Who Is She?

by Ben Cheetham

  “Doesn’t mean our vic’s not Tracy Ridley,” said Jack.

  “We’ll have an answer on that score one way or another soon enough.” Paul returned his attention to the rap-sheet. “In 2000 Ryan graduated from GBH to extortion. He and Gavin set up Mahon Security Consultants. They provided bouncers to dozens of doors around here. If business owners turned down their services, their pub or club would be flooded with troublemakers. One landlord who refused to cave in recorded Ryan making thinly veiled threats and went to the police. While Ryan was on remand in Forest Bank, Gavin threatened the landlord with a gun, tried to intimidate him into retracting his statement. Unfortunately for Gavin, we’d bugged the premises. Gavin got four years. Ryan got eighteen months. Guess where Ryan did his time.”

  There was only one answer Jack could think of that would explain the thrill of triumph in Paul’s voice. “HMP Liverpool.”

  “That’s the one. And for six of the twelve months he spent there, his cellmate was–”

  “Dennis Smith,” said Steve, stabbing a finger at the air as if pressing an invisible buzzer.

  Paul nodded. “I’ve spoken to Rob Jones. He was Director of HMP Liverpool at the time. By all accounts, Ryan was a big deal in there. He was the go-to-man for drugs, alcohol, mobile phones. He had six months added to his sentence after being caught with an ounce of cannabis. He got out in early 2003. Gavin still had two years left to do in Forest Bank, but that didn’t stop Ryan from getting back into business. This time he stepped up to the big show – armed robbery. From May 2003 to December of that year two men carried out a series of robberies across the North West, targeting cash deliveries to banks. They’d take the guards down with stun guns and hammers and make off with the cash in a stolen getaway car.”

  Paul handed his detectives a case file and timeline of the robberies:

  May 10th 2003 - Two men wearing balaclavas assault guard outside Barclay’s Bank, Crofts Bank Road, Urmston. £42,750 stolen.

  June 12th 2003 - TSB Bank, Stockport Road, Manchester. Two masked men jump out of a silver VW Golf and assault a guard. £12,436 stolen.

  July 20th 2003 - TSB Bank, Barlow Moor Road, Manchester. A guard fled dropping a cash case after being approached by two masked men with hammers. £16,570 stolen.

  The robberies continued like that at a rate of roughly one a month. They were meticulously planned and executed. Any resistance met with a brutal response. Getaway cars were torched. No forensic evidence was left behind. By December well over £200,000 had been stolen. But the robbers weren’t about to take a break for Christmas.

  On December 6th, they targeted a cash delivery to Allied Irish Bank on Hardman Street, Manchester city centre. This was a risky move – the previous robberies were in suburban areas – but also held out the possibility a greater reward. The robbers followed their usual strategy – pull up in getaway vehicle, subdue guards, make off with cash. In this instance £87,390. They only made it as far as Deansgate Interchange, half a mile from the bank, before police intercepted them.

  The robbers crashed into the A57’s central reservation and fled their vehicle. One of them was caught in the grounds of a block of flats adjacent to the south side of the ring road. At approximately the same time, a Toyota was stolen from a carpark on Great Jackson Street on the opposite side of the ring road. It was believed the car was stolen by the other robber. He escaped with the money.

  “Dennis Smith,” said Jack. It was surely no coincidence that stealing a VW Golf had landed Dennis in HMP Liverpool or that the same brand of car had been used in several of the robberies.

  “If you mean the escapee, I can’t think of a better candidate,” agreed Paul. “Ryan was, of course, the other half of the duo. He refused to give up his accomplice. Not a penny of the £279,988 they stole was recovered.”

  Steve whistled. “Nice little nest-egg for Dennis to kick-start his new life at Hawkshead Manor.”

  “Well while Dennis was planning for the end of the world up in The Lakes, Ryan was doing a ten year stretch in Strangeways. He got out in eight.”

  “Eight years in a Cat A. Hard time,” reflected Jack. By the time Ryan was released he would have been ready to take his place amongst the North West’s criminal elite. “So where did Ryan go from there?”

  “Moss Side. And as far as we know that’s where he’s been for the past seven years.”

  “He went straight?” Jack’s tone was dubious. For career criminals like Ryan, more often than not the only way out of their life of crime was in a coffin.

  “I don’t know about that, but he disappeared off our radar. So did Gavin.” Paul showed them a third mugshot. “This may explain their low profile and some other things too.” The mugshot was of an older man whose face was a mashup of Ryan and Gavin’s features – salt ’n pepper hair and stubble, craggy brown eyes, broken nose, lantern jaw. It was the sort of face you would struggle to put a dent in with a sledgehammer. “That’s Glenn Mahon. Ryan and Gavin’s dad.”

  Steve clicked his fingers. “I knew I’d heard the name Mahon before. He was killed a few years back during an armed robbery, wasn’t he?”

  “That’s right. A tipoff came in that an armed gang was planning to hit a security van outside a branch of RBS in Eccles. A firearms unit was lying in wait when three masked men jumped out of a white van and put a handgun to a guard’s head. Officers opened fire killing two of the men. The third fled the scene and managed to escape. The dead men were Glenn Mahon and a pal of his, Billy Hardy. This was in July 2010, not long before Ryan got out of prison.”

  “But Gavin wasn’t inside at the time, was he?” said Jack.

  “No. He was picked up for questioning, but he had a ready-made alibi. Apparently he was with his wife and kids at the birthday party of a friend’s child.”

  Steve snorted. “Did they give him a party bag to prove he was there?”

  “There was a big hoo-ha after the shooting when it turned out the gun was a replica. The Mahons made a lot of noise about GMP having a vendetta against Glenn. He had a long history of run-ins with us, including blinding an officer in one eye while resisting arrest for drunk and disorderly in 2007.”

  “What a gem. And his boys have done him proud,” Steve remarked dryly.

  “Kill all police,” said Jack, thinking about the ‘LOVE::. ALICE:’ tattoo on the forearm of one of Butterfly’s attackers. “So assuming the men who shot and buried our vic are Ryan and Gavin, and assuming the tattoo means what we think it does, these guys have killed at least two of ours.”

  The room was momentarily silent. Jack could see his colleagues were thinking the same as him. PC Andrew Finch had seemingly been shot dead because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ryan and Gavin would have no issue doing the same to anyone attempting to arrest them. They might even relish the opportunity to exact further revenge for their dad’s death.

  “So what’s our next move?” asked Jack.

  “What do you think?” said Steve. “We take the murdering bastards down. Make them wish they’d never been born.”

  “I wouldn’t put it quite like that, but yes,” said Paul. “The brothers live next door to each other on Broadfield Road. We’re raiding both houses today.”

  “They won’t be there,” said Jack. “Not after everything that’s happened.”

  “They’re probably in the Costas by now working on their tans,” agreed Steve.

  “I don’t doubt you’re right,” said Paul. “But their wives and children are there.” He consulted a file on his desk. “Ryan is married to Beth Mahon. They have three children. Gavin is married to Leah Mahon. They have two children. We’ve got eyes on them. The children are at school. Both women are at home. If we turn their houses over and bring them in for questioning, it might bring Ryan and Gavin out of the woodwork.”

  Jack’s forehead wrinkled. “Are you sure you want to try and poke the snakes out of their hole?”

  Paul replied with a frown of his own. “Are you saying we should be intimidated
by these thugs?”

  “Of course not, sir,” Jack said respectfully. Paul’s irritated tone reminded him that their relationship was still balanced on a knife edge. Irritation could quickly turn into outright anger and, before he knew it, he might be back to knocking on doors in Clifton. “I just think we should tread carefully. We know what the Mahons are capable of. Do we really want to risk angering them?”

  “I hope we do make them angry, because angry people do stupid things.”

  You mean like when I punched you in the face after I found out you’d been fucking my wife. Jack caught the thought before he could give voice to it.

  “Please let them try something,” snarled Steve. “I’d love an excuse to put them in hospital.”

  “No one will be putting the Mahons into anything other than a prison cell, DI Platts,” admonished Paul.

  “No word on the street about the whereabouts of the brothers?” asked Jack.

  “Not a whisper. All our informants are saying the same thing – no one who values their neck will give up the Mahons.”

  Jack wasn’t surprised. Fear. That was the best weapon scumbags like the Mahons had at their disposal. The more fear they commanded, the safer they were from being grassed up, double-crossed and the myriad other ways in which their kind fucked each other over. The idea that the brothers would be protected by some sort of code of silence was as laughable as it was naïve. It was an almost certain bet, for example, that the only reason Ryan hadn’t named his accomplice in 2003 in return for a reduced sentence was because it would have meant losing his share of the loot. “What about known associates? Have we got eyes on any?”

  “The only people the Mahons regularly associate with are other Mahons. They’re a tight bunch.”

  “Fucking inbreeds,” Steve muttered.

  Casting him a disapproving glance, Paul continued, “The exceptions to the rule seem to have been Billy Hardy, who was a childhood friend of Glenn, and Dennis Smith, who as we now know was useful to the Mahons in all sorts of ways.”

  “What about wiretapping their phones?” suggested Jack.

  “That takes time and the baby’s been missing for the best part of four days. Do you want to sit around twiddling your thumbs on the off-chance the Mahons would be stupid enough to contact each other using traceable phones?”

  Jack shook his head. As reluctant as he was to admit it, poking the snakes seemed to be their best option. “When are the raids taking place?”

  “As soon as the relevant warrants are issued.” Paul glanced at his watch. “Which should be anytime now. Do you feel up to coming along?”

  “Just try to stop me, sir,” grinned Steve.

  Jack merely nodded.

  Chapter 26

  A convoy of police vehicles headed by a Firearms Unit van sped along a claustrophobically narrow street of redbrick terraced houses. Some bystanders rubbernecked. Others barely afforded the vehicles a glance – they’d seen it all before. The van screeched to a halt outside two bay-windowed houses with postage-stamp front-yards. To an uneducated eye nothing marked the houses out as the homes of notorious criminals. But from his car at the rear of the convoy, Jack picked out a few tell-tale signs – CCTV cameras above the front doors, a matching pair of white Land Rover Discoveries with tinted windows parked outside.

  A conga line of officers in full body armour exited the van, semi-automatic rifles slung around their shoulders. They split into two lines, moving in rapidly on both houses. “Armed police!” The shout echoed along the street. “Open the door!”

  Only a few seconds passed between the demand and the deployment of officers with Enforcer battering rams.

  “Go on lads,” encouraged Steve as the officers swung the steel rams.

  Echoing thuds boomed out as the doors were repeatedly struck. Neither gave way. “Must be reinforced,” said Jack, getting out of the car for a better view.

  Officers set to work on the downstairs windows with sledgehammers. The glass shivered but didn’t break. An old lady poked her head out of a front door next to Jack. “They say the windows are bulletproof,” she informed him.

  “Please go back inside, madam,” he said. The woman remained where she was, craning her neck to watch the action. Other people were hanging their heads out of doors and windows.

  “Fuck off,” shouted one man. “Haven’t you already done enough to their family?”

  “Back inside!” retorted a firearms officer. The man gave him the finger. A gang of tracksuited kids on BMXs were weaving in and out of the police vehicles, laughing and jeering as constables chased them away.

  The sledgehammers were still pounding ineffectively at the windows. Sparks flared as an officer took an angle grinder to one door. Jack puffed his cheeks as Steve perched himself on the bonnet beside him. “Well we’re certainly making an impression.”

  Steve lit a cigarette. “This lot should be grateful. You can’t buy entertainment like this.”

  The angle grinder fell silent as it broke through the lock. The officer wielding it stepped aside and six or seven of his colleagues with rifles raised and ready filed through the doorway, bellowing, “Armed police! Stay where you are!”

  From inside the house came a shrill voice accompanied by a chorus of deep barks. As the officer with the angle grinder attacked the neighbouring house’s door, two officers reappeared hauling along a pair of thickly muscled white bulldogs. The dogs looked skittery and nervous, more scared than ready to fight.

  A woman in a tight vest, skinny jeans and high-heels tottered after the dogs. She was five-foot-nothing and whippet-thin with breasts like over-inflated balloons, bleached blonde hair and a ‘You’ve been Tangoed’ face. She was holding her own in a wrestling match with an officer twice her size. “You’ve got no right to take my dogs. Let go of me! Fucking bastards. Cunts. Let go. Police brutality! Police brutality!”

  The kids on bicycles took up her chant. “Police brutality!”

  “She’s a bit tasty,” Steve said to Jack.

  The woman’s tirade continued as more officers ran to restrain and escort her into the back of a van. Paul lowered his car window. “Leah Mahon,” he told Jack and Steve. “Gavin’s wife.”

  The neighbouring door’s lock gave up the ghost. Firearms officers entered the property. There were more shouts of, “Police!” and “Don’t move!” This time they were greeted with silence.

  A woman emerged from the house. She too was a buxom blonde done up like something out of The Only Way is Essex. But unlike Leah she carried herself with an air of aloof superiority, chin held high. She eyed the scene icily from her front gate. Several officers stood ready should she try anything. She gave them no excuse to lay a hand on her.

  “That must be Beth Mahon,” said Jack.

  “She looks like a duchess,” said Steve. “My type of woman.”

  “Are there any women that aren’t your type?”

  Steve chuckled. “Now you come to mention it...”

  Paul got out of his car and motioned for Beth to be brought over. She approached them with the poise of a model on a catwalk.

  “There she is,” the old woman said just loud enough for Jack to hear. “Queen bloody bee.”

  Beth was preceded by the click-click of her designer high-heels, the jangle of her gold jewellery and the heavy scent of her perfume. Her catlike blue-green eyes were as inscrutable as her husband’s. They slid across to the old woman who swiftly retreated into her hallway and closed the door. Jack had seen it many times before. Families like the Mahons lorded it over their streets like robber barons. They could doubtless have afforded to live in a more salubrious area, but preferred to remain where people knew them and their reputation. No one in Moss Side would pick up a phone to inform on them. That didn’t mean the Mahons’ neighbours were bad people. Most would probably have loved to see the back of the Mahons. But soaring levels of crime, poverty and unemployment had left them jaded, apathetic and, above all, sceptical of the police’s ability to protect them.r />
  “Beth Mahon?” said Paul.

  “Who’s asking?” Beth replied in a broad, flat-vowelled Mancunian accent.

  Paul displayed his ID and Beth made a sound in her throat as if she was gathering phlegm to spit.

  “We’d like you to accompany us to the station, Mrs Mahon,” said Paul.

  “Am I under arrest?”

  “No.”

  “Then I’m not going anywhere.”

  “I could place you under arrest.”

  A knowing smile played at the corners of Beth’s glossy lips. “If you coulda, you woulda.”