She watched, holding her breath, as he put in the earring. From school to cool.
A hundred yards or so from the entrance, Farrell eased away from his schoolmates and joined up with two new boys who were crossing the road fast towards him. These boys wore uniforms of their own: Nike caps; New Balance trainers; Kappa casuals. They moved like men but looked young enough to make Kitson question why they weren’t in school themselves.
The three hailed each other, though it was impossible to make out the words being shouted. Fists were clenched and proffered. Kitson was reaching for the door handle as the knuckles kissed in greeting and the trio moved off together towards the shops.
‘We on the move?’ Stone asked.
Kitson opened the door. Stepped out, buzzing as she thought about Adrian Farrell’s interesting new mates. His nice, white friends.
‘Let’s get some air,’ she said.
Porter came through on the radio. She suggested to Thorne that they should meet somewhere between their two vehicles. Put their heads together.
They walked up Fairfield Road, crossing over the Docklands Light Railway towards Old Ford. ‘Barry Hignett came down about half an hour ago,’ Porter said. ‘He was keen to get cracking.’
‘Like the rest of us aren’t?’
‘I mean really on the hurry-up. So we sent a couple of the lads in to see if there might be any help around. See if we can get a bit closer.’
They stopped to let a lorry back out of a goods yard. The driver scraped a wall, pulled forward a yard or two and tried again. This time, they walked around, ignoring the exhaust fumes and the beeping of the reversing alarm.
‘Thanks for telling me.’ Thorne’s tone made it clear that he wasn’t the slightest bit grateful; that, in his opinion, he should have been told half an hour earlier.
‘I’m telling you now, so there’s no point getting snotty.’
‘Hignett getting shit from your detective super, you reckon?’
‘For definite,’ Porter said. ‘And I wouldn’t be surprised if Tony Mullen had been on at him, too. Poor sod’s got it coming from everywhere.’
‘Is he still here?’
‘Gone back to base.’
‘Makes sense,’ Thorne said. Which it did. As SIO, Barry Hignett would need to stay close to Central 3000. From there, he could monitor all events, could communicate with every member of his team, while staying within easy reach of the top brass. There was a buck in this case, same as in any other. It just flew around that little bit faster before it stopped.
Porter slowed outside a swanky-looking development of flats. A map on the gate showed the location of the swimming pool, the sauna, the private shops. ‘I could do with somewhere like this,’ she said. ‘My place is a shithole.’
‘This is the old Bryant & May factory,’ Thorne said, staring through the gates. ‘Where the matchgirls’ strike was.’
Porter shook her head.
‘End of the nineteenth century.’ He pointed towards the building. ‘The girls in there went on strike for better pay and conditions. Turned into a national story. Kicked off the trade union movement, more or less.’
‘Lit a match under it.’
Thorne was already thinking ahead and missed the joke. He turned around, pointed back towards the Bow Road like a tourist guide. ‘You’ve got Sylvia Pankhurst’s original campaign headquarters over there. Votes for Women and all that.’ He tried to keep a straight face, but couldn’t resist the crack. ‘And now look where we are.’
‘You asking for a slap?’ Porter leaned into him as she stepped past and kept walking.
‘So where’s this flat of yours?’
Her mobile had barely begun to ring when Porter snatched at it. Thorne knew that the phone had a ringtone he would probably recognise, but he’d never heard enough of it to place the tune.
When the call had finished, they started back towards Conrad Allen’s flat. ‘Sounds like you got that help you were looking for,’ Thorne said.
‘We’ve got an old girl in the flat next door who’s a major fan of ours. She got her front door kicked in a couple of weeks ago, and apparently the uniforms were extremely helpful. One of the tech boys is up there now setting some gear up.’
‘Reckon they’re in there?’ Thorne asked.
Porter’s look made it plain she hadn’t the slightest idea. ‘There’s been fuck-all to see, so it’s glass-against-the-wall time.’
They didn’t say a great deal else after that. They just picked their feet up, jogged back around the lorry that was still trying to back out.
Andy Stone got the formalities out of the way. Made the introductions, waved the warrant cards around.
It was a very pleasant smile. Kitson wondered how much more of it she might be seeing in the days to come. ‘We’ve already done this,’ Adrian Farrell said. ‘We spoke to a couple of officers yesterday after school.’
Kitson took a step closer, flashing a pretty decent smile of her own. ‘It’s not about Luke Mullen,’ she said. ‘We’re investigating another matter.’
They were gathered outside a bakery and sandwich bar in a small, pedestrianised precinct off the Broadway. The place was busy, with workers from local shops and offices zigzagging between pushchairs to grab lunch or do a quick bit of shopping. Farrell and his two friends leaned against the window, eating sausage rolls from paper bags. They’d stopped talking, elbowed each other and stared as Kitson and Stone had walked up the gentle slope of a long wheelchair ramp towards them.
One of the boys in the baseball caps nudged his companion, nodding towards Farrell. ‘They’ve finally come to get you, guy.’
‘Yeah, the cops is well on to you for sure.’ His friend spluttered the words through a mouthful of hot food and started to laugh.
Farrell grimaced at the pair of them. ‘Shut it.’ Then, back to Kitson: ‘Sorry about them. Bloody rabble.’
‘A student was murdered a couple of miles from here,’ Kitson said. ‘Last October, in Edgware, you probably saw it on the news.’ Farrell’s expression scrunched up, like maybe he thought he had. ‘Ring a bell?’ Kitson watched his eyes drop for half a second to her tits, then back up again. ‘His name was Amin Latif.’
Farrell certainly looked as though the name meant nothing to him.
‘You don’t remember it? I’m quite surprised.’
‘I remember our chaplain leading a special prayer in assembly. Right before the hymn. He does that, you know, for disaster victims, stuff like that. Yes, there was definitely one for some poor bugger who’d been murdered. It would probably have been around that time.’
There was loud music coming from the record shop opposite. Something cheery and pointless.
‘So?’
‘So what?’
Kitson tried hard to meet his eyes. ‘Did you say a prayer for Amin Latif?’
Farrell sniffed and looked away from her, stepping aside as a group of teenage girls came out of the bakery. One of his friends made a comment under his breath. A girl told him to piss off.
‘Should you be talking to me?’ Farrell asked.
‘Sorry?’
‘Without the presence of any legal representation. Without my parents.’
There was an impressed whistle from beneath one of the baseball caps.
‘It’s just an informal chat, Adrian.’
For the first time the boy looked slightly alarmed, though only for a second or two. ‘How d’you know my name?’
‘The police know everything,’ one of his friends said.
The other pointed at Farrell, mock-serious. ‘They know when you last had a wank, guy.’
Andy Stone stepped forward, corralled the designer-clad double act into an adjacent doorway. ‘Why don’t I get your names? Just so we don’t feel like strangers.’
‘You’re seventeen,’ Kitson said. ‘Which makes you legally responsible.’
Farrell watched his friends, nodding his head to the rhythm of the pop song.
‘Anyway, there’s
really no need to get worked up.’
‘Who’s worked up?’ Farrell said.
‘That’s all right, then.’
‘It’s not true, though, is it?’ He leaned towards her, conspiratorial. ‘You don’t really know the last time I shook hands with my best friend?’
She smiled, not quite so easily thrown. ‘As it goes, we’d be delighted to fix you up with whoever would make you more comfortable. A lawyer, if you want; your mum and dad. Maybe that nice chaplain of yours, if it would help. We could all reconvene at the station, do everything properly.’
‘I don’t actually have to do anything, though, do I?’
‘No, absolutely not. We’re just talking.’
‘Fine then.’ He put all his weight on one foot, preparing to leave. ‘Nice to talk to you.’
‘But when that happens, we just sit around and start asking questions. Of ourselves, I mean. We wonder why you don’t like us. Why you’re so reluctant to help. What you might be trying to hide.’
Farrell started to shake his head, grinning like he thought her efforts were clumsy and amateurish. ‘I’m going back to school now,’ he said. ‘It’s double history this afternoon, and that’s my favourite.’
Kitson wanted to slap him stupid.
‘Come on, wankers.’ Farrell shouted across to his friends and started to walk away. Once there was breathing space between themselves and Stone, the other boys puffed out their chests, fell into step with each other and quickly caught Farrell up.
Stone moved across to Kitson. ‘They’re not afraid of very much, are they?’ he said.
They watched the boys swagger down the ramp. As they reached the bottom, one of Farrell’s friends tossed his empty bag towards a litter bin. The others jeered at the miss and the three kept on walking.
‘It’s easy when there’s a few of you,’ Kitson said.
Farrell glanced back, a couple of steps before he turned the corner; looked round as though he’d forgotten something, just for a second or two before he disappeared.
His hand was slapping the side of his leg in time to the music.
Kidnap or not, as operation posts went, the security was fairly relaxed. Thorne had taken part in plenty of intelligence operations – usually involving the Serious and Organised boys – where a steady stream of visitors to the target address had meant days on end in the back of a stinking van, pissing in plastic bottles and living on biscuits. In this instance, the surveillance provided by the cameras meant that there was no need for any vehicle to be located within direct sight of Conrad Allen’s flat. So there was a degree of flexibility in terms of individual movements, and conditions within the team vehicles themselves were not quite as spartan.
Less than a minute on foot from Allen’s flat, Porter had spent most of her morning south of the Bow Road, on a one-way street between Tower Hamlets cemetery and the tube station. After their brief meeting on Fairfield Road, Thorne had joined her in the back of a dirty Transit, its panels boasting the logo and contact details of a local roofing contractor.
That had been just after three o’clock. Nearly an hour before.
A trestle table ran down one side of the van. Two small monitors displayed the black-and-white shots from the cameras front and back, while a scarred metal speaker broadcast communications from the assortment of unit vehicles in the vicinity. A strip of grubby brown carpet had been laid on the floor, and a plastic bag was wedged into one corner, bulging with Styrofoam containers, newspapers, empty cans and cartons.
‘So what do we think?’
‘It’s been forty-five minutes since we went into the old woman’s flat.’
‘Longer,’ Porter said.
Two other officers were sharing the space with Porter and Thorne. Kenny Parsons sat in one of two folding canvas chairs, with the other taken by a fat DS named Heeney – a gobby Midlander with a lazy eye and an attitude to match. Porter looked less than delighted at being harassed by either of them. She brought the radio handset to her mouth. ‘How are we doing, Bob?’
There was a pause.
‘I’m sure he’ll let you know,’ Thorne said.
Porter gave him a look like he wasn’t helping a hell of a lot, either.
Then, from the speaker, with a hint of annoyance: ‘Still nothing.’
‘You’ve checked the equipment?’
‘Twice. The equipment’s fine.’
‘Sorry…’
It had been a stupid question. The microphones were about as high tech as they could ask for, and she knew that the technical operator had done his homework. They’d established that the flat was rented, had guessed correctly that the firm below it would have handled the letting and had gone in bright and early to acquire a diagram of the layout. A kitchen-diner, two small bedrooms and a bathroom, all leading off the single corridor. The listening equipment that had been set up in the premises next door would be more than adequate: nowhere in a flat that size would be out of range.
‘Someone’s going to have to make a decision here,’ Heeney said. His accent turned ‘make’ into ‘mek’; turned his opinion into complaint.
Thorne sat with his back to the van’s doors and stared across at Porter, perched on the wheel-arch directly behind the driver’s seat. She looked right back at him and raised an eyebrow. He thought she might be asking what he thought, but he couldn’t be sure, and he was even less sure how she’d react if he told her. So he said nothing; failing to offer any opinion, because he didn’t want to risk a row in front of the others. And because he didn’t really have one to offer.
There were far too many questions that needed to be answered, boxes to be ticked, with no option to pass.
Were Conrad Allen and his girlfriend in the flat?
Was that where they were holding Luke Mullen?
Had they graduated from plastic guns to real ones, and how were they likely to react if a team of armed police officers smashed through their front door?
‘If I had final say, I’d go in,’ Porter said.
Thorne pulled up one knee, then the other, but he was unable to find any position that wasn’t painful. ‘Would you want it?’
‘The final say? Probably not.’
‘Good call, I reckon. With great power comes great responsibility.’
‘I didn’t have you down as a philosopher.’
‘It’s from Spiderman,’ Thorne said.
She lifted the handset. ‘I need an opinion, Bob.’
From the speaker: ‘There’s nothing moving in there.’
‘Fuck!’
‘Sorry, but there it is.’
‘Maybe the kid’s drugged and they’re both asleep.’
‘What don’t you understand? Nothing’s moving. I can hear a clock ticking, and I can tell you which room it’s in, if you want. I’ve got water moving through the radiators, and the rattle of pipes expanding, but I don’t hear anyone snoring or turning over in bed. These mikes can pick up the sound of breathing, and I can’t hear any.’
There was a snap of static, and another voice cut in: ‘This is DCI Hignett.’
‘Sir…’
‘It’s time to go in, Louise.’
It was suddenly as though the Transit had been wired up to the National Grid. Everyone jumped, looked hard at one another, and Thorne crouched straight back down by the doors as Porter gave all units the order to move in.
Thorne threw open the doors and jumped down on to the road. He felt Porter’s hand on his shoulder; felt it dig in, and pull him back.
‘Hang about, Tom. I don’t want a crowd of us going in there behind the guns.’
‘Are you joking?’
Porter wiped a fleck of Thorne’s spittle from her lip. ‘Look, Heeney’s staying put as well, so don’t get stupid about it.’
‘Who’s making these decisions?’
‘You’re only supposed to be helping out, remember. I haven’t got time for this. Get back in the van and stay by the radio.’
Thorne watched her and Parsons sprint to
wards the Bow Road and climbed back into the van. Heeney was sitting again and looked at his feet as Thorne moved past him to take up Porter’s place next to the monitors. The big DS mumbled something about Porter being ‘on the rag’. Thorne turned away and tuned him out. He sat on one of the chairs, leaned closer and stared at the small screen, at the fixed and flickering picture of a black, metal fire-escape.
With only one door to get through, as opposed to a pair of them coming at the property from the front, the rear entrance was favourite. More importantly, when firearms were being deployed, keeping the action well away from the street was always desirable.
Thorne didn’t blink.
For twenty, twenty-five seconds, the image was constant, then suddenly it filled with movement as a dozen or more figures began crowding in. Moving into the picture from the back and sides of a scrubby, unloved garden; over and along the line of a crumbling wall towards the bottom of the steps.
Then a flurry of hand signals, and up; speed less important than stealth.
The team gathered around the door, and Thorne picked out what details he could, imagining those that were too indistinct to make out: the butt of an MP5 carbine; the MET POLICE logo on a chest thick with body armour; the dead geraniums in a plastic window-box…
In the van, a few murmured instructions came over the speaker.
Thorne could make out Porter and Parsons, and several heads he thought he recognised. He watched two figures move into the picture and knew – though he couldn’t see it – that they would be fixing the rubberised teeth of a hydraulic jack to either side of the door frame. These were members of the Special Events team – the Ghostbusters – a civilian unit on call to any branch of the Met that needed to gain rapid entry to premises but wanted something rather more subtle than a ram or a size-nine boot.
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