by Neil Woods
But even I started getting a bit bored, so instead of just sitting there with my pint, I walked up to the pool table, laid my 50p next to the coins already there and hung back to watch the game. Both guys were pretty handy players, particularly a big lad in a white roll-neck jumper.
He won, so I stood up for my crack at the winner-stays-on rotation. I racked and roll-neck jumper broke. He could definitely play, but I had been hanging around snooker clubs since my teens, and had sharpened my skills on the table at the police station bar. One game turned into four, and he introduced himself as Terry. I let him win two games in a row before gently and unobtrusively asking what he did for a living.
‘Oh, I work here and there with my cousins over in Sheffield,’ he replied, just a little too quickly.
I said nothing, letting the silence hang.
‘What about you?’ he shot back, testing me.
‘Me? Oh I do a bit of driving for some fellas around Stoke and Manchester and that.’
Now it was his turn to let the silence sit. He had given me a criminal’s evasive answer, and I had given him another straight back. We stood across the pool table eyeing each other up. He broke eye contact first and bent down to take his shot. Some sort of understanding had been established.
For the next hour I could see the wheels spinning in his head as he tried to figure me out. I started dropping more subtle hints that my business might not be entirely legitimate, that I might just make my money doing drug runs up and down the country.
At the very hint of drug chat Terry seemed to come alive. We had each gone through a few pints by now and he was beginning to loosen up. He obviously liked to show off: ‘Oh yeah, I can get pills, coke, whizz. Whatever you want mate. My lads in town got it all.’
‘Actually mate, I could do with a bit of powder. I’ve got a long run to do – all the way up to bloody Glasgow – could do with a bit of rocket fuel, know what I mean?’
‘Mate, I can do that for you right now, just come back to mine, I’ll sort you out.’
We threw on our coats and trudged down to his place, where he promptly produced a massive bag of speed and weighed me out an eighth. Finally my patience was paying off. Even if Terry had nothing to do with the shooting, he was obviously a hustler and could be my lead into something else.
When I reported back to the Drugs Squad the whole team was intrigued. No one had any idea who Terry was, but I had obviously unearthed something interesting.
After the success of our last operation, Jim and the higher-ranking officers were keen to repeat the trick of using Bomb Damage to pose as another dealer. So, I put together a plan to manoeuvre Terry into leading us further up the food chain. My way in was flattery.
The next time I saw Terry I immediately launched into a little rant about how wicked his gear was, and how even my mate in Glasgow had been impressed. Terry beamed like a schoolboy. He enjoyed playing the big man with the heavy connections.
I did a few more scores, each time giving him a little ego boost and making him feel like he was really doing me a favour by sorting me out. Then, when I thought he was well primed, I hit him with the proposal.
We were round at his place and he’d just chopped me out another bag of speed when I leaned in and lowered my voice.
‘Actually mate, there was something else I wanted to talk to you about. I work with these bouncers down in Stoke, yeah. One of them has just been fucked about, and he needs to buy some coke. I’m talking some weight here, like half a bar or something… you reckon your guys in Sheffield could sort that out? There’d be some cash in it for you.’
At the mention of half a bar of cocaine, Terry’s eyes widened a little. A nine bar is a nine-ounce block, one of the standard units in wholesale drug supply. A half-bar of charlie would come in at a few thousand pounds, quite a decent little score. It also meant another chance for him to show off. He nodded, and without a word picked up his phone and dialled.
‘All right mate, it’s Terry… yeah I’m all right… I’ve got this bloke here, says he needs a half a thing… yeah, I know him, he’s all right… yeah, I’m saying I know him, it’s fine.’
He held the phone out with a self-satisfied expression.
‘Uh, hello,’ I muttered into it.
‘Who’s this then?’
‘I’m Danny,’ I stammered, giving my cover name for the operation.
‘All right Danny, I’m Hal. Terry says you want a bit of the great white shark.’
I was speaking to the primary suspect in our entire case.
My gut gave a lurch. This was now moving too fast. If this really was Hal, then preparations needed to be made – warrants filed, and a case put together. I had to buy my team some time.
‘Yeah well, I know a guy who might take a weight. But I’ll need a bit of your product to show him what’s what. Let’s say I take an eight-ball now, then we can talk things through.’
I was just improvising and playing for time, but actually this was exactly the right move. No real player would ever just go in for half a bar from an unknown source without at least testing the gear. Entirely by accident, I had just made Hal take me seriously.
He paused for a moment. ‘Yeah all right. I’ll meet you Sunday, one o’clock. Tell Terry to bring you to the usual place.’
‘You’ll never guess who I was just speaking to today,’ I said breezily as I walked back into headquarters.
The entire team hit the roof. I had a potential line on a suspect who the entire regional force had been chasing for years. Everyone suddenly seemed full of advice, trying to tell me how to play it at the meeting. I ignored them all. Hal was an extremely dangerous man, but this was my investigation. By now I trusted my own instincts.
When the day rolled around I met up with Terry and he drove me out to the usual place – which turned out to be under the rugby goalposts of some isolated playing fields outside town. Hal was no fool. He knew he was under surveillance. If he was meeting someone new, then it was going to be in an open space with no high windows nearby to snap photos.
Terry and I waited, smoking cigarettes and shuffling around nervously, until Hal finally showed up. He was very quiet, ultra-polite and obviously didn’t trust me.
He stood a few feet away and started asking questions. Who was I? Where was I from? What was this ‘driving business’ I supposedly ran? Who were ‘my guys from Stoke’?
He never raised his voice or made a threat. He didn’t need to. Sometimes he would throw the same question in a different way, laying little traps for me – a classic technique we used in police interviews. I mirrored him, staying absolutely calm and matching the intelligence of his questions with my answers. I had to make him believe this was one serious operator talking to another. There was no need for street-level macho posturing. Eventually I seemed to have passed the test, and we exchanged £150 of police money for an eighth of coke as a tester pack.
As I turned to leave, Hal grabbed my shoulder. ‘Look, I sorted you out because Terry said you were all right. But your man from Stoke? I’ll have to meet him and see the cash before I do any sort of deal.’
‘Fair enough. We’ll arrange a meet,’ I replied. And it was fair enough. A half-bar deal meant several thousand pounds, and serious prison time if caught. It was only sensible that Hal would take precautions.
Back at the station the team were beside themselves. This was a guy who had evaded all their surveillance for years, and now I had his home phone number scribbled on a bit of paper. Undercover operations were so new in those days, they could achieve spectacular results where traditional methods failed.
I laid out my plan for the squad. ‘We’ll go with Bomb Damage again. If anyone can pass as a bouncer, he can… But look, Hal won’t have any drugs on him for the first meeting. He needs to meet “my guy”, see the money, and make sure everything is legit. So the first meeting we’ll just observe. We’ll make the bust next time, when the deal actually goes down.’
‘Yeah all right,’ Henry bu
tted in, ‘but we should have a contingency in place in case he does have the drugs on him.’
‘Mate, he’s not going to have anything at the first meet,’ I repeated. ‘He told me straight – he wants a meet before any product is exchanged. This isn’t some street-level idiot. Forget about busting him the first time round.’
‘Yeah, but we still should have a contingency just in case he does bring the drugs on the first meeting,’ Henry replied as if I hadn’t said anything at all.
There was a general muttering of assent around the room. I looked around in astonishment. Everyone seemed to be agreeing with Henry, even though I was the one who had actually met Hal and set the whole deal in motion. ‘All right then,’ I sighed in resignation, ‘what’s your contingency plan going to be then?’
Here Bomb Damage cut in. ‘OK lads, if he’s got the stuff on him, I’ll stick my arm out the car window and rest it on the roof all casual, then give the roof a couple of taps.’
I wasn’t worried. I knew nothing would happen until drugs actually exchanged hands, so I put in calls to Terry and Hal, and set everything up for a car park in town a few days later. This time Hal wasn’t worried about surveillance – he knew he wasn’t going to be carrying any dope.
The day itself was very casual and relaxed. Terry turned up with his three-year-old niece as if it was a day out in the park, and asked me to look after her while Hal and Bomb Damage were introduced. So, I took this three-year-old girl for a little stroll around the car park while Bomb Damage squeezed himself into the passenger seat of Terry’s car, carrying £4,000 of flash money the DS had signed off from a very nervous Regional Crime Squad DCI.
Then everything went to shit.
What nobody on the Drugs Squad had calculated was that Terry drove a tiny Ford Escort, and Bomb Damage was 6’4”. Holding his arm out the window was his natural position. As soon as the conversation got going and he started to relax, of course his arm went out and rested on top of the car.
The first I knew about it was seeing Rob, Johnno and Henry sprint past me as I wheeled the little kid around in her buggy. I immediately spun round, just in time to see Terry burst out of the car and try and do a runner.
I just stood there as the DS surrounded the car, and hauled everyone out. Bomb Damage and I had to pretend to be arrested along with Terry and Hal, so as not to break our cover. We were all shoved into the back of the van and taken to separate cells. Bomb Damage and I were released later and ushered out the back of the station.
But, of course, there were no drugs in the car. Hal was never going to be carrying anything that day. So, he walked away scot-free – but knowing the police were actively after him again, and having learned about our tactics.
It was a total, unmitigated disaster.
The squad wrote it up so it didn’t sound quite as bad, but we all knew the truth. It gnawed at me in particular. This screw-up had undone weeks of difficult and dangerous work. That a dangerous gangster could get away because of such a stupid mistake was completely infuriating.
Most maddening was that the operation had failed because the team had refused to listen to me. I was the guy on the ground. When I told them there would be no drugs in that car, they should have listened.
But the I told you so didn’t need to be said. Everyone already knew. I just let it hang silent in the air, the crashing zeppelin in the room at our next few briefings.
Sam and I had moved from our little cottage into a newer house with more space, but considerably less charm. She was coming to the end of her degree and I wondered if the pressure was taking its toll. I began picking up signs in her body language, a tightness around the jaw, a shortness of breath and tension in the shoulders. It felt like she was snapping at me continually and there was nothing I could say or do to stop it. After only six months, it had got so bad that it felt like our marriage had hit a spiralling breakdown. This was more than just a married couple getting annoyed with each other – it felt like there was something else at work.
It was terrifying. I couldn’t understand what was happening, and everything I tried just seemed to make things worse.
But before I could even think about finding a way through this, something even more momentous happened – Sam said the words that change everything for anyone who ever hears them: ‘I think I’m pregnant.’
The next nine months were a whirl of hospital appointments and DIY to get the house ready for a child – interspersed with the odd undercover crack deal.
But when I first held our daughter, Tanith, it was an emotional rush like nothing I had ever felt. Just to have this perfect little thing cradled in my arms made me instantly rededicate myself not only to my relationship with Sam, but also to my work with the police. If I could make the world one tiny bit safer for my little daughter, if I could put away one bad guy who might hurt her, then any danger or sacrifice was worth it.
I would need to call on that resolve sooner than I could know. After a brief paternity leave, I was about to be sent on my most dangerous and complex mission yet.
CHAPTER 7
WHITWICK
I HAD TO admit the intelligence was impressive.
The photos and files spread out in front of me painted a lurid picture of just about every species of criminality in the rainbow. Dealers, gangsters, pimps, thieves and street-level thugs – the Intel boys had done well. Even more importantly, they had discovered the golden thread that linked all these seemingly unconnected villains together. But this link wasn’t a drug-supply chain, money-laundering ring or even a crooked lawyer. It was a pub.
The Lord Stanley was a pleasant, old-fashioned boozer just off the main road of the otherwise sleepy town of Whitwick, almost exactly halfway between Leicester and Derby. What made this pub unique was that it had been completely taken over by criminals. The Intel unit had set up an observation point, and apparently just about every single regular drinker there was connected to the underworld in one way or another. Villains were coming in from all over the Midlands. The Lord Stanley was where their deals were struck, and their schemes hatched.
The mastermind who ran the place, keeping the peace among all these volatile types, was a notorious gangster named Alec. This guy was involved in everything, from drug dealing and extortion to running gangs of antiques thieves that operated all over the country. My mission was to hang out at the pub, gain the trust of the crooks and gangsters and gather whatever evidence I could, while maintaining the focus on Alec as the primary target.
This wasn’t a job I could do alone. The partner I chose was Phil Foster, who was originally from a tough neighbourhood in Sheffield and not only could pull off the accent, but had real grit and could handle himself under pressure. This was also not an operation we could busk our way through. We needed a solid backstory and we had to know it back to front.
So, we rehearsed. We drilled lines, practised scenarios and anticipated trick questions and ambushes. We’d grown up in Sheffield, and come up together through petty crime and burglary. Then Phil had moved down here with his missus, and I was stopping with them for a while, having had woman troubles of my own. We gave the story some Technicolor by digging into the department’s archives and adopting some of the more eye-catching scams out of the case files. After long hours honing our patter over pints at the station bar, we could play off one another like any couple of low-rent street hustlers.
The Intel team hadn’t been exaggerating – the place was intense. From the second we walked in, it was obvious every single person there was on some sort of shady business.
Phil and I sat down and sank two pints just to get our bearings. Alec was nowhere to be seen, but it would be impossible to approach a guy like that directly anyway. We would have to work our way up. I spotted one of his lieutenants from his Intel photo right away though. This guy’s name was Deano, instantly recognisable because of the ‘half-smile’ scar running all the way from the corner of his mouth to his right ear.
Deano was standing at the pool t
able with a couple of other shady-looking guys.
We gave it another half an hour or so, just to have our faces seen; then I made my approach. Their conversation hushed warily as I strolled up.
‘Sorry mate – you seen Pricey?’
‘Have I seen who?’ demanded Deano.
‘Pricey,’ I responded, ‘big bloke, Irish traveller type, y’know. He told us to meet him in here, said people would know him.’
‘Well, I don’t know who the fuck you’re on about mate and I know the people in this bar,’ Deano shot back testily.
‘All right mate, didn’t mean to hassle. Just I’m meant to get something off him and thought you lot might know him.’
‘Wait a minute,’ cut in one of Deano’s pals, ‘Pricey, yeah… Irish gypsy, right? I know who you’re on about. That bloke’s not been round here for ages mate.’
There’s no way that this guy knew Pricey. Pricey didn’t exist. I’d just invented him to start a conversation. But some people will always want to make out they know everyone.
‘Bollocks – fucking Irish prick’s done me over.’ I made out I was seriously annoyed.
‘Why, what were you meant to get off this bloke anyway?’
‘Ah nothing mate – just a bit of business, y’know.’
Deano stepped forward.
‘Don’t nothing mate me. If you’re doing business in this pub, it’s my fucking business.’
This was perfect. Criminals never volunteer information, but now Deano was dragging the story out of me I could reel him right in.
‘Actually mate’, I said, leaning in conspiratorially, ‘I was meant to buy 500 pills to shift to some students I know up Derby way.’
‘Well why didn’t you just fucking say so.’ Deano broke into a sly grin. ‘But why are you buying pills off some gypsy cunt. I’ll sort you out right now. 500 pills? I’ll do that in two fucking minutes, mate.’
‘You serious?’ I acted taken aback.
‘500 pills? No bother.’ Deano smirked, clearly enjoying playing the big man.
‘Well look… ’ I played it cool. ‘Let’s do ten now, and if my people like ’em then we can do a bit more in a few days, yeah?’ I didn’t want to come on too strong. Why not make him feel like he had to prove himself to me?
