Brick: An unputdownable gritty thriller...

by Conrad Jones

  CHAPTER 26

  Braddick was sitting at his desk when his detectives started to drift in for the day shift. The smell of aftershave, perfume and fresh coffee drifted to him. His body craved sleep, only adrenalin kept him ticking. He was hoping that their minds were fresher and sharper than his felt. Ade Burns was one of the first to arrive. He looked as dishevelled as he had the night before. Braddick noticed that he had changed his suit but it still looked as if he had picked it up off the floor; he decided that was just his way.

  “Brew, Guv?”

  “Go on,” Braddick nodded. “This one is stone cold.”

  “Have you been home?”

  “Not yet. Things were busy after I sent you lot home,” Braddick stretched his arms above his head. “Typical, it’s always the way, eh?”

  “You could have bet on something happening,” Ade nodded. “Anything new to report?”

  “You heard about the bowling alley?”

  “Yes, Guv,” Ade said shaking his head. “I called in to take a look myself on the way in; how solid is the ID on the Tuckers?”

  “A junkie called Danny Cook called in asking to meet up, you heard of him?”

  “That doesn’t ring any bells for me?”

  “He goes by the nickname Cookie.”

  “Still doesn’t mean anything to me. Where is he from?”

  “Apparently they were all from the Toxteth area. He hung around with the Tuckers when they were teenagers and when they went into business he sold smack for them for a few years,” Braddick shrugged. “They found out that he was using more of their gear than he was selling and they beat him up, broke his arm and chucked him in the Mersey.”

  “Dismissed for gross misconduct,” Ade said putting two mugs of coffee onto Braddick’s desk, “sounds fair enough in their world.” He took a mouthful of coffee. “And this Cookie guy saw the Tuckers there?”

  “No but he heard them.”

  “Heard them,” Ade asked his eyebrows raised in question.

  “He had been living in the bowling alley when they broke in and brought the Johnsons there. He recognised their voices,” Braddick said frowning. “He saw the Johnsons tied to chairs and listened to the entire thing. I know it’s not enough to prosecute but it is solid enough for me to believe him. I’m counting on Kathy Brooks being able to put them at the scene.”

  “Fingers crossed, Guv.”

  “Was she still there when you called in?”

  “No. She had left about a half hour before I got there. One of the techs said they had recovered plenty of trace and that Kathy had sent them in as priority. She was going home for some sleep, said she won’t be in until dinnertime.”

  “Even on priority, it will still be a few days before we hear anything.”

  “Are we going to lift the Tuckers anyway?”

  “Yes but I’m waiting the nod from upstairs.”

  “That will be fun. From what I saw at the bowling alley they’re nasty bastards, the Tuckers.”

  “I’m looking at their PNC records now, trying to get to know them,” Braddick yawned. “There isn’t much that they haven’t been dragged in for but nothing seems to stick to the older brother, Joe. Tommy seems to get the brunt of any charges filed.”

  “Taking the rap for his brother, no doubt?”

  “It looks that way.”

  “Either that or he’s stupid.”

  “I don’t think either of them is stupid,” Braddick said staring at the computer. “It will take more than we’ve got now to pin these murders on them. I can’t see them cracking either. It is down to us to find something concrete. ”

  “Something will trip them up eventually, Guv, It always does,” Ade said optimistically. “Have we got a name for the SIO yet or are you still at the helm?”

  “It would seem that there’s no rush to nominate a senior investigating officer or they can’t find one stupid enough to step in and take over,” Braddick smiled and yawned again. “Once we’re in a position to make an arrest they’ll be queuing up to take the credit. I think they’re waiting to see just how shitty this one really is before they make a decision.”

  “That sounds about right. What happened with Bryn Evans?”

  “They moved him to Altcourse during the night.”

  “That’s odd,” Ade said slurping his brew.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I thought he was going into the Reynoldstown Unit.”

  “He is.”

  “One of my mates is a screw there,” Ade said shaking his head. “Reynoldstown doesn’t take anyone between lights out and seven in the morning under any circumstances. Apparently they only have one screw overnight. The inmates are in lockdown, monitored by CCTV.” He checked his watch. “Mind you it’s gone seven anyway. I bet they locked him up last night and moved him this morning.”

  “Do me a favour will you,” Braddick said worried. “Find out where he is. I said that I would ring his brother this morning and give them an update.”

  “I’ll do that now,” Ade said standing up. He walked towards his desk and then came back for his forgotten coffee cup. “Oops, looks like we have a visitor.” He said looking over Braddick’s shoulder. Braddick looked around to see the uniformed figure of the Assistant Chief Constable, a short potbellied man with a whisky nose called Alan Parry. “I’d have put my best suit on if I’d known he was coming.”

  “Have you got a best suit?”

  “No, they’re all crap. The ACC has come to give you a bollocking, I can tell by the look on his face,” Ade joked as he walked away.

  Braddick tried to wipe the smile from his face as he stood up to greet his superior. “Morning, inspector,” the ACC said gesturing towards the empty Detective Superintendent’s office. It still had Alec Ramsay’s name on it. “I need a word in the office if you have a minute. Sorry to come down unannounced but it won’t take long.”

  “It’s no problem, sir.” Braddick walked towards the door, opened it and stood aside for the ACC to enter. He followed him inside and closed the door behind him. The uniformed officer walked to the window and looked at the view over the Albert Docks and the river, his hands folded behind his back. In the distance where the river snaked by the airport, it looked black and wet like treacle but across the road near the docks the water was slate grey. Dawn had broken but it would be a few hours before the streetlights went out.

  “I’ve heard that you want to bring the Tuckers in for the Johnson murders, inspector,” he said without turning around. “Bad men that need locking up but we must get it right.”

  “You sound like you’re familiar with them, sir.”

  “I haven’t always been behind a desk, inspector,” the ACC turned his head a half smile on his face. “The Tuckers have been bad for generations and I have had plenty of experience of their exploits.” He turned back to the river. “As for the Johnsons, I was given responsibility for a spate of lorry thefts from the docks when I was a Chief Inspector. The Johnsons came up several times over the years. I’ll be glad to see the back of the lot of them.”

  “Did you ever lift them, sir?”

  “I locked Joseph Tucker up for a GBH about ten years ago. He glassed some young kid in the Revolution Bar on Mathew Street. Right mess he was, over a hundred stitches in his face,” he explained; disappointment in his voice. “We had him nailed, victim’s statement, witness statements from inside the pub, landlord’s statement corroborated by the barmaid; he was going down, no doubt about it.”

  “What happened?”

  “His brother Tommy is what happened,” the ACC snorted. “Joseph was banged up on remand when Tommy started visiting our witnesses. The next thing was Tommy walked into Coppice Hill nick and claimed responsibility for the attack. Of course when we reinterviewed our witnesses they couldn’t be certain which brother had done it. Some of them claimed that they had completely forgotten what they saw. The landlord locked the doors, sent the keys to the brewery with his resignation and buggered off to Southern Ir
eland. The case fell to bits.”

  “They walked?”

  “They walked alright. It didn’t even get to court.”

  “There’s not much you could have done, sir.”

  “No there wasn’t. That was when I put in for a desk,” he shrugged, looking defeated. “I’m telling you this because I need you to be belt and braces on this because these bastards will make sure that your witnesses are worth nothing.” Braddick nodded that he understood. “You are sure that what you have is good enough to pick them up?”

  “Yes, sir. We’ve found the murder scene and I have a positive ID on the Tuckers,” Braddick kept his answer short and guarded. He knew the ID was shaky at best.

  “Your witness is familiar with them?”

  “He’s an ex-employee.”

  “Good,” the ACC said turning around. “Let me know what you need once you’ve done all the risk assessments. I’ll let you have everything at my disposal.”

  “We have the go ahead?”

  “You do.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Another thing, I’m not appointing an SIO, Braddick.”

  “Sir?”

  “Apparently your time with the NCA has impressed somebody,” the ACC said; an acidic tone touched his voice. “As of now you’re officially in charge of the Major Investigation Team on an ‘acting up’ basis. Once we know what’s happening with DS Ramsay we’ll make a permanent decision.” Braddick nodded but didn’t speak. He kept his face neutral so the ACC couldn’t gauge his reaction. “It is a lot of responsibility but I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

  “Sir.”

  “I haven’t had time to inform DI Cain yet,” the ACC lowered his tone. “I would appreciate you keeping this under your hat for now.”

  “Cain, Sir?”

  “Yes, from DS. Do you know her?” he asked confused.

  “Yes, sir, we’ve met.”

  “It was indicated to her that she would be the next Chief Inspector,” he shook his head as if disappointed. “She probably would have been if you had not come back. She’ll be disappointed so it would be better if she hears it from me.”

  “I see, sir.” Braddick remained impassive. He hadn’t come back to the force seeking promotion. He had come back to lick his wounds. His silence had his senior baffled.

  “You can use this office as your own for now, of course.”

  “I’ll wait until there’s news about DS Ramsay, sir. I don’t think we should take his name off the door just yet.”

  “Ah, yes. Maybe not. Is there anything you need to ask me?”

  “Not right now, sir.”

  “Okay,” the ACC walked to the door and opened it. “You will let me know what you need on the Tucker operation.”

  “Within the hour, sir.” The ACC nodded; a half smile on his face before turning and heading towards the lifts. “Tosser,” Braddick muttered under his breath as he returned to his desk. No congratulations, no ‘nice to have you onboard’, no handshake, no fuck all. The ACC was the type of officer that Braddick dreaded becoming, the life crushed from him, all thirst for the job long gone.

  “Ade,” he called over to his sergeant. “I need all the risk assessments completed to pick up the Tuckers and let’s get eyes on them as soon as possible. I want them under surveillance ASAP.”

  “Have we got the go ahead?”

  “We have. Let’s make sure that we get it right.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Tucker waved his hand and the driver turned off the lorry tractor unit. The engine shuddered to a halt and the headlights went out. He was hoping beyond hope that the container was still attached to its trailer and that they could just hook it up to their lorry and drive it away. His men were parked up in various places nearby, armed and ready to go at his signal. They couldn’t risk being pulled over by the police on a random stop and search and he needed to know if his shipment was intact and if so how many of Farrell’s men were guarding it, before they went rushing into a gunfight. He opened the door and climbed down onto the road; his brother climbed down after him.

  “Keep your eyes peeled,” Tucker said to the driver.

  “Will do, boss.”

  The garage that Johnson had told him about was directly in front of them completely in darkness. It was the ideal site for a chop shop, fronted by a genuine mechanic business, out of site with no neighbouring properties overlooking it. Vehicles could come and go without arousing suspicion. He could see an inky black stripe at one side of it; the blackness looked wet, dull light shimmering from the surface. The dark silhouettes of barges lined the far bank. Johnson had told the truth; it was the last building on the estate before the canal.

  “There are no lights on,” Tommy whispered.

  “Thanks for that, Einstein,” Tucker hissed. He bent low and covered the ground between them and the garage, stopping when he reached the wall. It was constructed from corrugated plastic sheets bolted to a framework of metal girders. The workshop frontage had four roller shutters that were high enough to allow an articulated lorry inside. Each shutter was closed and fastened to metal anchors in the concrete. Tucker waved his brother over and they crept around the building until they reached the customer entrance. The door was locked, half glass and half wood. There was a roller fitted above it but it hadn’t been pulled down. He put his hands above his eyes and looked through the glass, his breath causing condensation on the glass. The reception area was fitted out functionally but lay empty, no sign of life. The door into the service area was closed; he couldn’t see if his container was in there. Tucker swore and banged on the door. He turned to his brother, “Get this fucking thing open.”

  “Should we call the lads first?”

  “For what,” Tucker pointed to the empty reception. “Do you think they’re going to jump out and surprise us?”

  “It could be a trap.”

  “It could be and you could be a brain surgeon but you’re not,” Tucker said angrily, “so open the fucking door!” Tommy prised a wrecking iron behind the lock and put his weight behind it. The frame cracked and the door creaked open. Tucker stepped inside and walked across the reception, stopping when he reached the service bay door. He grabbed the handle and twisted it, pulling the door open. Skylights in the roof allowed some watery light in, enough for him to see that the garage was empty apart from a dismantled shipping container in the furthest bay. He reached around the door and switched on the light. His heart sank as he stepped inside and walked across the empty bays to reach the container. The roof and sides had been peeled away, the hollow structure cut open with welding lances leaving the metal blackened and jagged. As he looked around, he could see that every cavity had been emptied. “The double-crossing bastards have nicked our drugs,” he said to Tommy. Tommy noticed that the drugs had suddenly become ‘ours’ now they were missing. “They’ve cleared this place out and taken the zombie with them. We’re fucked.”

  “What are we going to do, Joe?”

  “We’re going to find out where they have taken it and get it back.”

  “How?”

  “Get the others in here quickly and check the rest of the place over. Pull it to pieces, search every inch of it. There must be something that we can use to find them.”

  “Okay,” Tommy frowned. “But what are we looking for?”

  “Look for anything that tells us where they might have relocated to. There’s no way that they have closed down the operation completely.” Tucker waited while Tommy called their men.

  “How do you know that they haven’t just scarpered?”

  “They have but it’s temporary.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When Johnson escaped, Karpov knew that someone would come here sooner or later. Could have been the police, could have been us or it could have been Johnson himself coming back for his brother. They’re smart. They will have had a place lined up in case they had to move in a hurry. There was always an exit plan; we just need to find out what it was.”


  The sound of engines grew louder. Tyres squealed and doors opened and slammed closed. Hushed voices chattered and a dozen heavies ambled in as they spoke. “Search the place, lads. Pull it to pieces. We’re looking for anything with an address on it, invoices, receipts, lists of suppliers or the like,” Tommy ordered. “It’s a big building so you start in the reception, the rest of you start at the back and work your way forward.”

  As his men got to work, Tucker walked around the trailer again, desperate for some answers. He had been double-crossed by the people he had trusted for years. They had supplied him since the early days, since the very beginning. His contacts in Amsterdam had always been true to their word. He had never had cause to doubt them, not once. Every deal that they had made from the early days onwards had been honoured and run like clockwork, never a quibble or question. The price was always right and the quality of the product was superb. They had made a lot of money together and the only reason he could think of as to why they had screwed him was that someone had come along with more money or more muscle or both. Money and fear could turn best friends into a liability. The fact that they had set him up to fall from a great height gutted him. They knew that this was the biggest shipment that he had handled and if it went wrong, he would be finished. Maybe that was why they turned on him. Maybe his greed was his weakness. Maybe he had stuck his neck out too far and they saw how vulnerable his position was. Or maybe they were just backstabbing arse bandits. The more he analysed things the angrier he became. He should have broken the shipment down into smaller loads, eggs in one basket theory. Words bounced around his head, perhaps, maybe, what if, could have, should have, hindsight is a great tool. It was easy to be smart after the event but this was a mistake that he wouldn’t recover from. Anger boiled inside him, anger and embarrassment together, a powerful combination. It wouldn’t take long for word to leak out across the city that he had been ripped off. Not just normal ripped off but set up proper, shafted, made a fool of, bent over and done up the arse ripped off. He would be the laughing stock of the city and all the credibility that he had earned over the years would be gone, wiped away in the blink of an eye. Eddie Farrell had sat down with the Karpovs and planned how they were going to fuck him over, actually had conversations about how to ruin him. They had meticulously organised his demise. He imagined them scheming, plotting his destruction in detail and it made him sick with anger. Whatever happened next would be the end for someone, him or them. There was no way that they could coexist anymore. Most outfits in the city simply tolerated the others knowing that war was bad for business but after this, Nicolai Karpov and Eddie Farrell would die at his hands or he would die at theirs. This was the end of the world as he knew it, one way or the other.