'I don't know,' she snapped, tears in her eyes.
I could understand the DC's frustration but I didn't think he was going about dealing with it the right way. 'Where's the most likely place you can think of where he'd go if the two of you had an argument, Mrs Jenner?' I asked her.
'The pub probably. That's where he spends most of his time. There's one at the end of the estate on Church Hill that he drinks in now and again. The King's Arms, it's called. Or otherwise, if he's on foot, he might take a walk up to his old school. He goes there sometimes when he wants some peace and quiet. It's just over the back of the houses opposite. There's an entrance at the bottom of the road.' Her gaze moved from me to Woodham. 'What are you arresting him for? He didn't have anything to do with what happened to Paul, did he? Paul Vokerman?'
'We can't discuss it at the moment, I'm afraid,' Woodham told her. 'All right: Wrays, Farland, you get up to the pub. John, you and me'll go up to the school with the uniforms. The rest of you stay here and carry out the search.'
The baby howled loudly and angrily in Woodham's direction, evidently not happy with this man's intrusion on to his territory, and Mrs Jenner finally burst into tears.
Woodham didn't notice. He was already heading for the car, with me following.
47
Malik went back inside the house, slamming the front door behind him. The two detectives were still sitting where he'd left them, playing a game of cards. Both had cans of Foster's open. They looked up as he reappeared.
'What's going on?' asked Dan Harold.
'We've got a problem. A big one. Vamen's on to us. He knows Merriweather's at this location.'
'Christ almighty,' he cursed. 'How?'
'I don't know.'
'Who told you?'
'That's the thing, I'm not sure. I just got an anonymous call a few seconds ago.' He didn't add the bit about Flanagan being the alleged leak.
'How do you know it's authentic?' asked Bill Cheek, reaching into his jacket and fingering his shoulder holster nervously.
'He told me the address. It's an authentic call, take my word for it.'
Cheek got to his feet, Harold following.
'What's going on?' called Merriweather from the other side of the house, his voice booming down the hallway. 'Whatchoo doing back, Asif?'
'Let's get all the lights off,' said Cheek, switching off the lamp by the chair he'd been sitting in. 'And pull the curtains. Dan, go down and make sure Merriweather stays put.'
'Do you want me to let him know what's happening?'
'Yes.'
Malik had put the number of DCI Norman Thackston of Crawley Police, the nearest station with armed support, into his mobile a few days earlier, just in case of this eventuality, even though he'd always thought it unlikely in the extreme. He speed-dialled it now, at the same time flicking off the hall light. Thackston wasn't there, but after a dozen or so rings, someone else picked up.
Thackston's line, DS Kamal speaking.'
Malik strode into the kitchen, switching off the light and pulling the curtains across. As he did so, he told Kamal as rapidly as possible what was happening, and how urgent the situation was, before giving him the address. Twice. 'I need armed response units here immediately. We're going to have to move our man as soon as possible, but I'm not doing anything until you get here. Be quick, for God's sake. We lose the target and heads'll roll, I promise you that.'
He hung up before Kamal had a chance to get a word in edgeways, then headed back into the hall. In the darkness, he could make out Cheek standing there with his gun drawn. It brought home the danger of the situation to him. They were in trouble, serious trouble, and because he was unarmed, having never had the desire to take up firearms training, Malik was going to have to rely on other people to bring him out of the situation alive and unhurt. It wasn't a situation he was either used to, or relished.
'They're on their way,' he told Cheek.
'Good. You need to get down with Merriweather. We'll watch the back and front doors.'
Malik nodded and headed down the hallway in the gloom to the office where he'd spent the last three hours, Cheek following.
Merriweather was in the chair where he'd been sitting all afternoon. He'd lit a cigarette and was still swigging from the can. He didn't appear too concerned. Harold stood next to him, his gun also drawn.
'What's happening then, Asif?' Merriweather asked, trying to sound casually cheery, but not quite achieving it. 'We got trouble or something?'
'You could say that,' said Malik.
'All right, Merriweather,' said Cheek, 'put the fag out. Now. And get on the floor. Dan, you watch the back door, I'll watch the front. Everyone turn their mobiles off. I want it to sound like we're not here. All right?'
Merriweather reluctantly put out his smoke and sat down heavily on the floor. Malik crouched down next to him, and the other two left the room. Now it was simply a matter of waiting.
'How the fuck did they find out where we were?' demanded Merriweather. 'Can't you lot do anything right? I thought it was meant to be a fucking secret.'
'Keep your voice down, Jack. Please.'
The two of them fell silent. Malik reached down and switched off his mobile, wondering what his wife was doing even as he crouched there on the floor of a darkened, silent house, his mouth as dry as a bone as he silently prayed for help to arrive. Probably preparing the dinner or putting the children to bed. Perhaps even reading them a story. The thought comforted him somehow. He looked at his watch. And waited.
A minute became two, then three. Time passed slowly. He could hear Merriweather's heavy breathing.
'I can't believe you've fucked up again,' hissed the other man eventually.
'Shut up, Jack.'
He looked at his watch again, wondering how long it was going to take the ARVs to get up from Crawley. Fifteen minutes probably, even going at breakneck pace. However, their sirens would startle any would-be assassins before then, so time was probably on their side. But it still felt like a long wait.
There was a noise outside the window. A shuffling. Muffled voices. He tensed in the darkness. So did Merriweather, his eyes widening. They were here.
Then the noise was gone, and the dead silence returned, broken only by the faint hiss of traffic in the distance.
They'll jimmy the door,' said Merriweather quietly, an ominous tone in his voice.
48
I saw him standing in the middle of the playing fields, in the shadow of an impressive beech tree, about fifty yards away, his back to me. He was staring straight ahead, facing the school. Several lights burned in the clutch of two- and three-storey buildings in the distance. Beside me by the gate at the playing fields entrance stood DCI Woodham and two uniformed coppers.
'Let me go and speak to him first,' I said. 'I think we might startle him if he hears us all coming, and I don't much fancy a chase round here.'
Woodham nodded. 'All right,' he answered, probably feeling charitable towards me on the basis that my partner (work, to him) had been so recently injured, 'but I don't want to lose him, John. Make sure you bring him back here, and if he starts running, you're in shit.'
'Fair enough,' I said, and started walking.
Stegs heard me when I was about ten yards behind him, and
turned round curiously, but without fear. He was smoking a cigarette, and was about halfway down to the butt. 'Hello, John,' he said. 'I was wondering when you lot'd turn up.'
I stopped beside him and he turned back towards the school. We stood there watching it together for a few moments.
'We've got to bring you in, Stegs. We've got a warrant for your arrest.'
Stegs didn't seem to hear me. 'Five years I spent in this place,' he said, dragging hard on his cigarette. 'And the whole time I couldn't wait to leave. But do you know what? They were the best years of my life. No worries, no fears, no people you trusted fucking you up behind your back. No broken marriages. Just having a laugh with your mates, bunking off, trying to get laid.' He managed a weak smile. 'They were the best years of my life, and I never fucking knew it.'
'I've got to take you in, Stegs. We'll talk down the station.'
'I know what you're thinking,' he continued, still not looking at me. 'You're thinking I was involved in the Heathrow robbery, but I wasn't. I did everything by the book, and that's a promise. Yokes was the one, John. It was him, I swear it. I loved that bloke, you know. He was like a brother to me. We were joined at the fucking hip. We watched each other's backs on ops that would have had most men shitting themselves in fear. But all the time the bastard was bent, and I never knew it. He hid behind this Christian front, made out he was one of the good guys, but all the time I knew him, all those years, he was on the make. Did you know he was working for the Holtzes? Had been for years. Did you know that?'
'If we'd known it, he wouldn't have still been a serving copper.'
'There was a bloke I sometimes used to work with in SO10, a bloke called Jeff Benson. He was good, fucking good. He got into the Holtzes, was getting close to pulling in some real evidence against them, particularly Neil Vamen. He told me about it ... stupid of him really. Because then one night I went out with Yokes and I'd had a few drinks, which has always been my fucking downfall, and I let slip about it. I didn't even mention him by name, but Yokes had enough info to warn the Holtzes, and they put the frighteners on Benson and scuppered the whole op.' Stegs sighed and stubbed out the cigarette, immediately lighting another one. I let him do it, making no move to take him back to Woodham and the others. Although none of it was admissible in court, I wanted to hear what he had to say, particularly as he was so talkative. He sounded slightly pissed. Not badly so, but there was definitely an edge to his voice.
'Benson blamed you, didn't he?'
Stegs nodded. 'Yeah. At the time I couldn't understand it, I thought he was being too paranoid, but I suppose he thought only a couple of people in the world knew about it, and I was the likeliest one to have opened my mouth. It didn't occur to me that Yokes could have been the source of the leak. I trusted him so I didn't suspect him. First rule of life, John: trust no-one. It's not fucking worth it.' He waved the cigarette in my direction, trying to emphasize his point, and I saw that he was unsteady on his feet.
It occurred to me too that we wouldn't be able to interview him in this state, and he might be a lot less talkative once he'd sobered, up. 'When did you find out about Yokes?' I asked him.
'It was after we did the sting on O'Brien, the one you and Boyd set up. If you remember, he wasn't involved in the first part when we caught O'Brien redhanded.' I remembered. Yokes had been unavailable. 'But he came in for the next stage, the setting UP of the sting on Fellano.'
'That's right.'
'When he came in the room and first met O'Brien, I saw
straight away that O'Brien recognized him. I don't think Yokes recognized him back - in fact, I'm sure he didn't - but O'Brien must have seen him with someone else from the Holtzes before. He didn't say anything, but that didn't matter. I saw the look, and I think that's when I knew finally that the bastard was in with them. I should have known a long time back, but I never looked fucking hard enough, because I couldn't see the wood for the trees.' He sighed. 'And do you know the worst part?'
'What?'
'He knew I knew. I've always been a good actor, you've got to be when you're SO10, but my behaviour around him must have changed or something, because he knew that I was on to him. And the cunning bastard, that so-called Christian, he was going to set me up to die in that hotel room, just so he could make sure I kept my mouth shut. I've been thinking about the whole thing a long time, and I've worked it out. The idea of the robbery was to put Tyndall in the spotlight and fuck things up for him. Yokes used O'Brien to set it up, on behalf of Neil Vamen. O'Brien knew that Strangleman Grant, the one who got shot, would go for it because he was such a greedy, short-sighted prick.'
'How do you know he was a greedy, short-sighted prick? You said at Heathrow that you'd never seen him before in your life.'
'I'm theorizing, John. That's all. Anyway, I was meant to be the one staying in that room while the robbery went down. Yokes knew the Colombians would kill me as soon as it happened down in the car park, but he was going to let it happen. Only thing was, it backfired. They wanted him to stay in the room, not me.'
'Why was that?'
Stegs shook his head. 'I don't know,' he said. 'Maybe they didn't trust him either.'
'So, you're the innocent in all this, are you?'
Something about my question - probably the scepticism in it -made him look my way.
'I'm not the best man in the world, John, as my missus'll no doubt tell you. I can be an arsehole, and I can bend the rules, but I promise you this: I had nothing to do with the leak on the Heathrow op.'
I eyed him carefully. 'I hope not, Stegs. I sincerely hope not. For your sake.'
'You don't believe me, do you? But you know Yokes was the one who was working for Vamen. And there are others, too. Try Detective Chief Superintendent Flanagan, for one.'
I put my hand up. 'All right, Stegs, slow down. I know you've had problems with Flanagan in the past, but he is definitely not corrupt. He's the head of SO7, for Christ's sake.'
Stegs opened his mouth to say something but then he stopped and turned. So did I. Hurrying across the field in our direction were Woodham and the two uniforms. Even in the darkness I could see the grave expression on the DCI's face. My heart skipped a beat, and I felt an ominous dread. Something serious had happened.
'Stay where you are,' I told Stegs, stepping forward and putting a hand on his arm.
49
DS Bill Cheek was forty-three years old. He'd been a copper all his working life, and as times had changed more for the worse than the better - he, like many of the other older officers in the Met, was thinking about retirement and the hallowed pension. A life away from the stress of dealing with people who in any other walk of life you'd cross the street to avoid. He and the wife had talked about him quitting next year when his twenty-five years' service came up. She wanted them to retire to France, somewhere in Brittany, where they'd spent so many of their holidays down the years. They'd never had kids so there was nothing to hold them back, and he had to admit, there was something about the idea. They could sell their three-bed semi in Norwood, buy a big place near the sea with land, and still have plenty of money left