4. Gray Retribution

by Alan McDermott

  ‘Because Wallace might be dirty.’

  ‘Dirty?’ Gray asked. ‘How so?’

  ‘He might be in bed with Hart.’

  The conversation paused as Gray digested the news.

  ‘I’m serious,’ Andrew said. ‘Don’t call him or do anything that could tip our hand. We’re setting up a sting operation to catch him in the act, so please, just leave it to us.’

  Anger boiled inside Gray, a raging heat that consumed his whole body. Now he saw it: Wallace had played him, good and proper. Drop the charges, Mr Gray, and let us build our case. And all the while, he was taking backhanders to keep Hart and his family out of trouble.

  That’s what you get for doing the right thing.

  Gray’s mind filled with visions of Hart squealing in pain as a blowtorch played over his body, but Harvey cut short the fantasy.

  ‘Please, Tom, for Melissa. Let me handle this.’

  Melissa.

  Would she be lying in her bouncy chair, gurgling and smiling, if he’d demanded the Hart boys be charged? Had his decision cost his daughter her future and his wife her life?

  ‘Okay,’ he said, as convincingly as possible under the circumstances, ‘you deal with it.’

  Gray hit the button to end the call and put the phone back in his pocket. He stood for some time, staring at the swing set he’d bought for Melissa, but his focus was disturbed when Len and Sonny came out to join him.

  ‘We’re heading home, Tom,’ Smart said. ‘You gonna be okay?’

  Gray considered the simple question. ‘Not really.’ He brought them up to speed on developments, and the two men exchanged glances.

  ‘What are you planning to do?’ Sonny asked, warily.

  ‘I honestly don’t know,’ Gray admitted. ‘I know what I’d like to do, but as Andrew said, I have to think of Melissa now.’

  ‘When are you going to visit her?’ Len asked.

  ‘In about an hour.’

  ‘Any change in her condition?’

  ‘No, but they’ll be waking her up on Monday, so I’ll finally get to hold her again.’

  ‘That’s settled then,’ Sonny said, grabbing Gray’s arm. ‘You’re coming with us.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘To the hospital, followed by a visit to the arse-end of a bottle of scotch.’

  Harvey ended the call and found Gerald Small standing beside his desk.

  ‘Here you go,’ Small said, handing over a mobile phone. ‘Use that to call Wallace.’

  Harvey studied the phone but saw nothing special. ‘What does it do?’

  ‘It makes phone calls,’ Small smiled, ‘but the number is untraceable and it changes your voice. Watch this.’

  Small dialled Harvey’s number and nodded for him to answer it.

  ‘Hello, this is your early morning wake-up call,’ Small said into the handset, but through Harvey’s mobile it sounded as though the specialist had a New York accent.

  ‘You have a menu to choose from,’ Small said, handing the phone over. ‘Fancy being Scottish, or Irish?’

  Harvey smiled, impressed. ‘I’ll come and get you in a few minutes. I just need to arrange a meeting place and decide how to entice him in.’

  Small left Harvey to it, and the section lead sat back, concocting a story likely to lure Wallace into the open. He eventually decided to keep it simple and succinct, while ensuring compliance.

  ‘DI Wallace,’ he heard when the call connected.

  ‘William Hart’s going to take out his favourite copper,’ Harvey said, his modified voice carrying a thick Belfast accent.

  ‘Who is this?’ Wallace asked.

  ‘Meet me in an hour, and come alone.’

  Harvey read out an address and hung up, hoping the concise message would be enough to convince Wallace to turn up.

  He went to Small’s office to collect the specialist, who was waiting at his desk with a laptop bag in hand.

  ‘This might come in handy,’ Small said as he rose to go, but didn’t elaborate.

  Harvey drove them to an MI5 safe-house just south of the river: a nondescript terraced house that was one of dozens the service used for various purposes, such as hiding defectors. They were also ideal for sting operations like the one Harvey was setting up.

  He parked in the next street and walked back to the building, which was always occupied. The landlady, herself an operative, recognised Harvey from previous visits.

  ‘Hello, gorgeous,’ the woman greeted him. ‘Long time, no see.’

  ‘Hi, Dee,’ Harvey smiled. ‘Sorry it’s been so long; they never let me out to play these days.’

  He gave the fifty-year-old blonde a peck on the cheek and introduced Small before walking through to the living room, which had a good view of the street. He peered through the net curtains and could see the red postbox he’d instructed Wallace to wait next to. After consulting Small and confirming that the target would be within range, they settled down to wait.

  Dee made tea for the pair, and while she was gone, Harvey handed Small a slip of paper.

  ‘This is Wallace’s mobile number. Once it appears on your screen, we’ll know he’s here.’

  ‘I’ll keep it turned off until we have a suspect,’ Small said. ‘The battery doesn’t last long and I didn’t have a chance to give it a decent charge before we left.’

  When Dee returned they caught up on the latest news, letting Small keep an eye out for the detective.

  Wallace turned up five minutes early, wearing a long coat over his crumpled suit, and immediately checked his watch. He scanned the area, looking comfortable as he cast his gaze over the surroundings.

  Small called Harvey over to the window while he powered up the device. Twelve numbers appeared, and Small wiped two of them off to the side of the screen.

  ‘That’s yours and mine,’ he said. ‘Dee, you got any mobiles here?’

  The landlady gave him two numbers, and Small removed them along with Wallace’s, leaving just seven entries on the display.

  ‘What now?’

  ‘Can you narrow it down a little?’ Harvey asked. ‘We must be getting hits from the surrounding houses.’

  Small recalibrated the handset to reduce the range to twenty yards, roughly the distance to Wallace, who was still standing at the rendezvous point, checking his watch intermittently.

  ‘Okay, down to four.’

  Harvey selected a Scottish accent from the menu and handed Small’s voice-altering phone to Dee, asking her to call each of the numbers in turn. She put the phone on speaker when the first one answered.

  ‘Hello, this is Evelyn from the surgery. Can I speak to Mrs Alowemba, please?’

  There was silence in the room as the recipient explained that she had a wrong number, then Dee apologised and hung up. She dialled the next number on the list, while Harvey kept an eye on Wallace. He was rewarded by seeing the policeman reach into his pocket.

  Dee repeated the performance, and Wallace gave a terse ‘wrong number’ before hanging up halfway through her apology.

  ‘Looks like we got him,’ Harvey said to Small. ‘Call the number in and get a trace started.’

  While Small was on the phone, Harvey wondered how long it would be before Wallace and Hart had their next conversation. He hoped it was sooner rather than later, because Gray was unlikely to sit around waiting for the investigation to run its course. If they spoke only once a month, or even less frequently, it could be weeks before he had a phone call to work with. As things stood, they had a policeman who carried a spare mobile, which wasn’t the crime of the century by any means.

  It suddenly struck Harvey that he might even be wrong about Wallace. It could be that the policeman was simply humouring Gray by promising to investigate the anonymously written letter, in which case the fact that he had two mobiles meant nothing. Perhaps one was his work number, the other his personal phone.

  ‘The trace is set up,’ Small said, interrupting Harvey’s thoughts.

  ‘We n
eed to get them talking,’ Harvey said absently. Silence followed as they all tried to think of ways to force Hart and Wallace to communicate with each other.

  ‘Tell Hart that Wallace is about to roll on him?’ Small suggested at last.

  ‘He’s more likely to kill Wallace than have a cosy chat with him,’ Harvey said, shaking his head.

  ‘You could let Hart know that he’s going to be raided in the morning,’ Dee offered, ‘though a call at this moment might seem too much of a coincidence. You might want to leave it a couple of hours.’

  Harvey considered her advice, but he wanted to be eyes-on if and when Wallace answered the phone.

  ‘Noted,’ he said, ‘but I’d rather do it before Wallace gets suspicious, and that’s what’s going to happen when no-one turns up to meet him.’

  He called the office and asked Hamad Farsi to find a known contact number for William Hart. He got an answer thirty seconds later.

  Small began unpacking his laptop. ‘This acts as a middle-man radio tower,’ he explained. ‘If Hart calls Wallace, we’ll be able to intercept their conversation.’

  A minute later he declared them good to go, and Harvey switched to a different accent before dialling Hart’s number.

  ‘Hart.’

  ‘The coppers are gonna be raiding you in the morning,’ Harvey said, waiting for a response.

  None came.

  The phone went dead in his hand, and Harvey wondered if he’d miscalculated.

  ‘Here we go,’ Small said as the laptop played a ringing tone, followed by a now-familiar voice.

  ‘Wallace.’

  ‘What the fuck is going on, Frank? I just got a call saying I was going to be raided in the morning!’

  ‘Who was it from?’

  ‘No idea,’ Hart said. ‘Some Geordie. Are you planning on hitting my place or what?’

  Silence ensued, before Wallace’s voice came back on the line. ‘I’ll get back to you.’

  The call ended abruptly, and from his vantage point by the window Harvey could see Wallace was agitated. After looking round, studying the area, the policeman walked back to his car and sped away.

  ‘Looks like you nailed it,’ Small said to Harvey, but the section leader wasn’t convinced.

  Neither was Dee, who had several years in the field to fall back on.

  ‘Judging by his reaction, I’d say you just tipped your hand,’ she said, without a hint of I-told-you-so.

  Something in the pit of Harvey’s stomach agreed with her.

  Frank Wallace almost wiped out a pedestrian as he shot through a red light, his mind preoccupied with the mysterious Irishman. He forced himself to concentrate on the road, but couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad loomed on the horizon. Someone knew about his relationship with Hart.

  The question was: who?

  He made it back to the station in record time and went straight to his deputy’s office.

  ‘Anything new on the boards?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing, boss,’ the detective sergeant said. ‘Interpol flagged up a Dutch team planning a visit next month, but apart from that we’re business as usual.’

  ‘What about Hart?’ Wallace pressed. ‘Anything planned for that scumbag?’

  ‘Not that I’m aware of.’

  Wallace asked for details of the Interpol notice to be sent to his inbox and headed for his own office. He hung his coat on the back of the door, which he closed and locked, wanting a few minutes of quiet time to digest the events of the last hour.

  He sat behind his desk and began putting the pieces together. Now that he didn’t have the distraction of driving, he mentally jotted down the facts.

  Someone had wanted him at that location this morning, and it couldn’t have been a coincidence that Hart had called him while he was there. The only reason he could think of for being lured out into the open was to record his phone calls.

  So who was it?

  MI5 was the obvious answer, but it made no sense. Hart was his investigation, and certainly wasn’t big enough to attract the attention of the security services. Besides which, he’d done nothing in recent months that was out of character and would warrant a closer inspection, and the only time Hart had come to the team’s attention was the incident with Tom Gray.

  Gray.

  Could he be behind the calls? Wallace remembered the furore surrounding Gray’s fifteen minutes of fame. Senior officers—himself included—had been tasked with sifting through the subsequent debris in search of lessons to be learnt. The technology Gray had employed at the time had been impressive, so it wouldn’t be a huge leap to be able to intercept mobile phone calls. Tabloid hacks had managed it, so it shouldn’t be too difficult for someone in the security industry.

  If Gray was recording his phone calls, it meant he was building evidence, which suggested he was unlikely to go hunting for Hart.

  So much for that plan.

  Wallace realised he faced trouble from both directions, and he needed to decide which one had to go first.

  Hart was growing increasingly erratic with every passing day, but he was still controllable, if barely.

  Gray, however, was an unknown quantity. It was impossible to know what he was planning, and that made him the most dangerous in the short term.

  Fortunately, Hart and Gray weren’t exactly bosom buddies. He would use that to get them at each other’s throats and pick up the pieces afterwards.

  Grabbing his coat, he left his office and told his deputy that he was leaving for the day.

  ‘If anything comes in, call me.’

  Once in his car, Wallace headed for the local supermarket, purchasing a couple of cheap pay-as-you-go phones. He declined the offer of registering them and drove to an industrial estate, where he parked up outside a body workshop. It was one of many front operations Hart used to launder funds, and the ideal place to get in touch with him, especially as he’d managed to keep it off the force’s radar. Because Hart wasn’t registered as a director with Companies House, the convoluted series of holding companies meant it was unlikely he’d ever be associated with a majority of his legitimate interests.

  Wallace walked into the body-shop office and slapped his badge down on the counter.

  ‘I need you to get William Hart down here, right now.’

  ‘Never heard of him,’ the surly, oil-stained mechanic said.

  ‘Don’t fuck about,’ Wallace warned him. ‘If Bill finds out that I wanted a meet and you didn’t tell him, he’ll rip your balls off.’

  The mechanic suddenly seemed to remember who Hart was, though he was torn between his dislike for the police and incurring Hart’s wrath. Eventually he picked up the phone and started dialling.

  ‘Who shall I say wants him?’

  ‘Just tell him we have Tom Gray in common,’ Wallace said.

  The mechanic passed on the message, though without Wallace’s eloquence.

  ‘It’s Don at the garage. The filth’s here an’ ’e wants to see you. Something about a guy called Tom Gray.’

  He listened to the response and then put the phone down. ‘He’ll be half an hour.’

  Wallace returned to his car and took out the phones, charging one with the in-car kit while he set the other one up. After fifteen minutes he switched them over and made sure each had the other’s number in the contact directory.

  Hart turned up five minutes late, and with barely more than a glance in Wallace’s direction he walked straight inside the workshop. The detective followed and joined Hart in the office.

  ‘I thought we weren’t supposed to meet,’ Hart said after Wallace closed the door.

  ‘We’re not,’ the detective said, ‘but we’ve got a problem.’

  He explained his thoughts behind the phone calls, and Hart seemed to be taking it calmly.

  ‘Are you sure it’s him?’

  ‘Almost certain,’ Wallace said. ‘It’s too much of a coincidence.’

  ‘Sort it out then,’ Hart said.

  It
wasn’t the response Wallace was expecting. ‘And just what do you expect me to do? Arrest him?’

  ‘Why not?’

  Wallace was at a loss for words. The only reason Gray was on their case was Hart’s inability to swallow his pride, yet here he was, passing the buck.

  ‘Have you actually heard of Tom Gray?’ Wallace asked, incredulous. ‘He held the whole country to ransom for over three days! He managed to keep the police, SAS and security services at arm’s length, so don’t you think he’d have the foresight to make a few copies of any evidence he has?’ He began pacing the small office, hands in his pockets. ‘The moment I pull him in, one of his buddies will go to the papers and then we’re royally fucked.’

  Hart lit a cigarette, ignoring the ‘No Smoking’ sign that legislation dictated be displayed on the wall. ‘I’ll send the boys round to sort him out.’

  Wallace threw his hands in the air. ‘Brilliant! Another beating! That’ll stop him! Christ, Bill, why did you have to torch his family? Why couldn’t you just let it go?’

  Hart leapt from his chair and grabbed Wallace around the throat. ‘Because I don’t let things go!’ he snarled, spittle landing on the policeman’s face. ‘You let one little thing slide and everyone thinks you’re a pussy. Do I look like a pussy to you?’

  Wallace trembled involuntarily, aware of what Hart could do when enraged. He managed to shake his head and utter a squeak that Hart took as a No. Hart pushed him back into a chair and stood over him.

  ‘When I send the boys round, it’s never just another beating.’

  The detective rubbed his throat as the natural colour returned to his face. ‘You’ll need to know where all of his copies are, and I’m not sure your boys can get that out of him. He’s ex-SAS. Do you know what that means? They go through intensive interrogation training. By the time your people get him to admit his name and number, his friends will know something’s up.’

  ‘Then I’ll do it myself,’ Hart said, stubbing the cigarette out on the wall. He went out into the garage and came back a few minutes later with a toolbox, which he emptied out onto the counter. He repacked the power drill, angle grinder, hammer and pliers, then went back into the service area, returning with a portable blowtorch.