical manoeuvre. It would give the police a slight edge, confusing the bleary-eyed occupants for a moment or two.
Culverhouse knew from the witness statements that Zoran and Milan provided that there would be at least one person awake at all times in the main entrance area to the building. He would have to be their first priority. He also strongly suspected that there would be some form of CCTV on the front and back of the building. Steve and Frank had told him how Cummings had simply knocked and been allowed in. Somewhere that secretive and illegal wouldn’t just let any old person in without having seen who it was first.
That meant they’d have to move in convoy from their rendezvous point round the corner and immediately enforce entry. The firearms lads would be right behind the officers with the battering ram, who’d step aside once the door was breached. The frontline officers were fully kitted out with body armour and riot gear, knowing they were likely to face an onslaught and potential gunfire.
Every firearms officer was trained to do everything they could not to fire their weapon, but in the event of needing to there were two shots that could be deployed.
The primary shot would be to aim for the centre of the body mass, aiming to disable the threat. The officer would need to rapidly assess the situation following that shot and, if necessary, fire again. Either way, it was vital that the officer could justify every shot fired.
If the firearms officer saw that a shot was about to be fired by a suspect or that there was an immediate and critical threat, he would swiftly dispatch a bullet to the centre of the face, aiming through the nose in order to take out the brain stem. There were no warning shots, no ‘disabling’ shots to the legs, no announcement.
It was standard procedure in the UK that an officer discharging his firearm would be immediately suspended from duties on full pay whilst an investigation took place. It was usually a formality; an insurance policy to ensure that British firearms officers only discharged their weapons when absolutely necessary: when lives were in imminent danger. It was a policy which meant that rates of deaths and injuries from firearms in Britain were some of the lowest in the world. Armed criminals knew that the highly-trained officers were firearms specialists, and that there was no way they were leaving alive if they even considered firing their weapons. But, at the same time, there was no risk of rising tensions and antagonism caused by officers wading into a scene with their weapons firing.
Despite all the extensive training and regular drills, it was something no firearms officer ever felt prepared for. Although they’d been heavily trained over the course of years, it was still an act they hoped they’d never have to carry out. After all, setting out to deliberately kill was the absolute opposite of everything they’d joined the police force for.
Once he was satisfied that everyone was ready, he gave the nod to the two lead officers: one who would lead his team to the front of the property, and the other, who’d attack the rear entrance.
Culverhouse kept back, out of the way of the highly-trained officers and — crucially — out of the line of gunfire. He watched as the two teams split and went their different ways. The two lead officers were in constant contact via earpieces and encrypted radio, to which Culverhouse was listening in. This was to ensure the two teams could communicate dangers and ensure they reached their respective entrances at the same time, in order to maximise impact and minimise the chances of escape or destruction of evidence.
He watched as the battering ram was swung back, then brought crashing into the lock mechanism of the front door, barely two seconds after the team had assembled on the doorstep. It took three swings for the front door to fly open on its hinges, the armed officers rushing through with cries of ‘STOP! ARMED POLICE!’
Jack took the earpiece out of his ear for a few moments, his head ringing with the sound of a dozen officers shouting all at once. Despite this, he could still hear the noise — both through the earpiece that now dangled against his chest, and from the property itself, almost fifty yards away.
‘ARMED POLICE, GET DOWN!’
‘DOWN ON THE FLOOR, HANDS BEHIND YOUR BACK!’
‘TWO MALES DETAINED!’
They’d barely been in the building thirty seconds when the first people were brought out and bundled into the waiting police vehicles, which were now starting to pull up on the road outside the property. Nearby police stations had been put on notice that there would be an unknown number of people arrested in the dawn raid, and that extra cell space might be required.
Culverhouse had been clear: the boys who were being kept there against their will could be held and interviewed anywhere, but he wanted the perpetrators to be taken to Mildenheath, where he could interview them himself. This was an opportunity he wasn’t going to pass up.
57
Sergeant Barry Farnell sat Jack down and ran through the list of people who’d been detained inside the building. He’d been one of the lead firearms officers on the raid, and needed to brief the DCI on what they’d found.
‘From what we can ascertain, there were two security guards and one other male — they’re the guys we assume were running the show. Everyone else is believed to have been kept there against their will. We’re looking at five males, all under the age of twenty-five, plus the three employees.’
‘Right. And who’s the other male?’ Culverhouse asked.
‘We don’t know. He won’t speak. The security guards haven’t spoken either, other than to tell us they were security guards. As if that was going to make us let them go.’
Jack wondered if they were the two men who’d been driving the Peugeot Expert van, but he doubted it. He was fairly certain this outfit had plenty more people working for it, and fingers that reached into many corners of the country — and further afield.
‘We’ll speak to the other guy first. We’ve got an idea of what we want to ask, and it doesn’t look like we’ve got anything new from the raid itself that’ll change that, have we?’
Sergeant Farnell shook his head. ‘No. Funnily enough they didn’t have filing cabinets full of papers. There were some smartphones and tablets knocking about, which we presume most stuff was kept on. Appointments, payments, that sort of stuff. I imagine they’re probably heavily protected and encrypted, particularly if we’re talking links with Russia and Eastern European gangsters.’
Culverhouse nodded slowly. He never thought he’d see the day when he’d hear those words spoken in Mildenheath Police Station. Sometimes he despaired at what his town had become.
‘Have we pulled out yet?’ he asked.
‘No. We’ve still got people in there looking for evidence, taking fingerprints, everything. With any luck we’ll have some witness statements from the boys, too, although I imagine most of them will be pretty bloody petrified. We might have a job getting them t
o talk. I don’t think many of them will fancy waking up with a horse’s head on their pillows.’
‘That was the Italians. Sicilian Mafia.’
‘Yeah, I know, but you get the point. The neighbours seemed pretty shocked. None of them had any idea that was going on right under their noses, apparently.’
Culverhouse tried to summon up a note of positivity, but he couldn’t. Instead, he sighed. ‘Doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.’
58
Jack Culverhouse sat down next to Wendy Knight, opposite a man who looked like a cross between Action Man and a professional wrestler. He’d asked Wendy to join him on the interview for a reason. He knew her style was very different to his, and they tended to be able to elicit far more from a suspect as a team than either of them would do on their own.
The man elected not to have a solicitor present. He knew the firm that ran the operation would likely have a brief on their books, but many organised criminals chose not to wheel them out in the first interview. It was almost a form of power play: as if it would intimidate the police officers to see that the suspect was confident enough to be interviewed without a solicitor. Many lower-level criminals thought it was an admission of guilt to have a brief present, but the truth was they were far more likely to be charged if they tried representing themselves. The high-level criminals knew this, and they knew the police knew they knew. That was where the power play came in.
The man had given the name John Smith to the custody sergeant. Although they knew that wasn’t his real name, that would be his problem. With an identity — albeit a false one — they could process him and interview him. It would be his responsibility to explain in court the decision to hide his true identity.
‘Mr Smith,’ Culverhouse said with a smile. ‘A nice local name. Whereabouts are you from?’
‘Ipswich,’ the man replied, in a thick Russian accent. Culverhouse tried not to laugh.
‘Well, that’s certainly east of here, so we’re somewhere approaching the truth. I must admit, though, I’m getting a slight hint of a foreign twang. Were you born in Ipswich?’
‘No, Bury St Edmunds.’
‘Ah. Yes. That’d be it. So how did you end up working in Mildenheath as a… Sorry, what is it you do?’
‘Receptionist.’
‘Yes. Well you’ve certainly got the striking good looks and the charming customer service qualities. Which company is it you work for?’
‘Financial services.’
Jack made a show of writing this down in his notebook.
‘I see. And the young lads in the bedsits were what, counting the money?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘No. They live on site and perform sexual favours for clients in exchange for payment, don’t they?’
‘Like I said. Financial services.’
‘Mmmm. I’m not quite sure that comes under the umbrella of financial services, if I’m honest. Sexual services in exchange for financial recompense, perhaps. Is that what happens?’
‘It is perfectly legal for a man to have sex with another man, no?’
‘Yes, of course it is.’
‘And it is also legal to provide sex in exchange for money, no?’
‘Yes. But it’s illegal to procure sex in exchange for money.’
‘We are not procuring.’
‘No, but you are facilitating it. Running a brothel is illegal in this country.’
The man moved his head from side to side, cracking his neck. ‘It is not a brothel. And I do not run it.’
‘If more than one person offers sex in exchange for money from that property, it’s a brothel.’
‘Then you need to prove this.’
Wendy decided she’d take the initiative. ‘Do you think we don’t already have evidence that that’s what’s been going on? We don’t just raid properties at random.’
‘Then you need to charge me.’
The man seemed cool and confident, but Jack and Wendy knew this was all part of the game.
Culverhouse leaned forward. ‘But you’re right. I’m willing to believe you don’t run it. You’re just another cog in the machine. Another yes man. Who’s your boss? Who do you report to?’
The man clenched his teeth. ‘I report to no-one.’
Culverhouse could see this was an avenue worth exploring. ‘I thought you said you didn’t run the place? You can’t be top dog and absolved of all responsibility at the same time. You’re more lapdog than top dog, aren’t you? Who’s in charge?’
The man looked at him with steely eyes. ‘I am in charge.’
‘And your name is…?’
‘John Smith.’
‘Your real name,’ Wendy said.
Neither of them had expected any answer other than another ‘John Smith’.
‘Dmitry Buryakov,’ the man said.
Jack and Wendy looked at each other.
‘Why are you telling us this now?’ Wendy said.
‘Because you asked.’
‘Up until now you told us your name was John Smith,’ Culverhouse said.
‘Up until now, I thought you might have something which could incriminate me. Now I know you have nothing.’
Culverhouse smiled. It was yet another power play, the equivalent of giving a police officer the keys to your house and inviting them to search it.
‘Right. Mr Buryakov. You’ve now got two names and two jobs. You’re John Smith and Dmitry Buryakov, plus you’re in charge but you don’t run the place. Is that about right?’
‘No. I’m Dmitry Buryakov and I am in charge.’
‘So you run the company who leases the building?’ Culverhouse asked. Dmitry said nothing. ‘What’s the name of that company again?’ Again, Dmitry was silent.
‘You don’t know, do you?’ Wendy asked.
‘No comment.’
‘No commenting doesn’t stop us asking questions. It just means that when the case gets to court you look uncooperative.’
‘If the case gets to court,’ Dmitry said. ‘First of all you need evidence. Then you need to charge me.’
‘Oh I’m fairly sure that won’t be a problem,’ Culverhouse said.
‘Good. Then you can take me back to my cell so I can have some more sleep. I was woken up at five-thirty this morning. Quite rude, I thought. When you have something that you consider to be evidence, we can speak again.’
Culverhouse leaned forward. ‘The UK’s witness protection schemes are the best in the world, you know? We have mutual arrangements with lots of other countries. You could go more or less anywhere in the world with a false name and job title. I quite like the sound of “John Smith, Not in Charge”, but that’s just my own personal opinion.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘Because I know you’re not the top dog here. I know you answer to someone else. And I know you’re hoping that if you keep your mouth shut and keep the rats from the door, you think you’ll be rewarded. But you won’t be. I can tell you that for nothing. Your paymasters have already had at least four people killed in the last week. Two of them we’re yet to identify. The other two were shot dead for speaking to us. Do you think you won’t go the same way?’
‘I haven’t spoken to you. I have told you nothing.’
‘They don’t need to know that, though, do they? Personally, I think you’ve been very cooperative. We’ve got more than enough to convict you and anyone else we find. Of course, you’ll tell your paymasters that you told us nothing. But then you would tell them that, wouldn’t you? And they’d expect you to tell them that. But even in the unlikely event that they believed you, you were captain of the ship when it went down. And that means a lot to high-level organised criminals. They value that sort of thing.
‘Listen, Dmitry. I’m sort of semi-willing to believe you were nothing more than a glorified receptionist. That’s not to say your job wasn’t important, of course, but I’m not one for picking the low-hanging fruit. I’m after the juiciest, ripest apples. They ten
d to sit right at the top of the tree, you see. But the low-hanging fruit is always picked first. Do you know what you do with apples when you pick too many? You wrap them in newspaper and store them somewhere cold and dark, hidden away. It stops them going bad, and it stops bad things getting to them. We’ve got plenty of newspaper and more than enough dark cupboards, Dmitry.’
‘I told you. I answer to nobody.’
Culverhouse looked at his watch. ‘By my reckoning, you’ve got just under twenty-one hours left before the time runs down on your custody clock. At that point, even if you’re charged, there’s a possibility you might be bailed. Then you’re on your own. We can’t do anything to help you once you walk out through that door.’
‘I don’t need your help. I don’t need anybody’s help.’
‘So you’re confident that you’ll be able to walk out of here and be completely safe? That no-one will come looking for you? That no-one will want to put a bullet in the back of your head? Because that’s what happened to Zoran Petrovic and Milan Nikolic. They’re the two boys who escaped from the property a few days ago. They were hunted down and shot like animals. That’s the sort of people we’re dealing with here, isn’t it?’
Dmitry looked at him for a moment.
‘I am not afraid of anybody.’
59
It had been a long time since Wendy had felt positive, but she could feel herself mending in more ways than one. Her injuries were now almost a distant memory — being back at work had helped that — and she’d taken stock in having made up her mind about her future. That in itself had jettisoned a lot of emotional baggage which she didn’t even realise she’d been carrying.
Information and evidence was coming in from the scene thick and fast, and the team were working hard to collate everything and try to build up enough of a body of evidence in order to charge Dmitry Buryakov and the two security guards.
