The Aden Vanner Novels

by Jeff Gulvin

‘Three guys. They deal crack, relatively small-time. But they do a bit of other stuff. There’ve been trades there before. Bit of smack. Bit of speed. But mostly it’s crack.’

  ‘You want it closed down?’

  ‘Local boys do, Guv. Hell of a lot of Toms hang about outside. It’s getting bigger by the day. We won’t win. But it’s nice to slap them down now and then.’

  ‘This Denny deal fits then?’

  ‘Why not? Everyone’s looking for expansion.’

  Vanner nodded. ‘Gabs. Post office boxes. It’s all movement I guess.’

  Back in the training room the Drug Squad were gathered. Vanner looked at his watch. Seven forty-five. Ryan was eating a curry from a foil container. Ellis sat in the corner on his own. China looked up from where he was sitting with a polystyrene cup of coffee between his hands. ‘Definitely no firearms then, Guv?’

  ‘Not so’s we know.’

  ‘No Gunships tonight then.’

  Davies blew cigarette smoke. ‘Just as bloody well. Last spin we did like this we had SO19 halfway round the block when the call came to stand down.’

  Vanner lit a cigarette and sat down next to Ryan. Ryan spooned the last of his curry into his mouth and glanced up at the TV screen, which played on the wall above their heads. ‘So what’s Grant up to then?’

  ‘What?’ Vanner looked at him.

  ‘Grant Mitchell. Eastenders.’ Ryan nodded to the TV. ‘Oh, never mind.’ He took a cigarette from Vanner’s pack and lit it from the one he was smoking.

  ‘What’s the word from Milo?’ Vanner asked him.

  ‘Reckons about ten-thirty, Guv.’

  He stood up and went over to where Jimmy Crack was talking into his mobile. They stood together for a moment and then began the briefing. They did it between them. Nothing was on paper. Jimmy drew a rough map of the target area on the SASCO board. He indicated the forward position to be taken up by the unmarked van. It was agreed that two members of the Territorial Support Group would be in the first van. The rest would come behind in the other. The two in front would handle the battering ram. There was a main door which opened into a foyer where the glass counter was housed. Beyond that a second door which was locked.

  Vanner sat at the far end of the table. ‘Back entrance, Jim?’

  Jimmy nodded. ‘High fence to get over first. But there is one.’

  ‘We’ll need a couple round the back then.’ Vanner glanced about the table. ‘Ellis, you and Davies take the back.’

  One of the dog handlers shifted his position by Vanner. ‘You’ll have to watch the dogs then,’ he said. ‘We’ll be out the back. If they come out that way don’t chase them. Dog’ll go for the runner.’

  Vanner stood up. ‘You got the warrant, Sid?’ Ryan nodded and tapped his pocket. ‘I need an exhibits officer,’ Vanner went on. ‘China. The 101?’

  China nodded and Vanner looked at his watch. ‘We’ve got a while to wait. No doubt the TSG will get a cardschool going. I’m going to do a drive-by if anyone wants a looksee.’

  He drove with Ryan. Three cars were parked outside the minicab office. Two Fords and a Nissan. ‘How many in there?’ Vanner asked.

  ‘Three main drivers. Target 1 is called Nathan. Jimmy says he’s the pickup boy. Sometime about ten-thirty he’ll go and pick up the gear. His is the Nissan.’

  ‘The others?’

  ‘Old fella and another young one. Little guy with dreads.’

  ‘Any other drivers?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Ryan nodded to the pavement outside the office, which was thick now with girls. ‘Toms are out, Guv. At least we know there’s crack. Blow job to pay for the gear.’

  ‘Milo?’

  ‘In the pub. The OP’s above. He talks to them on the payphone.’

  Vanner nodded and drove on.

  He locked the room and went outside into the night, being careful to lock and padlock the outside door to the warehouse. Briefly, he looked up at the windows and then walked up to the main road. Buildings sprawled and scratched at the sky all about him. From the estate he could hear someone yelling.

  At the top of the road he turned left and walked down towards the tube station. When he hit the High Road he stuck out his hand for a cab.

  ‘Where to, mate?’ The cabbie twisted in his seat.

  ‘Kilburn.’

  ‘Whereabouts?’

  ‘I’ll tell you when we get there.’

  The cab slowed at the junction of Cricklewood Lane and Chiselle Road. He asked the driver to head down Kilburn High Road and drop him off by the park. He tipped him and then set off walking, back up the road once again. He sang softly to himself, hands in the pockets of his suit. He loved the metallic sound his quarter tips made on the pavement. He crossed the intersection and kept on walking, up towards the minicab office with the pub and the church across the road. A huge Day-Glo sign lifted above the street from the church. JESUS SAVES, it read. Ringo May came out of the pub.

  Vanner sat in the front of the van, Jimmy Crack driving, Ryan squashed between them, a baseball bat on his knees.

  ‘That regulation issue is it?’ Vanner said.

  ‘Lives in the boot of my car, Guv’nor.’

  In the back the rest of the team were bunched together with the two uniformed TSG men. One of them held the battering ram. The van idled. Ryan glanced through the windscreen to the height of the tenements all round them. McCleod called from the back: ‘How much longer we going to sit here, Guv’nor? Some old sod’s going to ring up the target and tell him there’s a van full of Old Bill plotted up round the corner.’

  ‘We’re waiting for the call, Sam.’

  Jimmy leaned back in his seat. ‘Sammy’s right, Guv. We can’t sit here forever.’

  Ryan looked at his watch. The mobile rang in his lap. He picked it up, listened, then nodded once to Jimmy.

  He watched from the darkened doorway of a shop. A white unmarked van hurtled round the corner so fast it was all but on two wheels. It jerked to a halt outside the minicab office. Side door open and men crashed to the street. Two of them ran for the back. A second van pulled up, marked this time. A whole stream of uniforms tumbled out. Dogs barked, voices shouting, the sudden splinter of wood. He stood a moment longer then he slipped quietly from the door and walked back down the street.

  Vanner kicked his way through the hole in the panelled door. It had opened outwards instead of inwards. They had had to go through the middle. Precious seconds lost. He saw a woman and a tall, thin black man.

  ‘Stand still,’ he said.

  Ellis’ head appeared through the window at the back of the corridor. Stairs leading down before it. Vanner moved towards them, Ryan alongside, baseball bat in his hand. They ran down the stairs and kicked open a second door. Four men played dominoes.

  Vanner stepped into the room. Naked women paraded on the TV screen above his head. Ryan followed him and McCleod. Two ragged couches and an armchair. A bar area at the back of the room and beyond it the open door of a toilet. They could hear the sound of it flushing. Vanner’s eyes were drawn to a handwritten scrap of paper, pasted over the bar. ‘Drug Free Zone’ it read.

  Ninja and The Wasp moved along the landings of the Kirstall Estate in Kentish Town, listening to the silence and the racket that lifted in turn from the flats. Two o’clock in the morning. Ninja carried his half-length sword, pushed up the sleeve of his jacket. They climbed stair after stair until they came to the top floor of the building. Then through a final door and metal steps to the boiler room. Light crept round the lip of the door where it did not fasten correctly. From within, they could hear the murmur of conversation. Ninja slid the sword the length of his arm and slipped it from the scabbard. The Wasp grinned at him in the darkness. He stood on one side of the door and quietly took hold of the edge. Ninja pushed the weight of his hair from his face and blinked with his one good eye. The Wasp ripped the door open.

  Ninja sprang in, sword waving, a snarl creasing his lips. Bedlam. Boys and girls crying out, rushing for t
he walls and the door. He could smell the pungent aroma of dope. Very casually The Wasp stepped in behind him. Denny squares cut into singles lay on the floor at his feet. He caught sight of the faces and belly laughed. Mickey Blondhair got up from where he crouched behind some piping, hair hanging over his face, gold stud in his nose. ‘You fuckin’ wanker, Wasp.’

  Ninja put his sword away and lifted a joint from the kid nearest him. The Wasp closed the door and sat down on a box. Mickey Blondhair squatted across from him. A pager watch hung from his wrist. ‘What d’you want—anyway?’

  The Boiler Room Gang. The Wasp scanned the faces. Mickey Blondhair was the eldest at thirteen. ‘The money of course. How much’ve you got?’

  Mickey got up and stuffed his hands in his pockets. ‘Fuckin’ shitloads, Wasp.’

  The bleeper sounded on Wasp’s wrist. He cursed and looked down at the face. ‘Anybody got a phone?’

  Mickey Blondhair produced a Nokia. ‘You’ll have to pay for the call.’

  He sat before the computer screen and yawned. Weary now, long day and much longer night. No headphones. No music, just the silence and the electronic figures before his eyes. He tapped the desk and waited. The mobile lay next to him with the digits illuminated. Dangerous to receive a call on a mobile. But tonight … He waited. The phone finally rang. ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s me.’

  ‘What’re you doing?’

  ‘Collecting funds.’

  He narrowed his eyes. ‘Where?’

  ‘Boiler room.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Dunno yet.’ The Wasp spoke away from the phone. ‘Hey, Blondie. How much?’

  ‘Three-fifty. Split this cunt’s knees at the cashpoint. Got two hundred myself.’

  He heard. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Very very good.’

  ‘What d’you want, man?’

  ‘Ringo May.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘I want you to kill him.’

  Six

  RYAN STOOD WITH VANNER and Jimmy Crack beside the TSG van. He rolled a loose cigarette and passed it to Vanner. ‘One lousy rock of crack,’ he muttered. ‘In the bin of all places.’

  ‘No bodies,’ Vanner said. ‘It happens.’ He cupped his hands to the match. China came out of the minicab office with the 101 form flapping in the breeze. ‘You all done?’ Vanner asked him.

  ‘All but, Guv.’

  Jimmy held up the rock, yellowed and shaped like a tooth and heat-sealed in clingfilm. He looked at Vanner. ‘I’ll give it to the DI at Kilburn, Guv. Stick it in the 66. Gives us a reason to crash the door at least.’

  Vanner looked back at Ryan. ‘Where’s Milo?’

  ‘Gone.’

  Jimmy made a face. ‘You think he’s lifting our leg?’

  ‘He showed didn’t he.’

  Jimmy looked back at the cab office where Nathan, the dealer, was watching him. ‘Love to nick that bastard. So bloody cool.’

  Vanner touched his shoulder. ‘Next time,’ he said.

  John Phillips Junior walked along Great Yarmouth front with the wind buffeting him from the sea. The ‘Pleasure Beach’ thumped with disco music behind him. Children crying. Girls screaming on the waltzers. Skeletal rides, stark against the skyline. It was hot but he walked with his coat hugged about him and the blood very thin in his veins.

  Two cars were parked side by side in a road that led towards the town centre. He paused and looked them over. M reg. Volvo and a Mercedes 190. That was worth having a go at. He might get a few grand for it in the arches. Two women walked towards him though, pushing young children in buggies. Across the road in the park, an old man threw bread for grey pigeons. Dismissing the Merc, he walked on.

  He was hungry. He could not remember eating. His face felt drawn and pinched and he was aware of the puffiness in his eyes. His hair straggled about his face. He could smell himself and he longed for the feel of a bed. All he needed was the right car and a few minutes alone with it. Then it could be London, a wedge and a bath in his mother’s house.

  He moved towards the city centre and spotted the bleak mass of the multi-storey car park. Across the road, the shopping arcade hummed with people. He was not keen on car parks. They were okay if you got away quickly. But if an alarm went off or the lock out was a pain in the arse, they could be tricky. It just depended on how good the attendants were. Some of them—most of them in fact—could not give a toss: but there were always the odd one or two.

  He stood at the end of the road, the sun on his back but cold inside himself. The wind licked his hair, sticky, like the fingers of a child. As if in some unspoken warning, a police car crossed at the lights in front of him. He stood on the pavement with his arms folded and watched as they swung left on the one-way system. He paused a moment longer, looked back toward the sea. Then he looked ahead again and crossed the road to the car park.

  Vanner met McCague in Hendon. They bumped into each other as Vanner climbed the stairs towards Morrison’s office.

  ‘How are you?’ McCague asked him.

  ‘Not bad. Spin last night in Kilburn. Didn’t get in till three.’

  ‘Result?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It happens. Much tackle with you?’

  ‘TSG. Dogs. No Gunships.’

  ‘I heard about the last one. Stand Down at the eleventh hour.’

  ‘That’s snouts for you.’

  McCague looked at him then. ‘How’s the back?’

  ‘Looks like a wild woman’s knitting.’

  ‘Nothing from Fennell Street?’

  Vanner shook his head.

  ‘Still think it was more than a mugging?’

  Vanner shrugged his shoulders.

  McCague took him to one side of the stairs as two WPC’s moved past them. Vanner watched them. ‘Best looking plonks always were at Division.’

  ‘Why d’you think I work here? Listen, Vanner. Morrison’s been bending my ear. You’re supposed to keep in touch with him.’

  ‘I’m on my way to see him now.’ Vanner folded his arms. ‘He’s always busy. He’s got surveillance plotting the entire manor on Eagle Eye.’

  ‘It’s political.’

  ‘It’s a waste of fucking time.’

  McCague tapped him on the shoulder with his index finger. ‘He’s your Guv’nor, Vanner. Report to him.’

  In the corridor outside Morrison’s office he met Frank Weir. Thin face, sparse hair, grazing his head like a burn on a hill. He chewed gum habitually. AMIP Scouser. Vanner had always hated him. One of Morrison’s cronies and a hard man with it. They looked at one another, Weir tugging the cuffs of his suit. ‘Vanner,’ he said. ‘You look worse than one of your dealers.’

  ‘And you look like a tart’s handbag.’ Vanner went into Morrison’s office without knocking.

  Ryan was waiting for him back at Campbell Row. He was drinking coffee in the kitchen and chatting to a sergeant from the Firearms Enquiry Team. Vanner walked past them and into his office without speaking, Morrison’s dressing down ringing in his ears. Three P’s, Vanner. Remember the three P’s? Property. Prisoners. Prostitutes. Right now you’re way down on property. Keep me informed. That’s the way we do things.

  Ryan came into the office behind him. Vanner was sitting at the desk, a mound of papers in front of him.

  ‘Old man giving you stick, Guv?’

  Vanner glanced up at him. ‘I need you to mind my back, Sid. Ellis is Morrison’s snout.’

  Ryan grinned. ‘Old numb nuts. Acting DI, Guv’nor. Not a happy soldier when you blew in.’

  ‘Sid, I need a minder.’

  Ryan sat down on the edge of the desk. ‘I’ve spoken to Milo.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Doesn’t know what went wrong. E’s could have been there, though I doubt it. Reckons the info was Kosher.’

  Vanner sighed. ‘Well, bugger all we can do about it now. What else have we got?’

  ‘Nothing. There’s been no drops at the post office.’

  Vanner looke
d up at him then. ‘Maybe we should keep an eye on Milo.’

  ‘I’ve told him to bell me daily.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Another thing, Guv. I meant to tell you before.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The night Milo called me at home. When they bleeped him with the drop. The phone number he had to ring was a call box in Kentish Town.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So nothing maybe. But he said they’d used it before.’

  Ninja sat in the passenger seat and took a lighted cigarette from The Wasp. ‘You never told me he lived here.’ He rubbed fingers over his belly and stared through the windscreen into the darkness of the Bream Park Estate. A warren of broken-down flats. Burn marks on the exterior walls of the car park, where innumerable cars had been set light to. The Wasp looked at him. ‘It’s no worse than ours.’ He nodded to Ninja’s midriff. ‘What’s up with you anyway?’

  ‘Guts are bad.’

  ‘Again? You should see a doc. I told you that. You’ll drop dead on me one day.’

  Ninja twisted his head all the way round so he could see him. ‘I ain’t going to no doctor.’

  The phone rang on the dashboard. The Wasp pressed SND and put it to his ear.

  ‘We’re here.’

  ‘Did you get the gloves?’

  The Wasp glanced at the surgical gloves on the back seat. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Good. No mistakes. Just do it and get out. We’ll talk again tomorrow.’

  The Wasp put down the phone.

  Ninja looked out of the window again. ‘I’d never’ve come if I knew he lived here.’

  ‘We’ll be all right.’

  ‘You will. You’re black.’

  The Wasp grinned then. ‘Come on, man. You’re Ninja. The fuckin’ Gypsy. Everyone knows who you are.’ He reached over and stroked Ninja’s long, matted dreadlocks.

  ‘You’re almost a brother ain’t you.’

  ‘Fuck brothers.’ Ninja opened the door. ‘If we’re going to do it—let’s do it.’

  The Wasp led the way up the first flight of stairs from the pavement. Ninja walked behind him, sword hidden in his jacket. On the first landing they surprised two young kids, smoking dope. They ran off as soon as they saw them. The flats were off the corridor, which was carpeted after a fashion and windowed off from outside. It gave the impression of being in a void.