Games with the Dead

by James Nally

  ‘Strangeways here we come,’ he smiles. I look around, expecting to see Gary’s smirking face. When I don’t, I start to tremble uncontrollably, like a rattling junkie.

  I’m a serving police officer on my way to the country’s most notorious prison. If anyone inside gets even a whisper of who I am, I’m dead. Worse than that, they’ll torture me in ways that will make death welcome.

  I can’t face this. I just can’t. Fuck Gary’s test and mantras; first chance I get, I’m calling him, demanding that he gets me the hell out of this, while he still has the chance.

  Chapter 44

  Strangeways Prison, Manchester

  Thursday, June 30, 1994; 13.00

  I’m locked in a single cell on ‘K’ wing for vulnerable prisoners. I’m told it’s a new policy for first-timers, until they consider me ‘settled in’. Barely dried blood on the floor and wall suggest I’m bearing up better than the last occupant. For now.

  I ask to make a call; they ignore me. I ask to speak with a solicitor; they say, you’re on remand, you’ll just have to wait. Now I’m scared. I’m in the belly of the beast, a Category A prison, the butt-fuck motel. Does Gary even know I’m here? Surely, I can make one call. Gary has got to come and sort this out!

  When my door is unlocked at 5pm for ‘chow and association’, I refuse to come out. Frankly I don’t care for the food or the company.

  Lockdown at 8.30pm signals meltdown. At last, I can drop the front and cry.

  As night falls, the screws vanish and the whole place erupts like a zoo. Shouting, banging, laughing, wailing; it’s the soundtrack to drug-fuelled release and torment.

  I can’t sleep a wink, so constantly repeat Gary’s mantra: Paranoia is a soul eater. It doesn’t stop my mind straying into the darkest crevices. Courtesy of my mobile phone, police in Stoke must’ve figured out by now that I’m some sort of undercover officer-of-the-law. Who else is finding this out while I’m stuck in here? It takes just one bent cop, one quick call. Prison officers are notoriously corrupt. Who’s to say word hasn’t already reached the lifers on C wing who have nothing left to lose? I can’t risk taking a single step outside of that cell door. But what’s to stop them getting in here during association? Maybe I’d be safer out there, where at least the screws can keep an eye on me. All I know for certain is that I can’t hack this, whatever the hell is going on.

  Next morning, a prison guard tells me I’ve got a legal visit. Only when he reassures me that the rest of the prison is still in overnight lockdown do I follow him out of that cell.

  The woman in the visiting room looks like an Asian Salma Hayek; I hope she’s here to spring one Irish Desperado. She stands to reveal a short, tight-fitting charcoal-grey skirt and a clingy white blouse. She must have known she’d be coming here today when she dressed this morning. What is she trying to do, trigger another Strangeways riot?

  ‘Hi Donal, I’m Farhana Dar, your solicitor,’ she says.

  ‘Who sent you? Who’s paying you?’

  ‘It’s not unknown for prisons to bug visiting rooms. Can I just tell you where we’re at with getting you out of here?’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘We’ve got another court date this afternoon where we’ll reapply for bail. Representations will be made directly to the judge in chambers.’

  ‘By who?’

  She looks at me in amused disbelief.

  ‘Hopefully you won’t have to stick it out here much longer.’

  ‘Hopefully?’

  ‘We’re doing our best, Donal.’

  Chapter 45

  Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire

  Friday, July 1, 1994; 11.30

  I emerge from Stoke Crown Court relieved, aggrieved and in fevered search of a drink. They must have called the nearest pub The Oak as a joke. Or maybe they knocked a few down to make room for this rancid old shack.

  I’d heard how people who’ve spent years in prison show classic tell-tale signs on release. They wait for people to open doors for them and hate the tang of metal cutlery. My electing to drink outside in the semi-derelict pub garden shows just how poorly I’d managed to cope with a mere eighteen hours of confinement. I couldn’t face months or years of it; not without getting out of my head every night on hooch, or worse. But then I need to get out of my head every night just to survive civilian life …

  ‘You did good,’ says a familiar voice behind me.

  I turn to see Gary at the door, wearing that wryly amused look that’s starting to grate.

  ‘Can I get you another?’ he says.

  ‘Yes, you can,’ I snap, moody and wounded. ‘Then you can tell me what the hell that was all about.’

  Gary brings out two for me, one for himself. He starts with the Keele Services bust.

  ‘Ray Briggs had to tell his connections they lost all of their gear. They took it okay. They had their own people on the plot so they saw what happened. A random stop by motorway cops. That’s just rotten luck.’

  I shake my head. ‘Come on, Gary, you’re constantly banging on about trust and how crucial it is that I tell you everything. This has to be a two-way street. Did you set this whole thing up?’

  He takes a shark-like glug of his real ale.

  ‘Sorry you had to sit tight for a couple of days. Well done not panicking and calling me. Well done not calling anyone. The thing is, we normally have weeks or months to train up a UC. Because of all the hoopla surrounding Molly Parker-Rae, we had to find a way to fast-track candidates so we can get someone in this weekend. Look, Donal, if you’re still interested, you’ve been selected for the role.’

  I’m speechless. ‘So, you did set me up then, to boost my credentials?’

  He remains inscrutable. ‘If you agree to take it, you can let your ex know, but no one else, especially not your brother. Are you in?’

  I want to say yes, but I’ve just endured one of the most terrifying ordeals of my life. Throughout it all, I’d no idea what was really going on. I need assurances that I’ll be protected.

  ‘The thing is, Gary, how am I supposed to infiltrate this hardcore criminal gang, when they don’t know me from Adam?’

  ‘You’re right to ask. We’ve got someone already on the inside, someone you know.’

  I can’t disguise my anxiety.

  ‘He’s just inside the door there, waiting to make his grand entrance. Come on out,’ he shouts.

  I turn and feel my mouth drop.

  ‘I don’t know why I’m agreeing to this, Lynch,’ he laughs. ‘You nearly got me killed last time.’

  Bernard Moss, the people-hating, dog-loving, IRA-supporting ex-British soldier, steps out into the ramshackle garden.

  ‘Last I heard, you were being filleted by Jimmy Reilly,’ I say, reeling from his manly shoulder slaps.

  Bernie is one of those complex but gifted chancers who seems to constantly straddle that blurred line between criminality and intelligence. He’s got form for all sorts – GBH, threats to kill, fraud – but also a medal of commendation from the Met, awarded for our work together last year.

  With no more noble a motive than saving his own ass, Bernie helped me launch a sting operation targeting his boss, notorious London villain Jimmy Reilly. The sting took down Reilly but it was Bernie who wound up at the sharp end, literally; twenty-four stab wounds delivered by his apoplectic boss on realising he’d been betrayed. I didn’t know a human body could bleed that much and survive.

  Bernie recovered and retired to Norfolk with a hefty Met pay-off, to write his best-selling autobiography – Nutters! – and consult on several dubious TV series that shamelessly glorified ‘hard man’ criminals.

  ‘What brings you back from the fens or the broads or whatever they call that God-forsaken part of the world, Bernie?’ I ask.

  ‘I got bored, Donal. Missed the mischief, I suppose,’ he says in his sing-song Brummie accent. ‘And I’ve learned that you can trust criminals a hell of lot more than anyone who works in publishing or TV.’

  ‘I don’
t doubt it. So, you’ve got the inside track on the Slough/Windsor rave scene then?’

  ‘It’s a long story. Let’s save it for the journey home.’

  By the time Gary’s jag roars onto the M6, Bernie’s in full flow. ‘What you’ve got to understand about the guys who run the scene down there – Shaw, Walsh and Regan – is they snort a lot of coke and take a lot of steroids. The result is known as ‘roid rage’ and it ain’t pretty. News about Molly breaks and they’re driving around to their suppliers kicking the shit out of them, saying one of them must’ve delivered a contaminated batch. They used lighter fluid on one poor bastard, set his hair on fire.

  ‘A couple of days later, they learn that it wasn’t the E that killed Molly. They go back around the suppliers declaring: “Business as usual”. Except the suppliers have got the major hump now and claim they can’t get hold of any.

  ‘Regan and co. are in a right flap. Got four clubs running Thursday to Sunday night and fuck all E to sell to the punters.’

  As ever, I’m struggling to keep up.

  ‘Hang on, Bernie, what’s your connection with this lot?’

  ‘Like I said, I got bored and I wanted to get back into the game, so I did what anyone needs to do to fast-track into criminality. You remember the criminal Holy Trinity, Donal; Slap, Scrap and Crap. I set up a security firm to supply bouncers, a scrapyard to crush getaway cars and a waste disposal furnace to destroy evidence. Suddenly I’m indispensable. I made sure the book gave no hint as to who I was really working for when we put Jimmy Reilly away, so they see me as someone who boosts their credibility.’

  I nod. ‘So when they run out of E suppliers, of course you step in to save the day.’

  ‘You’re learning, Lynch. Finally. I took one of their muppets to one side. This kid’s always desperate to impress them. I tell him he can save the day by saying he knows a guy on the Liverpool scene who might be able to help us out and get us a lorryload of E in a hurry.

  ‘They ask me to check this guy out. I discover you’re a mid-level player with a lab in Dublin looking to export E and weed. You already supply some major firms in Liverpool that you’ve got family connections with. They know I’ve got family up there too. Through them, I’ve been able to connect with you.

  ‘You’ve had some bad luck lately, which means you’re having to lie low and stay away from Liverpool for a few months.’

  He produces a copy of today’s Liverpool Echo, opens it at page seven, points to the left-hand column.

  Busted! Cops Smash £3M Drugs Ring

  A massive haul of high-grade cannabis destined for the Walton area of Liverpool has been intercepted, police revealed today.

  Cops swooped on a Ford Transit van at Keele Services on the M6 and discovered drugs inside with a street value of £3 million. ‘It’s our biggest value haul so far this year,’ said DI Gerry Macken of Liverpool drugs squad. ‘We must give credit to our colleagues in Staffordshire for responding to intelligence we received and co-operating fully.’

  Donal Lynch, 25, of Sandymount, Dublin was arrested at the scene and has been charged with drugs offences.

  Gary registers my rage via his rear-view mirror.

  ‘Look, Donal, I had to get that load of cannabis off the streets, but I also needed to build your cover. It was my idea to get the traffic cops to stumble across it almost by accident, so that the people you were working for wouldn’t smell a rat.

  ‘Liverpool weren’t supposed to make it look like it came out of their brilliant intelligence network. That’s pissed me off. On the plus side, crims don’t believe a word the police say. They saw for themselves it was a bad luck thing.

  ‘The main thing is, having been held in Strangeways and charged, there can be no doubt that you’re a middleweight drugs trafficker with connections. It’s there in black and white.’

  I still feel like I’m only being shown what they want me to see.

  ‘What about my phone?’ I ask.

  ‘We were able to wipe it remotely.’

  ‘What about the drugs trafficking charge then? We can’t have me getting off and local plod suspecting I’m either undercover or a grass.’

  Gary smiles: ‘We can make it drag on for months, Donal, without anybody knowing anything. Then we’ll reveal you’ve skipped to Dublin. Everyone knows what a nightmare extradition is from there right now. Trust me, we’re masters of inefficiency and bungling bureaucracy when we need to be. And when we don’t, for that matter.’

  I turn back to Bernie: ‘What other ways are you checking me out, you know, for them?’

  He speaks to Gary: ‘I think it’s time Donal here got to see his new home?’

  Gary smiles. ‘We can swing round there as soon as we hit north London.’

  ‘Déjà vu,’ I say as we turn into the Woodberry Housing Estate near Finsbury Park, a high-rise complex so grim that Spielberg used it to double for the war-torn Warsaw slums in Schindler’s List. It holds more recent history for Bernie and me.

  We park in front of Wandle House, a five-storey, red-brick block, pockmarked with satellite dishes and sad-face clothes lines. I follow Bernie to the stairwell.

  ‘Another way they might check you out is to sniff around your gaff. We’ve made this look like a typical dealer’s lair.’

  Sure enough, number 16 on the first floor looks prepped for the Apocalypse. The front door is stitched shut by five heavy-duty locks. The front window is blocked inside by a mattress.

  Bernie hands me a bunch of keys and watches me take ten minutes to crack this fortress.

  ‘You’d better work on that,’ he says, chuckling to himself. ‘You never know when you might need to get in here in a hurry. Or out for that matter.’

  The door opens to a studio flat containing a futon and little else. We hover awkwardly in the lack of space.

  ‘It’s a bit like where I slept last night,’ I say. ‘But with slightly less character.’

  ‘We’ll make sure uniform come around here looking for you a couple of times a week,’ says Gary. ‘The neighbours will think you’re Pablo Escobar. You might want to get friendly with one and ask him to make a note of the times/dates they call. Maybe slip him a twenty for the intel. It’s all about building cover. But this is your home now until this job is over. You live here and nowhere else, understood? Right, I’ve got to run. Bernie can fill you in on the rest.’

  I open the front door and stand aside to let him pass.

  He stops to face me. ‘You’ve shown you’re made of the right stuff, Donal. You’ll do great. Just remember; paranoia is a soul eater. Never get caught in a lie. And, where possible, never have the merchandise and the money on the same plot.’

  ‘Got it,’ I say, thinking easier said than done.

  ‘I’ve agreed to act as your handler on this. So keep in touch, okay? And try not to get bounced into anything before checking in with me first.’

  I return to the bedsit, find Bernie leaning against the kitchen counter.

  ‘What do you drive?’ he asks, out of the blue.

  ‘A maroon family saloon, funnily enough, Bernie.’

  ‘You can’t use your own car for any of this. The DVLA is too vulnerable. Have you got access to a decent set of wheels that can’t be traced to you?’

  ‘Funnily enough, yes. My brother has commandeered a sporty Porsche from a work colleague.’

  ‘Perfect. One last thing. Computers, the internet, this is the new frontier. Everyone reckons internet fraud is the promised land so all these wannabe villains have got geeks on their payroll now, covering that side of things. I’ll make sure our geek provides the last, crucial part of your cover.’

  ‘And what’s that?’ I ask, genuinely stumped.

  ‘There are two search engines on the web, Yahoo and Mosaic. If Tate or any of his goons search your name, they’ll come across several articles about your father.’

  ‘What’s he got to do with anything?’

  ‘Ah come on, Donal. Why do you really think you’ve been pic
ked for this? The only thing that’s making anyone sit up and pay attention is your dad and his connections to the IRA. That’s the part of your cover story we can use to make you untouchable.’

  Chapter 46

  Pease Pottage, West Sussex

  Friday, July 1, 1994; 17.00

  Barrelling along ‘Sunset Boulevard’ towards Brighton, I realise it’s been over two weeks since Fintan and I discovered Julie Draper’s body.

  Meanwhile, I’ve lost a girlfriend, a job and two nights’ liberty.

  It had all seemed worthwhile six hours ago, when Gary told me I’d been selected for the task of infiltrating the country’s most wanted drugs gang. I felt I’d finally achieved something as a police officer, purely on my own merit – even if it had required me getting busted with a load of drugs. Now, like so much in my life, this achievement feels tinged by his shadow.

  ‘The only thing that’s making anyone sit up and pay attention is your dad and his connections to the IRA.’

  He may as well have said: You’re nothing special, Donal. You weren’t even the best candidate. But who else can boast a terrorist for a dad?

  I left Ireland to get away from Da. I joined the British police force – his sworn enemy – to drive an intractable wedge between us. He rose spectacularly to the bait, declaring that he never wanted to clap eyes on me again.

  Mam got ill so we tried to rub along, for her sake. I know he loved her, in his own bloody-minded, irascible way. But the sheer scale of his moral and political hypocrisy made it impossible for me to respect him. As he made clear at Mam’s funeral, the feeling is mutual.

  Yes still, somehow, he guides my destiny, and he doesn’t even own a fucking Rolex. Can you ever truly escape your parents and their sins?

  My mind turns to Julie Draper who’d been working so hard to escape her humble roots. Her dad, Bill, had spent his entire life on the assembly line of a local forklift plant. Julie wanted more. She’d already achieved more; selling houses with such efficiency that her commission alone trebled what her dad brought home in wages. But, as Fintan’s cub reporter confirmed, precious stones were her real passion. She’d topped her gemology class; her eye for uncut stones had already brought her to Antwerp’s famous diamond district and earned her thousands. Had she been drawn into shady circles beyond her scope of understanding?