by Neil Woods
‘Yes, well… we do have some more advanced gear from America,’ he stammered, ‘but… umm… we are about to deploy that for our Level 1 operatives, and in the meantime it is… uhh… operationally essential that the existence of this equipment remains secret.’
‘Operationally essential? What the fucking hell are you talking about!’ I shouted back. ‘You directly put my life – and the lives of my fellow officers – at risk, in order to keep some kit secret? You must be fucking joking.’
‘Well, Neil,’ he faltered, ‘it’s… umm, it’s a matter of strategic policy. Of course, we all very much appreciate – and admire – the excellent work you’ve done on this case.’ He did at least look embarrassed.
‘Well,’ I spat, ‘if you think you’re getting any more excellent, admirable work out of me with shit gear – while you’re letting the best kit in the world gather dust… you can go fuck yourself.’
I heard myself say it, and even I was shocked. I’d just told the highest-ranking officer I’d ever met to go fuck himself. But I couldn’t help it. The last six months of tension, paranoia and leading my double-life had just come pouring out. For a split-second it hadn’t been Neil the cop talking, it had been Zack the street junkie crack addict.
But I meant it. When that car had been inches away from the backs of my legs, I had genuinely thought I was about to die. I had put my life on the line to bring down this target, and all that danger could have been avoided simply by letting me use some kit we already had.
I took a look around at the open-hanging mouths of my colleagues. Then I pushed back my chair and strode out of the room, slamming the door behind me.
As I walked away, I told myself that this was it – that I was through with undercover ops. I would go back to ‘normal’ detective work, and live a quiet life.
I filed a formal report and a long and detailed internal debate ensued. The decision had been made based on a larger safety consideration, the bosses said. Level 2 operatives were more likely to be searched and the surveillance equipment discovered. The existence of this kit becoming common knowledge would endanger Level 1 and Level 2s. To my mind it was being sent out with outdated boxy equipment that led to us being searched in the first place – their argument made no sense to me.
But EMSOU stood by their policy and I stood by my vow to walk away from undercover. Only the powers that be on the force knew me better than I knew myself. When they needed me again, they knew exactly which buttons to push to talk me round.
And it wasn’t long before they came to me with the Nottingham job.
CHAPTER 12
NOTTINGHAM
THEY CALLED IT Shottingham.
The city was in crisis, racked with murder, street crime, drugs and gang warfare. The endemic violence, particularly gun crime, had spiralled to the point where Nottingham University was reporting falling applications and local businesses were finding it impossible to attract investment. In desperation, the politicians put massive pressure on the police to save their town.
Most of the chaos could be traced back to one man. Colin Gunn was a 6’4” skinhead bodybuilder, who had risen through the criminal ranks through sheer viciousness and brutality. He and his brother David ran the so-called ‘Bestwood Cartel’, seizing control of the city through a bloody war against some the hardest Yardie gangs in the country. Now they maintained their empire in the same way they had won it: with blood, bullets and beatings.
The Bestwood estate itself was completely under the Gunns’ control, and virtually off-limits to the police. The cartel operated almost as a shadow government, enforcing an absolute code of omertà over the estate. If you had a problem or dispute, you went to Colin Gunn. Anyone who talked to the police would be beaten or shot, and possibly their families along with them.
Colin Gunn himself was a monster, capable of almost psychopathic violence. His favourite cocktail of drugs was a mix of cocaine and steroids, which is not exactly conducive to a balanced approach to life.
When a rival dealer was arrested after shooting one of Gunn’s crew, the police placed the shooter in solitary confinement so that Gunn couldn’t organise a prison murder in revenge. Gunn paid British Telecom engineers to find out where the guy’s parents lived, sent his people to the seaside bungalow where they had retired and executed the two pensioners with sawn-off shotguns. When Gunn suspected one of his own lieutenants of disloyalty, he nailed the guy’s hand to a bench, doused him in gasoline and flicked matches at him till he confessed. That was how Gunn ran his own crew, and the atmosphere of violence, intimidation and terror filtered down to infect the entire city.
But, as ever, the entire criminal empire was founded on drugs. Only the narcotics trade can generate that kind of money; no other branch of criminality comes anywhere close. So, that is where the police intended to strike.
That meant a reconciliation with EMSOU.
After Leicester, I had sworn that I was through with undercover work. Not only did I feel betrayed by them sending me out with dodgy kit, but I had begun to question the entire logic of the drugs war itself. In any case, after telling the head of EMSOU to go fuck himself, I thought they might be through with me as well.
But Jim Horner had other ideas. He sat me down, explained the urgency of the situation and proposed that, if I were willing to undertake the mission, then he would make things right with EMSOU.
At first I didn’t want to know. I told Jim I’d meant what I said. I wasn’t going out with substandard gear, and fuck them for asking me. Jim assured me that if I took on this assignment he would do everything in his power to ensure I received the support I needed. But even so, I was reluctant. I had seen how the War on Drugs functioned, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to be part of that arms race any more. I had joined the force in order to fight the good fight, but I was beginning to doubt whether this battle was being fought in the right way, or was one we should even be fighting at all.
But Jim was smart. ‘Neil, we need you. This situation is desperate and you’re the only person in the country with the experience to do this job right. We have the support team in place and another undercover lined up as a partner.’
Then, ever the showman, Jim paused for effect before sighing and saying, ‘I mean, I suppose if you really won’t do it, we could try sending Jackie out on her own? She is very good – even if she is quite new to undercover ops.’
There it was: the covert police officer’s talent for manipulation. Of course Jim knew that by threatening to send a woman out on her own, that he would trigger my self-image as a chivalrous, honour-bound protector figure. What can I say? Maybe it was silly, overly romantic and ego-driven, but I was a sucker for all that. And Jim knew it.
He laid it on thick and wore me down. There was a meeting with EMSOU and peace was made. We were going to do our small bit to try to save a city.
Jim introduced me to the team. Within seconds I could tell that these guys were real police.
The DI, Patrick Denny, and my Cover Officer, Simon Levy, were both strategically minded, ethically serious detectives who exuded professionalism and commitment. My partner for the assignment, Jackie, also immediately impressed me with her acuity and sharp judgement. There wasn’t a hint of the dysfunction that had so nearly derailed the Leicester job.
But I wasn’t taking any chances. ‘All right, I want same day lab results.’
‘Wait… you want us to get evidence to the lab and back the same day? You do know the lab’s in Birmingham, right?’
‘Yes – but I think if I score a bag of crack and do an evidence drop, there’s no reason we can’t get the product down there, then they can phone the results back.’
‘All right,’ Patrick replied thoughtfully, ‘give me a minute.’
He left the room, returning a few minutes later. ‘OK – same day lab results. It’s arranged. Anything else you need?’
I was impressed. Same day lab results would be useful, but more importantly, I had wanted to make sure that when Jim said
we’d get support, the others would follow through on his promise. This time, it seemed they were serious. We got down to business and Patrick and Simon outlined our strategy.
The Gunns were surveillance aware and security conscious. They knew police tactics and ruled their territory with an iron fist. There was no way we were going to catch them handling drugs, and no one was going to testify against them.
Our mission was a long-term commitment, building a picture of how the drugs trade functioned, from the ground up.
Jackie and I would be inserted into Mansfield, a town affectionately known as ‘the boil on the arse of Nottingham’. There were other operations taking place around the city, but Mansfield was exclusively our territory. Interestingly, the new EMSOU strategy was explicitly not to share intelligence with us. The idea was that evidence would carry more weight if we figured it out ourselves, and along the way we might pick up bits and pieces to corroborate other investigations, or uncover whole new leads ourselves.
Our backstory was that we were a junkie couple from Humberside. Jackie’s ex-boyfriend had battered her, she had gone to the police and his family had become threatening, so we had been placed in Mansfield for our own protection. This is fairly standard procedure. If a witness is considered under threat, the force can get in contact with the authorities in a neighbouring town and request temporary use of a council flat.
A few years previously all we would have had to do was work the story out and drill our lines. Now though, things had changed. The gangsters knew our plays. We couldn’t just show up in town asking about dealers – we needed deep cover.
False case reports were drawn up, and new documents arranged through the Home Office and DVLA. Then we put on our junkie outfits and were escorted to the council offices in our undercover identities by uniformed police.
EMSOU had to work on the assumption that the Gunns wouldn’t have informants only on the streets, but also working for the council. It was essential that our story checked out all the way down the line. As far as anyone was concerned, we were just another junkie couple on the run. We were assigned a council flat, and picked up some bedding and second-hand furniture to make the place seem believable.
EMSOU also gave us a car. This was actually a pretty cool piece of kit. Battered and run-down on the outside to look like a motor that a couple of addicts would drive, inside it was fitted with two pinhole cameras to capture the front and back seats, which I could control with a tiny switch just by the steering wheel.
So, briefed and kitted up, it was time to hit the streets.
Mansfield was a heroin town. I’d never seen a place so awash with the stuff. It’s easy to spot a junkie when you know what to look for: the way they walk slightly too fast when they’re looking for a fix, and slightly too slow when they’ve just had one. The eyes that stay fixed on the ground, the skin ghosted a shade too white. In Mansfield, they were everywhere.
I paced the streets with Jackie for days; just keeping my eyes open and waiting for the right person to cross our path. Finally, I settled on a little clique of guys I called ‘the gang’, who hung out on some park benches across from the town’s main market square. This lot stood out from the other junkies because, while they were clearly addicts, they didn’t seem to also constantly have cans of Special Brew in their hands. It’s hard enough to deal with smack- and crackheads, but when you throw booze into the mix, people just become too erratic and unmanageable.
I made my approach in the usual way: picking out the deepest addict of the bunch and sidling up just as he’s starting to rattle, offering to share a scrape of my bag if he can organise a score.
Of course he jumped at the chance of some free gear, and introduced himself as Davo. It wasn’t long before I had fallen in with his little crew.
Like most addict communities, people drifted in and out, hanging around the benches then disappearing for a while. But the core of the gang revolved around three close mates who I came to know well.
Davo had the longest habit of the bunch. He was a terminal junkie who lived purely from one fix to the next, but he was also a generous-spirited guy who meant no harm to anyone. Gary was the joker of the group, also a long-term smack user, but with a heavy crack habit to boot.
Then there was Cammy. He was slightly younger than the other two, about my own age, though he seemed twenty years older. I don’t know what it was that he was running away from, but it was obvious he was using dope to self-medicate for some profound trauma. There was a sadness about Cammy, a kind of brokenness that it was impossible not to feel for. Looking at him was like staring at a parallel version of myself had things just gone a little differently.
But I wasn’t there to help these guys fix their lives, I was there to make buys and gather evidence. I knew the rules now – as in Leicester, these guys were terrified of their own dealers. There was no way I could just start asking for phone numbers. I had to establish trust. I had to make myself part of this community.
That meant shoplifting.
We hit everywhere. Boots, Dixons, HMV, Homebase, Oddbins, JD Sports – you name it, we nicked it. We went through Mansfield like locusts, taking everything we could get our hands on.
By far the best though, was Woolworths. They had no stock-checking system whatsoever. You’d nick something, and they’d just pop another one back on the shelf. I saw Gary, by far the most prolific thief in our crew, nick the same PlayStation Memory Card three times in one day. He’d grab it, flog it, wait two hours for it to reappear, then steal it again.
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Woolworths went out of business because of all the smackheads pinching their stock. It was an open secret in the heroin community that if you really needed to get ten quid together for your next score, then Woolworths was the place to go.
I quickly discovered I had a talent for shoplifting. After years of covert police operations it wasn’t exactly difficult to evade in-store security guards. I was able to keep up with my new ‘friends’ from the very beginning.
But I wasn’t officially stealing. To come under the legal definition of theft, there has to be ‘the intent to permanently deprive’. Whenever possible I made sure that what I nicked got passed to EMSOU, who had a system in place for getting it back to the store.
I also had another very useful resource with which to impress my junkie mates: the Seized Property locker. I could turn up with six copies of The Lion King on DVD and go, ‘Oi, look what I got from HMV,’ and they would all be incredibly impressed. Gradually I started winning not just their trust, but their admiration too.
My access to the police locker also allowed me to win them over through little gifts. One morning I came upon Cammy sitting on the benches alone, completely dejected. ‘What’s up, mate?’ I asked, genuinely concerned.
‘Ah man, I’m just on my arse. I don’t know what’s going on in my life, I’m just on my arse mate.’
‘Hey, chin up.’ I lamely tried to talk a smile out of him, not knowing what else to say. ‘Tell you what… I’ve just nicked these hats off JD Sports, but I can’t shift them. You want one?’ I held out of one of the Kappa baseball caps I had taken from lockup that morning.
‘What, you mean, just have it?’ he asked in disbelief, giving me a look of utter gratitude as if he’d never been given a present before.
‘Yeah man. I can’t sell ’em. You want it?’
Cammy took his own cap off. It was so threadbare and filthy that it was barely in one piece. He looked at it for a moment, then flung it into the bushes. Then, with great care, he slowly placed the new one on his head. He turned and gave a smile that lit up his face in a pure, childlike way I had never seen before. It was just a man putting on a ten-quid baseball cap on a park bench, but the gesture took on an almost biblical significance.
From that moment Cammy became a firm friend. He began to open up and tell me his story. He had set himself up as a user-dealer, working for low-level criminals to finance his own habit. He had been getting b
y quite well like this, but then he’d been busted with a quarter-ounce of brown. He was now on bail, so he couldn’t risk dealing – meaning he had to go back to begging, shoplifting and scrabbling around for his daily £20 bag like the rest of the junkies.
But it was the way he reacted to the hat that really struck me. His expression of pure joy seemed so out of proportion to such a tiny gesture. But this was the condition in which these guys lived. They stayed in squats or run-down council flats, and spent every waking moment in a grinding, desperate search for their daily £20 bag of gear. It is a world of unimaginable harshness and insecurity that eventually breaks anyone who is forced to live in it too long. Just getting a new cap put a smile on Cammy’s face and a spring in his step for the next three days.
And of course, as a cop, I took note. I had discovered a new way to work myself into their network. Time was dragging on this operation – I needed to convince one of these guys to overcome their fear and introduce me to a dealer.
It was Davo who broke first. I had always known it would be. He had the most serious habit and needed that extra bit of money so I kicked in for his score. I finally managed to get a number for Chris, his main dealer.
When I tried to score off Chris on my own, however, he had a test for me. ‘Yeah OK, tell you what, you go down the needle exchange and pick me up some new sharps and I’ll sort you out, yeah.’
‘Umm all right,’ I agreed, a little mystified.
‘I want the long orange, yeah. Last time they gave the short blues – I fucking hate short blues. I want the long orange. Which ones do I want?’
‘Uhhh… the long orange?’
‘That’s right. Don’t fuck it up. Tell them Chris from Pleasley sent you.’
So, I walked to the local needle exchange and told the lady there that Chris from Pleasley had sent me to pick up his needles. ‘Oh yeah, he can never be bothered to bloody come himself can he?’ she joked, sliding a bag of sharps under the metal grille. I checked to make sure they were the ones with the long orange caps, and brought them back for his approval. Only then did he sort me out with some gear.
