by John Dean
It was shortly before midnight and they were sitting in the darkness of an empty first-floor office on the fringes of a small business park in Manchester. They had been there for two hours, binoculars trained on an industrial unit on the other side of the road. Because it was a warm summer’s night, both wore jeans, T-shirts and light jackets. Jack Harris was acutely conscious of Gorman’s perfume. The building in which they were sitting had been empty for the best part of a year but, although the air was thick and musty with damp and neglect, all he could smell was Annie Gorman. Memories stirred for him.
‘Missed your chance, Jacky boy,’ she said.
He gave a rueful smile.
‘Yeah, I heard you got married.’
‘And happily.’ She chuckled. ‘So keep your lecherous thoughts to yourself.’
Harris grinned and resumed his vigil out of the window. The building had been chosen because of its proximity to the flat-roofed red-brick workshop standing on the other side of the only road through the estate. Both officers had been watching for signs of movement but it had remained deserted and in darkness.
‘I’m still not sure about this, you know,’ said Gorman.
‘Relax.’
‘You can’t relax with Gerry Radford. You of all people know that.’
Harris nodded, his mind going back to the scene outside a Manchester warehouse, no more than three miles from where he sat now.
Suddenly consumed by fury, and with the shrieks of the dogs still ringing in his ears, the inspector jumped to his feet and, spotting a familiar face among the group of arrested men being taken out to the police vans, he strode rapidly outside.
‘Wait a minute,’ he said to one of the uniformed officers, pointing at a burly dark-haired man in his late thirties. ‘I want to talk to this one.’
Harris walked up to the man until their faces were but inches apart.
‘Gerry Radford,’ he said in a soft voice laced with menace, ‘I am going to make sure you wish you were never born.’
‘In your fucking dreams, Harris,’ said Radford with a mocking smile.
The DI’s fist caught him full in the face and, for a few moments, Radford swayed, his eyes registering his shock, then he slowly, elegantly, slid to the floor. Watched in stunned silence by the other officers, Jack Harris turned on his heel and walked back into the warehouse.
‘Radford’s complaint could have gone either way,’ said Gorman. ‘Your suspension could have been permanent. Why do you think I have had to fight long and hard to get you along tonight? Some people around here have long memories. Balls this up, Hawk, and….’
Her radio crackled and she reached down to pick it up off the floor, flicking dust off it with her manicured fingers before putting the device to her ear.
‘Gorman,’ she said.
‘Still no show,’ said a man’s voice. ‘The service station is pretty quiet.’
‘OK, stay there a bit longer.’ Gorman put the radio down and glanced at the inspector. ‘Maybe you’re right after all. Maybe the drugs drop is a blind.’
Harris nodded and peered along the road as it ran further into the estate, where he knew several unmarked cars were parked behind one of the other workshops. Sitting in them were a mix of police officers and Customs investigators. Harris let his gaze slide to the small factory unit next to the target workshop: Gallagher and two Manchester detectives had been sitting in a parked vehicle behind the building for the best part of two hours. Glancing back towards the main road, Harris saw a stationary box van, its paintwork rusting, the windows grimy. He knew that Alison Butterfield was sitting in the back of the vehicle with several armed officers: he also knew that the young constable would be loving this.
‘Your man Gallagher,’ said Gorman suddenly, breaking into the inspector’s reverie.
Harris gave her a sharp look.
‘OK, OK,’ said Gorman, holding up a hand, ‘I know I’m out of order, but I’m hearing good things about him.’
‘He is good,’ said Harris, looking at her fiercely, ‘but good and mine so you can keep your hands off him, Annie.’
‘Don’t worry. Besides, even if I did offer him a job, there’s no way he would come and work for me.’
‘Yeah, he’s got his eye on a transfer to Roxham,’ said Harris gloomily.
‘Actually, he’s got his eyes on you, Jacky my boy. I had a long talk with him earlier. Back at the nick. Yeah, OK, I was poaching, mea culpa, but, like I said, you have nothing to worry about: Matty Gallagher says you are the most infuriating senior officer he has ever worked with.’
‘Doesn’t exactly put my mind at rest.’
‘Ah, but it should, because he loves working for you, you curmudgeonly old bastard. God knows why. There’s no way I could prise him away even if I wanted to.’ Gorman looked at him gently. ‘And I don’t want to, Hawk. Losing me and a damned good sergeant in one night would be too much for any man to bear.’
Harris was not sure what to say.
‘Look after him,’ said Gorman and looked out of the window again. ‘Still no movement. Are you sure this is not a set-up as well? Is your man reliable?’
The inspector’s mind went back to his last encounter with Paul Garratt the previous day when, after forty-eight hours of intense negotiations which had seen Harris and Curtis spending many hours in meetings and on the phone, he had been able to secure for Garratt the deal that he wanted.
Armed with the agreement, Harris walked into the interview room at Levton Bridge that final time to be greeted by a hopeful look from Garratt. His expression clouded over when he saw a man he did not recognize following the inspector into the room.
‘Who’s he?’ he asked curtly.
‘Customs,’ replied Harris.
‘Eric Stabler,’ said the Customs man, sitting down and taking off his suit jacket to reveal rolled-up shirtsleeves. ‘None of this happens without me.’
Garratt looked at Harris.
‘He’s right,’ nodded the inspector. ‘Customs investigator trumps woolly-back cop on this one.’
‘OK,’ said Garratt. ‘Do I take it you have got my deal then?’
‘Yes, but you had better deliver your side of the bargain, mind,’ said the DCI, glancing at Stabler. ‘This has gone all the way up to the Foreign Office. No one is entirely happy about this. You’re a pretty good catch yourself and no one is entirely comfortable with letting you go.’
‘Yeah,’ said Stabler, ‘so if this is a piss-take.’
‘It isn’t,’ said Garratt. ‘So what’s the deal, Harris?’
‘All charges dropped. Things smoothed over with our Congolese friends, a new identity, safe passage to the border then we stick you on a horse and you fuck off into the sunset, never to return.’
‘I’ve always fancied South America,’ nodded Garratt. ‘Too wet here. And too many sheep.’
‘So start talking then,’ said Harris. ‘Where does Gerry Radford fit into the picture? You reckon he’s moved into wildlife trafficking?’
‘Big time.’
‘You’ll have to do better than that,’ said Stabler. ‘Our information is that he is relatively small fry.’
‘Was,’ said Garratt. ‘Wassmall fry, Mr Stabler. See, Gerry Radford has got a new hobby and it’s making him huge sums of money.’
‘What is it?’
‘Caged birds,’ said Garratt. ‘Caught all over the world and shipped over here.’
‘It’s a massive racket,’ nodded Stabler, glancing at Harris.
‘It is,’ said Harris. ‘So where do they go after he brings them back here, Paul?’
‘The illegal pet trade in the UK, or moved on to the Continent – oh, and a lot go over to the US. The Americans can’t get enough of parrots and the like. Anything pretty coloured. They’ll pay top dollar, particularly for the rarer species, and with the US getting tougher on legal imports, the black market is on the up and up. It’s much less risky than trafficking drugs.’
‘But not for the birds,’ said Harris,
his disgust undisguised. ‘Surely, many of them will die on the way over?’
‘Maybe they do,’ said Garratt and gave a slight smile, ‘but, as I have tried to teach you before, the fewer there are, the higher the price on the ones that survive. Don’t look at me like that, Harris. Everything is a commodity.’
Harris scowled at him.
‘We’ll need names,’ said Stabler. ‘You’re going to have to work for this.’
‘Give me a pen and a piece of paper then.’
Twenty minutes later, once he had finished writing, Garratt handed the paper over to Stabler, who scanned the list and gave a low whistle.
‘Thought you’d like it,’ said Garratt.
‘You said you could deliver Radford as well,’ said Harris as he looked at the list handed to him by Stabler. He placed it on the desk. ‘His name is not on this.’
‘And so I can. Tomorrow night, he is bringing in something that I think will interest you. Be warned, he knows that someone inside his organization is grassing him up to the police and has put the word out that a delivery of drugs is coming in at a service station. That’s a red herring to keep the cops over there tied up. The real one is coming to a workshop he uses to store stuff.’ He reached for the piece of paper and scribbled something. ‘That’s the address. Third building on the left. Look inside the truck and you will find everything you need.’
Garratt sat back in his chair and stared expectantly at the chief inspector.
‘OK, Harris, I have kept my side of the bargain. When do I get to go?’
‘Now. You’ll go with Mr Stabler here,’ said Harris. ‘He’ll arrange things. I think he will want a further conversation with you before you do your disappearing act.’
Stabler nodded and Garratt stood up.
‘Oh, one thing before you do go, Paul,’ said Harris. ‘How do you know all this about Radford?’
Garratt gave a slight smile.
‘Who do you think fixed tomorrow night’s little operation for him?’ he said. ‘The birds come from a bent dealer I know in Ghana.’
‘Sit down,’ said Harris.
Garratt hesitated.
‘Sit down,’ repeated Harris, his voice harder edged this time.
Garratt sighed and took his seat again.
‘What’s this about, Jack?’ asked Stabler. ‘I don’t want you doing anything that will wreck our arrangement.’
‘There’s something I need to clear up first, though, I still have an unsolved murder,’ said Harris. ‘Paul, did Meredith know about you and Radford?’
‘I was going to tell him the night I found out what he was doing but when he told me that he was grassing up Radford, things suddenly got a whole lot more complicated. Never shit in your own nest and all that stuff.’ Garratt chuckled. ‘A nice bird analogy, I think.’
Harris scowled.
‘Come on, Inspector,’ said Garratt, ‘lighten up. You have got what you wanted out of this.’
‘Not quite. See, we have a witness who says that you were involved in Meredith’s murder and the attack on James Thornycroft. I didn’t believe that until now but now, I am thinking that you had a good reason to see him dead.’
‘I imagine we are talking about Thornycroft’s wife? The lovely Gaynor?’
‘I can’t reveal—’
‘You don’t need to. She has always hated me. Blames me and Meredith for leading her husband into bad ways. However, you can rest assured that she’s lying about me. I know for a fact that Radford sent a couple of his own heavies after Meredith and Thornycroft. Bloke called Lennie Ross, shaven-headed guy – and another chap, don’t know his name, evil-looking bastard. They’re the ones who shot at your farmers. Mind, I did hear that they are adamant that they didn’t kill Meredith.’
‘Yes, but did you?’ asked Harris. ‘I mean, you’ve got plenty of motive if you thought he was threatening to screw things up with Radford. Or maybe you were worried that he was going to grass you up. You are already wanted for the murder of Rylance, it’s not like you haven’t got a track record for this sort of thing.’
‘Not my style these days,’ said Garratt with a slight smile. ‘Jesus, I can’t ransack some old bird’s home without being caught.’
‘Yeah, what were you doing there? Weren’t you taking a bit of a risk?’
‘You are right about one thing. I had got kinda jumpy about Meredith. When he disappeared, I started to wonder if he was informing on me as well, cutting a deal. I tried to get into his home, see if he had anything on me, but you had a police guard on it. I wondered if you had taken him into protective custody. I don’t mind admitting, I was crapping myself. He knew where all the skeletons were buried.’
‘So when you found out that Jasmine had done a runner as well, you decided to see if she had taken anything with her?’ said Harris.
‘Something like that. Once I started thinking about it, I reckoned that he wouldn’t be so stupid as to leave anything at his place so Jasmine was the obvious person to trust with it.’
‘And did you find anything at her mum’s house?’
‘No.’ Garratt gave a smile. ‘Ironic really. Honour among thieves and all that.’
‘Oh, before I forget,’ said Gorman. ‘I should thank you for the tip-off about Radford rumbling our informant.’
‘You got him out of there all right?’
‘Yeah.’
Gorman’s radio crackled.
‘There’s movement,’ said a man’s voice. ‘Truck turning into the industrial estate. And a car behind it. A Jaguar.’
The officers watched both vehicles cut their lights and drive slowly down the road, towards the detectives’ hiding place. Truck and car pulled up out outside the workshop. The back doors of the lorry were flung open and half-a-dozen men jumped out.
‘Radford,’ said Harris, with a gleam in his eye as he pointed to another man getting out of the Jaguar’s front passenger seat.
‘OK,’ said Annie Gorman into her radio. ‘Show time.’
As the two officers ran down the office block’s stairs, there was a squeal of tyres and the police cars careered out on to the road and drove towards the workshop. The back doors of the surveillance van were thrown up and more officers spilled out on the road and sprinted towards the startled gang members. Within seconds, the air reverberated to the sound of shouting as the officers quickly overwhelmed their targets. Jack Harris ran towards the truck just as a shaven-headed man jumped out of the driver’s side. For a few moments, the two men eyed each other then Lennie Ross turned and started to run back towards the workshop. Harris sprinted after him and hurled himself into a flying rugby tackle, bringing the man to the ground where he struggled for a second or two, shouting profanities as the inspector twisted his arms behind him and snapped on a pair of handcuffs. Then, realizing that they were partially concealed by a low wall and having glanced round to check that no one could see them, Jack Harris grabbed hold of the man’s shoulders and slammed his face into the Tarmac. The man gave a squeal of pain.
‘That,’ said Harris through twisted lips, ‘is for a couple of farmer pals of mine.’
He dragged the dazed man to his feet and led him back towards the others. Gorman viewed the man’s bloodstained features but said nothing. Handing Ross over to one of the other offices, Harris scrambled into the back of the truck, where he was confronted by a large number of bird cages. Wrinkling his nose at the acrid smell, he glanced inside the first few and saw a wide array of brightly coloured birds, some unconscious, others barely alive, some clearly dead and lying in their own faeces. Harris scowled and returned to the back of the van, jumping down on to the road.
‘Where’s Radford?’ he asked.
Matty Gallagher appeared from round the back of the van, holding a struggling Gerry Radford by the arm.
Jack Harris walked up to the gangster and smiled sweetly.
‘Gerry Radford,’ he said in a soft voice laced with menace, ‘I am going to make sure you wish you were never born.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
‘I take it the idea of the strong-arm stuff was to keep their mouths shut?’ said Harris, looking hard at Lennie Ross.
It was shortly before ten the next morning and Harris and Gallagher were sitting in the interview room at Levton Bridge, staring across the table at the arrested man’s battered and bruised face, one eye swollen and livid.
‘I ain’t saying nothing,’ said Ross.
‘Listen, Lennie,’ said Harris, ‘I’ve already told you that your mate Radford is going away for a long time. There is no way he is going to get out of this one – there’s already three countries want to extradite him for trafficking offences. He can’t get to you.’
‘He’s got a lot of mates has Gerry.’
‘The amount of trouble they’re in, I don’t reckon that some hired meathead will be much concern to them,’ said Harris. ‘They are already running for the hills.’
Ross hesitated.
‘Do yourself a favour,’ said Gallagher.
‘OK,’ said Ross eventually. ‘I admit that Gerry Radford sent me up here to put the frighteners on, but what happened to Thornycroft was an accident. The idea was to rough him up, make sure he kept his mouth shut, but he fell and hit his head.’
‘I am prepared to believe that,’ nodded Harris. ‘But not sure you are going to be able to wriggle out of Meredith’s murder so easily.’
‘I did not kill him, that’s the God’s honest truth, Mr Harris.’
‘But you did go after him?’
Ross nodded.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Gerry was sure that if we scared him enough, he’d refuse to talk to them RSPCA investigators. Garratt told Radford that if you turned the screw up enough, Meredith took fright. Said he had a yellow streak. I’d been watching the house for a couple of days and when I saw him leave, I followed him to sort it out.’
‘Why the pit bull?’
‘Thought it might help scare him. It was a mean bastard was that dog and he’d sold me the bloody thing so he knew how crazy it was.’
‘And the idea was?’
