by Desmond Cory
THE SHY TRAFFICKERS
Desmond Cory
Copyright © Desmond Cory 2015
In the Professor Dobie series:
THE STRANGE ATTRACTOR (also published as THE CATALYST)
THE MASK OF ZEUS
THE DOBIE PARADOX
1
There was a wooden table and there were two wooden chairs and Jackson sat on one wooden chair and the fat man sat on the other and there was a smell of carbolic soap and a pale sun was shafting through the barred window and the whole scene was so boringly familiar and so redolent of the prose style of the late Ernest Hemingway that Jackson found himself lapsing swiftly into a not unpleasing somnolence, broken into only by occasional faint and distant noises that sounded like the twanging of a plaintive banjo down on the old plantation but surely couldn’t be, given that in point of fact he wasn’t at that point in time way down south in Dixie but way out west in bloody Cardiff and moreover seated on a (plaguily hard) chair in one of H.M. prisons and, and, and … Hmmmmm. Yes. Where am I? … Ah. Just established that, didden I?
Sitting on a …
And listening to the fat man rabbiting on about the regrettable lack of all true humanitarian instinct in the prison Governor and, by implication, other subordinate members of his staff. Certainly the fat man wasn’t nearly so fat as in the dear old golden days before Jacko had successfully shopped him and it could even be argued, Jackson thought, yawning cavernously, that the regime complained of was thus proving demonstrably beneficial to his overall state of health. However, he, Jackson, wasn’t here to argue the toss about contemporary penological practices or anything else; he was here to listen to a shout and if the said shout wasn’t forthcoming he might as well be sitting on the bog. “Come to the point, then, Dai,” said he, his manner betraying a touch of irritation. “You can write to your MP about all that other stuff. He may be interested. I’m not.”
“There y’go, boy,” Dai Dymond said. “You jus’ won’t listen, is your trouble. Always the same with the fuzz. You offer ’em your copperation an’ what do y’get? A lorra snide remarks, that’s what. Honest, I don’t know why I bovver.”
Jackson, who tended to regard other people’s misappropriations of the English language as encroachments upon his own jealously guarded territory, eyed him unforgivingly. “Oh, you’ll have something slipped up your sleeve, I don’t doubt. About time you got it out and put it on the table, is what I’m saying.”
“Yeah, but I’m not in the game of giving something for nothing.” Indeed he wasn’t. He was in the game of selling prohibited drugs to the populace at inflated prices and in several other very profitable games as well, his activities in these directions being no more than slightly inhibited by his present situation in the clink. No more, say, than those of a spider who lurks at the outermost edge of the web rather than at its centre but remains sensitive to every slightest twitch of the sticky thread. Dai’s was in fact but one of a number of highly effective criminal organisations being run at that moment from inside one or other of H.M. prisons; a weakness in the system, you might call it, since in such circumstances the villains in questions stood in little danger of serious police harassment and might, indeed, on occasion summon police officers to their presence in order to unburden themselves of their grievances. As was the present case. “Like, if the Chief Constable or someone like that was to have a friendly word with this wanker of a governor we’ve got here—”
“If,” Jackson said, “any information you was to give me should prove to be of value to the police, no doubt that would stand in your favour when the question of remission of your sentence gets to be considered.” That wouldn’t be for some time yet, Jackson thought, not without satisfaction. “Further’n that I’m not prepared to go. Look, be your age, Dai, you know dam’ well I can’t talk up any deals.”
“Not official-like, maybe. But—”
“Not unofficial-like, neither.”
Dai rolled his eyeballs upwards towards the fly-speckled ceiling. When it was apparent that no help would be forthcoming from this somewhat unlikely source, he rolled them down again. “Tell you what it is. You got some very nasty people moving into town these days. Unsavoury characters, y’know what I mean?”
Jackson did. He was, and not only in his own opinion, now looking at one. “Such as?”
“Digger Stainer’s lot, for a start.”
“Ah.”
“An’ Roddy Primrose.”
Jackson remained unimpressed. “I see. Primrose, is it? A villain of the deepest dye, to your way of thinking?”
“Y’know how it is. I try to be broad-minded. But I can’t find the time for the likes of him.”
“So what’s he up to?”
“What d’you think he’s up to? A birra no good. Taking a delivery, that’s what.”
“Is he now? You reckon it’s a big one?”
“A warehouse job, anyway. Came in last week, they tell me.”
“In where? Splott? The Bay?”
“Upcoast somewhere.”
Jackson sighed. “You have to do better than that, D.D.”
“Look, it’s a straight tip-off. For what it’s worth.”
“Not worth much, is it? Who’s making the connection?”
“Not my suppliers. Not the Spanish end, neither. Maybe a direct line. Middle East.”
“From the Root, you think?”
Dai shrugged. “Could be. Either way you wouldn’t want to see all that stuff getting into the wrong hands.”
“It’s not getting into yours, is it? I suppose that’s what’s worrying you.”
“Course it’s worrying me. Don’t want to see a lot of London buzzards moving in on us, do we? And all that good Welsh lolly being shipped out to bloody England? I mean, I always kept my operations local-like, you know that for a fact. Always made use of local talent. Voted Plaid Cymru in the last election, what’s more, so I did.”
“Wonder you didn’t run for office yourself.”
“Ah well, so I might,” Dai said smugly. “Won’t be in here for ever and a day, y’know. An’ one thing about being in flowery, it gives you a chance to think things over an’ work out a plan or two. Like that Hitler.”
“Who?”
“Adolf Hitler.”
“Oh. That Hitler. Right.”
Despite this clear evidence of Dai Dymond’s mounting megalomania there was at least one point upon which he and Jackson had to be substantially in agreement. There could be little doubt but that the varied yobbos who constituted, so to speak, the executive branch of Dai’s organisation were every bit as filthy a bunch of rubalongs as could be assembled in any other region of the United Kingdom, but Jacko and his colleagues in the City police could at least claim to be pretty well aware of the numerous nefarious activities they practised and even on rare occasions had been able to put a stop to them. The prospect of having to deal with a completely different set of uglies moving in from the Smoke was therefore singularly lacking in appeal, especially as some kind of internecine conflict or gang warfare had also to be seen as a likely consequence. “You got to, like, read between the lines, sir,” Jackson remarked sagely to his immediate superior, Detective Superintendent Pontin, on reporting back to the shop. “That’s what the old sod was implicating of, right enough.”
“So,” Pontin said, skewering the remnants of a salami sandwich and conveying it to his mouth before ruminating upon it with a slow, bovine movement of his underjaw, “if we were to rip off this other geezer’s consignment of whatever-it-is, that’d suit Dai’s book nicely as well as ours. Right?”
“Right, sir.”
“And in fact a decent-size drugs b
ust would do us no harm at all with the general public. Improve our image and so forth. Right, Jackson?”
“That’s indubitatably the case, sir.”
“Right.” Pontin continued to masticate for some appreciable while. “Yes. Right. So the question is, how do we set about it?”
“You put your finger on the nib of the matter, sir.”
Both men considered the said nib for a few more moments in silence. Eventually Pontin placed the final segment of sandwich into his mouth and said,
“Ith frothith muth a hooth be whiffer hoffa hoffa hoofa.”
“That’s the way I see it, sir,” Jackson said loyally.
“And hooth thith Primroath anyway?”
“Foxy’s checking him out right now. But if he works for the Stainer brothers he’s bad news, as goes without saying.”
“Don’t they run the Wesht End these days? Lasht I heard—”
“Dai reckons as they’re moving in on him, that’s the point, and it could well be true. On account of nature ab-whoring a vacuum.”
… Though perhaps not exactly a vacuum, since D.D.’s local mob were still on full operational alert, as the militarily-minded might put it. On the other hand, undeniably his forces had undergone casualties. There had been defections and dismissals and even a number of bare-faced betrayals. And Big Ivor Halliday – probably D.D.’s most valued subordinate iron merchant ‒ had himself come to a sticky end a few weeks back in somewhat peculiar circumstances. The Old Firm, in short, had of late been substantially weakened and Dai’s concern at the prospect of a hostile takeover bid by a firmly-based London company was hence understandable. “… We’ll have to see,” Pontin said, pushing away his crumb-bespattered platter and farting unmusically, “what the Poll can tell us about these other geezers. Especially about this Snowdrop bugger.”
“Primrose, sir. Yes, Foxy should have got some stuff through by now on the computer linkup. And of course we have to inform the Central AMIP.”
“We do? Why?”
“CC’s instructions, sir. I mean, we’ve had a tip-off about a shipment, or that’s what it all boils down to. They’ll want the druggies in on it, I mean the Special Branch.”
“Bloody hell,” Pontin said. “Who’s running that show now?”
“Colonel Cartwright’s the Director, sir. But Dimbleby Smith’s looking after the Western region. That’s us.”
“Does he rank me?”
“No, sir. He’s a CDI.”
“That’s all right, then,” Pontin said. “Give the matter no further thought. I know how to deal with those turnips if anyone does.”
If Jackson rejoiced to hear it, his outward countenance failed to betray the fact. It was, in fact, at that moment partially concealed from Pontin’s view, since he was scratching pensively at the tip of his nose. “Upcoast, was what D.D. said.”
“Eh?”
“The delivery. Upcoast. Could mean it’s outside our manor.”
“So what, Jackson? So what? It’s still—”
“So maybe they’ll want to run the show, sir. Being as how they’re specially geared—”
“Right. Right.” Pontin was by any criteria an exceptionally stupid officer, but he was at least aware that gang warfare is not the unique prerogative of the criminal fraternity, variant forms of it being frequently practised by the different branches of H.M. constabulary, if usually without bloodshed. “Well, we don’t give too much importance to that hearsay stuff, anyway. May as well omit that item from your report when it goes through to um ah …”
“Dimbleby Smith, sir. Dim Smith, they call him. They’ll have their reasons.”
“Yes. That wanker.”
Dim Smith was not, in fact, an immediately loveable personage. Appertaining as he did to that section of the Special Branch concerning itself largely with the soothing of alarmed celebrities, and especially of American celebrities – these being more easily alarmed than most – he had adopted an aggressively non-subversive style of dress, designed to establish himself as reassuringly a safe organisation man yet also, and no less evidently, a real cool dude, significantly of the Clintonian Nineties. To this end an expensive gentleman’s barber had trimmed his corn-coloured hair fractionally short of shoulder-length while permitting a thick and curly fringe to obscure his forehead totally from view; this Neanderthal effect was then modified by the addition of a bowler hat and by a pair of severe horn-rimmed spectacles, the which he always alluded to as his ‘shades’. He wore neat grey Edwardian-style suits to secure the desired executive effect, also hand-made white silk shirts with ruches down the front and lace cuffs. He spoke incessantly and usually unintelligibly in a North Welsh cantabile, a relic, perhaps, of his schooldays in Birkenhead. “Come in, come in,” he sang blithely, allegro ma non troppo. “Sit thee down. A good journey up to town, was it?”
“I got a 42 bus,” Crumb said. “From Victoria.”
“Ah now. There’s tiring. Up and down the stairs, as likely as not, wearing out all manner of irreplaceable tissues.” He patted Crumb’s wrist consolingly. “A cigar, old love?”
“No thanks,” Crumb said.
Crumb had come about the job. He wore a blue worsted suit and an earnest expression. Hard-working, honest, capable, a typical British artisan. Ready to down tools at a moment’s notice. “Your hands won’t do, though,” Dim Smith said.
“Won’t do what, sir?”
“A car repairer you’re supposed to be, darling. Just a rude mechanic, all greased up and ready to go. But not to worry. You’ll find I’m a bit of a fusspot on these points of detail, but there’s not a lot of time to study the part. I’d like you to get stuck in right away, like the seasoned old trouper you are.”
“Right, sir,” Crumb said. “Will do. Only thing is, what’s the play and where’s the theatre?”
Dim Smith at once became cautious.
“What have you been told?”
“I’m to run surveillance on a dealer.”
“That’s it.” Dim Smith seemed delighted. “You’ve got it in one. You’ve caught the pitch, man. Ever thought, by the way, of going on the films? Spain, I suppose, you’ll have got that gorgeous sun tan. You’ll be able to build up on it nicely in sunny Cardiff.”
“Cardiff? Is that where—”
“Yes indeedy. That’s where you’re going to be a garage hand.”
“Ah,” Crumb said.
“You’ve got the picture?”
“No.”
“The garage is opposite a block of flats. That’s where chummy’s hanging out. So while you’re pottering about replacing carburettors and things you can keep a watchful eye on his goings and comings. With a car always readily available to you should you have to do a tail job, as it’s called.” Dim Smith made what could only be described as a moue. “Hardly a job, I told them, for a man of your undoubted calibre. But then we all have to start out somewhere, don’t we, ducky? In fact I started out myself doing tail jobs, believe it or not.”
Crumb could believe it all too easily. “Who’s them?”
“Beg parn?”
“You said you’d told them it wasn’t a job for—”
“Oh, your colleagues, old china. The local uniformed branch. The boys in blue. They’ll be giving you full cooperation, I promise you that. All the back-up you’ll need.”
“Who’s my contact?”
“Let’s see now.” Dim Smith shuffled a sheaf of papers wildly to and fro. “Yes. Here you go … Detective-Superintendent Pontin, the name is. A real hot property, is Pontin. The white hope of the South Wales Constabulary. A ball of fire.”
“White, is he? Oh well. That’s something.”
Dim Smith looked up sharply. “Not a racist, are you, Crumb?”
“I’m a policeman, sir.”
“Say no more.”
“I won’t. But I suppose you can at least tell me who it is I’m supposed to be watching.”
“That I can, that I can. Your old friend Rodney Primrose, that’s who. That little bundle
of joy.”
“What, Rod the Sod? The one who shotguns for the Stainers?”
“He.”
“But he’s on the Bayswater run. What the hell’s he doing in Cardiff?”
“That,” Dim Smith said, “is for you to discover. But he’ll be up to no good there and that’s for sure.”
“It looks,” Crumb said to his girl friend, “as though I’ll be out of town for a while, if the fates so decree. As it seems they have.”
His tone was understandably regretful, as his lady friend that evening had precognisantly determined to offer him the clearest of intimations as to what he’d be missing out on. Even the temporary loss of acquaintanceship with legs like those, emerging as they presently were from a skin-tight lime green bum-hugger offering purely nominal ground clearance for what Crumb knew to be a highly functional wheelbase, might provide a man with an excellent motive for resignation from the Force, but then – as Crumb also knew – things weren’t as easy as that. “Anuvver job, then?” the girl friend said, spooning minestrone into her other end with undiminished enthusiasm. They were dining, as usual, in a somewhat expensive restaurant, but then you couldn’t take a girl wearing a dress like that into the local pizza parlour without risk of causing a riot or at the least a Disturbance of the Peace – something that as an accredited operative of the Aldgate Circus, Crumb was naturally anxious to avoid.
“Cardiff,” Crumb then said, in tones more lugubrious than ever.
“Oooooo. Well, that’s not so bad. Who are we chasing this time?”
“Oh, one of the kingpins of international crime.”
“Reelly? … Garn, you’re ’aving me on. An’ what’s a kingpin look like, may I ask? Betcha you ain’t never even seen one.”
The voice was soft and husky and went, in short, very well with the rest of her, the somewhat unconvincing Cockney accent being a relic of her earlier career as a professional model. Not that it was in any way clear to Crumb why a Cockney accent should be accounted an invaluable asset when you’re being photographed wearing various items of minimal lingerie and she could, of course, speak in perfectly intelligible English when she chose to do so. Nowadays she used the Mile End Road lingo only when conversing with old friends. Such as Peter Crumb. “I dunno what he looks like,” Crumb said. “Not yet. In the course of time, no doubt, all will be revealed.”
