by Iain Cameron
Matt would have preferred to go after a violent thug like Vince Richards in the middle of the night and catch him woozy from sleep and in his jim-jams. To burst through the door of the business he owned with his brother, Richards Engineering, not long after lunch, felt to him like a bad move.
In some ways, he might have drawn the short straw. Rosie was in charge of a team heading to the gym where Jay Thomas worked out. By all accounts, he was a regular, a big guy, and muscled. Chances were, if they grabbed him in the middle of a bench press, the worst that could happen was he would start throwing five- and ten- kilogram weights around.
Inside an engineering business, Vince and his brother would have access to all manner of weapons with which to attack them. In addition, Richards was a notorious gun nut, evidenced by the new-model Sig which he’d handed to Karl Tamplin. Matt wouldn’t be worried if Richards attacked them with a large spanner, but if he managed to arm himself with a gun and hide in an office, they could have a violent stand-off on their hands.
Matt and his team parked in an adjacent road, close to their target: Martha Street in Shadwell. It was a real under-the-arches area, a line of businesses tucked beneath a railway bridge. Above it, trains trundled along every few minutes from central London, heading east into nearby Fenchurch Street Station. The arches were filled with all manner of businesses which were often found in similar locations: motor dealers, paint shops, wholesalers, food importers, and carpet retailers.
Without further delay, they exited their vehicles - Matt and Joseph Teller from Matt’s car, five armed coppers from the van. It was perhaps outmoded to believe people who worked in nearby businesses would see their raid on Richards Engineering as an attack on the neighbourhood. It was a response more common in the 1930s and 40s, but this didn’t mean Richards didn’t have friends. With this in mind, Matt had instructed the team to be in and out of the building without delay.
The door to the engineering business was closed and locked. This was perhaps not unusual, as the company didn’t deal with walk-in customers, but to Matt it still felt suspicious. It smacked of a discouragement to any nosey locals who were thinking of coming in for a chat and seeing what they were actually doing.
He’d instructed Joseph and one of the armed officers to make their way to Shadwell Place, where the back of the businesses on Martha Street faced. Knowing most business thefts took place through a building’s rear door, Matt had doubts about how realistic an escape through the back might be, but he couldn’t be too careful.
The door banger took four bangs to smash their way in. This didn’t come as a surprise to Matt as the equipment he expected to see inside: drills, hand tools, lathes and cutting machines, would be valuable to any thieves. In addition, the business had all the people, material, and machinery needed to fashion a decent door barrier.
Once inside the building, Matt was amazed at the size of the place; not its width, but the length. He didn’t dawdle, but swept through the building behind armed officers, looking for Vince Richards. He passed lathes, turning machines, large bench-mounted drills. He counted seven workers, all looking less surprised than they should have been to see a squad of cops bashing down the door and rushing into their place of work.
The noise made with all the machines running was loud, drowning out the sound made by their movement. He had instructed a couple of cops, to move among the workers, to stop them scarpering and have them shut their machines off.
In front of Matt, one of the officers tentatively opened a door at the end of the machine room. It led into a short corridor. Through the open door to the left they saw a small seating area filled with tables and chairs, the place where the men took their breaks. To the right, another door, which was closed. Pushing it open, they found the man of the moment, Vince Richards, and beside him, a man who looked like an older stunt double.
Judging by the amount of paperwork on the desk, they might have been doing their VAT return, but somehow Matt doubted it. At this moment, Vince was feverishly feeding documents through a shredder, while his companion was dropping paper into a blazing fire raging inside a wire waste basket.
Four burly coppers strode in, grabbed both men, and slapped handcuffs on them before they destroyed anything else. Richards was obviously too concerned about burning incriminating evidence to reach for a weapon, rendering Matt’s earlier concerns obsolete.
‘What the fuck’s going on?’ Vince’s companion asked. ‘This is a legit operation.’
‘Who are you?’ Matt asked.
‘Don Richards, I run this place. Me and my brother Vince here own it. It’s legit. You’ve no right coming in here like this.’
‘Don’t talk to me about rights; people in legit businesses don’t burn their records. Take them away.’
‘What the fuck are you playing at? What are you arresting us for?’
‘I’ll think of something.’
‘You fucker, I’ll have you. I’ve got my rights.’
The two men were led out, still mouthing their displeasure. Matt walked to the desk and sifted through the remaining paperwork. A minute or so later, Joseph appeared.
‘Hi mate, we got him and his brother. They’re being taken out to the police van.’
‘So I gathered. What’s that smell? Is there something burning?’
‘It’s the waste paper basket. They were trying to destroy these.’
Matt handed over a small sheaf of papers. ‘There’s correspondence, statements, and invoices from a company in the Czech Republic. Richards Engineering had placed a large order for replica guns.’
‘Interesting.’
Matt walked to the door. ‘I think I’ll take a look around the factory.’
In the main machine area, a team of local cops, who had been sitting outside on standby, were now busily taking statements from the workers. Matt walked over to one of the turning machines. Beside it lay a box of finished goods, inside, a number of long, dark tubes. Matt leaned over and picked one up. It felt heavy, but balanced, and after peering down one end, he realised it was hollow. The inside wasn’t smooth, as he expected, but rifled. Adding spiral grooves to the inside of a gun barrel, gunmakers had discovered long ago, made a bullet spin. This ensured it kept going straight, improving its accuracy. In weapons such as shotguns, designed to spread shot over a wide area, they had no need for such a modification.
‘Look at this,’ Matt said, handing the tube to Joseph, now beside him. ‘It looks to me like a rifle barrel.’
He took the barrel from Matt and handed him a pistol. It wasn’t from a manufacturer Matt recognised, but it looked new and smelled strongly of oil, as if only recently manufactured. He made sure it wasn’t loaded before pulling the trigger. The mechanism moved smoothly and made a resounding ‘crack’, the sound of new components working together.
‘It’s the real deal, all right,’ Matt said. ‘Stick some ammo inside and off you go and do some damage to any non-paying customer or a rival drug dealer.’
‘Judging by all the paperwork in the office, it looks like this week they received a batch of replicas from the Czech Republic and they were in the process of converting them to fire normal ammo. Who knows what they make the rest of the time?’
‘It’s a good outcome all round. We’ve taken a major illegal armaments manufacturer out of the game, and it gives us something concrete to throw at Richards.’
TEN
In the space of a single street, London was transformed. It changed from East End tat: fried chicken, tattoo parlours, and pubs any normal person would think twice about entering, into modern-day glitz: the head offices of banks and insurance companies, and the swanky apartment blocks of the new settlers. This urban sprawl out to the east was a reaction by companies and workers to the high cost of being located in the streets around the Bank of England, known as the City of London. Somewhere, there had to be a border between old and new, and this was it.
Bennie’s Boxing Gym was situated less than a hundred metres on the side of t
he new urbanites, but by the look of the outside of the place, it didn’t belong. It was as if the gentrified fog that had swept in from the west had passed this way, but left them untouched.
Rosie had decided not to deploy the services of an armed support team. Jay Thomas had no history of violence, and there was nothing to suggest he had access to guns, unlike his friend, Karl Tamplin. In addition, he was working out in a gym and if he was in the habit of carrying a weapon, it was highly unlikely it would be tucked into the waistband of his training shorts.
Rosie and two cops, PCs Malden and Forbes, left their vehicles and walked towards the building. Bennie’s didn’t operate a website, and with little information available from a Google search, it was hard to get any idea of what it looked like inside. Instead, she took her cue from other, better publicised boxing gyms on the web. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door and walked in.
The stark exterior didn’t prepare her for the smart interior. It was miles away from the seedy establishments seen in boxing or gangster movies. It was kitted out with a raised boxing ring, a number of punchbags draped from girders in the ceiling, and an open exercise area flanked by huge floor-to-ceiling mirrors. The ring was currently occupied by two young pugilists, while many of the punchbags were being thumped by guys and gals of varying sizes, and a dozen or so people were being put through their paces on the floor by an aggressive and hollering trainer straight out of Full Metal Jacket.
Carrying a picture of Jay Thomas, they spotted the man in question bashing a punchbag. He was a big guy, about the size of a middleweight boxer, with a shaven head and huge arms. Unlike the taps given to the bag beside him by a girl half his girth, he was pounding the thing as if it had somehow offended him.
The second Rosie clocked Jay Thomas, he looked around and spotted her and the two accompanying officers. It wasn’t difficult; she was wearing civies and not gym clothes, and the coppers were in uniform. Without hesitation, he stopped what he was doing and hightailed it to the back of the gym. Seconds later, he disappeared through a door marked ‘Changing Rooms’.
Rosie was tempted to run after him, but didn’t, not wishing to draw too much attention to their little group. Instead, the trio hurried after him.
From nowhere, a burly man stepped out in front of them, blocking the way. The writing on his t-shirt stated: I’m Bennie. Ask me anything.
Before Rosie could speak, he said, ‘What are you lot doing here?’
He was mid-fifties and heavy set with a number of gang tattoos on his arms and neck, a crew cut of grey hair, and ice-blue eyes. He stared at the HSA agent with malevolent intensity.
‘Police. We have a warrant for Jay Thomas.’
‘I’ve known Jay for years. He’s done nothing wrong. He’s a good boy.’
‘He might be a good boy in here,’ Rosie, said, ‘but out in the world he’s committed some serious crimes. So, if you would just get out of the way,’ she said, jerking her thumb to the left, ‘we’ll do what we came here to do, and be out of your hair in a few minutes.’
He took a reluctant step to one side and they dashed into the changing room. It was a large space with floor standing lockers and a shower area, and with clothes, shoes, water bottles, and cans of deodorant scattered all around. The team split up and searched the various avenues created by the tall lockers.
A few moments later, one of the coppers shouted, ‘Here!’
Rosie ran in the direction of the voice and arrived just in time. PC Forbes was losing his grip on a leg protruding from one of the upper windows.
Rosie took a hold and pulled. With the help of the other copper, PC Malden, they hauled Jay Thomas back into the changing room. Instead of lying still as Forbes tried to handcuff him, not easy as he still was wearing boxing gloves, he lashed out catching Forbes on the jaw with a right hook.
Thomas got to his feet, and all one hundred and ten kilos of him rushed at Rosie. She had no option, but to reach for her gun. In a flash, Malden withdrew his extended baton and whacked Thomas on the back of the knee. He crumpled like a sack of spuds, inches from Rosie’s feet.
She helped Malden turn the suspect over on his front while he removed the gloves and applied the cuffs. All the time, Thomas was moaning about his damaged knee. PC Forbes was no help, as he was seated on a bench, his head leaning back against the wall, trying to clear the effects of the punch.
Between them, Rosie and Malden managed to raise Thomas to his feet.
‘Now listen up, scumbag,’ Rosie said, not best pleased to be messed about by the likes of him. ‘I’ve got a shooter, and if you give me any more trouble, I’ll put a bullet in your other leg. Let’s see how good you can box with only one of them working. Understand?’
He grunted something incomprehensible and gave her a dirty look.
‘I’ll take that as a yes. Right fellas, let’s make a move.’
Malden reached over and opened the door leading from the changing room into the gym. To Rosie’s astonishment, an angry crowd had gathered; not the whole gym contingent, as another sizable number had stopped what they were doing and were watching with interest. Rosie took the decision to plod on, but two steps in she realised her mistake.
The mood of the mob grew uglier as Rosie, her colleagues, and the handcuffed Thomas became surrounded. People were shouting, ‘Let him go!’ ‘He’s done nothing wrong!’ A guy elbowed his way to the front and swung a fist at Forbes. This time the PC had the good sense to duck. The blow missed him and struck the prisoner. This enraged the big man, who reared up, knocking a few protesters sideways, pulling the officers with him. Rosie took the decision it was time to beat a hasty retreat.
‘Back to the changing room!’ she shouted at the two officers. ‘Now!’
Shoving protestors out of the way, they staggered back into the changing room. When they tried to close the door, it was blocked by a number of feet and hands. Bravely, Forbes drew his baton and CS spray, and using a combination of the two, drove the mob back. They slammed the door shut.
While the coppers held the door shut, Rosie pulled over a chair and jammed it under the door handle. ‘That should hold them for a few minutes,’ she said, her voice sounding breathless.
Angry fists pounded the closed door. Loud voices invited them to come out and fight. Others, more menacingly, reminded them they had nowhere to go.
‘How long until reinforcements?’ she asked Malden, who had been talking to his controller on the radio.
‘About four minutes.’
‘Christ,’ she said, looking at the less than sturdy chair, moving up and down under the pressure as if possessed by an evil spirit. ‘It might be the longest four minutes of our lives. Tell them to hurry up.’
ELEVEN
Rosie headed home. Jay Thomas had now been arrested and was on his way to a police station. The raid team had arrived at the gym early in the afternoon, but due to the time taken to seize Thomas, being holed up in the changing room, and the time required by police reinforcements to calm the situation and arrest the key troublemakers, there was little point in going back to the office.
At least when the rescue party turned up, those trapped inside the changing room didn’t suffer the indignity of the gym being quiet and everyone asking what all the fuss was about. Nor did Rosie have to return to a police station where the wags would be sharpening their tongues and getting out their best boxing jokes, but PCs Malden and Forbes did. Instead, the crowd were as angry as they were before. It took strong words from the reinforcements, and threats to arrest them all if they didn’t disperse.
Even if she had gone back into the office this afternoon, she wouldn’t have been much use. For the first time in however many years, she had felt genuinely scared. In operations with Matt and Joseph, she had felt frightened at times, but she knew by using a combination of their guile and firepower, no matter how difficult the situation might be, they would always find a way out.
At the boxing gym, with only two green coppers equipped with long-handled b
atons, CS gas, and radios to assist, she’d feared the protesters would eventually break down the door and beat them all to death. Looking back, it didn’t feel like an exaggeration with constant pressure being applied to the door, and the encouragement and curses coming out of Jay Thomas’s mouth. At times, it had felt like, given the opportunity, he would have been happy to kill them himself.
On the way back to Harlow, annoyed by the negative voices buzzing around her head, she turned the volume up on the radio to drown them out. As her hand returned from touching the control, she glanced down and noticed it was shaking. She dismissed it as an after-effect of a bad scare.
The tremble was still there as she sat at the kitchen table, a large glass of Chardonnay and her laptop close to hand. She had cancelled her Tesco delivery scheduled for two days’ time. Having returned to Harlow a bit earlier than expected, she had walked around the store with a trolley instead, hoping the normality of doing something banal like food shopping would calm her.
In some respects, it was something of an effort to return home at all. She and her husband, Andrew Milner, had separated, pending divorce. She had tired of his lack of involvement in domestic chores, and the animosity he had shown to some of her friends. The final straw that broke her resolve to continue was news of his shagging of Miranda James, a stewardess aboard a flight to Florida on which he was captain. At a pinch, she might have excused a night of passion at the end of a drunken pub crawl, but not a four-day shag-fest with daily room service at regular intervals to revive their flagging energies.
The house she and Andrew had shared in Harlow had been suitable while they were together. People who lived on the estate were of a similar age, with some in the same situation as themselves, both partners working, while others were bringing up young families. Now single, she had nothing in common with her neighbours, and was starting to be considered by some as a threat.
