Chapter 21
London, England, August 1999
The corridors back to the main terminus at Heathrow were nowhere like as long as those at Gatwick, but long enough he decided, after what felt like the first mile. At passport control the duty officer took his passport and checked him against a list. He looked up and smiled.
"Just a minute please, Sir."
He turned and signalled to a young man in Excise uniform standing against a wall by the exit to the arrivals hall who hurried over and introduced himself.
"Good afternoon, Sir. I'm Bradlet. I'm to get you to New Scotland Yard at once if that's all right with you, Sir. The Commissioner and a Chief Inspector Sobers are anxious to talk to you."
Ropell just looked at him for a few moments. He was dog-tired and wanted nothing else other than to have a hot shower, a bite to eat, a large whiskey and then go to sleep for a long time. The events in Spain, particularly the deaths, had disturbed him and reminded him of the filthy nature of the drugs business and for the first time he questioned his ability to continue undeterred in this job. Perhaps he was getting past his sell by date in the service and should look for a new avenue of work, but constantly wading about in the sewers of human behaviour was beginning to get to him. A man got really tired of cutting down the weeds only to see them sprout again, undeterred. He realised the eager young man in front of him was giving him a funny look and pulled himself together. Well, he thought to himself, as the man said, I've started so I will finish. He gave Bradlet one of his best smiles.
"Its Andrew, isn't it? I believe you attended a series of lectures I gave on a million places to hide Heroin, or some such title."
Andrew Bradlet was visibly pleased and impressed.
"That's incredible, Sir, that must be all of four years ago."
Ropell turned the smile on again.
"Well, you were incredibly keen as I remember."
He omitted to say that throughout the two days of the course Bradlet had wanted to dissect everything to the ultimate degree and it was only that he had occasionally, without intending to, reduced the whole class to helpless laughter with some of his more ridiculous questions that had prevented Ropell from strangling him. He had hoped never to see this young man again. But on reflection he was at least sincere and Ropell was willing to bet his detection rate was well above the average, so he gave him a grin and followed him away from immigration.
Bradlet led him out through a side door to where a black Rover 800 was waiting. He had a quick word with the driver and then turned back to Ropell.
"Luggage is already aboard, Sir and I understand you will be able to shower and shave at the Yard. If there is nothing else I will be getting back to the terminal."
Ropell thanked him and shook his hand before climbing wearily into the back of the Rover. By the time the driver had cleared the airport perimeter he was asleep and did not awaken again until the car drove through the entrance to Scotland Yard. A policewoman showed him into a small room that contained a shower unit, toilet, sink and a large mirror. She told him he could wait in the room next door when he had finished, where coffee would be provided in twenty minutes. Twenty-two minutes later he was sitting down drinking a fairly awful cup of coffee when the door opened and Alan Sobers came in.
"Hello, Jack, I see they are looking after you. No, don't get up."
He lowered his impressive bulk into one of the other low chairs alongside the one Ropell was occupying.
"Sorry to drag you back at such short notice, but when you confirmed those bodies were in that flat all hell broke loose here."
He removed his glasses and rubbed at his face.
"Let me explain. Yesterday morning while you were removing the dead and injured from that patrol boat a man arrived at Gatwick on the three o'clock morning flight out of Alicante. He came straight here and asked to talk to a senior member of the Drugs Squad. He was asked what it was about, but refused to answer unless he was speaking to a Senior Officer. At that time in the morning, by then it was about six o'clock, there were not many senior police officers hanging about at the Yard. Anyway, they found a Detective Inspector from the Fraud Squad and wheeled him in. What this bloke told him is that he could give them enough evidence to smash a large drugs ring, but that we had to act quickly or the chance would be gone."
"What happened?"
"Patience, all will be revealed."
Sobers adjusted his glasses and glanced down at the file on his lap.
"He then said that he would only do this if he was guaranteed immunity from prosecution for any crime he may personally committed since his release from prison in September 1997."
He looked up again from the file, the glasses removing some of the grimness and the hard policeman from his features and Ropell thought that this was probably how his wife and daughters saw him. Sobers continued.
"Now Gerry Spence, that's the DI who first saw him, was beginning to think he got a loony on his hands. You wouldn't believe how many people come in here and confess to crimes that have never occurred. However, when he asked this guy what crimes he was talking about, he calmly told him one murder, one manslaughter and one accessory to murder and eighteen of trafficking in Cocaine."
Ropell's eyebrows shot up in a gesture of disbelief and Sobers shrugged and waved a hand towards the door.
"I know, I know, it all sounds like he had been watching the late night film and then come straight around here while he remembered it all, but Gerry says that since he has been taking the graveyard shift he has met quite a few professional confessors and that this chap didn't have the usual signs. That being the case he brought him in and had him kept in the interview room while he checked a few things out. He also still had his ticket stub for the night flight from Alicante"
He checked the file again.
"The bloke claimed he was one Wayne Doolan from Liverpool and gave us enough details to make a thorough check. They took the cup he had drunk from and his prints matched those in Doolan's file, although the man has obviously done a quite a bit to alter his appearance, short of surgery. Different haircut and colour and coloured contact lenses, etc. Then they called me in. He gave me the same story and then said not another word until we would agree to give him immunity from prosecution. All we could do was to get you to check your end. When you came back and confirmed the killings I kicked it upstairs and it’s gone all the way up to the Commissioner."
Ropell stood up and began the characteristic pacing.
"What does the Commissioner say?"
"He rang your boss, Peter Romsey and got his opinion. Romsey said that we should grant it. He thinks that to let go of one small time hoodlum, however nasty, is nothing compared to what we gain if we smash this drugs cartel."
"I agree. I'm surprised he isn't here instead of me."
Alan Sobers naturally mournful face grew even longer.
"Jack mate. I have some bad news I'm afraid."
He avoided Ropell's gaze.
"Romsey was coming. But in the middle of the night and halfway up the M3 a drunken driver, just a kid of seventeen who only passed his test a few days ago and was driving his Daddy's car, came belting down a slip road on to the motorway and side swiped Romsey's car into and over the central barrier. His driver and the kid are dead and Romsey is quite badly hurt."
The question was cracked out.
"How badly?"
Sobers was beginning to look hunted and Ropell felt his heart go down into his boots. Peter Romsey was more than a boss to him. He was almost a father and he had a respect and liking for him that bordered on affection. He asked again, his voice softer.
"How badly, Alan?"
"Pretty badly. The car rode up the barrier and flipped over onto its roof into the other lane at over sixty miles an hour. The roof pillars collapsed and he has severe damage to the skull. They have operated, but no one is sure that he will ever be able to do much again, if he lives."
Ropell chewed on the knuckles of his right hand, eyes staring down a
t the floor.
"In that case I hope he dies. He is not a man who would take kindly to being a vegetable."
He ignored the sympathy on Sobers face as it would only weaken him to see it and turned to look out of the window while he struggled to control the grief he felt.
"So who is in charge of our side?"
"You are, in conjunction with me and we report directly to the Commissioner."
Ropell again looked surprised.
"That's jumping over a few heads isn't it?"
"Yes, but the Commissioner feels that the less people who know about this the better chance we have of rolling them up before they twig on to the fact we are on to them."
Ropell nodded
"What's the state of play?"
Sobers motioned for him to sit down and he did so.
"As I see it, Its like this. Doolan has stated that he can give us names and telephone numbers, but not addresses. Still, with the telephone numbers that should not be a problem, once we talk to Telecom."
"When can we interview him?"
"The Commissioner is with the PM, now trying to sort out the immunity problem. Fortunately the people who died in Spain were British citizens so we hope to be able to persuade the Spanish authorities to let us bring the bodies back to the UK and forget that the killings were committed on Spanish soil. You know, as if it had never happened."
"Sounds all a bit James Bond to me, do you really think they will wear that?"
Sobers nodded.
"Yes, on two conditions. They want all the information we eventually get out of this and they want us to continue with our help in trying to nail the bastards who shot their patrol boat to shit the other night."
Ropell's approval was obvious.
"Good. I saw that boat and nothing would give me greater pleasure that to help them do just that. Murdering bastards."
The phone rang and Sobers picked it up. He listened for a few moments and then said to whoever was on the other end that they would be up immediately.
Sir William Blakey was not at all how Ropell had ever imagined a Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police would look. For a start he was short for a policeman and must have just scraped in at the minimum height. Secondly, he did not look anything like a policeman should. He looked more like Ropell's idea of a typical back street villain, the sort that would sell you the radio out of your own car and the sort that hung about outside school waiting to sell hard drugs to young kids. His nose was long and thin, his chin was almost non-existent and his black eyebrows made one continuous line across his forehead, shielding the deep set and too close together eyes. As he shook hands with the man he reflected on the fact that to have overcome those handicaps and still have climbed to the top of the ladder, Sir William must be a pretty formidable copper or politician. He looked around the office and was impressed to see that it did not contain the usual array of photographs showing the occupiers many achievements in life, but instead displayed a half dozen muted, but beautifully executed, water paintings. The commissioner followed his gaze.
"My wife's work. I don't posses that degree of talent I'm afraid."
He went back around his desk and sat in the large black executive chair. It dwarfed him.
"Look, we will be seeing quite a bit of each other so lets get the name business right to start with. When we are on our own I would prefer it if you just called me Sir or Commissioner, I find Sir William a bit clumsy you see. I will call you Jack and Alan."
And that, thought Ropell, lets us all know exactly where we stand. No wonder the lack of inches had ever stopped this man. They both nodded, but Sir William had already taken their agreement for granted and ploughed on.
"Now to business. I saw the PM this afternoon and spent almost an hour with him, talking about giving this nasty little crook of ours immunity."
Ropell noted that at this stage of the proceedings Sir William accepted equal responsibility in that it was our nasty little crook and not your nasty little crook. He wondered if that could change with circumstances. Sir William continued.
"After an hours persuasion he granted it, but only on the grounds that we can guarantee it does not blow up in his face at some later date as a political time bomb. He was more concerned about that I think than the fact that we had a chance to squash one of the biggest drugs rings Europe has ever seen."
He went up another notch in Ropell's estimation by the fact that he was unworried enough about his position to talk so candidly in front of two relatively junior officers.
"However, I told him that I would take personal responsibility for the operation and that pleased him. Some one to blame when it all goes wrong you see."
He gave a smile that would not have looked out of place on the artful dodger, making Ropell even surer that he had missed his true vocation.
"That's why you are reporting directly to me. If Its going to be my backside in the line of fire then I want to make sure Its covered every inch of the way."
He rose.
"So although you have the freedom to run this operation any way you like, I want advance warning of anything that might make the manure hit the fan and I want one of you, or one of your subordinates, to report to me here every day at twelve o'clock on all progress."
He smiled.
"That is except Thursdays. Thursdays I play golf and have lunch with the Minister so it will have to be at four o'clock on Thursdays."
He got up and coming around his desk again shook their hands.
"My secretary will give you her home telephone number. Anytime you want me and can't find me, ring her and give her your number. I will be back to you in less than ten minutes. Good luck."
He ushered them out into the outer office repeating his instructions to his secretary on the way through the outer office. Outside again, they looked at each other and Sobers started to laugh.
"Bit of a surprise, was it?"
Ropell nodded. He had an almost irresistible urge to check he still had his wallet and car keys. Sobers shook his head at the others expression.
"When he first came here people gave him nickname of The Weasel and somehow he got to hear about it. One day he unexpectedly took the chair at a senior staff meeting on drug prevention. We had just about finished the agenda and were beginning to relax when he dropped a question on us out of the blue. He asked us what we knew about weasels."
He grinned in remembrance.
"Well, you can imagine. Thirty odd senior police officers and none of them wanting to meet his or each others eyes." He paused in reflection, still smiling. "He then told us that the weasel was a small, but ferocious predator that could strike like lightening. It would normally avoid bigger animals, but in its own defence or that of its family, it would take on dogs and even foxes. He then went on to hope that now he had been here some three months he could be considered part of our family. He attended several staff meetings that week and he must have asked the same question at all of them as nickname died out in about a week."
Ropell shrugged.
"I personally prefer a different approach from my superior officers, but if he backs us like he said he would, he will get my vote." He lengthened his stride. "Come on, Alan. Lets go and see our nasty little crook."
"Who the hell are you then?"
The question was delivered through sneering lips and Ropell's hackles immediately rose. When they had called Wayne Doolan our nasty little crook they had been right. In his opinion it was not a mans physical size that made him small, Ramon Garcia and Sir William were proof enough of that, but the size of his spirit and Doolan's was small and mean. As he spoke he was sat at a table in the interview room and lounging back in the chair, as if he was bored with the whole proceedings. Ropell stood looking down at the man for almost a minute before he answered letting the silence build. Let the cocky little bastard wait. When he did lean forwards across the desk there was a thin smile on his face, but the eyes were like glaciers.
"I'm the man who has to persuade the Guardia
Civil not to apply for extradition, old son." He shrugged. "That's if I think that what you have to give us is worth the price of the telephone call."
Alan Sobers, stood of to one side out of Doolan’s line of sight, raised an eyebrow at him, but elected not to interfere.
"Fuck off and pull the other one." Doolan jerked a thumb at Sobers stood to one side and dwarfing Doolan with his bulk. "He just told me not five minutes ago that I have been given immunity from prosecution."
Ropell smiled crookedly at him again and the quality of the smile made Doolan look around anxiously at Sobers.
"Tell him will you? Tell this bloody Yank I've been given immunity."
A hint of scouse accent entered his voice as his anxiety built up, but Ropell merely nodded in agreement.
"Oh yes, Mr Doolan, I know all about that."
He pulled out a chair and put his right foot up on it, leaning his right elbow on his knee and leaned down over the smaller man.
"But that's only here, old son. Even the Prime Minister can't get you immunity in Spain." The smile became malicious. "In fact, if I remember correctly the Spanish Prime Minister does not get on very well with our PM and would probably block any request out of sheer spite." He shook his head in wonderment. "Politicians? And by the way Its Canadian accent, not Yank."
Doolan looked visibly rattled.
"Then in that case you can both go stuff yourselves. I'm saying sod all."
Ropell gave a deep sigh and shook his head in what appeared to be sadness.
"OK, old son. I'll go and tell the Commissioner you've changed your mind and that he can forget it all."
Doolan sneered his contempt and sat back with a smug little smile on his face.
"In that case you won't get what you want, will you?"
Ropell shrugged again.
"No we won't. But on the other hand you will never get out of prison for the rest of your life." He leaned closer. "You will do at least fifteen to twenty years here and then you will be extradited to Spain, where they will give you at least the same. That should make you about seventy before you see the light of day."
He added as if it was an afterthought.
"If you should live that long of course. Men have been killed for what you have done and inside prison the Warders can't protect you all the time. But you know that of course, you've been there."
He straightened up and looked at Sobers.
"We will go and have a cup of coffee and let you think about it. Come on, Alan. Lets give him some time to reflect."
They were in the canteen with two cups of tea before Sobers made any comment.
"You are taking a bit of a risk you know, Jack. If he decides to kick up a stink it could delay us and any delay could cost us the whole organisation."
"I know, Alan, that's why I did it. That little shit thinks that because we have agreed to give him immunity he can piss all over us. I on the other hand want the whole thing wrapped up before three o'clock tomorrow morning. That way we can pick everyone up while they are still in bed. It always gives you the psychological advantage to catch them still asleep, but you know that. That gives us just eight hours to get the information and arrange for arrests on a nation wide basis and we have no chance if he is going to play silly buggers and drag it out for hours, playing hard to get now that he thinks he has his immunity. Besides, I didn't like the little bastard."
Alan grinned.
"This must mean a hell of a lot to you. I have never heard you swear so much. Lets give him ten minutes more to stew and then we will go back in there and be all friendly, as if we know he has seen sense. You still play the hard man, but only if we think he is stalling us."
Fifteen minutes later they walked into the interview room as if the previous conversation had not happened and Wayne Doolan was a model of co-operation. The only pauses were when Ropell or Sobers left the room to confirm something he had told them by checking with the information computer. At one o'clock a.m. they rang the Commissioner's Secretary and woke her up to say they would like to talk to him. Forty minutes later the phone in Sobers office rang and they were asked to go up to the Commissioner's office.
Sir William's secretary, looking as if it was only nine in the morning, greeted them with her usual reserve and took them into his office. Sir William himself was sat at his desk speed-reading through the report of their interview with Wayne Doolan. He did not acknowledge their presence, apart from indicating two chairs with a wave of his hand, until fifteen minutes had passed and he had finished the report. Then he looked up and smiled. Ropell examined that smile and remembering nickname, realised that whoever had coined it had hit the nail right on the head. Sat there in the subdued lighting of the room, only a desk light and two wall lights were illuminated casting a fair amount of shadows, that was exactly what he looked like, a weasel who anticipated the taste of blood.
"Well done. Have you alerted anyone yet?"
Sobers answered.
"Yes and no, Sir. That is, at about ten o'clock when we could see which way it was going, I alerted the whole of the Drugs Squad to the fact that we might have something going down at any moment. That is the senior officers only, sir and I asked that they said nothing to anyone of lower rank than Chief Inspector at this time."
"Why was that?"
Sobers looked embarrassed and Ropell stepped in quickly.
"That was my idea, Commissioner. If what Doolan told us is correct this business is worth millions here and perhaps billions, across Europe. More than enough to bribe a disillusioned Drugs Squad officer or Customs officer for that matter."
His attitude said he made no apology for doubting some people’s loyalty when large sums of money were involved and the Commissioner caught it.
"Quite right." He looked at his watch. "Its one thirty a.m. I want all these people picked up in a co-ordinated effort at six o'clock this morning. In areas outside of London they are to hold them until we send someone to interview them or can have them brought here by closed vans. Hopefully we can get them here pretty quickly and not lose the element of surprise or give them time to get their stories straight, so no reason is to be given for their arrest until we interview them. In the meantime I will have the doubtful pleasure of getting the Home Secretary out of bed and asking him to ring all the Chief Constables involved to ask for their full co-operation."
He stood up.
"My grateful thanks, gentlemen and good hunting." He paused. "Who is going to go and request the pleasure of Henri Parsouel's company for a few questions?"
It was Sobers who answered.
"No one, Sir. On enquiring we found that he left the country two days ago in a private plane bound for Paris. The French authorities have no record of him entering France or leaving it, which is not unusual as its an EEC country. No one knows where he is now."
"Shit. Sorry, very un-Commissioner type thing to say I know, but I want that man."
He chewed his bottom lip for some seconds.
"OK. Can't be helped. Lets get those that we can."
He dropped his eyes to the report again and they rose and left.
The back of the police van was quiet despite that fact that there were five of them inside it. All five men were well built and dressed as they were in bulletproof vests there was not a lot of spare room. Ropell looked around at the four members of the armed response squad. Apart from the sergeant the rest of them appeared to be little more than fresh-faced kids. Serious kids though from the way they held the automatic weapons at the ready. There was no sign of stress or fear on their faces and it was obvious that this was just one more job to them.
Ropell had especially asked to be included on the raid on Jensen's house as he was concerned that their would be evidence there that could be vital to smashing the whole organisation. Now, at four fifteen in the morning they were awaiting the all clear from the Inspector to start the action. The back door of the transit opened and another body squeezed inside dressed in plain clothes. He began removing these
and was with some difficulty climbing into his outfit in the limited space while he spoke.
"The house is in the middle of a terrace and if you include the basement we have four floors to worry about. The front door is at street level but because of the slope of the ground the back door is at basement level. I don't believe there are any bedrooms on the bottom two levels or anyone awake down there. We had a powerful surveillance microphone on them for the last hour and the only sound we have picked up was the sound of someone snoring in the front bedroom above the front door. There may be other people at the back of the house, but from what we know the man lives alone with just a daily help to keep the place tidy."
He finished buckling on his body armour.
"Johnson and Talbot you will take the back door. When you hear the front door go you come straight in. Check out the basement and then follow us upstairs." He pointed. "Gerrold you are on the hammer. The front door is up three steps, but is quite wide. We will position ourselves on each side first and then you come up with the heavy metal and break it open. Slater and I will go in first and then Gerrold and then you last Mr Ropell. Any questions?"
No body answered.
"Good."
He turned to Johnson and Talbot.
"We will give you five minutes to get around the back and the we go." He opened the door. "Off you go."
The two slid silently from the back of the van and disappeared. Nobody moved while the inspector studied his watch. After what seemed like an hour he looked up and nodded. Ropell watched in admiration as hours of practice bore fruit. The three men were out of the van and along the pavement at the double moving silently on rubber soled shoes. The first two went up the steps and flanked the door. Gerrold went up the steps two at a time carrying the immensely heavy door opener and brought it around with a thunderous crash onto the lock. It held. He gave it another full swing and the top of the door left the frame. He changed his aim to the lower section and swung a third time. The door flew open and all three of the squad went through it, Gerrold abandoning the opener as he went.
Following them in Ropell kept out of their way as they checked out each room in rapid time, their weapons constantly at the ready. It took less than fifteen seconds on this floor and they were up the stairs. From the back of the house Ropell could here thunderous crashes as Johnson and Talbot fought with the back door. He followed his section up the stairs. As he reached the top he could hear shouting and screaming followed the crash of glass and a long drawn out scream. He followed the sounds.
"Silly bastard jumped out of the window and took Gerrold with him."
The inspector was staring down out of the window with his surviving man. Ropell stood in the doorway heard a sound in the corridor and turned rapidly, instinct making him draw the Browning automatic that he was carrying for the first time since the night of the explosion. Standing in the hall was one of the biggest men he had ever seen. In the light that was now spilling from the bedroom where some one had turned on a torch, Ropell could see that he held what appeared to be a shotgun in his right hand. He went into shooting stance.
"Armed police. Drop the weapon."
The giant started to raise the shotgun and Ropell fired. The impact slammed the other man back against the wall. To Ropell's amazement he bounced back from the wall and raising the shotgun over his head like a club charged forwards. Ropell shot him in the head. This time when he went down the man didn't move."
The inspector came out of the bedroom door like a scalded cat. One look told him what had happened. Slater joined him.
"Wait here. Slater and I will check the rest of the rooms and the top floor. Switch a light on so that when the others come up they can identify you or you could join him."
They were instantly gone. Ropell found the light switch and depressed it. The giant figure was lying on its back staring up with sightless eyes. The vivid scar that ran across his face was now joined by a single red hole just below his right eye. The wall behind him was spattered with blood and other matter as the thirty eight-calibre bullet had left his skull taking much of its contents with it. Jimmy Ebbs would not be doing any more bashing for anyone. Ropell took the shotgun from the dead man's hand and checked it. It was empty. Ropell shook his head. What kind of idiot goes up against armed policemen with an empty shotgun? He was angry with the dead man for making an unnecessary killer of him.
Johnson arrived at the double. Gasping for breath.
"That fucking back door was steel lined. I was just about knackered trying to open it when Gerrold and some other guy landed on top of Talbot. Our blokes are all right but the house owner was underneath Gerrold and hit the floor first. We have radioed for an ambulance. Who got him?"
He nodded at the dead Ebbs. Ropell followed his stare.
"I did. Stupid bastard came at us with an empty shotgun."
Johnson shrugged.
"His problem. If it had been loaded it could have been you lying there with half a head."
The inspector arrived back down the stairs at the double.
"All clear up there." He nodded at Ropell. " There is an office with a computer you might be interested in though."
The faint wail of an ambulance siren could be heard, getting steadily closer.
Two days later and Ropell and Sobers were bleary. Enough had been found in Thomas Jensen's office to wrap up his London based estate agents and Jensen himself was in hospital, having jumped through the window of his bedroom in an effort to escape, taking two drug squad officers with him. Fortunately for them they had landed on top of him causing him fracture of both legs, the right arm, his skull and four ribs. It gave Ropell some satisfaction to know that the man who had almost certainly ordered his own death almost two years before was now himself in traction in the same hospital. But Jensen had so far said nothing except to complain before going into the operating theatre at this police brutality to an innocent businessman.
They had cursed Wayne Doolan for the killing of Terry Beck in Spain as he could have given them a lot of information if he had still been alive, but there was one ray of hope. In Jensen's safe at his house they had discovered two computer discs. They had tried them in the IBM PC in Jensen's office but they were password protected. They were currently with a software house who were confident they could release the information they contained fairly quickly. In the meantime Jensen and the others were going nowhere and they could afford to wait.
The three bodies of Caroline, Mother and Terry Beck had been flown back to England the day after Ropell's return, but the identifications had raised as many questions as they had answered. Caroline Grayson was quite straightforward, her sister, who happened to work at a merchant bank in the City and who had actually informed the police that she was missing just two days before, quickly identified her. The cause of death was a massive Heroin overdose.
Mother was identified as one Angela Beckfield, aged seventy-eight and born in England of French/Irish parents. Cause of death was confirmed as suffocation, caused by severe pressure on her throat crushing her airway and preventing breathing. There was also a fracture of the skull just above the left eye.
Mother had a record. At the age of twenty she had been found guilty of coercion and grievous bodily harm. She and a partner had run a nice little business buying bomb-damaged property. That in itself of course was not illegal. However, they always preferred to buy a block of houses or property as it gave much more flexibility and potential profit when it came to redevelopment. The problem was that not everybody always wanted to sell, sometimes leaving an untidy gap in what could have been a nice little site. Angela and her partner would then fall back on other tried and tested methods of persuasion. Usually threats to the owners of the properties and their families, followed by actual physical violence if required. They had become unstuck when they first threatened and then broken the leg of the father of a serving police officer, the boyfriend had held him while Angela had wielded the iron bar. Both had received eight years although neither
of them would ever reveal who was putting up the money for their operation. So much for Angela Beckfield, since her release from prison nothing else was known of her anywhere.
Terry Beck simply did not exist. There was a body all right and it was identified by several of the arrested estate agents and Wayne Doolan, as that of Terence Beck. However, there was no record of his birth under that name in Somerset House and he had no police record. His blood group confirmed that Mother could have been his Mother and enquiries with Henri Parsouel's private doctor, confirmed he could have been the father, but this was in no way proof. Terry was a mystery
Sobers looked up wearily.
"I think we had better get some rest, Jack. We are now at the stage where we are more of a hindrance than help. I really need a good meal and twelve hours sleep before I can begin to function properly again."
"I agree. I think we can leave it for a bit now and get some rest. There are plenty of others working on it. Can you get someone to book me a room at a local hotel that has a decent restaurant please, Alan? I don't think I can face going all the way down to Southampton tonight."
Sobers smiled.
"I think that can be arranged."
He picked the phone up and dialled. He spoke to some one on the other end for about two minutes and then hung up.
"There you are. It’s the Albertville just around the corner from here. Don't be surprised if its full of suspicious looking characters as we use it to put up all the outside force officers when they visit the Yard. Its run by an ex-Detective Inspector."
"Thanks, Alan".
Ropell went down to the reception area and collected the suitcase he had left there forty-eight hours earlier. The sergeant behind the desk asked him to sign for it and then went to fetch it.
"There you are, Mr Ropell. Sorry about all the precautions, but in this day and age we can't be too careful. It would never do if we allowed terrorists to blow up the Yard, would it? Might as well give up then I reckon."
Ropell smiled his thanks and turned to go. He was weary unto death, but the hotel was only a couple of hundred yards away and he decided to walk. The night air might wake him up enough to enable him to eat his dinner.
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