by Owen Mullen
The insider hadn’t got what they wanted otherwise we’d have coppers all over us, though it didn’t take a giant brain to narrow down the likely suspects and I only had myself to blame: Mark Douglas or my new sister. Douglas had been ruled out by Commander Bremner. But with Charley, the signs had been there from the very beginning – she’d been too practised, too assured, too in control. And now, I understood why.
I hammered the steering wheel with my fist, burning up with rage.
‘Fuck you, Charley! Just as I was starting to like you!’
The clock on the dashboard read 6.25 a.m. Mark Douglas would be in bed asleep. Time to wake him up.
When I opened the door, two security guards stepped out of the shadows with their weapons raised and pointed at me. Good to know they were doing their job. In the wee hours, walking through the lounge with music drifting up from the club, surrounded by the great and the good toasting their golden lives with my booze and paying through the nose for the privilege, it had been possible to believe, even with the godawful shit going on, that I was still untouchable. Now I understood how the captain of the Titanic felt as the deck tilted and creaked beneath his feet and his ship began its relentless slide into the cold Atlantic water.
LBC – the Lucky Bastards Club – was a mirage, an illusion dissolving before my eyes. The forces marshalled against me – from without and within – kept coming.
For sure, there were regrets – a lot of regrets. Further down the line I’d think about them.
Oliver Stanford was a useless tosser, a weasel of the first order. Once, he might’ve been worth having around. Those days were well gone; the copper had stopped earning his corn a while ago and was a liability with no future. When this thing was over, his card would be quietly cancelled.
But he wasn’t wrong about one thing. Shutting down made sense. South of the river would keep operating under George Ritchie and Nina would have Glass Houses – she’d be happy with that. I’d be left with the construction company, LBC, and a lifestyle beyond my wildest dreams.
All things considered, not the worst deal.
And, oh, yeah, I wouldn’t be in prison.
It was tempting, no doubt about it, except it wasn’t my style.
When the time came, I’d walk away. I wouldn’t run.
If they had the evidence I’d already be in the cells. That I wasn’t meant they hadn’t put the pieces together, probably because my Judas sister had only just arrived.
At the bar, I raised an empty glass to an optic, changed my mind and took the bottle. I wasn’t short of bad habits – drinking whisky at ten past seven in the morning wasn’t usually one of them. But the old checks and balances were in the bin. Danny had bored the arse off me with his ‘Team Glass’ obsession. Behind his back, me and Nina had laughed. Not any more.
Today, loyalty was more precious than gold, the difference between freedom and twenty years at Her Majesty’s pleasure.
The whisky went over in one go and I poured another. Getting drunk had a lot of appeal, though it wouldn’t help. Anger made me want to lash out at the world and everyone in it, but the person I was most annoyed with was myself. Nina had railed against accepting a sister we’d never heard of turning up and joining the family. I’d overruled her, believed Charley’s story and invited the enemy in. What a bloody fool. The people she reported to would’ve cracked the champagne open and congratulated each other at how easy it had been. Dead easy.
Douglas must’ve been a cat burglar in a previous life – I hadn’t realised he was there. He glanced at the whisky and back at me. Wisely, he didn’t comment. I pushed the bottle across to him. He shook his head and left it where it was. His eyes were heavy, like he hadn’t slept much. I guessed sister No 1 might have had something to do with that.
He waited for me to begin, understanding something had gone very badly wrong for us to be meeting this early. If I hadn’t been on edge, I wouldn’t have said what I did. It was late in the day to start fighting for Nina’s virtue – she hadn’t put up much of a struggle.
The directness of my question took both of us by surprise. ‘I hope you know what you’re getting yourself into.’
Douglas stared but didn’t respond. He said, ‘Want to tell me why I’m here?’
I said, ‘If I told you we had a mole in the organisation, what would you say?’
‘A what?’
‘An insider. An undercover copper.’
Douglas tilted his head, some of the tiredness left his face, the edges of his mouth curled in the beginnings of a smile. Then, he realised I was serious and it died on his lips. ‘I’d say you were having me at it.’
‘You’d be wrong.’
My tone got to him. He tensed. ‘And you think it’s me?’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘For one thing, I’m the obvious candidate. Ex-copper, last in, well placed in the set-up. I wouldn’t blame you for jumping to the wrong conclusion.’
‘George checked you out, remember?’
Douglas’s response was unexpected; he laughed. ‘So what? Creating a fake background isn’t hard. Anybody could do it. So convincing you’d believe it yourself.’ He shook his head. ‘If I was you, my face would be in the frame.’
‘A couple of hours ago, it was.’
He got up and paced the floor. ‘How sure are you?’
‘I’m sure.’
‘Yeah? This might be the next stage in the game – the info might be bad?’
I might have taken this possibility more seriously if the source hadn’t been a senior officer in the Metropolitan Police force who couldn’t hold his ale.
‘Believe me, I’d prefer it wasn’t. It’s solid. With you ruled out it can only be one other person.’
His eyes narrowed, unconvinced. ‘Who’s feeding you this?’
‘A little bird.’
He walked to the bar, came back with a glass and poured himself a whisky. ‘You’re seriously telling me your sister’s an undercover copper?’
‘Yes, I am.’ I drained my drink and splashed myself some more.
‘I don’t get it. Why would your own flesh and blood come after you?’
‘We’re a pretty fucked-up family. Or hadn’t you noticed?’
‘Not what I see.’
‘I wish I had your vision.’
He rolled his glass between his palms, not wanting to look at me.
‘What’s our next move?’
‘You mean my move. Finish it. Today. Before she can do more damage than she’s already done.’
Douglas didn’t like what he was hearing. ‘Isn’t there a way to use this to our advantage? Use her?’
‘No, the solution is to weed her out as fast as we can.’
He came back at me. ‘Fair enough, except you handling it is a bad idea. When it happens, you should be miles away with a dozen witnesses, preferably coppers and High Court judges.’
On another day, I would’ve agreed with him. But this was personal. I couldn’t shake the anger bubbling inside me or the disappointment at allowing myself to be duped.
I’d wanted her to be my sister and that was the truth. Wanted it too much.
Douglas was willing me to be cautious. I wasn’t having any.
‘I clean up my own mess. Before she dies, she’ll tell me who she’s working for and exactly what they know.’
He went up against me. ‘I understand why you feel the way you do, but you’re making a mistake. They’ll have her under twenty-four-hour surveillance. Chances are she’s wearing a wire, which means any conversation will be on tape. I’m your head of security and I’m giving you advice. It can’t be you. That’s a no-brainer. But we need somebody inside the Met, our own man, so we can stay ahead of this kind of shit. I could put out feelers, if you think it’s an idea.’
It was, a great idea in fact. Unfortunately, like everything with my family, it was years too late.
His eyes fixed on me – no tiredness in them now. Before I could answer, his mobile rang. He turned
away to take the call. Everything he’d said was right. I could think of a dozen men who would do what had to be done without me being involved. All it needed was a word and my sister would discover what Fulton Street was really all about. Being a woman wouldn’t save her. Nothing would save her. Her dead body would join the others in the New Forest. A hundred years, maybe even two hundred, they’d find what was left of her and speculate why a female ended up in the ground with a bullet hole in her skull.
Douglas was nodding, serious and animated. When he rejoined me, he was on fire.
‘We’ve got the carer’s boyfriend, the scum who stole the old guy’s credit card?’
I remembered.
‘Is he talking?’
‘Not yet. Once we start cutting bits off him, that’ll change.’
35
If Bremner could hold his liquor Stanford wouldn’t even be aware of Operation Clean Sweep and the jeopardy he was in. His relationship with Luke Glass was already on thin ice and wouldn’t survive much longer. The commander’s drunken invitation to join the undercover op was a gift from the gods. Yet, he hesitated. Bremner had been pissed. If he didn’t remember the conversation it could be awkward. Very awkward.
But it had to be done.
Stanford called the switchboard and got connected with Bremner’s office. A clipped female voice answered and he introduced himself, feigning a breezy self-confidence he didn’t feel.
‘Good morning. Can I have a word with the commander?’
‘Who shall I say is calling?’
‘Superintendent Stanford. He’s expecting me.’
‘Just a moment.’
He held the phone away from his mouth, exhaled deeply and waited. Half a minute later, the woman was back. ‘I’m sorry, Commander Bremner’s in a meeting.’
Stanford recognised the lie as soon as she spoke but carried on, willing himself to be wrong.
‘When will he be free?’
‘I don’t have that information.’
Back in his office he slumped in his seat, shaken by the obviousness of the rebuff. He’d been a bloody fool to read so much into the previous night’s encounter. At the end of the day, it had been a smoky room full of bladdered coppers letting their hair down. Bremner was boozed-up and garrulous. Stanford’s assessment of Jocky Shaw as a lazy, useless bastard had forged a moment of common ground. No more. Expecting it to be there in the morning was asking too much: The commander had forgotten. Forgotten his gaffe. Forgotten him. Simple as that.
Stanford picked at the rejection like a scab until it started to bleed. Maybe the opposite was true. Maybe Bremner recalled it all too well, was embarrassed by his lack of professionalism and preferred to let it die – the reason he hadn’t told his secretary to ask him to call back.
He drew a hand across his forehead, relieved at the ordinariness of the explanation; it comforted him. Until a third possibility reared its head, sending his pulse racing. He was compromised. The whole thing had been a set-up. A test to see how he’d react.
He hadn’t disappointed them.
The bastards knew about him and Luke Glass.
They knew and were getting ready to drop the hammer.
Charley didn’t disguise her annoyance when I told her to meet me in LBC. She was a Glass – taking orders wasn’t what she did. I tried to keep anger out of my voice but almost failed when she pushed back. ‘Can’t it keep? I mean, it’s Saturday. I’m still in bed. It was almost four when I got home. Any later and I’d be having a fling with the milkman.’
‘No. It has to be now.’
My abruptness instantly altered her tone. Her defences went up, suspicion rising as she processed the conversation and what was behind it.
‘Don’t I get to know what this is about?’
‘You will soon enough.’
Somebody capable of doing what she was doing had spent years training for every eventuality, including the moment her cover was revealed, and wasn’t likely to break down and confess as soon she was under pressure. For her and her kind, danger was a constant, the consequences of discovery a risk they somehow learned to live with. It took a special person to do what Charley was doing. On another day, I would’ve credited her courage in facing me down, knowing the game was over. Not today. Today she was the enemy.
‘I’m asking you to come to the club so we can talk. Which part don’t you understand?’
Her reply dripped insolence. It might’ve been Nina talking.
‘The part where you want me to drop my plans but won’t say why.’
I let a couple of beats pass, hearing her breathe at the other end of the line. She was a cool bastard, I’d give her that. There was no fear in her voice, not so much as a flicker.
‘It’s important, Charley.’
‘To you or to me? You see, brother, when people say something’s important, usually they mean it’s important to them. Have you noticed that? Want to try again?’
‘Trust me.’
She held the phone away and laughed. ‘Trust. Don’t get me started. If only I had a dollar—’
‘Cut the crap! Get here, or I’ll come and drag you by the fucking hair.’
Zac Fraser had been here before: on a cold night in Helmand Province the captured Taliban fighter was sallow-skinned and silent; a warrior wearing a green turban, a heavy coat, and a black-and-white checked scarf over his shoulders. A lifetime in the sun had left the skin on his face as worn as saddle leather, the flesh weathered and wrinkled. When Fraser had taken the thick cartridge-belt slung across his chest and stripped him, grey eyes had observed them, unafraid. And Fraser had known that whatever they did they wouldn’t break this guy because he was a believer, willing to die with his secrets intact. For him, death was part of the deal – his reward was waiting on the other side of the veil.
The interrogation had ended with a bullet to the man’s temple.
Two days later in a village fifteen klicks to the north, thirty-five civilians, mostly women and children, had been wounded in an explosion. He’d failed in southern Afghanistan. He wouldn’t in south London.
A naked man sat on a wooden chair in the centre of the room, hands bound behind his back, bony ankles fastened to the chair’s front legs by plastic ties. He was in his thirties, though looked older, his face gaunt, concave cheeks a match for the ribcage showing through his emaciated body. Food had ceased to be important to him: he was an addict, prepared to do anything for the next high and the one after that. Stealing an old man’s identity hadn’t bothered him; it wasn’t the first time he’d conned a pensioner and it wouldn’t be the last. Selling the information financed his habit.
The unanswered question was who’d paid for it.
He’d been beaten. Not badly. Just enough to soften him up. Blood from his nose had dried in a dark line on his upper lip and his left eye was closed. He heard Douglas come into the room and tensed. Fraser brought out a Smith & Wesson bayonet knife and ran the tip of his finger along the black, razor-sharp edge, grinning like a maniac for the prisoner’s benefit – a routine they’d used before.
Douglas missed his cue to join in. He sounded edgy. ‘Where’s Hume?’
‘Outside.’
‘What the fuck’s he doing outside?’
He didn’t expect an answer and didn’t get one – Fraser wouldn’t rat out a mate. Douglas crossed to the window and looked down. In the scrubby courtyard, two floors below, Hume paced the cobbles, speaking into the mobile pressed to his ear.
‘Get him up here.’
When the two men returned, Douglas glared at Hume and turned his attention to the naked prisoner, hunkering down as though they were just two friends having a chat at the end of a long working week. He said, ‘In the movies they always come away with shit like “I’m going to count to five” or “You’ve got thirty seconds to make up your mind”.’ He laughed. ‘You and me know that’s bollocks. If you’re going to do something, just do it, am I right?’
The terrified man struggled against his sh
ackles, chaffing his wrists and ankles raw against the plastic holding him, eyes crazy with fear.
‘Listen, mate. This is what’s happening. I’m going to ask you who you passed the old guy’s identity to and – no ifs, no buts, no one, two, three nonsense – you’re going to tell me. Without the fucking about. Otherwise…’ Douglas pointed to Fraser playing with the knife ‘… he’s going to yank your scrotum and slice your dick and your balls off. Do we understand each other?’
Felix and another guy were standing inside the office door when Charley arrived. On the phone, she’d told me she was in bed – the latest lie to fall from her luscious lips. I didn’t believe her: nobody could put together what she was toting in a hurry. She glanced at Felix and his friend, smiled a half-smile and raised a carefully plucked eyebrow.
‘Are these goons for you or for me?’
I said, ‘Okay, Felix, you can go.’
The office wasn’t large. It wouldn’t have mattered – Charley dominated it the way she dominated every room she walked into. She was wearing a navy-blue blouse out over jeans, her hair under a turban of green and navy silk. The bag at her side matched the scarf, the scarf matched the shoes, every stylish stitch thoughtfully considered. This woman was royally fucking us, yet still had time to look like she’d stepped off the front pages of Vogue. In spite of how I felt about her, I was impressed.
She sat down and crossed her legs. ‘I don’t see it.’
‘What don’t you see?’
‘The fire. The emergency, the no-it-has-to-be-now shit. Where is it?’
She was the real deal, no doubt about it, holding the act in place until the end. But I’d had enough. I steepled my fingers, studying her. ‘Who the fuck are you? Tell me, I want to know.’
‘Back to that?’
‘Yeah, back to that.’
‘I’m your sister.’
‘Strange as it may seem, that’s the only bit of your story I’m buying. Maybe I’m asking the wrong question. Maybe it should be, “What are you?”’
