by Neil Woods
‘Not in!’ she shouted, and violently slammed the door in my face.
I suppose at that point I could have wandered back to the station and tried again another day. But I had come out to score some crack, and that’s what I was going to do. So, I just sort of wandered around the neighbourhood asking anyone who looked a bit crackhead chic if they knew where Danny was.
Looking back, I can’t believe I pulled this off. Within two years such an obvious stunt would get an undercover operator beaten or killed. But in those early days the addicts and dealers were as naïve as we were. Eventually though, some guy with gaunt cheeks and a complexion like overcooked meat went, ‘Yeah, try the bookies, he’s always hanging about in there.’
I walked into the little council estate bookie joint, and straight into a cloud of ganja smoke so thick it made my eyes water. The place was rammed with dreadlocked West Indian guys getting stoned and watching football on the wall-mounted TVs. I stood out like a very skinny, very white, sore thumb. Within thirty seconds I was surrounded.
‘What you doing here, bruv?’
‘Uhh… I’m just looking for Danny.’
‘What you wantin’ Danny for? Danny not here, man.’
‘I just want to buy a ting, Y’know… a stone?’ I shuffled in place awkwardly, keeping my eyes fixed on the floor.
One of the bigger guys stepped forward and jabbed his finger aggressively into my shoulder.
‘What you doin’ just comin’ in ’ere for asking for tings? Who are you, bruv? Where you from?’
‘I dunno,’ I stammered, ‘I’m a student, I’m not really from around here. I just want a stone y’know… I’ve got money.’
The fact that I felt seriously intimidated, and that my eyes were streaming from the choking weed smoke, probably helped me look more convincing as an addict on the rattle.
The big guy gave a contemptuous snort. ‘Boy, you wan’ a stone, I’ll sell you a fuckin’ stone – you don’t need no Danny.’ With that he reached into his pocket and offered me up a plastic wrap.
‘Cheers,’ I blurted as I grabbed the package and handed over the money.
‘Yeah boy. I’m Freaky Man… you wan’ stones, you come see, boy.’
By the time I got back to the station, Johnno was actually shaking. I hadn’t even thought of it, but of course when I had wandered off to the bookies, I’d gone out of observation. He’d had no eyes on me, and had immediately assumed I was in a derelict garage somewhere with a gun to the back of my head.
‘Don’t worry, mate, I bought the stuff off another guy down the bookies.’ I flourished my wrap of crack.
‘No Neil – you don’t understand!’ he thundered. ‘We’re not fucking playing here… last time Danny Anderson thought he had an informant, he stabbed the guy eleven times through the chest… And that’s just the one we know about – these people don’t fuck around, Neil.’
That was a wake-up call. I knew we were chasing bad guys but I hadn’t quite registered just how brutal the drugs game really was.
Later that night I looked over Danny Anderson’s record. He had a string of attacks to his name. He’d been sent down for GBH with Intent, but in my book he was lucky not to have been charged with attempted murder. I felt a strange sense of pride. These guys were nasty and I had to watch my step – but I also somehow knew that I could outsmart them.
After my encounter at the bookies, my face was known. I scored at Danny Anderson’s house a few more times, then hung around outside the bookies until I just happened to run into Freaky Man again – but this time with Johnno around to catch it on video.
Finally, the entire Drugs Squad was called in for a briefing, and we planned out the arrest phase.
The morning of the bust I took a few banknotes, copied down their serial numbers, ran them through the photocopier and logged it all in my evidence book. I then went and scored a rock of crack off Freaky Man and Danny Anderson in turn. As I left Anderson’s place and turned the corner, I passed a crew of twelve uniformed officers in body armour. I didn’t even turn round as I heard the screech of tyres and the sirens start to wail.
This was the biggest crack bust the Derbyshire force had ever brought home. Fifteen properties were simultaneously raided, with seven separate stashes discovered, along with eight massive cannabis hauls.
At Freaky Man’s place another dealer attempted to escape by jumping out of a second-floor window, and ended up being bailed to hospital with smashed-up ankles. Freaky Man himself also turned out to have prior GBH convictions, and both he and Danny Anderson got significant prison sentences. The woman I had encountered at Anderson’s house turned out to be his girlfriend; she apparently just sat on the sofa, smoking crack all day as Danny cut it up.
The bust made it to the front pages of the local papers, and overnight I became a bit of a star on the Drugs Squad. It was a new and strange feeling to suddenly have elite detectives walking up and randomly slapping me on the back. What I didn’t know then, amidst the backslapping and celebratory pints, was that it would never be this easy again – or that I could never celebrate my achievement with anyone else.
The evening we wrapped the investigation, the Drugs Squad Detective Sergeant, Jim Horner, gave me a lift home. Just as we pulled up outside my house, he grabbed my arm.
‘You did well with this Neil. Are you interested in any more of these jobs?’
‘Definitely sir, of course,’ I replied eagerly.
‘Right. Well in that case you can’t tell anyone what we’ve done here. And I mean anyone. Not your family; not your girlfriend; not your mates at the station. The only thing an undercover has is their anonymity. If your name becomes known, there’s no way you can ever do another job with us.’
‘Well, I can tell other cops, can’t I?’ I asked in disbelief. I had been rather looking forward to bragging about my exploits.
Jim gave a derisory snort.
‘Neil, uniformed coppers leak like fucking sieves – and the bloody CID as well. You tell one guy, he’ll tell his mate – and the next thing you know, we send you out undercover, but now some gangster knows your name or your face – and you end up discovered in a car boot somewhere in the Pennines. Do I make myself clear? You tell no one.’
‘Yes sir, I get it.’
I walked to my front door, took a deep breath, and got ready to pretend that I had just had a completely normal day at work.
As satisfying as it was bringing those convictions in, before I could even think about taking on another undercover job I had issues to deal with at home.
It was now 1991, I’d finished probation a few months earlier and Sam had moved up to Glossop with me. We’d found a beautiful old cottage in the old town, covered in lush green creeping ferns, a real romantic little hideaway. For a while I felt giddily happy.
Sam found a job with a chemicals company and also started a one-day-a-week degree in Manchester, where she was doing well. The fresh start seemed to be good for both of us. As my own communication skills improved at work, so did my ability to play my protector-role, talking her round when I thought she was feeling down and reassuring her that everything would be OK.
We had been in Glossop several months before I noticed the change in atmosphere.
Derbyshire cops like a drink, and I would often go out for an after-work beer with the rest of my team at the end of shift. But when I opened the cottage door I would often find Sam standing in the hallway holding a glass of wine, looking unimpressed and demanding to know where I’d been – particularly if I had gone out with any female officers.
I could sense a hard edge in Sam’s voice, and always tried to keep my tone as calm as possible and explain that I was just out for a drink with the guys, and there was nothing at all suspicious going on. And it was the absolute truth. I was still completely in love with Sam and, at this point at least, totally uninterested in chasing other women. I’d even been planning to ask Sam to marry me – though I found this new tension developing between us profoundly tr
oubling.
But I tried to push my concerns aside. We were just adjusting to our new way of life. And whatever happened, I was a cop who had just cracked his first undercover case – even if I could never tell the ones I loved, I felt I could take on the world.
CHAPTER 4
DERBY II
JIM HORNER SAUNTERED up, sat on the corner of my desk and leaned in conspiratorially.
‘All right Neil? The Derby DS have a little situation going on… we’ve basically figured out who’s running crack and heroin for all of South Derby, but we haven’t been able to get anything on him with surveillance. We thought it might be an idea for you to have a whirl?’
‘Yeah, absolutely.’
Having been rotated back to uniformed PC work for a few months, I felt an immediate surge of adrenaline at the thought of another undercover operation.
‘Only thing is, Neil,’ Jim continued, ‘I don’t think we can get you another formal secondment – you’d have to do this one on your rest days.’
I gave a pointed glance at the pile of paperwork on my desk.
‘Fuck it. I’m in.’
‘Good lad. Come in Thursday for a briefing.’ Jim gave me an approving slap on the back, and he was off.
The target was Bigga Williams. Looking over the surveillance photographs it was easy to see how he earned the name. This guy wasn’t just fat; he was planetary. Almost as important a target was his main lieutenant, a seriously nasty character named Meshawn, connected to a string of stabbings and other assaults.
As we were going through the briefing, Johnno piped up, ‘Chief, don’t you think it’s a bit risky sending Neil out in Derby? He was a uniformed copper here a year ago, people will know his face.’
Jim gave it some thought. ‘Well, anyone who would recognise him is probably in prison now, anyway. I’m sure it’ll be fine.’
Still, at least for this job, the team had set up an autonomous headquarters in a disused office space at the edge of town, so I wouldn’t have to report directly back to the police station.
Another thing I insisted on was that I wouldn’t work under observation.
This was a very different scenario than the Danny Anderson job. There was no Intel on how Bigga ran his operation, and no known address. I’d have to figure everything out from the ground up. I needed to be able to move around at will, to get to know people and work my way in. It would be far too restrictive to always be worrying about maintaining visual contact and not sending Johnno into a panic. Video evidence was the endgame. We could get these guys on tape only after I had got my face known and established trust.
Almost to my surprise, the whole team nodded and agreed to work my way. In those days there were no protocols to follow, but a lot of what we improvised back then eventually became the standard that the force still follows – or at least is meant to follow – to this day.
So, the hunt began. I spent days trudging through the grey Midlands drizzle, beating a circuit around the dingy, blighted South Derby council estates where Bigga was known to operate.
It took about a week before I caught a glimpse.
Bigga liked to play the big-time dealer, tooling around in a flash Mercedes with an air of untouchable swagger. At first I just watched, hanging out on street corners and in shop doorways, a baseball cap pulled low over my forehead. I’d thrown together a junkie outfit from a local charity shop, and made myself indistinguishable from every other skinny, pasty addict haunting the streets.
With some careful observation, though, I was able to put together a basic picture of Bigga’s movements. It wasn’t until my sixth time out that I even attempted to score. I waited outside one of Bigga’s safe houses until he arrived and disappeared inside with one of his lieutenants. This wasn’t Meshawn, but an almost equally unpleasant character named Carlo who I recognised from the Intel photos.
Taking a deep breath, I steeled myself and knocked. The door swung open and Carlo stood there, fixing me with an aggressive glare.
‘What you want, bruv?’
‘Uhh… Is Bigga about?’
‘Yeah, what you after?’ he spat back.
‘I just need a stone, yeah.’ I played the addict on a rattle, making myself as humble and non-threatening as possible in the face of his hostility.
‘Hang on,’ he hissed, slamming the door in my face.
I stood there for two minutes before the door swung open again, and he held out the now familiar little twist of plastic torn off a supermarket carrier bag. I handed over £20 and took off.
I booked it back to HQ to find I had indeed been sold a stone – a stone from the bottom of the guy’s bloody garden! The entire Drugs Squad roared with laughter, but I was furious. All those hours hanging around the dismal streets of Derby to get sold a stone? Bigga had made this personal now.
So, I hit the streets again, biding my time for another two days. Finally I spied Bigga’s Mercedes parked on a corner. This time he was sitting on the passenger side, with Meshawn behind the wheel.
I kept my eyes to the ground as I approached and tapped cautiously on the window.
‘What?’ Bigga demanded.
‘Mate, could you do me a ting?’ I asked, once again assuming a humble, begging addict tone.
‘Yeah whatever,’ sneered Bigga contemptuously, ‘give us the cash and wait over there.’ He gestured towards an alley across the road.
I passed the money through the window and shuffled across the street to wait.
Three hours later he still hadn’t shown up. By now, the drizzle had turned into a downpour, so when I finally gave up and trudged back to the base I was soaked through, freezing cold and very pissed off.
But, it was also a moment of realisation. This was a junkie’s life. Addicts get ripped off all the time. They might beg and steal all day to scrape together their £20, only to be sold a stone or have a dealer disappear, leaving them to suffer through their rattle. Inhabiting this role meant more than throwing on a charity shop tracksuit. I needed to understand that every moment of every day meant a constant, desperate search for a score. This was a world of incessant, grinding need and uncertainty, and I had to adapt to its rhythms.
The Drugs Squad guys were completely understanding about my setbacks, but I could feel my hard-won reputation crumbling in front of me. I needed to fix this. It was time to get dramatic.
I lay in wait on Normanton Road, a quiet residential street where I knew cars would have to stay below 20mph. It was five hours before Bigga’s Merc finally trundled into view through the sickly, ash-grey mist.
I waited till the absolute last second, then leapt out in front of the car, forcing it to a screeching halt. I immediately started banging on the bonnet, shouting, ‘Oi, you never gave me my stone!’
Meshawn was out of the car like a shot. ‘What the fuck you think you’re doing bruv?’ He shoved me hard in the chest.
I immediately dropped my voice, speaking very fast in a pleading, apologetic hush. ‘Look – I’m not bothered, yeah – but you never gave me my ting the other day. But just serve me up now, yeah. Go on, just do me one now, yeah.’
I guess I must have got his attention. He took a furtive glance around, then reached in his pocket and held out the magical little plastic wrap.
This time, it was no stone. I carried the rock of crack triumphantly back to base and sent it down to the lab for testing. It came back over 60% pure, which was very impressive for Derby and indicated that these guys were connected to a significant supply chain.
The stunt worked. Now they definitely knew my face, and I was able to score off both Bigga and Meshawn several more times. Meshawn in particular was a nasty, aggressive character. He would hold the gear in his mouth and spit it on the ground, making me scrabble around in the dirt to pick it up.
Many dealers back then would ‘mouth-carry’, as we called it, so they could swallow the bag if they were stopped by police. Most stopped when they realised all they were doing was coating the wrap with their own DNA. But
with Meshawn there was something extra vicious. He enjoyed the power trip of making me crawl.
Then things stepped up a gear.
Ten days later I was waiting on a corner to pick up a bag of crack, and one of heroin. Meshawn pulled up in his car and I jogged over to lean into the driver’s side window.
‘Drop the money. Drop it on the floor,’ he hissed. Some dealers back then laboured under the misapprehension that if they weren’t filmed physically taking the money, then somehow they couldn’t be charged.
But in order to drop the cash where he was pointing I had to lean further in through the window.
That’s when I saw it. Nestled in his lap was a large, chrome semi-automatic pistol. My breath caught sharply, but I kept my cool and dropped the money exactly where I was told. Meshawn gave me a pointed stare, handed over the gear and sped off without a word.
My mind was racing. Meshawn had obviously meant for me to see that gun. Was it a warning? Had I let something slip? Or was he just throwing his weight around, showing off like any other common street bully? Eventually I came to the conclusion that if Meshawn and Bigga had any suspicions that I was a cop, then I’d likely be dead already.
I made it back to HQ, wrote up my evidence in a hurry and presented it to the DC collecting evidence that day. His reaction taught me more in a few seconds about how policing really works than all my previous training combined.
‘You sure you want to write it up just like this?’
‘How do you mean?’ I asked, genuinely not following.
‘Well, you could write up that this guy had a gun, but if you do the higher-ups will probably pull the job. It’ll be deemed too much of a risk. It’s your call, I’m just thinking about all the work you’ve put in so far, and… ’
He didn’t have to finish the sentence. ‘Understood.’
I grabbed the paper out of his hand and went back to my desk to rewrite my statement, leaving out the most serious piece of criminality I had seen on the job so far.
Sometimes fighting the good fight meant having to lie to your own commanders. I was learning.
