by Neil Woods
But I couldn’t resist the challenge. This seemed an impossible nut to crack, and in those days I found that irresistible. So I cast my mind back, taking apart every interaction with Digsy in forensic detail. What made him tick? What could I use? Where was that little flaw that I could exploit?
I turned to Jim Horner.
‘Do you know anyone at Customs?’
‘I beg your pardon?’ he responded.
‘Do you know anyone at Customs and Excise? Can you make a call?’
‘Look,’ I responded to his expression of utter incomprehension, ‘I first picked Digsy out of the crowd because he was wearing a shiny new tracksuit. Every time I’ve seen him, he’s been wearing flash, expensive clothes. His thing is style, right?’
‘So… we find someone at Customs who can give us some fancy clothes from their Seized Property locker. If Digsy won’t come out to sell me drugs, I think I can tempt him with some flash “stolen” clobber.’
So, a call was made and a few days later a box of Stone Island bomber jackets was dropped off at HQ. Someone had once tried to smuggle these into the UK; now they were going to be used to catch a gangster.
‘All right Digsy, it’s Zack. Listen mate, I’ve just got a load of Stone Island jackets – off the back of a truck, like. Real good stuff man – thought you might be interested.’
Even I was surprised at how enthusiastically Digsy jumped at it. We agreed to meet the next night in a Burger King car park near the Leicester Ring Road.
We had one day to formulate our plan and run through every possible scenario. The first thing we did was put in an order for the ‘flash’ EMSOU tech apparatus that everyone had made so much fuss about.
It was laughable. There was an audio and video recording device the size of a brick, meant to go in my trouser pocket, with a wire running up to a camera poorly disguised as a button on my jacket. The button looked about as real as Michael Jackson’s nose, and I thanked God that baggy rave trousers were still acceptable fashion in Leicester, otherwise that brick would be visible a mile off. All it would take was one pat-down, one close inspection or accidental contact, and I was a dead man.
I had a real moment of internal crisis about this. Digsy wasn’t some scatty, desperate user-dealer. He was an experienced streetwise career criminal with a history of violence who was already paranoid about sticking his head above the parapet.
I came within a hair’s breadth of walking out on the whole operation. But, once again, I’d come this far and I needed to finish the job.
Then, Cate burst in. ‘Boss, we’ve got a problem. The Beaumont Leys team have just moved into their arrest phase.’
Jim Horner slammed his fist down on the table in rage. Richard’s team in Beaumont Leys had been advised that we had one more ongoing enquiry. Unless an emergency arose, they were to wait for our word before starting to make arrests. But I knew the rivalry that underpinned this operation. It was no surprise to me that some kind of ‘emergency’ had presented itself. His squad had started kicking in doors the day before.
This was too much for me. With people getting busted in Beaumont Leys, word would be spreading like wildfire. Any gangster nursing suspicions about undercover operatives had just had them spectacularly confirmed. If Digsy had been paranoid before, now he would be manic. And I was meant to meet him in some car park, strapped up with this ludicrously antiquated recording equipment?
‘I’m not doing it,’ I announced. ‘No way. They’ve fucked it.’
But Carl and Jim had an operation to wrap up. ‘Neil, we’ve got everything organised. All we need is this one last piece of evidence. These people are responsible for murders, for rapes – and you can take them down, right here, right now.’
They appealed to my sense of honour, to that inner need to get the job done. They knew that if I walked away, some part of me would always feel that Digsy had won. I can’t blame them, looking back; they were just doing their job. But it was me who had to actually go out on the streets and face the danger.
This is exactly the point where, under the EMSOU concept, Rajesh could have stepped in. The Cover Officer’s job is to protect an undercover not only from their superiors, but also from themselves. But this operation had become like a boulder rolling down a mountain, sweeping every one of us along with it.
The car park was deserted when I turned up half an hour early, clutching my box of ‘stolen’ jackets. I did a careful circuit, checking for escape routes. We were isolated, but I could see signs leading out to a pedestrian underpass, and the lights of the ring road twinkling in the distance.
As I was taking a mental note of all this, I heard the revving of an engine. Digsy pulled up in a four-door Audi. He wasn’t alone. In the car with him were two other men. Even though both were sitting, I could see at a glance that these guys were built like brick shithouses, with shaved heads and proper don’t fuck about grimaces. I took a deep breath.
‘All right mate,’ shouted Digsy, swinging open the car door, obviously a little high himself, ‘let’s see these jackets then.’
I handed Digsy one of the bomber jackets, and was quite pleased that I had been able to guess his size from memory.
‘Yeah man – this is ace,’ he exclaimed, ‘I’ll give you two bags for that – your usual, yeah?’
He reached into his pocket and pulled out two perfectly wrapped and sealed baggies of heroin. As he handed them over, he added, ‘You aren’t looking for anything else, are you?’
I did a quick risk calculation in my head. I had Digsy handing over heroin on camera and wanted to get out of there, but I also thought that if he was offering crack, I might as well get him on the hook for that as well.
‘Well mate, if you’ve got any white, I’ll take a bag of that too, yeah.’
Without a word, Digsy walked round, opened the boot of his car and lifted out the biggest block of crack I’d ever seen. This was several ounces in one huge brick – a serious load to be driving around with in the Leicester estates. No wonder he had his bodyguards with him. Digsy pulled out a large butterfly knife, flipped it open and started chiselling off a little corner.
As he did so one of the bruisers from the car got out and approached me. Christ – I hadn’t clocked quite how massive these guys really were. ‘How long you known Digsy, then?’ he demanded.
‘Ages man, ages,’ I improvised in a hurry, ‘how long’s it been, Digs?’
Digsy was still fiddling with his brick of crack, and absently muttered, ‘Yeah, ages mate.’
Then everything went to shit.
I was keeping my eyes low, trying to avoid the huge guy’s gaze. But I was tracking his every move.
I watched with horror as his eyes scanned over me – and locked on the camera-button on my jacket. His eyes widened in recognition. I felt my own breath involuntarily catch. Our eyes locked. There was a split-second of silent, invisible communication.
Then he grabbed my chest and slammed me against a thick concrete pillar, knocking the wind completely out of me.
‘Fucking hell,’ the guy shouted, ‘he fucking is as well. He’s fucking Five-O! He’s fucking Five-O. Digsy man, he’s the fucking heat.’
I was pinned against the pillar, struggling to get my breath back as the guy grabbed my jacket, staring straight at the camera-button.
For one of the few times in my career I genuinely panicked. Usually I was able to maintain a cool head and think my way out of situations. Now, trapped against the concrete, I went into pure flight-or-fight mode. And with the guy’s elbows pressing into my chest, flight wasn’t exactly an option.
Physically I stood no chance – this monster could have broken me in half. My only hope was to come on so aggressive that he might think I was actually crazy.
‘What the fucking hell are you on about?’ I yelled straight into his face. ‘You fucking calling me Five-O? You fucking picking at my clothes? Who the fuck are you, mate? Who the fuck do you think you are? Digsy – your mate’s a fucking dick.’
> I unleashed a torrent of abuse, slipping into hyper-aggressive northern invective. The guy seemed genuinely taken aback. For a split-second he relaxed his grip. I immediately twisted out and put some space between us. I could see him hesitate, reading his thoughts as he considered whether he might have actually got it wrong. I used the moment to steady myself.
‘You know what,’ I declared, ‘I don’t need this shit. Calling me fucking Five-O… seriously, fuck this.’
I bent down and picked up the remaining jackets, moving as calmly and purposely as possible. I had to be seen to be storming off, not running away in a panic.
I stalked off with the jackets under my arm, acutely conscious of the weight of the recording equipment in my pocket. The giant bruiser seemed confused enough to let me walk off, but I knew that if he came after me and bothered with even the most cursory pat-down, then I probably wouldn’t make it out of that car park alive. I kept my eyes forward, my heart pounding in my chest.
Then I heard the steps behind me. It was unmistakable – someone was running after me. I clenched my fist. Maybe, just maybe, if I threw one hard punch I could buy myself enough time to sprint away. I tensed and spun round.
And there was Digsy, jogging up with a shit-eating apologetic grin on his face.
‘Mate, mate. Really sorry – that guy’s just a dick. Don’t mind him. Here, I’ve got your ting.’
He held out a generously proportioned rock of crack, crudely wrapped in a king-size Rizla. This was too much. All I could think was, you have to be kidding me. It was all I could do not to burst into laughter. I grabbed the rock and handed him £20, all perfectly framed and captured on camera.
‘Yeah, all right mate, no worries,’ I heard myself saying as if in a dream, ‘he is a bit of a dick though – anyways, see you later.’
Once again I walked off, desperately forcing myself to keep an even pace. There was about thirty metres to go, then I would be out of their line of sight and could get the hell out of there.
I heard voices shouting behind me. A heated argument. I had no idea what was happening, but I could hear Digsy’s voice, and that of the hard-man who had thrown me against the pillar. My heart rate started increasing again. Just keep walking, Zack, just keep walking, I kept telling myself over and over – referring to myself by my cover name to stay in character.
Still listening to the raised voices, I eyeballed the distance to the exit. Eighteen metres… seventeen metres. I could see the lights of the ring road in the distance.
Then I heard the screeching of tyres. I snapped my head back round, only to see Digsy’s Audi speeding straight towards me. There was no question – they were trying to run me down.
You can’t talk down the front bumper of a speeding car. There is no ‘fronting it out’, no psychological weakness to be played on. Staying in character couldn’t save me this time. My character was broken. I ran.
I sprinted towards the exit. The car was gaining on me fast. Over that distance I had no chance. The roar of the engine was pounding in my ears.
I could see the metal barrier getting closer, but I knew from my earlier reconnaissance that beyond it was a ten-metre drop. If I jumped I would break both my legs and be a sitting duck for Digsy’s henchmen.
The car was almost on me. I clenched my teeth and ran from nothing but sheer terror.
Then, just as I could almost feel the heat of the engine on my back, I swerved right, onto the pavement, and sprinted down a slope alongside the barrier.
Digsy’s car swerved as well, the tyres screeching. I have no idea how they didn’t go straight over the barrier themselves. Now they were actually driving on the pavement, chasing me as I ran.
By making them swerve, I had bought myself a precious two metres. The car’s engine roared and once again they were bearing down on me. But I could see over my left shoulder that the slope was taking me down; in a few more steps I’d be able to leap over the barrier – while they would have to continue following the pavement round to the right. But could I even make it?
I dug deeper than I knew I had, calling up every last atom of strength from my fell-running. I was hurtling down the slope, but the car was right behind me. Then, just as I could see my own shadow in the headlights stretch out in front of me, I hurled myself left, over the barrier.
I felt the rush and suck of the backdraught as Digsy’s Audi raced through where I had been running less than a second before. Then I landed with a crash on my left shoulder and rolled to cushion the blow. I heard the car screech to a halt, the doors slam and Digsy’s voice screaming obscenities. But by then I was gone, sprinting off towards the ring road and the safety of the crowds.
I shakily limped back to town and put in a call for pick-up. Then I collapsed against a wall and just crouched there with my head in my hands.
It was only then that I realised I was still holding the bag with the leftover Stone Island jackets. I hadn’t lost a single one. They were important evidence, and I still remember the satisfaction I felt when they were produced in court months later.
But this time when I got back to HQ and declared the operation over, I meant it. I could still hear the roar of that car engine and feel the heat on my back. The dysfunction at the heart of this assignment had just become too much to take.
This feeling was not helped when, during our debrief with our intelligence officer, he breezily dropped into the conversation, ‘Well, I don’t know why they didn’t just shoot you. We’ve just run the licence number for that car, and the intelligence indicates they were definitely carrying a gun.’
It turned out that the huge guy who had held me against the pillar was already on bail for murder. A few months later he would go on to stab someone to death over a gangland rivalry, and get sent down for a very long time.
With any job of this intensity and duration there was always going to be a period of mopping up. I spent several months shooting back and forth from Leicester, compiling evidence, giving statements and testifying in court.
There would have been some satisfaction in facing all the characters I’d encountered as a vulnerable junkie, but now being able to stare them down from the witness stand. But of course, with gangsters like this, I had to give my evidence from behind a screen for fear of reprisals.
Darren’s trial, in particular, stood out. He turned out to be an especially vile character, involved in very brutal violence. He got nine years and deserved every minute of it. But through that one little rock of crack he’d sold me, we busted into a major international West Indian cartel. This led to dozens more high-profile arrests, actually putting a tiny and very temporary dent in the crack and heroin supply to the Midlands and north of England.
But with the drugs trade, one very quickly learns that taking out one OCG just leaves a vacuum to be instantly filled by another, or even more worryingly, a power struggle between several competing gangs.
Digsy’s trial was also interesting. He got three and a half years. I’ll never know whether or not the prosecutors managed to get him to flip and pass them information for a reduced sentence. One thing I do know is that he was only charged with drugs offences, and not for trying to murder me with his car.
Someone at EMSOU later told me that the bosses were very pleased that this charge had been dropped, as it meant the footage was kept out of the public domain. It was thought that if any cop ever saw it, no one would ever sign up for undercover work again.
But during this period I was also going through a trial of my own. Till now I had been unconsciously holding on to the hope that I might be able to salvage my relationship with Sam – or at least make it amicable enough to be able to share the same house. But now the pressure of hiding my feelings was wearing me down, and worse, I couldn’t help but feel it was having an effect on the kids. Sometimes I would catch a glimpse of sadness in their eyes that chilled me to the core. It deeply pained me to think that our unhappiness might be damaging them as well.
After months of shuttling between my
undercover life as a junkie on the streets of Leicester, and the constant fear of upsets at home, I was exhausted. I had no more fight in me. This wasn’t the day-to-day tiredness of a missed night’s sleep, but an enduring, profound weariness that sat deep in my bones. I had been ground down. But once again, what was there to do? I said nothing, and kept my head down – throwing every ounce of energy I had into wrapping up the Leicester case.
Back at work, however, I did find the energy to make a stand.
I had just given my final piece of evidence against Digsy, and was having a beer with Jamie, our tech guy on the case, as we cleared the HQ. As the conversation progressed, he giggled. ‘Yeah, I can’t believe they sent you out with that old brick recording equipment… especially when they’ve got that amazing FBI gear just locked away.’
‘What are you on about?’ I asked, assuming he was joking.
‘Yeah – they’ve got all this state-of-the-art kit they ordered from America but it’s all under lock and key. And they sent you out with that clapped-out old rubbish.’ He slapped me on the shoulder and started laughing hysterically.
‘Wait a second, you’re not fucking serious, are you? Tell me you’re fucking joking.’
‘I’m totally serious! Come on, I’ll show you.’
Jamie led me back to our tech room and opened one of the lockers. He pulled out a tiny, sleek black rectangle, about the size of one of those business card holders from old-fashioned movies.
‘See that – that’ll record any sound in a twenty-five-metre radius, perfect quality. Here’s the camera for it.’ He held up a wire. Nothing more – just a wire. It was basically invisible.
Jamie thought I would be impressed, but I was raging. I managed to control myself in the moment, but at our final EMSOU debrief a few days later, it all came flooding out.
‘You sent me out on operations that we knew were compromised – using a massive fucking brick of a recording device. And now it’s come to my attention that the whole time EMSOU had top-shelf, FBI gear just lying around!’
The head of EMSOU gave a start. I was obviously not meant to know about this.
