by Nick Oldham
It was twenty-four hours later, the day after Henry had met and questioned Alexandr Drozdov. Henry and Danny were standing in an interview room in the main police station in Santa de la Cruz, Tenerife, having landed from England only a couple of hours previously. Two Spanish detectives sat behind them, looking bored, observing their heated exchange with indifference. On the other side of a huge, two-way plate-glass mirror sat the lone figure of the man who had phoned Crimestoppers and demanded to speak urgently to DI Henry Christie.
The mystery caller had claimed, ‘I have information for you that will lead you straight to the man who planned and pulled the M6 robbery and who also killed those three people in Blackpool. I know him personally and I know where you can find him. I live in Tenerife and I want you, Mr Christie, to come out here personally and talk to me - now. And I want the reward money, because I know that the information I give will lead you to his arrest and conviction. But you must give me protection.’
Henry had taken a deep breath and said, ‘How can I believe you? I’ve had hundreds of calls claiming the same since the robbery happened. I can’t afford to go off on a wild-goose, chase.’ Henry had to be cagey without losing the man because, somehow, he sensed this was the big break, and it needed to be handled correctly.
‘Here’s a titbit for you. If you are any sort of detective, you should have found this out by now - and it’s not something you’re likely to reveal to the press just yet. One of the security guards was in on the job. His name was Colin Hodge.’
Henry looked quickly at Danny and winked. The strong suspicion that Hodge was the inside man had not been revealed to anyone outside a very privileged few.
‘I take it from that pause I’ve hit the nail on the head,’ the man said.
‘Tapped it, perhaps,’ Henry said, trying to contain his excitement. ‘Can you give me any further details?’
‘He came out to the island before the robbery and had a planning session with the man who is behind it all. I might have been able to guess the first bit, but not that - so, are you coming out here?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘I want three grand up front - and I also want you to remember that because I’ve made this call, my life isn’t worth shit now. If he finds out, he’ll do me in, guaranteed.’
Henry was thinking fast. ‘The up-front money is no problem. Ring me back in an hour and I’ll tell you what’s happening, unless you want to give me your number.’
‘Yeah, sure. Think I was born yesterday, do you?’
‘OK, that’s fair enough. You’ll need a code-name,’ Henry said. ‘We don’t use real names over the phone - just in case.’
‘Nero,’ the man suggested quickly.
‘OK, Nero - give me one hour,’ Henry reiterated. ‘Ring back via Crimestoppers again - it’s safer that way.’
By the time that hour had passed, it was almost midnight. FB had been woken up and apprised of the new development. Groggily he had said, ‘You and DS Furness go if you think it’s necessary.’ Henry had also arranged for three thousand pounds to be paid to him from the informants fund. Booking a flight or accommodation had been impossible at that time of night.
Sixty-one minutes later, Crimestoppers connected Nero through to Henry’s extension. ‘The money has been sorted and I can come and see you. Obviously I can’t book a flight at this time of day, that will have to wait until morning. Call back at ten - we’re in the same time zone, aren’t we?’
‘OK - but if you haven’t sorted out a flight by then, the deal’s off. I can’t afford to wait around.’
Henry smirked, knowing he was being bullshitted. He had vast experience of dealing with informants, or ‘sources’ to use police jargon. They rarely stopped once they’d started because they are usually driven people - driven by revenge, greed, or both, or they actually like being informants, enjoy playing the game, being a double-agent, living on the edge of what has often been a worthless life. ‘Don’t worry,’ Henry said, ‘everything will be sorted ... but there is one thing.’
‘What?’ asked the source dubiously.
‘Give me something else now, prove your credentials.’
Henry heard the man clicking his tongue, thinking.
‘It doesn’t have to be mega,’ Henry encouraged him.
‘Maybe tomorrow,’ he said and hung up.
Henry and Danny spent the remainder of that night at the Training School in separate rooms, and were up by seven. After a hurried breakfast, they both drove back to Blackpool to their respective homes. Henry had breezed into his house like he was doing the most normal thing in the world, dashed around like a whirlwind, finding his passport, stuffing clothing and shoes into a holdall. He kissed Kate in passing, gave Jenny and Leanne a quick peck on the cheeks and was gone, with no real explanation, no proper conversation, just a hurried, ‘Got to get to Tenerife. . . might have cracked this job. . . shouldn’t be gone too long... give you a bell, love... bye!’ Then breezing quickly past a speechless wife.
Pulling away in his car he felt an absolute bastard and when he glimpsed the stony-faced figure of Kate standing in the bay window, he felt physically sick. Yet he pressed on and was back at Headquarters before nine to find Danny had beaten him and was already phoning around for flight tickets. Henry sorted out money and accommodation and made brief contact with the Criminal Justice Support, National Criminal Intelligence Service at Scotland Yard and the Spanish police in Tenerife to tell them all, as a matter of courtesy, his plans.
Danny quickly secured two cancellations on a holiday charter. The tickets would be made available at Manchester Airport and they had to be there at 1p.m. for a 2.30 p.m. flight. She then booked a hire car for collection at the airport in Tenerife.
The source rang again on the dot of ten. ‘This is Nero.’
‘How are you?’
‘Getting jittery already - but never mind that. What’s happening?’
‘I should be in Tenerife by seven this evening, landing at Reina Sofia. What arrangements do you want to make to meet?’
‘That’s too close to home. I can’t see you there. What about Santa de la Cruz, ten tonight?’
‘Cuts it pretty fine, doesn’t allow for any delays.’
‘I’ll wait for you - for a while, anyway.’
‘Where shall we meet?’
‘At the cop shop. You parade up and down in front of it and I’ll approach you. It’ll be safe enough there for me, I guess.’
‘I’ll arrange it,’ Henry said quickly. ‘How will you know me?’
‘I’ve seen your picture in the papers, apart from which you’ll be the only arsehole parading up and down outside the police station.’
‘Fair point. So ... can you give me something else now?’ Henry asked.
‘Let me think ... something a bit tasty. How about an ex-cop living out here with very close ties to the man you’re after? I’ll blow the whole caboodle on him, too.’ He hung up.
Henry turned to Danny and FB, who had arrived by then, and said, ‘He’s going to give us Barney Gillrow too.’
Just over twelve hours later, Henry had met Nero outside the police station in Santa de la Cruz and hustled him into an interview room.
Arranging facilities with the Spanish police had been easy. The relationship between the Spaniards and the British police was extremely good, mainly because the international drugs problem is common to both countries, as are many of the criminals. In his time on the RCS Henry had worked in Spain, - though not the Canaries - on a number of occasions, mostly on surveillance jobs.
Henry went alone into the interview room. Danny watched and listened through the two-way mirror.
‘First things first. I need to know who you are,’ Henry said as he sat.
‘No, my first things first. Where is my three thousand pounds?’
‘You’ll get your money when I’m satisfied that your product is worth paying for,’ Henry said firmly. ‘Let me make something crystal clear from the outset. I am in charge of
this process, not you. I decide how it goes. I understand you want to come out of it with a bucketful of money, probably with protected status too, and I don’t have a problem with that. At the same time you have a desire to tell me, for whatever reason, about someone who has committed very serious crimes. Whilst I am eager for you to give me this information, you must understand that all it does is support my own evidence. I will arrange for the money and the protection, don’t worry about that. But the agenda is mine - all mine.’ Henry paused and looked squarely at the man who had a face full of bruises and a left hand wrapped with grimy bandages which stunk. ‘What is your name?’
‘Lawrence David Brayfield, born sixth June 1953. My friends call me Loz.’
‘Thank you - Loz.’
In the other room, Danny scribbled these details down and was on the phone a minute later, checking him out.
‘Speaking broadly, Loz, not specifically yet, what information can you give me?’
‘The name of the man who murdered three people in Blackpool and the definite reason why he killed two of them. And the name of the man, the same guy, who pulled that big security van job on the M6. I can blow open wide the drug-smuggling operation this guy operates from here. I can give you names of suppliers, dates of deliveries, names of couriers ... fucking everything. I can also tell you about an ex-cop who was on the take from this guy too.’
‘What is the man’s name?’
‘Billy Crane. Barney Gillrow is the ex-cop.’
As easy as that, Henry thought triumphantly.
So that Crane would not be alerted, Henry decided it would be prudent if their singing informant was to continue to lead a normal life, run Crane’s legitimate businesses in and around Los Cristianos whilst he was bled white of information during regular debriefs. Once there was enough to move against Crane, Henry would then arrange for Loz to meet a Witness Protection Officer who was due to fly out from the Metropolitan Police. From then on, Lawrence Brayfield’s life would change for ever.
Although Henry’s decision was perfectly sound, there was a personal angle to it as it gave both him and Danny time to spend together. They were in adjacent rooms in the hotel in Los Cristianos Danny had stayed in previously and were able to divide their time between speaking to Loz and indulging in wonderful sex, wine and food (in that order) as their love blossomed in the sub-tropical heat.
Loz grassed everything. It was obvious he was a man bearing a huge grudge against Crane. He blew apart Crane’s drug operation, revealing that many young travel company representatives were on the payroll, eager to supplement their meagre earnings by identifying potential mules amongst their clients. Loz openly admitted his part in the operation, that of actually employing the mules, packing their cases for them with gear and paying them. He said he had employed Cheryl Jones and packed her case for her. He gave the names of the drugs suppliers from whom Crane bought his stocks, gave details of other names, dates and places which Henry and Danny enthusiastically noted down. He told them of Don Smith’s role of distributor in the UK and gave a list of further contacts in England. He also told how angry Crane had been to lose the £50,000 worth of drugs carried by Cheryl Jones; how he had punished Loz by feeding his hand to a lion (so there is a lion in Los Cristianos, Danny had thought at that point. My ears weren’t playing tricks with me). And how Crane had gone to England to exact revenge which would give out a clear message to other mules who might be stupid, by killing Cheryl and her boyfriend. He provided Henry with some bank account details, too.
He had told Henry how annoyed Crane had been on his more recent return from the UK when Loz had bragged to him about ‘sorting out’ the woman detective. Henry wrote down the exact words Loz said Crane had uttered about the M6 robbery, the deaths associated with it and his admissions about killing Cheryl, Spencer and another man - Malcolm Fitch.
Loz did mention Barney Gillrow, but did not really have as much information about him as he had initially maintained.
On the third day of their stay in Tenerife, Henry formally requested the assistance of the local police to arrest Billy Crane who was believed to be residing in his villa on La Gomera, after which extradition proceedings would be instituted. The basis of his request - made through the necessary legal channels - was on Crane’s involvement in the robbery and the murders he had committed. He didn’t tell the locals too much about Crane’s Tenerife-based drugs business, because they might have wanted to deal with that first, which would have slowed things up considerably. Henry wanted to get Crane back to the UK as quickly as possible.
Nor did he reveal Loz’s admissions about his own involvement in Crane’s drug operations from the island as this would have complicated matters. Henry had decided to tell the Spaniards about this further down the line.
In the meantime, the debriefing of Loz would continue and Henry and Danny decided to take the opportunity to visit Barney Gillrow.
It was 10 a.m. as the two lovers, two cops, strolled arm-in-arm along the Los Cristianos sea-front towards Playa de las Americas. They had a noon meeting arranged with Loz, so had a couple of free hours to put the frighteners up Gillrow. As they strolled along, Danny pointed out the sights - such as the spot where she was indecently assaulted on the beach by Loz. She laughed about it now, though she could not warm to Loz who had shown no remorse or offered an apology.
They dawdled along, actually relishing the approaches of the timeshare touts who thought they were a married couple. Thoughts of a difficult future were a long way from their minds. For the time being, they were revelling in the present, both never happier in this false, transient environment in which they were floating at the moment, which seemed a million miles away from reality.
‘Ah well, here we go,’ Henry said outside the door to Gillrow’s apartment. He rolled his shoulders and slicked back his hair, then knocked.
Gillrow answered and was plainly shocked to see Danny standing there. He squinted at Henry with a faint glimmer of recognition.
‘I’m Henry Christie, now a Detective Inspector. You might remember me as a PC. You’ve already made the acquaintance of DS Furness.’
‘I have nothing further to say,’ Gillrow snapped.
Henry heaved a sigh and gave the ex-detective the hard stare without saying anything. Gillrow held the look for a few moments, remembering how many times he had given it to guilty felons himself, then cracked. He swallowed. ‘Come in.’
He was alone in the apartment, his wife was out shopping. As before, he motioned them towards the balcony for a discussion, except this time no drinks were offered.
Henry said, ‘I’d like to go back to 1986, please.’
Lawrence Brayfield - Loz - was once again on the rooftop of Uncle B’s English Bar and Disco, sitting underneath a sunshade. It was a position to which he gravitated regularly these days. In the cage at the far end of the flat roof, Nero lounged indolently in the hot sun, rolling on his back, licking himself with his muscular rasping tongue. The cage floor, uncleaned for four days, was a mess of urine and faeces. Nero was beginning to show signs of neglect. His stench - overpowering at the best of times - was dreadful.
Loz was happy with the way things were panning out. He had already received two grand of the promised initial three and was certain he would get the final instalment later that day. By the end of tomorrow he expected to be talking to the Witness Protection Officer about his future: living somewhere in Southern England, with a new identity and everything that went with it. There was no doubt he would need all the protection the cops could offer because Billy Crane - vindictive, violent, vengeful bastard that he was, a man who never let a grudge die - would either want to kill him personally or contract someone to do it for him. Loz knew his life would be under threat for as long as Crane lived, but he was prepared for it and had worked out, in his mind, that the risk was worth taking. His eyes were fixed firmly on that two hundred thousand pounds reward money.
But until the cops arrested Crane, everything had to go on as normal. Cr
ane had eyes and ears everywhere and if he smelled a rat, he would bolt - and then Loz would very definitely have a problem. He had to keep things ticking over - which included looking after Nero.
Loz crossed to the cage and regarded the big cat. Then he looked down at the hand Nero had chewed on. The cops had arranged some proper medical treatment and it was improving, smelling less, feeling more like a real hand. This, however, did not make Loz feel any less animosity towards Nero. He still hated the beast with venom.
His last act of betrayal towards Crane would be to feed Nero with poisoned horsemeat, sit back with a long beer and enjoy watching the creature writhe agonisingly to a slow death in its own shit and piss.
The expression on Loz’s face, as he thought about this, was pure evil.
‘In your wildest dreams, Barney, could you ever have imagined us not coming back to see you after the way you warned DS Furness off?’
Gillrow stayed numb for a few moments, then said, ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Let me put it this way,’ Henry said in a tone of voice that would let Gillrow understand the message behind the words - i.e. that he knew everything. ‘We know you tried to see Billy Crane after Danny visited you, and we know that stupid henchman of his tried to warn her off and at the same time indecently assaulted her and tried to rape her.’
Gillrow’s head fell at this. ‘Oh, God,’ he uttered desperately.
‘We are in the process of dismantling Crane’s organisation, ripping it apart bit by bit - which means going for an historical perspective as well. If that means ripping you apart with it, Barney, then I’ll be more than pleased to do it, so I think you should consider long and hard about helping yourself here, because no one else will- especially Billy Crane.’
The ex-detective stood up suddenly and walked away into the lounge area, deep in troubled thought. He did not know it, but Henry had very little on him at all, other than a piece of paper from the financial analysts and the sketchy details Loz had supplied. Gillrow returned and sat down wearily in a chair, his expression defeated. Henry’s cold eyes told him in no uncertain terms that he would not be let off the hook.
