‘They can’t possibly know that someone’s broken into their records and computer systems,’ Carrick observed.
‘Are you sure? There were hardly any passwords. Are they really stupid or actually rather clever and wanted it to happen?’
The men glanced at one another and then Patrick said, ‘I agree it’s cause for concern and speaking personally I suggest we proceed with all due caution.’
‘Likewise,’ the DCI said.
‘Do we know exactly which property in Avonhill’s involved?’ I asked.
‘Not yet.’
Patrick said, ‘As you’re well aware there are a hell of a lot of big houses up there.’
‘Keen’s contacting all the letting and estate agencies right now to see if we can pinpoint the place,’ Carrick told him.
‘Once you do know the address there’s nothing to stop you going straight in there, taking them by surprise and arresting them before any social event takes place.’
‘My instincts tell me to sneak someone in there on the night of the bash – easy if they have outside caterers – and find out who exactly is present. We’ve no idea at present as despite lousy security everywhere else they seem to be using nicknames. All sorts of worms might come out of their holes.’
‘And take photographs with a concealed camera?’ Patrick asked him.
‘I’m sorely tempted. Then raid the place and make arrests later when they’re all sozzled.’
‘Have you anyone in mind?’
‘Keen’s keen. None of that mob have seen him and he’s worked undercover before. You two are out of the question because, as Ingrid’s just mentioned, they’ve not only hunted out a photo of you but fired shots at it!’
‘We needn’t go together and wouldn’t necessarily look anything like we do in the photo.’
‘I daren’t risk your lives by asking you to do it. No.’
That could only mean one thing: we were going.
My reservations about DCI Cookson must have kept breaking into Patrick’s deep concentration on tactics that evening. He had been sitting motionless in an armchair, head back, thinking, even the tot of whisky on a small table at his side forgotten. Then, all at once, he exploded into movement, startling me and the two kittens which had been asleep on my lap.
‘Sorry,’ he said absently, over by the window, staring out. ‘I have to be really sure about this man, Cookson. Perhaps we ought to pay him a call – now.’
‘He probably won’t be at work this late.’
‘Sometimes it’s better to grab people at home.’
‘D’you know his address?’
He left the room, flashing me a crazy sort of smile on the way and saying over his shoulder, ‘No, but I’m a cop with access to information like that.’
The utilization of several security codes later elicited the information that Cookson was divorced and lived on his own in a flat in Clifton, Bristol, one of the oldest and most affluent areas of the city. Its Georgian terraces rival those of Bath and we discovered that it was at one of these properties that the DCI lived.
‘I had an idea you were planning on bursting through the back door in a forward roll firing stun grenades from the hip,’ I said and when I received a man-not-amused stare in return as he prosaically rang the doorbell I realized that I might have spoken a trifle sarcastically.
After a longish pause a grille to one side of the door crackled into life. ‘Who is it?’ Cookson’s voice enquired metallically.
‘Gillard,’ Patrick replied.
‘See me in my office tomorrow, at ten.’
‘It’ll be expensive if I shoot this lock off as well as the one on your front door.’
‘I’ll have you for criminal damage.’
‘But think of all the paperwork and the explanations to your neighbours and to SOCA as to why you forewarned a criminal that one of its operatives was looking him up.’
Audibly, Cookson swore and then, after a shorter pause, the lock clicked open.
He lived on the second floor, the first quick impression of the room we were shown into that of stylish, albeit dated, living. Here was a man either of slightly old-fashioned taste or, having inherited some of the furniture and fittings from his parents, could not be bothered to replace them. Everywhere was meticulously clean and tidy.
‘Well?’ Cookson said, throwing himself down on to a corner sofa. He had not asked us to be seated but we did.
Patrick said, ‘He had two large bouncers at the boat – one on the pontoon, one on deck, and the capitano had arranged that two of his crew act as a further deterrent down below. Micky’s kick-boxing is rubbish, by the way – he must have blinded the opposition with his dental veneers. I resent that you interfered.’
‘I thought he would seriously injure or kill you if I didn’t contact him beforehand.’
‘There’s more to it than that.’
‘OK, as I said at the time I didn’t want you interfering. I thought a show of force on his part would frighten you off and keep the pair of you in one piece.’
‘So what’s your interest then? Do you have a monopoly with this mobster? Or is he just contributing to your cost of living?’
‘Frighten’ had not been the right choice of word for Cookson to use.
There was an edgy silence, during which they stared at one another. Then Cookson dropped his gaze and chuckled. ‘Look, I’m not bent. What did Micky have to say?’
‘Not a lot. He doesn’t know of any particular reason why Uncle was intent on moving into Bath but it’s probably due to what we’ve already thought: that the Met’s making life too hot for them at home. And as we already know it was Charlie Gill who lured him into the city that night – they used to knock around together.’
‘The brotherhood’s as healthy as ever then,’ Cookson muttered. ‘I heard a rumour that he’s planning to retire, whatever that means. That’ll probably coincide with the day I finally get to arrest him.’ He gave us both a level look. ‘He was directly responsible for the death of one of my best officers and I’ve been playing a waiting game with him for years. I’ve got him to think that if he slips me bits of info about the other rats that inhabit his particular hole in the ground I’ll leave him alone. But as of yesterday we grabbed his one-time partner in crime who had assumed he was nice and safe in Newcastle with a new identity. He’s a right little creep and if he’s leaned on in the right way he’ll be all too ready to drop Micky boy right in it. We’ve brought him down here and tomorrow I’m going to skin him alive.’
‘How do you contact Mick?’ I asked.
‘The usual ways: by phone and email. But I know he’s not on the boat: the little bugger’s disappeared again.’
‘May SOCA and Bath CID have the details for their records?’
Against all my expectations he had no objection and wrote them down.
‘That puts a different perspective on things,’ I said when we were on our way home.
‘Yes, I had no idea Mick was implicated in a murder,’ Patrick said. He had actually poured his tot back into the bottle before we came out and was driving. ‘My fault, I should have checked beforehand.’
‘You can’t let him get away now.’
‘I’ve no intention of letting him get away. If you remember I did say I couldn’t protect him from prosecution for crimes he’d already committed.’
‘Only I’ve had an idea.’
‘Is that why you wanted his email address and phone number?’
‘Umm.’
‘Spit it out then.’
‘Arrange for Mick to get an invitation to the party. As you always like to do, make things happen.’
‘I like that.’
‘It would have to be very carefully engineered so he didn’t have the first idea who was going to be there.’
‘Will he fall for it, though?’
‘If you allow me to compose it. And it might mean changing your plans.’
FIFTEEN
This was not conceit on my part, mer
ely looking at it from a woman’s point of view. I have a notion that all the low and cunning, if not downright fiendish, moves in history made by kings, princes and other rulers had a female brain behind them; for example, tell your enemy how much you admire and would like his company at dinner, then have the boiling oil ready.
I obtained from Cookson, again against all the odds – perhaps he felt he owed me a favour after the way I had liaised with him – the name of Mick the Kick’s one-time partner in crime who, hopefully, he did not know had been arrested. I even got a little background information on the jobs they had done together. It was one of these, a post office robbery in Hotwells, Bristol, that had resulted in the death of Cookson’s sergeant in the days when he had been a DI. There had been a tip-off, the police were nearby and the man had been deliberately mown down by a getaway car. His life support machine had been switched off a fortnight later.
I worked for an hour on two emails until I thought I had the wording right. By this time I had Greenway on board and he gave what I had written to his techno-wizard who could apparently arrange to send them to the Bristol mobster and others using specially created email addresses. One drawback would be if Micky was in contact with his chum already and spotted the discrepancy. He might even phone him and realize the whole thing was a trick. It is worth noting that all the coppers – male, that is – in the know about this thought the ruse was bound to fail. Even I was not very confident.
A large detached house in Beau Brummell Drive, Avonhill, was now under surreptitious, and constant, observation. It was the only property that had been recently let in that area and the letting agents had refused initially to reveal to whom. After Carrick had threatened them with a charge of obstructing the course of justice they had, twenty-four hours later, come up with a name: Warren de la Frey. He then promised to slap a prosecution of aiding and abetting a criminal on them if they breathed one word to the new tenant that the police were making enquiries about him.
There were two days to go to the party.
‘You appear to have succeeded, Ingrid,’ Michael Greenway said, phoning me the next morning with the latest news from the computer man. ‘Mick the Kick’s accepted an invitation from his old chum for food and lots to drink at his house-warming party with a chance afterwards to shoot up a clutch of his number one enemy mobsters whose whereabouts have hit the grapevine. Mick has said he can’t arrive until around ten. That suits us perfectly as we were planning to go in just after then. If we’re right on his heels hopefully we can prevent him from getting killed. But we’re having to scale back the Internet surveillance now in case they get suspicious as it can make their machines run a bit slow.’
Sergeant Keen had been withdrawn from the job of undercover photographer even though outside catering had been booked for the party and it had been arranged that he would replace one of the waiters. This was because it had emerged he had once interviewed Mick the Kick in connection with another case, having once been seconded for a short while to DCI Cookson’s team to cover for someone who was ill. Possibly to stay one step ahead of Patrick, Carrick immediately scrapped that part of the plan.
These events were somewhat passing me by as I was at home dealing with a couple of domestic problems in the shape of a colicky baby Mark, and Katie, who had a suspected broken arm after falling off her pony on a ride with friends. We had to go to the hospital for an X-ray.
‘Disaster!’ Patrick announced before I could tell him about this, not so much arriving that evening as hurling himself into the house. He looked drawn, no doubt worn out from meetings and briefings.
I handed him a tot of his favourite single malt, glad that I had decided on a large steak and kidney pie for dinner.
‘Some interfering sod of a superintendent at Avon and Somerset HQ thinks he ought to handle it,’ he went on. ‘Doesn’t think it ought to be dealt with at DCI level. James is fit to slit him from stem to stern with his But what do we do?’skean-dhu.
‘Phone Greenway.’
The fine grey eyes focused on me. ‘Greenway?’
‘A commander’s already handling it,’ I pointed out. ‘He won’t like being hijacked.’
Patrick carefully put down the whisky and reached for his mobile. ‘Sometimes, Ingrid, you’re a bloody genius.’
I have never been quite sure of the protocols that have to be adhered to between SOCA and the regular police forces but on this occasion it would appear that the man from Portishead was blown right out of the water. The next morning Greenway arrived, quietly, by train, booked himself into a city centre hotel and then presented himself, smiling, in Carrick’s office at nine thirty, much to the latter’s great surprise.
‘We’ll go and take a look at this house in Avonhill,’ Greenway was saying as we entered the room a few minutes later. He raised a hand in greeting. ‘How’s the sprog’s arm?’
‘Just badly bruised, thank you,’ I replied.
‘That’s a relief.’ He turned to Carrick. ‘Where’s the place being watched from?’
‘By the greatest good fortune a house almost opposite is undergoing complete renovation,’ Carrick said. ‘The entire building, including the roof, is swathed in that plastic stuff they fix to scaffolding to keep everything dry and protect the workers from the weather. With the permission of the owners and cooperation of the security company keeping an eye on it we have gained entry through the rear. There’s a back lane that gives access to garages or parking areas at the ends of the gardens.’
‘Are you sure the plastic is completely non-see-through?’
‘It isn’t quite but we fixed it so the workmen left some stuff, crates of tiles and boxes on the planking in front of the window of the room that’s being used to conduct the surveillance from, just leaving a suitably-sized aperture. Luckily the guys are working on the roof right now so our people are in nobody’s way.’
‘I just hope everyone keeps their mouth shut.’
‘I spoke to the builders personally,’ the Scot responded darkly.
It was late afternoon as we approached the rear of the three-storeyed terraced Regency house, having come through a padlocked opening in the security fencing using a key provided by the builders. They had finished work early, as they usually did on Fridays, our timing deliberate in order to reduce the risk of anything we said being overheard. The only people within the building would be the two on-duty members of Carrick’s team.
‘Quite a project,’ Greenway commented as we made our way down the neglected garden between sorted piles of rubble, old timbers and rubbish.
‘There were dead rats under all the floors, I understand,’ Carrick said. ‘They had to call in a pest controller to put down poison to take care of the live ones.’
‘Plus a load more across the street,’ Greenway muttered.
Who were poisoning Bath.
The rear door into an old-fashioned scullery was no longer in situ so presumably had been removed because it was rotten. This was the general state of affairs within, floorboards removed in some of the rooms we passed, the whole place stripped of paint and wallcoverings and we had to tread carefully on the wide staircase, the boards creaking alarmingly under the men’s weight. I did not envy the people who changed shifts during the hours of darkness as they would be unable to use much in the way of illumination for fear of it being seen from across the road.
The watchers were in a room on the first floor and they were expecting us. Without a word being said they stepped aside from the window where there were powerful binoculars on a tripod and a camera on another. Greenway, Carrick and Patrick each had a prolonged look but I signalled that I would not. This was purely police work.
We were told that there had been the kind of activity that suggested those opposite were indeed expecting to entertain a significant number of people, someone’s guess being in the region of twenty to thirty calculated on the large amount of alcohol they had seen being taken indoors. Northwood’s fair hair had disappeared and he was now back to being shaven-
headed with one gold stud earring and had taken to wearing gold-rimmed glasses. The thinking of the surveillance people was that, probably unwittingly, he now exactly resembled most people’s idea of a city mobster. A woman with long red hair who sported large sunglasses whatever the weather and strutted about in tight jeans and leather boots ‘almost like a goose-stepping Panzer commander’ was probably Murphy in yet another wig. There were other people who came and went, fetched and carried: minders and minions.
The law stood there by the window and you could almost see them licking their lips.
I waited for them to finish their examination, about as useful right then as a stuffed toy mascot. I did not share their mood; everything seemed too easy and listening to their whispered conversation it was apparent that not one of them was factoring in the things that might, and could, go wrong.
Over by the doorway I could hear the weather shielding plastic flapping, the sound coming through where a window on the nearby landing had been taken out. A breeze had sprung up and then, downstairs, a door suddenly slammed.
Greenway swore, quietly, and spun round. Then, distinctly, I heard hurried footsteps somewhere below. Making no sound, I went outside on to the landing. There was nothing but silence punctuated by the quiet creaks of the old house and the now strong draught causing some hanging electric cables to tap against the wall. I became aware of Patrick standing by me.
‘What is it?’ he breathed.
‘I heard footsteps.’
‘Perhaps someone came back for something and banged the door.’
‘No, I heard footsteps after the door banged.’
‘And of course there’s no door in place at the back and the front one’s bolted. Which means they were inside.’
We stood, listening, but could hear nothing.
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