Law & Order Page 12

  McLeod Road was a bus route with pre-war terrace houses either side. Traffic was light at that time of day so their getaway would be easy.

  ‘Here it comes now,’ Tully said.

  Their attention went to the security truck nosing out of the side street about fifty yards or so from where the van was parked. It crossed the traffic lanes and started towards them, then signalled left and turned in through the gates to the works yard.

  ‘Where they going?’ Hayes wanted to know. ‘I thought you said they collected from the office across the street there?’

  ‘The money comes down from the first floor,’ Tully explained. ‘But they go in and out the back way.’

  A woman employee, who must have been watching out for the security truck, her timing was so close, came down the stairs and through the foyer where she locked the glass doors.

  ‘That’s a regular touch,’ Tully said. ‘Those doors get locked every time the money arrives. They come down the stairs and back along that corridor there.’ He paused as if expecting the two security guards to appear on cue. They didn’t ‘They’ll be along in a minute’ – trying to dispel any doubt creeping in. ‘What we gotta do is go through those doors and get the money off them as they reach the foyer. Then they ain’t got no chance of legging it.’

  ‘We’ll do them doors easy with a flogging hammer,’ Hayes suggested.

  ‘Might be a bit sussy climbing out of a motor and running up with a hammer,’ Isaacs said. Tully had told him what his plan was. ‘And it might take a few swings to crash in them glass doors.’

  Benny Isaacs was a practical man. Unlike most villains he didn’t push himself forward the whole time, rather did what was required of him. Tully liked that. Isaacs was short and swarthy, with pockmarked skin. A face easy to remember. His shoulders were muscular and strong.

  ‘Well, what we gonna do it with?’ Coleman said. ‘A gas stove?’

  ‘As it happens, that’s just what I had in mind,’ Tully said.

  Cole Coleman laughed. Hayes did too.

  ‘I mean, what could be more plausible,’ Tully went on, ‘pulling up in the road and offloading a stove to the Gas Board? It’s a million. No one’ll look twice. Take it up those steps and zoomp! Straight through the door, it’s done. Know what I mean? There!’ He indicated the two guards who came through the hall.

  The four men watched in silence as the guards disap­peared with the money containers.

  ‘Why not have it in the yard as they come through, John?’ Phil Hayes suggested.

  ‘Too many mugs around who might want to have a go. If a borey gas fitter comes after you with a bit of lead pipe, you gotta shoot him. Can’t odds it.’

  The thought left them silent.

  ‘What about cars?’ Coleman said. ‘We’ll want something a bit lively, John.’

  ‘No problem. I got a man who should be able to do something for us straightaway.’ He smacked his hands together in a decisive manner. ‘It’ll be a doddle, you see.’

  The thought of going into those offices across the road with shooters and blagging the wages held no fear for him. He doubted if it did for any of them.

  #

  The ringer he had in mind for the two cars they would need ran a car-breaking business at the Elephant and Castle. They often did business, including losing cars Tully reported stolen to claim on his insurance. Del Rogers was one of the many contacts who enabled him to get his living.

  Signalling right under the bridge on New Kent Road, Tully made a tight turn on to the narrow, rutted service road to the businesses being conducted beneath the railway arches. The holes in the road were full of water from recent rain. The car-breaking operation Rogers ran occupied two arches, both of which were littered with salvaged parts, scrap metal and old tyres. Lying across the uneven floor of the arches were pools of black sump oil instead of rainwater.

  Del Rogers was a pudding-faced, ginger-haired youth, whose pores on the exposed parts of his body seemed clogged with oil. He was cutting up a car with an oxyacetylene torch as Tully pulled up in his newish Sierra and stepped out with care not to dirty his shoes.

  ‘Can you cut this one up a bit quick, Del?’ he joked. ‘Old Bill’s up m’ daily.’

  ‘Just what I fucking well need.’ He turned off the lamp and came across to the car. ‘That’s not a bad motor, John. Yourn, is it?’

  ‘Till the finance snatches it back,’ Tully kidded. He was up to date on his payments, but couldn’t guarantee staying that way. He glanced across the yard to where two other men were breaking cars. ‘Doing plenty, Del, are you?’

  ‘Getting a living. S’not easy, is it?’

  ‘I dunno. It ain’t hard, is it?’ He got right to the reason for his visit. ‘Any chance you can ring a couple for me?’

  Wincing, as if in pain, Rogers said, ‘I don’t think so, John.’

  ‘Fuck I, Del,’ Tully said, ‘I was relying on you. I thought you was a stone ginger.’

  ‘Well, the thing is, John, I got a lot of stuff to cut up.’ He seemed embarrassed.

  ‘What’s it gonna take you to drag a couple off the street and stick different plates on them?’

  ‘Won’t you want them resprayed or nothing?’

  Other cars Rogers rung for him he made a proper job of so they wouldn’t get a routine pull from the Bill. That meant respraying, changing the external features such as mirrors, racks, and sometimes even the interior trim, as well as grinding out engine and chassis numbers and putting on matching plates. That took time.

  ‘I’ll take a chance if you’re that pushed,’ Tully said. The alternative would be to drag the cars himself, which he didn’t fancy. He was never much of a car thief, and his first adult conviction was for taking and driving away.

  ‘S’not just that, John. I been cutting up one or two what’s a bit dodgy, know what I mean? The filth come down from the Stolen Vehicles branch. They been sniffing around, giving me more ache than my old woman.’

  ‘What do them mugs know?’ Tully said. ‘They don’t know fuck all. Just looking for lost chassis numbers is all. It’s worth a monkey to you, Del.’ He watched the car man’s greasy face cloud with uncertainty. ‘Don’t let me down, for fuck sake, or I’m bang in trouble.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Rogers said. Tully took his response as a firm promise.

  #

  After the blagger departed, Del Rogers felt more uneasy about the proposition and wished he’d told him outright that he couldn’t help. He was already in trouble with the Bill, and this was going to get him a lot more, he was sure of it. Gloomy thoughts pressed in on him where he sat in the tiny battered office – a caravan without wheels propped against one of the arch walls. He stared through the grease-smeared window, knowing what he must do, knowing how it would help him get out of his own bit of trouble. Still he was reluctant to do it. Why did Tully have to dig him out? He thought about running away, going up north somewhere, anything to avoid what he found himself doing as though not in control of his responses. Glancing about to make sure no one was watching, he reached for the phone and punched the number from memory.

  Uncertainty increased, and when a voice answered, he almost put the phone back. ‘Inspector McHale, I want,’ he whispered into the mouthpiece, and was told to hang on.

  Instead he wished he had hung up.

  The pub they met in at Waterloo was a halfway for both. An old Free House that was somehow hanging on through recession and surrounding redevelopment, while its clientele, if it ever was such, showed no such tenacity. Most of the customers in the bar were demolition and construction workers who were less welcome in the smartened-up pubs in the area.

  Del Rogers sat with his back against the wall and stared through the bar room, feeling depressed, his pint untouched, the cheese and tomato sandwich uneaten. He saw Detective Inspector McHale enter and push up to the bar. He didn’
t acknowledge him, not even when he turned and motioned to offer him a drink. He was think­ing about what he was doing, if it was going to get the help he needed, or if he should warn Tully off.

  The detective arriving at the table almost startled him. He looked up at McHale, who was short and going to fat, most of his hair gone with the few remaining strands combed across his pink scalp.

  ‘What are you daydreaming about?’ McHale asked, pulling up a chair and sitting. ‘I offered you a drink.’

  ‘Oh, I’m all right, thanks, Mr Mac.’ He sipped his beer.

  ‘Been here long?’ the di asked, checking the bar.

  ‘A few minutes, is all.’ His eyes followed the detective’s glance around the room before searching the table top, hiding his shame.

  ‘Well, cheer up, Del. S’not the end of the world, is it?’

  The car-breaker shook his head like he was afraid it would fall off.

  ‘How’s that sandwich?’ McHale asked, as if considering getting himself one. He didn’t, but helped himself to half of the one on Rogers’ plate. It disappeared in two bites, then after a couple of chews he said, ‘What’s it you’ve got for me?’

  Rogers looked him in the eye for the first time, knowing now he couldn’t not give him what he’d got. ‘I gotta ring a couple of cars for a little firm,’ he said in a low voice. ‘A fella by the name of John Tully. From across the Water.’

  ‘What is it they’ve got going off?’

  With a shrug, Rogers said, ‘Dunno. Just two cars is what he wants. Estate cars, something with a bit of poke.’

  ‘They must have something going off pretty soon then.’

  ‘Dunno.’ He was only interested in how his information might benefit him. He sipped some of his beer. ‘What about those lads of yourn, Mr Mac?’

  ‘The Stolen Vehicles department are not my lads,’ McHale said.

  ‘You said you’d straighten them out for me, if I got you something.’ He felt let down and wanted to call back what he had given the filth about John Tully.

  ‘Paid you a visit again, have they? Looking a bit too close at what you’ve been cutting up?’ A smile creased the detective’s face. Rogers began to feel sick. ‘You shape up all right, Del, I’ll have my governor call the superintendent on Stolen Vehicles. You’ll get a clean bill of health. For a few weeks – until you do something naughty again. Where are you parking those cars for them to pick up?’

  ‘I don’t know yet,’ Rogers said. ‘I got to phone him when I done ’em.’

  ‘You’d better phone me straight after, Del, hadn’t you?’

  The look the di gave him made him shiver.

  18

  SPECULATIVE WORK FROM CRIMINAL INTELLIGENCE or anyone else wasn’t something Fred Pyle wanted right now, and he could tell from di McHale’s language as he outlined the prospect that it was far from certain. He preferred to let detectives in Criminal Intelligence do the collar rather than have his lads sitting on a suspect for days on end.

  ‘You know me, Fred. I wouldn’t dream of involving the Squad on the little we have so far. It’s just that we’re so stretched with the potential robberies we’re following through on we’ve got no one spare to give this one the attention it needs.’

  ‘You’re optimistic, thinking we’re any less busy.’

  ‘The thing is, Fred,’ McHale said, ‘it does look like something is going off.’

  ‘I’d say so,’ Pyle agreed, remaining uninterested.

  ‘Couldn’t you spare a couple of lads to put down there on watch?’

  ‘I’d like to help. We’ve got so much going off ourselves I’m even having to go out and feel a few collars myself,’ Pyle said. It was his idea of a joke.

  ‘You must have someone.’

  ‘Not to get it done right.’

  McHale shook his head. ‘Seems a shame to give it to the local cid. ‘

  ‘Yeah,’ Pyle said, regretting the situation. He didn’t like to hear about villains getting their living because the police were overstretched. ‘Why not stick a lad down there with a video camera?’ he suggested. ‘I’d find one here to do it, only most of this lot can only just about work their video players!’

  ‘Wouldn’t look too clever if something did go off.’

  ‘Better’n fuck all, I’d have thought, Graham.’

  With a regretful nod McHale left.

  #

  The detective chief superintendent who ran the Flying Squad wasn’t a man who moved fast and his methodical, plodding men­tality was translated to his actions. Now he was mov­ing fast enough to alarm people as he swung himself around the door frame of the dis’ office. Pyle wondered if the building was on fire.

  ‘Fred!’ Ernie Jeymer said, ‘there’s a shout for help from the Terrorist Squad. Holborn. Get your lads over there right away. You too, John,’ he added on seeing John Redvers. ‘Get instructions on the air. You’d better draw shooters.’

  This might have been no more than his paperwork Pyle was running from. As he went along to roust detectives out of the Squad office, leaving Redvers to get the firearms organised, he broke two capsules from their silver foil and swallowed them. They were beta-blockers and would help keep him calm during this operation.

  Five shot Smith & Wesson .38s and ten rounds of ammunition for each detective were dispensed by dci Tony Simmons. Each of the detectives being assigned weapons scribbled his names in the firearms book. The standard procedure was for the detective to load the gun in his governor’s presence, and most did so before grabbing a holster from the cupboard by the door and hurrying out.

  ‘Looks like we gotta pull them out of trouble again,’ Pyle commented as he collected his gun. There was a slight recklessness in his tone as the drug started to kick in.

  ‘Shoot some of the fuckers, Fred,’ Simmons said.

  Over the air the four cars they were travelling in were directed first to Holborn, then redirected to Bloomsbury. There they rendezvoused with Brian Shilling, the Anti-Terrorist Squad di, who was running the operation. He sent them to take up positions where they were to keep tabs on a blue Fiat carrying two suspected IRA terrorists.

  Pyle’s car was parked in Great Russell Street, the narrow road alongside the British Museum, which at that time of the evening was full of people and traffic. All he hoped as he watched them bustle past was that nothing went off, for they wouldn’t be able to manoeuvre at all. To add to their problems a traffic warden sauntered along and tapped the window to dc Fenton, who was in front next to the driver.

  ‘You can’t park here,’ she said when Fenton lowered the window.

  Pyle said, ‘Tell her to fuck off and nick some motorists for illegal parking. Tell her to move her black arse out of it.’

  The warden glanced at the men in the back as she plucked the radio off her lapel.

  ‘We’re on a job, love,’ Fenton explained. ‘Make yourself scarce.’

  The woman looked blank, and when at last she got it she backed away.

  Watching her go, Pyle said, ‘Fuck knows what they need us for with her around.’

  Why they did anyway he didn’t know. There seemed no great urgency to this shout now. He guessed the Anti-Terrorist Squad saw their parcel on the move and panicked.

  ‘Give me that,’ he said reaching across the front seat for the r/t. The driver passed the handset back to him. ‘Brian… s’Fred. What’s the word, son?’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Still sat here playing with ourselves,’ he said, believing the detective running this was implying they were moving in on the target contrary to instruction. ‘We haven’t moved. S’no sign of the parcel.’

  ‘I think we’ve lost it,’ the Anti-Terrorist Squad detective said. ‘Anyone see anything?’

  ‘Not a thing,’ said a voice Pyle didn’t recognise.

  ‘Nothing this way either,’ Redvers
said.

  ‘Hang on,’ a voice cut in with excitement. ‘The Fiat’s turned into Montague Place. S’heading in your direction, John.’

  ‘Can’t see – no, wait a mo’,’ Redvers said. ‘I’ve clocked it.’

  There was silence on the air. Pyle waited, growing tense, despite the beta-blockers and the belief that they were not going to see any action.

  ‘What have you got, John?’ di Shilling asked. ‘Anything?’

  ‘No. S’a couple of old ladies, that’s all.’

  There was another silence, longer this time.

  ‘There, guv!’ dc Fenton said, pointing to a blue Fiat that turned into Great Russell Street from Bury Place. There were four men in it, not two, each with their hair lines and eyebrows meeting.

  ‘This looks like it might be it.’ Pyle read off the car number over air. ‘It’s turning into Montague Street.’ Without warning the car accelerated.

  ‘They must’ve tumbled something. They’re off!’ Pyle informed everyone on air.

  ‘Fuck it!’ The words from Shilling exploded over the r/t. ‘All right, nick them.’

  The driver accelerated Pyle’s car along Great Russell Street and, as he cornered hard into Montague Street in the direction of the blue Fiat, he almost ran down a party of school kids. The ones in the front leaped back on the toes of those behind.

  ‘You mad fucker,’ Pyle said and glanced round, making sure no one was hurt. The car didn’t slow, but wove in and out of traffic.

  Despite this breakneck speed they weren’t the first to reach the suspects’ car. Three other cid cars were there before them, two Anti-Terrorist Squad cars and one of Redvers’. Pyle wasn’t upset about that. These sort of villains weren’t shy about blasting away. With their car trapped in Russell Square, two of the suspected terrorists tried to run, but Lethridge’s car, coming into the Square from Bedford Way, cut them off. Once all seven cid cars had converged on the blue Fiat there followed an enormous traffic jam, which Pyle couldn’t have cared less about. If a few people got home a little later than usual, at least they would get home. Some might not have done had the four terrorists achieved what they had planned with the explosives found in the boot of the car. Pyle doubted the inconvenienced commuter would appreciate that. All he would know was that the traffic was snarled and the police were doing nothing to unsnarl it.