To Hell in a Handcart

by Richard Littlejohn

  ‘He has got an address. He’s staying at a hostel in Tottenham.’

  ‘But there’s no one to stand bail for him. I can’t accept his own recognizance.’

  ‘I shall stand surety for him.’

  ‘You, sir? That’s highly irregular.’

  ‘Nowhere near as irregular as this arrest.’

  ‘Sarge,’ pleaded the young DC.

  ‘Sorry, son. I’m not having this landed in my lap. Mr Fromby, I will release your client on police bail into your custody, provided you agree to return here with him in fourteen days.’

  ‘Thank you, sergeant.’

  Justin led the slightly bewildered young Romanian from the police station and hailed a taxi, which was loitering alongside an illegally parked black Mercedes S500.

  Thirty-four

  The taxi drew up outside Justin Fromby’s house in Dartford Park, a substantial but discreet Edwardian villa a few hundred yards from the eastern fringes of Hampstead Heath, probably built for a City banker around the turn of the century, less than a mile away from the north London bedsit he used to rent as a student.

  Justin and Ilie Popescu got out and walked up the half dozen stone steps to the front door. Ilie noticed there were three doorbells.

  Although Justin occupied the whole three storeys and the basement, he’d had three doorbells installed so that people thought the house, like most of its neighbouring properties, had been divided up into flats. They were numbered 37A, 37B and 37C, but they rang the same bell.

  Justin had paid £1.75 million for the house, but through a shell company. Even though, in a good year, he pulled in seven figures, he was careful to hide his wealth.

  The Consolidated Union of National Trades Societies paid Fromby more in brief fees than fifty of their minimum-waged members earned in a year.

  ‘You can wait in there.’ Fromby showed Ilie into the drawing room. The mundane Edwardian exterior of the house disguised a minimalist interior, a riot of white paint, bare surfaces, chrome, steel and leather, and stripped floorboards, a homage to Philippe Starck.

  Ilie sat down on an angular chaise longue, slightly bewildered. He had thought about bursting out of the taxi but had heard the deadlocks on the passenger doors engage when the meter started running.

  ‘Why have you brought me here?’ he asked Fromby, in deliberate, broken English.

  ‘Would you prefer still to be in a police cell?’ Justin replied. Pretty boy, he thought to himself.

  ‘No, of course. But my girl, she will be worried.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘She’s at the hostel. In Tottingham.’

  ‘Tott-en-ham,’ Fromby corrected him.

  ‘Yes. Tott-EN-hem. Sorry. My English.’

  ‘That’s OK. I’ll get you back to Tottenham in due course.’

  ‘Will I have to go back to the police station?’

  ‘Perhaps. Don’t worry.’

  ‘Why are you helping me like this?’

  ‘I am a lawyer. I believe in human rights. I simply want to understand more about your plight. You say you have applied for asylum?’

  ‘Yes, when I arrived in Britain.’

  ‘Have you any relatives here?’

  Ilie hesitated.

  ‘Is that important?’

  ‘It could be.’

  Ilie thought hard.

  ‘No. No one.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Can you help?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘I have no money.’

  ‘I don’t want money.’

  ‘But how can I repay you?’

  Justin smiled, walked over and placed his hand on the young Romanian’s shoulder.

  ‘We might be able to think of something.’

  He patted Ilie on the head, like a collie. ‘You must be hungry.’

  Ilie shrugged.

  ‘A drink? A sandwich?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Justin opened the door and called up the stairs.

  ‘WAYNE!’

  Moments later a boy, about fifteen, shuffled into the room, pulling on a blue Adidas T-shirt.

  ‘Wot is it?’ the boy grunted, chipping away at his ear wax with an elongated, nicotine-stained fingernail.

  Justin scowled but disguised it with a thin-lipped smile. He slipped his right arm loosely around Wayne Sutton’s slim waist.

  ‘We have a guest, Wayne,’ he said, indicating the olive-skinned visitor.

  Ilie rose and offered his hand but said nothing.

  ‘Awright,’ grunted Wayne.

  ‘Would you please be kind enough to get our friend here something to eat and drink, please, Wayne?’

  ‘Wot?’

  ‘I don’t know, anything. Do you like tea?’

  Ilie looked blank.

  ‘Vodka? Wodka?’

  Ilie’s eyes lit up.

  ‘Wayne, pour our guest a glass of vodka. There’s Polish, Russian, Finnish? Which would you prefer?’

  ‘I drunk the Russian last night,’ said Wayne.

  ‘Polish OK? Wyborowa?’

  Ilie nodded. A line of coke might be nice, too, he thought to himself.

  Wayne poured a slug into a Waterford glass tumbler.

  ‘Just one for now, mind,’ said Justin. ‘We don’t want our guest getting drunk. We have much to do.’

  Much to do? wondered Ilie.

  ‘How about something to eat?’ Justin asked.

  ‘I’ll take him out for a burger,’ said Wayne.

  ‘No, no, no. Rustle him up a cheese sandwich,’ Justin interjected. ‘We can’t have our friend going out anywhere. Not just yet.’

  He turned to Ilie. ‘Just make yourself comfortable. If there’s anything you want just ask Wayne. I have to check my messages in my study. I’ll be back shortly. Come along, Wayne. The kitchen. Our friend must be hungry.’

  They left the room. Ilie heard the key turn in the lock.

  In the hallway, Justin grasped Wayne’s right wrist and handed him the key.

  ‘He is not to leave. Understand?’

  Wayne nodded.

  ‘What do you want with him? You’ve got me here,’ Wayne asked anxiously.

  ‘It’s nothing like that,’ Justin reassured him with a gentle kiss on his left cheek. ‘I might have a job for him. Just make sure he stays put.’

  ‘What kind of job? I could do it.’

  ‘No. Please, Wayne, for once just do as you’re told. No more questions, OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  Inside the drawing room, Ilie studied his new surroundings and wondered if there was anything worth stealing. He could probably overpower the old man, but there was the boy and two against one was risky.

  He had heard the key turn in the lock and could see through the micro-blinds that the windows were fitted with the concertina steel grilles erected by the 21st-century London gentry to protect themselves against burglary, the New Age Plague.

  Ilie poured himself another Wyborowa and considered the odds. Sure, for now, he was a prisoner.

  But an hour ago he’d been in a police cell. Somewhere out there, somewhere, the men from Moscow were looking for him.

  Ilie savoured his spirit.

  There were worse prisons.

  Thirty-five

  Justin closed the door of his study. In contrast to the Philippe Starck drawing room, the study was more like a 1970s student bedsit. The only clue to the elevated status of the occupant was an antique partner’s table and captain’s mahogany and leather chair, both circa 1852 and bought from an exclusive dealer in deepest Essex.

  Otherwise the room was strewn with papers, pamphlets, law reports, back copies of the Clarion and a notice board studded with yellowing clippings of the golden days of industrial action – the siege of Saltley gates, Orgreave, Grunwick.

  On the walls, limited-edition plates commemorated historic working-class struggles long before Justin was born – the strike for the Dockers’ Tanner, the Battle of Cable Street.

  In his adult lifetim
e, Justin had been involved on the fringes of just two major industrial confrontations, Wapping and the Miners’ Strike of 1984/85.

  On both occasions he was on the losing side.

  These defeats had served to further convince him that the only way to change the system was from within, to make sustained progress through the corridors of power, even if it took a quarter of a century. The long march through the institutions was all but complete. Now the great prize he and Roberta had worked for was within their grasp, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.

  But first he had to deal with the one man who had the evidence which could destroy them.

  Mickey French.

  He picked up the phone and dialled a mobile number.

  ‘Peel.’

  ‘It’s me. Where are you?’

  ‘I’m in the office.’

  ‘Can you speak?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I think I may have found a solution to that matter we were discussing the other night. But first I need you to check a name.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Gica Dinantu. G-george, I-iris, C-charlie, A-apple. New word, D-dog, I-iris, N-nuts, A-apple, N-nuts, T-tommy, U-uncle.’

  ‘Anyone could tell you’d never served in the police or the armed forces.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘U-uncle,’ she laughed.

  ‘You what?’

  ‘No, U-uniform.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Justin said impatiently.

  ‘Well, it’s U-uniform, for a start. N-november, T-tango.’

  ‘OK, so I’m a complete charlie uniform november tango.

  Have you got it?’

  ‘Gica Dinantu.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Who is he? I take it he’s a he?’

  ‘Yeah, Romanian. Asylum-seeker. Twentyish, I’d guess.’

  ‘What do you want to know about him?’

  ‘Everything.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ll tell you later. Can you do it?’

  ‘Should be simple enough. I’ll get back to you.’

  ‘I’m at home. I’m here all evening. Can you come round?’

  ‘Should be able to. I’ll ring you before I leave.’

  ‘See you later.’

  ‘Ciao, baby.’

  Roberta knew Justin would have a good reason. She logged on to her PC, swiped her ID card, and clicked on the hyperlink to the immigration service computer.

  She entered the name Gica Dinantu.

  His bare details appeared on the screen. Photograph – so that’s what he looked like. Pretty boy. Name, country of origin, port of entry, age. Age? Sixteen? Justin had reckoned he was around twenty. Asylum application number. Last known address, Tottenham, London N17. A hostel. That was about it, though he had been fingerprinted at Croydon. A routine precaution but many of the overworked, stressed-out immigration officers simply didn’t bother.

  Roberta accessed the Scotland Yard central database. A Gica Dinantu had been arrested at Tyburn tube station earlier that day on a charge of robbery. That was quick. Computerization had transformed the police service. Not always for the better, Roberta thought. These days prisoners’ particulars went straight into the system. Files couldn’t simply vanish as they did in the old days. She reflected on what might have happened had computers been around back at Tyburn Row in the 1970s. And she shuddered. Best not to think about it.

  Back to the screen. Gica Dinantu. No further details. Bailed to the custody of, that explains it, Mr Justin Fromby, of Fromby, Hind & Partners.

  But why? What was Justin up to?

  Roberta swiped her card again and punched in a new password. It took her into the Interpol computer.

  She carefully typed in the name Gica Dinantu and waited a few seconds until it downloaded.

  Roberta opened the file. Several keystrokes later she knew what little there was to know about Gica Dinantu.

  It wasn’t exactly what she had been expecting.

  Then she double-clicked on the link to known associates.

  One name.

  It was flagged.

  Please contact an Inspector Freund, Hamburg, Germany.

  Curious.

  She scrolled down the file.

  Curiouser and curiouser.

  She printed off the file, shut down her PC and called Justin.

  The constable on the door saluted as she left New Scotland Yard. ‘Goodnight, ma’am.’

  Roberta, normally always one to acknowledge the other ranks, completely ignored him.

  Outside, her driver was waiting. He leapt out of the Rover and opened the rear passenger door.

  ‘No, no thank you, Frank. That will be all for tonight.’

  ‘Can I drop you somewhere, ma’am?’

  ‘Er, no, no thanks,’ she said, distractedly. ‘I’ll take a cab.’

  ‘Will you be wanting me to collect you from home in the morning?’

  ‘What? Sorry.’

  ‘From home. Tomorrow, ma’am,’ said the driver.

  ‘No, that’s fine. I’ll make my own way in.’

  ‘Very well, ma’am. Goodnight.’

  But Roberta was gone, hailing a cab outside St James’s Park Underground station.

  ‘Dartmouth Park,’ she said.

  Twenty-five minutes later the cab pulled up outside Justin’s house.

  She handed the driver a £20 note for a £14 fare.

  ‘Keep the change.’

  ‘Thank you very much, ma’am,’ said the cabbie. ‘Don’t I know you? Aren’t you that lady superintendent or something on the telly the other night?’

  ‘No,’ said Roberta.

  ‘I could have sworn. It’s just that picking you up outside the Yard and like.’

  ‘You must be mistaken. Good evening.’

  She turned and walked up the stone steps and pressed the second of the three doorbells – the one which rang in Justin’s study.

  Justin answered the door and showed her in.

  She took off her coat. Underneath she was still wearing her uniform.

  ‘Good. Nice touch,’ he said approvingly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It makes it more official,’ he said.

  ‘Now just hold on. You’d better read this.’

  Roberta handed him the Interpol file. Justin seized it excitedly.

  ‘This is better than I hoped,’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Better? Better for what?’

  ‘How did you get this?’

  Roberta explained that the Interpol file on Gica Dinantu had been closed some months earlier.

  When he’d been killed during a lorry hijacking in Hamburg.

  Justin drew breath. He took a bottle of Glenmorangie from the top of a filing cabinet and poured them both a large measure.

  ‘So who’s the guy in the photo?’

  ‘His name is Gica Dinantu (deceased), formerly of the Tigani, Romania.’

  ‘But that’s not the Gica Dinantu in the other room,’ he said.

  ‘Try him,’ said Roberta, pulling another photograph from an envelope.

  ‘That’s him,’ confirmed Justin.

  ‘No, that’s the man who was with Gica Dinantu when he was killed. It was thought that he had been incinerated in the crash which resulted from the high-speed chase and shoot-out in which the real Gica Dinantu died. But they couldn’t be sure, so they posted this picture on the Interpol website. It seems there’s at least one detective, an Inspector Freund, who thinks he escaped.’

  ‘He’s the cop who flagged the name?’

  ‘Presumably.’

  ‘You’ve not called him?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Will he know you’ve been into the file?’

  ‘Unlikely.’

  ‘You don’t think there’s been a mix-up?’

  ‘In what sense?’

  ‘Like getting the photos back to front?’

  ‘You’ve read the file. You’re the lawyer. You work it out,’ she said.

&
nbsp; Justin paced across the room. He stared through the steel bars destroying the symmetry of the elegant sash window.

  ‘As I said, this is even better,’ he declared.

  ‘Are you mad?’

  ‘Maybe. But this could work to our advantage.’

  ‘Come on. What’s on your mind?’ Roberta pressed him.

  ‘When I walked into that cell I knew there was more to him. Forget the language difficulty. He didn’t strike me as your run-of-the-mill bag snatcher. There was something else. I felt he was hiding something. I had no idea what he was hiding.’

  ‘So you brought him back here. But why?’

  Justin brushed her aside. ‘It was always going to be a risk, but this guy’s a professional. Car-jacking, suspected involvement in drugs. Interpol thinks the Russian mafia are after him. He’s a resourceful fellow. Obviously a born survivor.’

  ‘So if he’s Public Enemy Number One, if he’s so brilliant, how did he end up in a north London police cell, charged with bag-snatching?’ asked Roberta.

  ‘Providence, my dear Ms Peel.’

  ‘Cut the Avengers act, Justin.’

  ‘It was also providence which caused me to be on duty at the law centre the very day he was arrested. And of all the police cells in all the world, I had to walk into his.’

  ‘For God’s sake. Justin. First the Avengers, now Casablanca.’ Roberta poured herself another shot of whisky into a mug with Tony Blair’s famous five pre-election pledges printed on the side. ‘And when are you going to do something about this study? The rest of the house is like an Ideal Home spread. This room reminds me of that bedsit in Tufnell Park.’

  ‘It’s supposed to. I like it like this. Reminds me who I am. What I’m doing here. You should remember that more often. High office has gone to your head. It’s Home Secretary this, Chief Constable that.’

  ‘That’s what I do, remember,’ Roberta was becoming increasingly tetchy.

  ‘Of course I do. That’s what we’re doing here. That’s what our little Romanian friend next door is doing here.’

  ‘Now we’re getting somewhere.’

  ‘We’re going to retrieve the Tyburn Row tapes. The files, the evidence. Everything.’

  ‘And how, exactly, are we going to do that?’

  ‘We are going to burgle Mickey French. Or, more precisely, our friend in the next room is going to burgle Mickey French.’

  ‘We can’t do that, Justin.’

  ‘We can’t. But he can.’