by L M Krier
‘Unfortunately, because it’s all done on the hush-hush, other agencies often don’t know that the operation was sanctioned from high up and may decide to come after me. None of them have succeeded – yet. I usually just drop out of sight until things calm down. And that’s all you need to know for now.
‘But tell me what’s got you so distracted you’re wandering around in a daze. Your boyfriend playing away while you’re busy playing cops and robbers?’
Ted wouldn’t have taken that from anyone else. From Green, it was just a matter-of-fact question, with no hidden agenda.
‘Tricky case, bastard of a new boss who hates me and thinks I’m a crap copper. And with so little progress made to date, I’m not sure I can entirely blame him for that opinion.’
Ted finished making himself a brew whilst he was speaking. His mother’s brand of tea was stronger than he preferred, so he barely dunked the teabag in the boiling water. Because he couldn’t resist the smell, he cut a slice off the loaf of bread Green had started on, dipped it in the hot bacon fat and started to devour it, realising that the earlier sandwich was but a distant memory. It was still edible, although the bread was no longer fresh. Green was right about the bacon. It tasted excellent.
Green paused in his eating to take a large swallow of the tea. Seeing how stained the inside of the mug was looking already, Ted wondered idly what all that tannin was doing to his insides.
‘Tell me about the case. It’s possible I might be able to help while I’m holed up here kicking my heels. I have good contacts.’
Ted knew that Green had the highest level of security clearance, so there was no problem over sharing confidential information with him. Just as he knew that, because of the type of agencies he worked for, Green would almost certainly have authorisation to carry the Glock at all times.
He gave him the broad outlines of the case then added, ‘I’m not asking you to take anyone out, though. Just so we’re clear on that.’
Green scoffed, then took another swallow of his tea.
‘You couldn’t afford me, not on a copper’s budget, for sure.
He finished eating, wiped his mouth and fingers fastidiously on paper kitchen towels, then took his plate to the sink and washed it up, firing suggestions at Ted as he did so.
‘You’ve checked the forger, of course? Tried to trace the one supplying the phony police badges? I know some people who supply stuff of that quality so I can ask around. I can probably find out much more in half an hour on the mobile than you lot could do in a few hours of legwork. Although that side should be easy enough, I might be better leaving that to you and looking at other stuff which I can probably access more easily than you can.’
He sat back at the table with his cup of tea before continuing.
‘I’ve found, from bitter experience, that when a usually successful MO goes as badly wrong as this one did, it’s often down to nepotism. I had a young officer foisted on me for a very difficult operation once. A completely useless arse-wipe, but the son of a colonel. He was assigned to my troop, and he risked getting us all killed. I had a little word with him.’
Ted could just imagine what the ‘little word’ had consisted of. He’d been on the receiving end of more than a few himself, in his time, when being trained by Green.
‘If I were you, I’d look at someone who might have been brought in because of who they were related to, not any skills they could bring to the party. Does your man Kateb have kids, for instance?’
Ted shook his head.
‘We don’t know much about his personal life. Intelligence so far suggests he’s not married, and he would be too young to have fathered children old enough to do this type of work in any event. We’re trying to look at anyone outside the usual gang circle.’
‘Has he got a bit on the side? Another woman who might have older kids? Someone who might pester him to take their sprog along? A kid not experienced enough to hold it together when things got difficult?’
‘He’s been under observation for some time and there’s nothing in the notes that I’ve seen to indicate that he might have a mistress.’
Another snort of contempt.
‘Observation? What, the same incompetent tossers who decided to concentrate on him rather than the mark and lost him? A decision which may just possibly have cost a woman her life?
‘It’s going to depend on the dynamics of this gang, but it must have been someone with some clout to have let in anyone that inexperienced to handle such a delicate and important part of the operation. If you’ve not found a body yet – although you may never find it of course – that suggests even more to me that this is a case of keeping it in the family. If they’ve not taken them out, they’re keeping them under wraps until they can move them somewhere safe. So you need to be looking for a son, a nephew, a brother of someone high up. Someone who decided to let them have a go when they weren’t up to it.’
Ted was interrupted by his mobile phone before he could answer. Trev calling him. He answered with his work voice, so he would know he was not alone.
‘Hey, you, I was just going up to Annie’s to clear out the fridge and have a check that everything is all right, but I can’t find the spare keys.’
‘Yes, sorry, I picked them up by mistake, forgetting I had mine. Senior moment, probably. I’m just about to go there now, as it goes, so don’t worry about it. I’ll have to go back into the office so I’m not sure what time I’ll be back. Eat when you’re hungry, don’t wait for me.’
Trev laughed.
‘What are you like? You’re going senile. I’ll see you when I see you. Love you.’
‘You too,’ Ted told him, feeling embarrassed with Green in the room.
‘The boyfriend?’
‘The partner,’ Ted corrected him. ‘I took both sets of keys, so he couldn’t drop in on you.’
‘It would be in his best interests if you didn’t tell him I was here,’ Green told him warningly.
Ted left, wondering if he was doing the right thing in sheltering him. His suggestions were helpful, though. It had given him another new direction in which to look. He’d submit it in his report to Marston before he left for the evening. He never liked taking credit for someone else’s ideas, but he was not about to mention Green’s presence to anyone.
As he walked back to his car, he phoned ahead to see if Sal was still in the station and to ask him to wait for him if he was. He had a feeling Marston was the sort to grab all the glory for himself and Ted wanted to make sure it was known that the latest idea was not the Chief Super’s own. He’d heard plenty of rumours which suggested that was how Marston’s promotions had been so rapid. He let someone else do the legwork then he took all the credit.
‘Sal, I know you still have good contacts in Fraud so I want you to pass on an idea I got through talking to someone. I’ll be sending my report through to the Chief Super later on, but just to give them an early heads up,’ he told him when he got back to the station.
‘A friend was telling me about something they’d encountered in the forces. It’s just a possibility that whoever was brought in to do the pick-up was related to someone either high up in the gang, or connected to someone who is. If nothing shows up on the contacts we have so far, we need to check carefully if Kateb or anyone else in the upper echelons has a mistress who’s not yet on the radar. Someone who might have a son, perhaps, who wanted the job.
‘Has anyone heard anything from Jezza today? I know she’s not likely to be in touch yet, but I just wondered. Virgil?’
‘Nothing, boss. We left it that she’d only contact me in an emergency, but otherwise she’d see you on Wednesday at the dojo to report in.’
‘And everything’s going to be all right with Tommy, Maurice?’
‘Should be fine, boss. Me and Steve are staying at the flat. Once he and Steve get playing on the computer, he barely notices whether Jezza is at home or not. Plus she’ll phone him when she can.’
It was getting late by
the time Ted had done his report and sent it through, as well as sorting out his paperwork in case of another unscheduled visit from Marston.
Trev was in the kitchen when he got home. He’d clearly eaten, his crockery and cutlery sided to the work surface but, as usual, not having made it as far as the dishwasher. He had his TEFL paperwork all over the table, a couple of the cats sitting on some of it and watching him in fascination as he worked. He was humming totally tunelessly to himself as he did so.
‘Hey. Do you want food? I just need to heat it up.’
Ted bent to kiss him then sank into the next chair.
‘I am hungry, if it’s not too much trouble.’
‘Did you empty Annie’s fridge? Where are the contents? Did you forget and leave them in the car? Another senior moment?’
‘Ah,’ Ted said, cursing himself inwardly that he hadn’t prepared a cover story. Trev had been right. He was rubbish at lying, so much so that he hadn’t even thought of something to say.
‘Ted, you’re behaving very strangely. What’s going on? Why didn’t you let me go to Annie’s?’
‘I don’t want you going there just at the moment. Can you just accept that, without asking too many questions?’
Trev sat back down and looked at him, his face concerned.
‘No, I can’t, and you worry me when you say stuff like that. I want to know what’s going on. Are you in some kind of trouble? Why won’t you tell me? I thought we’d sorted out the trust issues.’
‘It’s sometimes better if you don’t know stuff.’
‘Now you’ve got me really worried. You can’t leave it like that. What’s going on?’
Ted sighed and took hold of one of Trev’s hands. He told him the edited highlights of his encounter with the same young man who’d run him off the road. He said only that someone he knew had come to his aid and that, as they currently had nowhere to stay, he was letting them doss at his mother’s house. He explained it was someone who valued their privacy so he would prefer Trev not to go there for the time being. He didn’t believe half of what he was saying himself. He hoped it didn’t sound quite as lame to Trev.
‘But Edwards tried to kill you and you’re doing nothing about it? Ted, you can’t let him get away with it. You say you’ve warned him off, but what if he takes no notice? What if he gets someone more up to the job and they come after you and do you serious harm? You have to bring him in.’
‘It’ll be fine, really. Trust me. The man’s broken. Think of what he’s been going through, and he still has the ordeal of the trial, and the verdict, to get through. It’s only natural he blames it all on me. He’ll let it drop now. I’m sure he will. Don’t worry.’
Chapter Thirteen
Ted was not at all surprised to get an early morning summons to a briefing at Central Park. This time it was in the form of a circular text to all involved, which arrived while he was in the shower. It was followed shortly by a call from the Ice Queen saying she would pick him up in her official car in twenty minutes.
He was washed and dressed in time, but only managed to gulp half a mug of green tea and swallow a round of toast before he heard the car pull up outside. He scribbled a hasty note to Trev to say that once again, he had no idea what time he would be back.
‘New developments, I understand,’ the Super said by way of greeting, as her driver turned the car round at the end of the cul-de-sac in which Ted lived.
‘We had a bit of a breakthrough last night, with an idea or two, which I sent through to Mr Marston.’
‘Which he will no doubt be about to claim as all his own work.’
She surprised him by her comment. Even more so by her acerbic tone. She clearly had Marston’s number but he was shocked she had voiced her feelings in front of him, let alone in front of her driver. No doubt he was carefully selected and vetted to make the Three Wise Monkeys seem like gossips, but it was still a departure for her.
‘He wasn’t the only one we passed it on to, so he might not get the chance.’
She surprised him again with a smile of amusement. He seldom saw her smile, in the work setting.
‘I never had you down as a game player, Ted.’
They arrived in time to get a drink and a limp Danish from the long table down the side of the conference room before Marston marched in and called the briefing to order. The liquid refreshment was no better than on the previous occasion. Tepid, unidentifiable.
‘Right, everyone, in light of new information I’ve received, we’re widening the scope of our investigation into the gang members.’
Ted noticed he gave no credit for where the idea had come from. It didn’t bother him, as he’d never expected him to.
Marston laid out for those assembled the sort of information they were now looking for. He looked surprised and irritated when a member of the Major Fraud Team stood up to interrupt him.
‘Sorry, sir, but we’re a bit ahead of you there, although we haven’t had time to update you until now. We got the same intelligence late yesterday and made a start on it. We have some updated information now, if you’d like me to present it at this point?’
Marston flapped an irritable hand and told him to get on with it.
‘Samir Kateb has a cousin, Damon Bacha, who’s in France. As far as we know at present, he’s not involved in Kateb’s scam operation. He has a business sending Moroccan goods to the UK. Ceramics, rugs, leather goods, that type of thing. It seems to be decent stuff, not tourist tat.’
‘Is there a point to all this, Inspector Smith?’ Marston asked testily. ‘I doubt if any of us are planning on buying the merchandise.
‘Sorry, sir, yes, just getting there. Bacha has a son, Dorian, twenty-two. We’re not sure, from our enquiries to date, where he is at the moment. We’ve only just got started on this line of enquiry following a suggestion to look at wider family. We’ve just begun checking flights into Manchester from anywhere in France with a Dorian Bacha on board, but of course, we don’t know if, let alone when, he may have arrived in the country. He could even have travelled with one of the vehicles his father uses for his export business.’
‘This is all very tentative. Have we nothing at all more concrete than that to go on? What about the names suggested in Wilmslow? Have they all been checked yet, and have they thrown anything up? Any mysterious sightings of Moroccans?’
‘French, sir,’ the inspector from Fraud corrected him. ‘Bacha junior is a French national. And his father, and Kateb’s family, are naturalised French, of Algerian origin.’
‘Thank you, we’re all capable of reading the notes. I was using the term figuratively. Chief Inspector Darling, what is the latest from Wilmslow?’
‘Sir, none of the sightings or names suggested has led us anywhere useful for now. All the names provided have been checked out and have solid alibis for the time in question. Following on from what Inspector Smith just said, may I ask him a further question and then perhaps make a suggestion?’
In an open meeting, there was little Marston could reasonably do except to tell Ted to go ahead. He looked across the room at Neil Smith, from Fraud, and asked, ‘Neil, is there any suspicion of anything else coming in with Bacha’s merchandise? Any hash in the handbags or anything like that.’
Smith threw him a grateful look as he replied, ‘I was just coming to that, sir. Nothing definite, no arrests or anything. I’ve been talking to the French police and they’ve had the operation under observation for some time now, with that in mind. They had a tip-off which might, of course, just be rival dealers trying to stitch Bacha up, but there was suggestion of drugs and possibly arms being shipped along with the other, legit, merchandise.’
Seeing that Marston was about to interrupt again, Ted put in quickly, ‘Sir, if there is any suggestion of arms coming in this way, is it worth contacting Counter Terrorism Units to see if any of them are involved in monitoring the company, and if they may have more intelligence than we do at the present?’
‘How have we gone f
rom rugs and bags to terrorism? I’m surprised at you, of all people, Darling, making the judgemental leap. Not everyone from a Muslim country is a terrorist.’
‘Sir, I think France is actually a secular country,’ Ted said smoothly, ‘and just because the family are originally from Algeria, we don’t yet know what religion, if any, they follow. I just made the suggestion because, as you know, Counter Terrorism have a way of finding out information more quickly than we do, in many cases. Would you like me to make some enquiries? I have one or two contacts still who may be of use.’
Again, there was nothing Marston could do in public other than to agree, but not with any good grace. And once more, Ted was sure he saw his own Super lower her head to hide a smile.
Detective Superintendent Jim Baker erupted into the main office, flinging the door open then slamming it shut, using one of his crutches, with such ferocity that the hinges creaked in protest. It had clearly cost him some effort to stump up the stairs, with his leg still in a plaster cast.
There weren’t many team members in. Those who were looked up in alarm. The DSU was a big man. At the moment he had the look of a grizzly bear which someone had foolishly poked awake with a sharp stick, long before hibernation was over. It didn’t help the overall impression that he was clearly in a lot of pain, which his medication was not keeping under control.
His angry eyes glanced round the room, falling on Rob O’Connell, the most senior present, as a DS. Rob half rose to his feet, hesitantly, not quite sure what was going on but certain it didn’t bode well for someone.
‘Who’s in?’ the Big Boss barked.
‘Just us four, sir, and the boss, in his office.’
‘You three,’ he jerked his chin at Rob, Maurice and Steve. ‘Piss off out and do policeman stuff. Come back in half an hour.’
