‘Where’s the girl?’
Her voice was old, but not old, and there was an unpleasantness in it that reminded Ramon of teeth scraping on metal. There was something about her too. Something that just felt evil. He couldn’t describe it any other way.
Ramon suddenly felt very afraid, as if this woman could read his mind and unearth all his lies.
‘She’s in the car,’ he said, standing taller than he felt.
‘Get her.’
He returned to the car, opened the back door, and helped Nicole out, being careful not even to look at her as he took her by the arm and led her to the door.
The door opened further and Ramon saw that the woman was wearing a long black dress that reached to the floor. When she saw Nicole, the woman smiled and her eyes lit up the way a cat’s do when it’s found a mouse to torture.
‘Come in, come in,’ she said, reaching out and taking Nicole by the hand.
Ramon let go of Nicole and ignored the look she gave him over her shoulder as the door opened wider like a pair of jaws, before slamming shut as she disappeared inside.
Walking hurriedly, his mouth dry, Ramon got back in the car and drove away as fast as he could, trying not to think of what fate awaited the girl with the brown eyes.
Thirty-four
It had just turned 10.30 when our convoy of vehicles came to a halt on a side street in one of those areas of Hackney that was still a long way off gentrification. The interconnected mid-rise buildings of the estate where our suspect Anton Walters had lived all his life rose in the gloom ahead, silhouetted by the bright glow of the streetlamps.
According to Olaf’s earlier briefing, this was going to be a straight in-and-out job, characterized by, in his words, ‘a big chunk of shock and awe’. The first two vans in the convoy were unmarked and contained a total of sixteen heavily armed firearms officers from CO19, the Met’s elite firearms unit. They would hit Walters’ third-floor flat from the front, arrest him, and secure the scene. The next three cars contained detectives from Ealing MIT. One car would take Walters back to Ealing so he could be interviewed. The rest of us would go into the flat as soon as CO19 were finished and conduct a thorough search for evidence against Walters. Bringing up the rear of the convoy were two riot vans containing officers from Territorial Support, who would provide security while the search went on.
The street was quiet but I could sense a tension in the air. The Ridgeway Estate was one of the most poverty-stricken areas of one of the most poverty-stricken boroughs in London. Youth unemployment ran at close to seventy per cent, and it had been a major flashpoint during the 2011 riots. For a lot of people on the estate, the police were the enemy, and their presence was deeply unwelcome, and occasionally resisted. The distance from where we were now to the bustling wealth of the City of London, where one third of the world’s money passes through every day, was barely a mile as the crow flies, but it might as well have been a different planet.
I was in the third MIT car with Jools. I could see she was nervous. It was the way she constantly shifted in her seat in a vain effort to get comfortable, and fiddled with her wedding ring, while all the time staring into the darkness, her mouth tight. We’d discussed the timing of the arrest on the way here. Like me, Jools thought we were making a big mistake going in at this time of night, when there’d still be plenty of residents up and about, most of whom almost certainly wouldn’t take kindly to a heavy-handed police raid in their midst.
‘What I’d do to be sitting on the sofa with Charlie right now, drinking a glass of Pinot and watching a crap movie,’ she said at last.
‘Yeah, me too,’ I said. ‘But maybe not with Charlie.’
‘Ha ha. You’re a funny guy, Ray.’ She smiled, then looked at me with a serious expression. ‘You seem very laidback sitting there. Is it an act, or are you really not bothered about going in there?’ She nodded towards the tower blocks.
‘Fear’s a funny thing,’ I said. ‘You never want too much of it, otherwise you can’t function, but it’s always worth having a little. That way it keeps you on your toes. So, yeah, I’m nervous, but in a good way.’ I smiled at her. ‘Tonight’ll be fine. In. Out. Just like Olaf said.’ Although I wasn’t entirely sure I believed it.
I don’t think Jools did either because, although she nodded slowly, she didn’t look entirely convinced.
‘Just watch my back in there, eh?’ she added.
‘Course I will.’
The radio crackled into life. It was Olaf. ‘Tango One to all cars, are we ready?’ He sounded excited.
The calls came back that we all were, and as he shouted the words ‘Go! Go! Go!’, like we were on some TV show, I experienced a sudden sense of foreboding.
This was going to go wrong.
The Ridgeway Estate was built in the 1960s, a series of more than a dozen blocks of flats, each five storeys high, linked together by communal walkways and bridges, like some kind of minimalist Lego fortress. The planners must have thought they were building a village in the heart of the city, complete with green lawns and a kids’ playground in the middle, but what they’d created was a criminal’s paradise, with numerous places to hide, and escape routes everywhere.
There were only two roads in or out at either end, and we came in from the north, driving steadily and without sirens. As we passed a car park next to a long row of overflowing bins, a group of kids messing about on bikes turned our way, their eyes narrowing as they realized who we were. The convoy kept going as the road took us further into the bowels of the estate, the buildings looming up close to us on either side like rockfaces in a canyon, and then as we reached the block where Walters lived, the vehicles came to a halt next to the communal lawns, blocking the road.
As predicted, there were still a fair few people around. A much larger group of teenagers were over the other side of the lawns, several of them on bikes, and other residents, a mix of old and young, were beginning to appear on the balconies that ran along the front of the flats, to watch what was going on. Despite the fact that this part of the op was all about surprise, word of our arrival was already spreading like wildfire and it would only be a few minutes before everyone on the estate, including Walters, knew we were here.
CO19 poured out of their vans and split into two teams of eight. They all wore combat helmets with visors, and were heavily armed with a mixture of MP5s and assault rifles, making them look far more like special forces commandos than a Met police unit. This was deliberate and was meant to instil fear and respect in onlookers so that they wouldn’t intervene in any arrest.
It worked too. As the two teams split up and jogged over to the exterior stairwells at either end of Anton Walters’ building, the handful of residents within their vicinity all moved well out of their way.
Behind us, the TSG riot vans had parked side by side, blocking the road leading to the rest of the estate, and their officers, also in riot gear, spilled out of their vans but moving more slowly, on the assumption that they weren’t going to be needed for anything other than guard duty.
I got out of the car too and stretched my legs, looking out across the communal lawns where the group of teenagers had already grown by a few people, and was now about a dozen strong. They stared across at me, and one of them on a bike threw me the finger. No one shouted anything. In fact, there was no noise at all. The whole estate was eerily silent. Everyone, it seemed, was just watching and waiting.
The CO19 teams were approaching Walters’ door from either end of the third-floor balcony, guns outstretched in front of them. Someone opened their door a few flats down, saw the cops, and immediately shut it again.
As they reached Walters’ place, one officer slipped an enforcer rapid-entry battering ram from his shoulder, took a step back, and slammed it against the door. I could hear the crack from where I was standing, it was that loud against the silence. The door shook but didn’t give, so he gave it another blow, and this time it flew open with a bang, which was immediately drowned by v
iolent shouts of ‘Armed police!’ as CO19 poured inside.
Thirty seconds passed. Then a minute. Olaf got out of the car in front of me holding a radio to his ear. He was talking to someone, his voice low, and I couldn’t hear what he was saying. Jools got out too and stood beside me.
‘What’s going on up there?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know, but I can’t imagine Walters’ flat being that big, so if he’s there they should be bringing him out pretty soon.’
That was when I heard the sound of the bottle hitting the TSG van, sending broken glass and liquid across its roof. Instinctively I put an arm round Jools’s shoulders and brought her down behind the MIT pool car. The bottle had come from the other side of the TSG vans, further down the road, but it seemed to have emboldened the group on the other edge of the lawns whose numbers had now swelled to more than twenty. One of them strode confidently towards us across the grass, a bottle down by his side, stopping about twenty-five yards away as the first of the TSG officers grabbed a riot shield from the back of one of the vans. He grabbed his crotch, sent a lively insult our way, then sent the bottle arcing towards us.
I ducked as it flew over my head and shattered against the tarmac somewhere behind us.
A dozen TSG officers immediately deployed in a line on the edge of the green, batons drawn and riot shields at the ready, putting themselves between us and the missile thrower who turned and jogged back to his friends to whoops of appreciation.
A good few minutes had now passed since CO19 had gone in and only a handful of cops had come out, and they were milling about on the balcony watching the entertainment below, with no sense of urgency in their movements.
‘What’s going on, boss?’ I called out to Olaf, who was still standing by his car with the radio, looking irate.
Olaf glared at me. ‘He’s not fucking there, that’s what’s going on. We’ve missed the fucker.’
I felt like telling him that Walters was always less likely to be at home at half ten at night than at five the next morning, but I guessed he wouldn’t want to hear that. And anyway, I didn’t get time to say anything before I heard a shout of ‘Heads!’ coming from one of the TSG officers over by the vans and the next second another bottle came sailing through the air and smashed on the ground a few yards from Olaf, who barely flinched but still looked extremely pissed off.
Looking round, I could see that we were now under threat from two sides. The last bottle had been flung from the area beyond the two riot vans, the route we’d come in on, while the group on the other side of the green had now grown to at least thirty strong, and were facing us down menacingly. I’d been in situations like this before. Angry mobs egg each other on, and the adrenalin starts to flow as the excitement of an impending fight takes hold, as anyone who’s ever been a soldier knows. Usually a well-marshalled police line can keep them at bay, but if the mood’s ugly enough, everything can turn in a second. One person charges, another follows, and suddenly you’ve got the whole lot of them running at you.
One of the TSG sergeants walked over towards us. ‘I think it’s best you get up to the flat, sir,’ he shouted at Olaf. ‘It’s looking a bit tasty down here. We’ve called in reinforcements so we’ll keep a lid on it but the sooner you get going, the sooner we can leave.’
Olaf banged the lead MIT car, motioning for the team to get out and follow him. ‘Come on, you lot.’ He strode across the courtyard towards the steps leading up to Walters’ flat, ignoring the loud bang of a stone or brick hitting one of the riot vans. I had to give Olaf his dues. He wasn’t overly bothered by the situation, unlike some other members of the team. Taliban Tom had gone a whiter shade of pale and was jogging alongside Olaf, presumably using his bulk as cover against the missiles that were now being chucked at a rate of one every three or four seconds. The TSG units began moving forward in both directions towards where the missiles were coming from to force those throwing them to retreat a little. The group I could see moved back towards the flats, but slowly, as if they weren’t too fazed, but then they already outnumbered the TSG, so they didn’t need to be.
I turned to Jools, who was still crouched beside our pool car, putting on her plastic gloves. I noticed her hands were shaking. ‘Are you ready?’
She nodded. ‘Let’s get moving.’
As we walked across the tarmac, I stayed on the outside of her, resisting the urge to put another protective arm round her in case she took it the wrong way. The outside stairwell connecting the floors had a roof but no walls on either side so as we mounted the steps we could see down to the estate on both sides. For the first time I saw the second mob throwing missiles. There were a lot more of them. Fifty teenagers and young men at least, spread out across the road we’d come in on, hoodies up and scarves over their faces. They were better supplied with ammo than the others, having access to the overflowing communal rubbish bins we’d seen on our way in, and they were yelling and posturing at the TSG officers who were now hopelessly outnumbered, and effectively surrounded.
‘How on earth are we meant to get out of here?’ asked Jools, looking down as we reached the third floor.
I was just about to answer when I saw something in my peripheral vision across the other side of the elevated walkway that linked Walters’ building with the one next to it. A barefooted man in a wifebeater vest and tracksuit bottoms had wandered out of one of the flats, barely thirty yards from where I was standing, a cigarette or a joint in his hand. His expression was one of mild confusion as he saw the trouble that was occurring thirty feet below him. The man caught my attention because he was muscular, about five feet ten, and mixed race. With a sleeve tattoo on his left forearm.
Anton Walters might not have been at home, but it seemed he wasn’t very far away either.
Thirty-five
For a couple of seconds Anton Walters didn’t move. It was obvious to me that he was stoned out of his head and having difficulty processing the situation. But then he turned my way at just the moment I started running along the walkway towards him. I might have been dressed casually and not shouting at him – I figured there wasn’t much point in yelling ‘Stop, police!’ – but there was little doubt I was a cop.
Walters immediately turned and ran away from me along the balcony but I’d already eaten up half the distance between us and now there were only fifteen yards between me and him – and he was barefoot and stoned, and I wasn’t.
I was catching him. Twelve yards, ten.
Down below, some of the mob picked up what was happening above them and started yelling and shouting in our direction, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. I was focusing entirely on taking down Walters, knowing that he was our best lead into the Kalamans. If he escaped now, I knew he’d be dead by morning because there was no way they could afford to keep him alive.
Walters looked over his shoulder and saw me gaining, and as he turned back round again he collided with a very large man who’d also stepped out of his flat to see what was going on. Walters bounced off him, hit the railings, and went down on one knee, before scrambling to his feet. The large man – white, very fat and dressed in a T-shirt several sizes too small for him – turned my way and was suddenly blocking my path.
I didn’t slow down. Instead I screamed at him to get out of the way and pulled back a fist as if I was going to throw a punch. Our eyes met for only a split second but that was enough for him to know I was serious and he got out of the way surprisingly quickly as I drew level with him.
We were coming to the end of the corridor, and I knew that if Walters managed to get down the steps to where the mob was there was no way I could continue the chase. Only three yards separated us now. He stepped on something on the ground, something that must have been sharp because he instinctively slowed up, which was the moment I dived on his back, sending us both hurtling forward. I thought this would knock him to the ground but he reacted fast, grabbing the railing for support with both hands and managing to stay upright. He slammed an elb
ow into my face and used all his force to try to drive me against the wall. But he stumbled en route, giving me an opening. I put my back foot against the wall for support and launched a flurry of punches to his face, all of which connected. Then, as he crouched down to try to get out of the way of the blows, I drove him back hard the other way.
Too hard.
As he hit the railing, the momentum kept us both going and suddenly his whole body had gone over the top and he was hanging in the air thirty feet above the ground, desperately clinging to my arms, while down below the mob’s shouts and yells were getting louder and more angry.
I looked Walters in the eye, remembering the way he’d looked at me from behind the ski mask two nights earlier when he’d pointed a shotgun at my head. He’d wanted to kill me then. He would have done if he’d had any ammunition left. And now he was at my mercy and he was absolutely terrified.
‘Get me up,’ he gasped. ‘For fuck’s sake.’
I’d have loved to let him drop. The bastard deserved it. Or better still, demanded to know the names of the two other men he’d been with that night, because he would have told me anything to get out of the position he was in. But neither was possible. I could see at least one person filming me on his mobile from down below. I was in front of witnesses here. Literally hundreds of them. And anyway, it was taking all my strength just to hang on to him, and already his hands were slipping down my forearms.
Steadying myself, I pulled him upwards.
That was when I saw it. At the top of his underarm just beneath the armpit. The same tattoo that Henry Forbes had. The pentacle with the flowing ‘M’ inside.
‘Ray, help!’
The voice belonged to Jools. I turned and saw her further along the balcony, struggling with two guys in their early twenties. She was down on one knee on top of one of them while the other was standing above her pulling her hair and trying to drag her off. There was no sign of help coming from across the other side of the walkway. We were on our own out here.
The Bone Field Page 20
