The Crime Trade

by Simon Kernick

  The scene of this, the first inquest into the events of that afternoon, was a specially set up incident room in one of the hotel’s ground-floor conference suites. At one end of the table, sitting with his legs crossed and a cigarette in his mouth, was DC Stegs Jenner. There was a half-full cup of coffee – his third – in front of him. Facing him down at the other end of the table was the skinny, stooped frame of DCS Flanagan, whose normally dour face was now red with anger. The others in the room were DI Malik; Inspector Leon Ferman who’d been running things from the SO19 standpoint; and finally Tina Boyd and me. The atmosphere was thick with the tension and impatience of individuals who know they’re going to be in the verbal firing line. What had happened that afternoon had been near enough unprecedented in post-Second World War Britain, and there was a strong feeling that the media were going to be crawling all over this bloody event, which meant that it was important to find out as soon as possible exactly where it had all gone so pear-shaped. And the best person initially to answer that question was Stegs Jenner.

  I was watching Stegs carefully. Everyone was watching him carefully, waiting to hear what he had to say. We’d met three times in the run-up to today, two of those meetings over a beer, and, if truth be told, I liked the guy. He was a maverick, and a cocky one at that, with the sort of devil-may-care attitude that always makes enemies in the insular, regimented world of the Met, but he carried it well, and I couldn’t help admiring the fact that he was prepared to risk his neck in some very dangerous situations, this afternoon’s being a case in point. The last time we’d met up had been six days earlier at New Scotland Yard. Stegs had been sounding confident then, and when I’d told him to be careful on the op, a beaming smile had lit up his face and he’d told me not to worry, he’d done this sort of thing plenty of times before. Call me a pessimist, but I always worry when someone says that.

  He looked very different now. Drawn, tired, and most of all tense, as if he knew the tidal wave of questions was only just gathering momentum and could end up sinking him. Even his startlingly bright-blue eyes appeared to have dulled. The expression invited sympathy, and I was prepared to give him some, although I’m pretty sure I was the only one in the room who was.

  ‘So come on, Jenner,’ continued Flanagan, ‘tell us. What the hell went wrong?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said wearily, taking a drag from his cigarette. ‘The Colombian, Fellano, was fucking us about. He was really paranoid. I think he may even have had half a sniff we were police.’

  ‘Then why on earth did you split up from Vokerman?’

  ‘You know why I split up from him. Because I wasn’t going to show Fellano the money until I saw the gear, and the gear wasn’t there in the room. That’s the way it works in these sort of things – in case you didn’t know.’

  ‘I know exactly how it fucking works, Jenner!’ snapped Flanagan, his expression darkening until his face was almost puce. ‘That’s why I run SO7. But it wasn’t in the plan for you to split up, was it? You were meant to take the money up to the room with you in the first place. Why didn’t you do that?’

  ‘I didn’t want him thinking he was dealing with a couple of amateurs. If we’d gone waltzing in with the cash, that’s what we would have looked like. They would have suspected something. I told you that when we were planning it. We would never have got hold of the drugs.’

  ‘And we wouldn’t have had five dead bodies strewn round the airport, dozens of petrified civilians, including one in intensive care, and half the world’s media coming down on us like a pack of fucking wolves.’ Flanagan’s face grew redder as he spoke, something that thanks to his lanky frame gave him more than a passing resemblance to a matchstick. I thought that he’d better watch himself otherwise he was going to be joining the civilian in intensive care.

  ‘This is the first time one of my ops has ever gone wrong,’ said Stegs firmly, holding Flanagan’s gaze.

  ‘And go wrong it certainly fucking did. You only need one mistake when it’s as big as that.’

  ‘It’s easy enough criticizing when you’re stood watching everything from a safe distance. It’s a lot harder when you’re out there on your own. Ninety per cent of that cash was counterfeit. If they’d checked it carefully enough, we’d have put ourselves in even more danger.’

  ‘Don’t make excuses, Jenner. You didn’t follow procedure, and because of that you put yourself, your colleague, the targets . . . the whole operation, in jeopardy. And, as a direct result, it all ended in . . .’ He chewed around for the right word. ‘Tragedy.’

  ‘Bullshit! I did what I thought was right. I wanted to get evidence against the target, and that was the only way I could do it. It wasn’t my fault that someone decided to rob us in the middle of it all. If they hadn’t turned up, none of this would have happened.’

  The two men continued to stare at each other, the tension between them growing. It had been there since the meeting had started. That’s what I meant about Stegs being a maverick. He didn’t follow procedure; he improvised – on this occasion, with alarming results – and it made him enemies. I could see why he’d done it, and I understood his explanation. If he and Vokes had simply gone in there with the money, they might have been rumbled on the spot as undercover police, too eager to make a purchase. And, to be fair to him, if the robbers hadn’t turned up in the car park, we almost certainly would have got the result we were looking for. I doubted that this would be enough to save him, though.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tina fixing him with an expression of scepticism. She’d never liked him, one of those instinctive dislikes she hadn’t got round to explaining, and it made me think that Stegs really was a one-man band, always on his own against the world. In other words, perfect scapegoat material.

  Malik spoke next, his tone calm and even as always, his question one that had also been bugging me. ‘Just after you split up from the two Colombians in the car park, Fellano made a call on his mobile. Do you have any idea who he might have been phoning?’

  Stegs shook his head.

  ‘The reason I ask,’ Malik continued, ‘is that at almost exactly the same time, one of the Colombians in the room received a call on the hotel phone. At the moment, we don’t know what was said, because the individual taking the call didn’t say anything to the caller, but as soon as it ended he became very irate, and, according to our translator, told his colleague that there was a serious problem. They then became far more agitated, and we believe they manhandled Vokes over to the bed.’

  ‘I thought you had cameras in the room.’

  ‘We had two cameras in there,’ answered Malik, ‘but it was a big place and they were pointed at the desk to cover the transaction. So there was a blind spot round by the bed. After the call, they heard the shots and decided to bail out, but they finished off Vokes first. Quite why, we’re not sure. And for some reason he didn’t give his codeword.’

  ‘I’m surprised that when the shooting started out in the car park you lot didn’t go in anyway,’ said Stegs, looking first at Malik, then at Flanagan.

  ‘SO19 were in the room within twenty seconds of the first shots being fired in the car park,’ said Leon Ferman, a powerfully built black man who looked like he didn’t take criticism lightly. ‘And within thirty, both suspects were dead. How much faster would you have wanted it done?’

  ‘Fast enough to have saved him,’ said Stegs drily.

  Ferman started to say something else but Malik put up a hand to stop him. ‘It’s OK, Leon,’ he said, and Ferman reluctantly quietened. ‘The fact remains, Stegs, that he didn’t give the signal, and we had absolutely no idea they were going to shoot him. SO19 were in the rooms directly on either side, as you’re fully aware, and were given the order to go in as quickly as possible. It’s a tragedy that it wasn’t quick enough, but there was nothing we could have done about that.’

  The operation’s handlers – Flanagan, Malik and Ferman – had been watching events unfold from a room some way down the cor
ridor from the one where the meeting had been taking place. Tina and I had been in there too, along with the translator and several other technical staff, and we’d seen near enough everything, bar the final bloody denouement, which had taken place off camera. Because the operations room had been on the other side of the hotel from the car park, and the shooting out of immediate earshot, it had only just been picked up on the surveillance tapes. As a result, there’d been a momentary delay before the order to go in was relayed by Ferman to the SO19 team, a delay that had proved fatal. However, it was difficult to know what could have been done to prevent it. Our operational incident room had deliberately been located some distance from where the deal was going down, because having that many people so close, particularly when we had the tapes of what was being said playing in the room, would have aroused too much suspicion.

  Flanagan, though, clearly knew that plenty of people were going to be hunting for mistakes, and would probably find at least some, so he was following the politician’s standard philosophy of blaming someone else. ‘So, you had no idea why Fellano could have made that call, or who he was calling?’ he demanded, the suggestion clear that he thought Jenner must have known.

  ‘Of course I didn’t. Why would I?’

  ‘Nothing was discussed?’

  ‘No.’ Stegs stubbed out his cigarette. ‘Look, I don’t know what the fuck you’re trying to insinuate, but all I was trying to do was nail one of the bad guys. It fucked up, the whole thing fucked up, and I lost a good mate . . .’ He paused for a moment as if that particular piece of news had only just fully arrived in his consciousness. ‘But it can’t be my fault that a bunch of blokes I’ve never seen in my life suddenly turn up out of the blue, pull shooters, and stage an armed robbery right in the middle of the op. Someone should have spotted them a mile off. Why didn’t that happen? And why did they get a chance to start shooting?’

  ‘The op was stretched,’ said Ferman. ‘If you hadn’t decided to go walkabout with the target, then we’d have had a lot better coverage. We had to pull men from all over the place to get them into that car park.’

  ‘You know, you’re all looking at everything the wrong way.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ demanded Flanagan.

  ‘Those blokes who turned up out of the blue were the ones who fucked this job. How did they know about the operation? That’s the question.’

  Which was the moment when Flanagan, Ferman and Stegs all turned and looked straight at Tina and me.

  ‘Hold on,’ said Tina, making a pre-emptive strike. ‘Wait a minute here. We gave you guys a lead, and we’ve had nothing further to do with it, so don’t start setting us up for fall-guys.’

  ‘It’s a good question, though,’ said Malik. ‘How did they know about the deal? Could your informant have talked?’

  Our informant – the one who’d helped organize this meeting – was Robert O’Brien, better known as Slim Robbie on account of the fact that he was as fat as a house. A thirty-year-old thug and career criminal who’d only agreed to set up the Colombians to save himself from a long prison sentence, after being set up in a similar sting by undercover police. It was fair to say that Robbie O’Brien lived and breathed the illegal. Asking if he could have talked, particularly if talking resulted in a profit for him, was like asking if whores have sex or Christians believe. It was pretty much a rhetorical question. Except for one thing.

  ‘We never told him the details of the op,’ I said. ‘I didn’t even know them myself until a few hours ago. I set up the introductions between the informant and Stegs, and I’ve spoken to him since then, but only about other matters, so if he knew anything about this meeting, he didn’t hear it from us. And anyway, how would he have known that Stegs and the Colombians were going to end up in the car park with the money and the drugs?’

  Eyes now returned to Stegs, who shrugged. ‘Robbie O’Brien was involved in setting up today’s meeting. He had to be: the Colombians were his contacts, not ours. And he was involved all along as well, at least up until a few days back. But I never told him the location, and I’m sure Vokes didn’t either. Like you, John’ – he nodded towards me – ‘we didn’t know it ourselves until a few hours back. Fellano likes to leave those sort of things to the last minute, for obvious reasons. O’Brien might have guessed, I suppose, because he knew Fellano had met people at this hotel before. And he would have been aware that Fellano was flying in in the last few days, but I haven’t spoken to him since Sunday, so I can’t see how he’d have known the timing.’

  ‘We’re going to have to bring O’Brien in for questioning,’ said Flanagan, also looking at me.

  ‘We’re on the case, sir,’ said Tina firmly, making doubly sure that Flanagan knew she was there too. ‘We’ve already called the station and they’re searching for him.’

  ‘No joy yet?’

  ‘Not yet, but we’ll get him,’ she said confidently, a tone in her voice suggesting that you wouldn’t want to be Slim Robbie when she got her hands on him. Tina Boyd might have looked like the pretty, college-educated girl from a good, middle-class family that she was, but you know what they say about appearances. She was a far tougher cookie than most people gave her credit for, and I would have almost felt sorry for Robbie if he hadn’t been such a scumbag.

  At that moment, a mobile rang shrilly. It was Malik’s. He removed it from his pocket, and I noticed with some amusement that it was a new and predictably flash little number that probably doubled as a pocket PC and digital camera. Typical. With Malik, appearances weren’t deceptive. He looked like the smart, young, gadget-carrying go-getter that he was. He spoke into the minuscule mouthpiece of the phone briefly, then listened for about twenty seconds, writing something in his notebook as he did so. Finally he hung up with a curt goodbye.

  ‘Ashley Eric Grant,’ he said, reading out what he’d just written. ‘Also known as – and I’m not sure if he took this as a compliment or not – “Strangleman”. Fingerprints have just identified him as the dead robber.’

  Flanagan, now standing, looked round the table. ‘Anyone know that name?’ he asked hopefully. ‘Ring any bells with anyone?’

  ‘I never saw any of those blokes before in my life,’ said Stegs, lighting another cigarette.

  Flanagan’s gaze got round to me, and I sighed loudly, wondering how much worse this day could possibly get, then told him and the room that, yes, I knew exactly who Ashley ‘Strangleman’ Grant was.

  3

  Ashley Grant allegedly got the nickname Strangleman years back in the Tivoli Gardens ghetto of Kingston, Jamaica, where he’d grown up. The story went that as a drug dealer and gunman loosely affiliated to the Jamaican Labour Party, or JLP, which ran that particular area, his very individual method of disposing of rivals was to have them impaled on meathooks before disembowelling them with a large butcher’s knife. He would then, it was claimed, strangle the unfortunate victims with their own entrails while they choked out their last breaths.

  Nobody knew how many people he’d killed this way. Nobody even knew if the story was true or not. My feeling was that there was probably something in it, but if he’d ever murdered someone in such a messy fashion I suspected that he’d only done it the once, and the victim would probably have been long dead before his colon had been wrapped round his neck. I hoped so anyway.

  But what was not in doubt was that Strangleman Grant was a dangerous man. He’d been residing in the UK for about ten years, having come over in his early twenties looking to make his fortune, and had married a local girl, thereby giving him the right to remain, even though it quickly became clear that his respect for the laws of his adopted land was near enough non-existent. Of those ten years, something like half had been spent in prison, mainly for drugs and weapons offences, but he’d been out for a while now and was settled on mine and Tina’s south Islington manor, which was how I knew his background. What concerned me immediately, however, was the fact that he was hooked up with the crime organization of one Nicholas Tyndal
l, a new and potentially very violent player in the north London cocaine trade.

  A little bit of history here. Up until a few months earlier, cocaine importation and distribution in north London, particularly Islington, had been primarily the work of the Holtzes, an extended family of gangsters who’d had a stranglehold on the area’s organized crime since the late 1970s, and one of whose members had been Slim Robbie O’Brien. But the Holtzes had fallen from power in spectacular fashion, their leader and one of his sons killed, and now many of their senior associates, including the leader’s deputy, Neil Vamen, were in custody, awaiting trial for a variety of offences.

  I’d been involved in their downfall, as had DI Malik, which was how we knew each other, but our victory had been something of a hollow one. With the Holtzes out of the picture, a vacuum had developed, and everyone knows what they say about nature and vacuums. Plenty of other outfits, some of them distinctly amateur, had tried to grab a piece of the wealth that was there to be had in the distribution of coke to the ever-growing customer base, but one of the more organized, and by all accounts more violent of them, was the Tyndall gang.

  Tyndall himself was a thirtysomething, locally born thug with an entrepreneurial streak who’d started out surrounding himself with men from his own estate, but who over the last couple of years had developed relations with Jamaican and Albanian criminals operating locally, and was, as a result, one of the bigger players coming through. Strangleman Grant was one of his top enforcers and was believed to have murdered another Jamaican who’d tried to rip Tyndall off two months earlier, blowing the back of his head off in an illegal drinking den in Dalston. There’d been at least fifty witnesses to the shooting but, as is almost always the way in these sort of violent in-your-face crimes within the black community, no-one was talking, particularly as it was well known that Nicholas Tyndall was behind it. Already he was getting a reputation for being untouchable.