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  ‘Found your true vocation, Jack?’ he mocked.

  Barcy scowled as his fingers continued to smash down on the keys, like he wanted to break them. Because of his poor application to paperwork he would never rise above his present rank, and only because of his better-than-average results did he keep his place on the Squad. A lot of detectives had been booted for much less than Barcy got away with.

  ‘Where’s the duty chief?’ Pyle asked. ‘He out?’ He assumed he was from what Tony Simmons had said in The Feathers earlier that evening.

  ‘I think he popped over the Middlesex Hospital to give that nurse one!’

  Pyle glanced at the clock. ‘That probably means a late start on these raids.’

  ‘You got one to meet then, guv?’ Barcy asked, leaning back in his chair.

  ‘Me? I’m a respectable married man, Jack.’

  ‘I’ve heard you say your prayers too, guv.’

  ‘Gotta get promotion somehow, son.’ He didn’t smile. ‘D’he say when he’d be back?’

  ‘Not to me.’

  ‘Couple of hours’ sleep before court tomorrow would be handy. That’s not a prospect if we don’t do these raids as planned. There’s an active party called Lynn. Jack Lynn, with a double “n”, I think. A blagger out of Kentish Town. Have someone pull his CRO file, will you? I’m going to get my head down for an hour or so.’

  6

  TWENTY DETECTIVES CRAMMED INTO THE dis’ office made it crowded. They had drifted along there rather than someone telling them to assemble here and were divided into four squads to raid four separate addresses.

  ‘What’s this, a bit of bustle-bunching, Simon?’ a ds from John Redvers’ squad said as a detective squeezed past him. He was leading one of the raids. Pyle, Lethridge and Redvers were leading the others. The briefing was informal and Pyle conducted it as this was his operation.

  ‘It starts to get light around a quarter to six, for the benefit of those who aren’t often awake at that time,’ he said. ‘So we hit each of the addresses at around five-thirty. There’ll be little chance of resistance, I wouldn’t have thought.’

  ‘Well, what if one of them’s got up for a leak, guv?’ Warren Slater asked with a grin. The dc was young, with a ponytail and more than enough to say for himself, mostly to the wdc next to him.

  ‘I suppose that might be seen as armed resistance,’ dci Simmons put in. ‘You could nick him for that.’

  ‘But make sure it’s in his hand,’ Pyle added. There were chuckles from some of the detectives who were more loyal to him than the dci. ‘John, you’re liaising with the di over at Paddington.’

  ‘They going out visiting with us?’ Redvers wanted to know.

  ‘I don’t think so, John. We don’t want anyone local along,’ he said. Then, turning to the ds on Redvers’ squad, ‘Ian, Paddy Kennedy over at Acton’ll hold your hand. Our two are both down at Peckham,’ he said in the general direction of Eric Lethridge, even though he had been in on every stage of planning the raids.

  ‘The di out there’s not a bad sort,’ Simmons said. Peckham had been his own division.

  ‘What’s this, then,’ Redvers asked, ‘favouritism?’

  ‘Well, your squad’s drawn the easy ones to nick,’ Pyle countered. ‘Oh, what channel we on?’

  ‘Channel six,’ Lethridge informed them, hitching his trousers.

  ‘Remember,’ Simmons said, ‘it’s only a Method Index raid. There’s no guarantee any of these four were on the blag last week.’ That said, he added, ‘But they are all villains, so don’t be too polite.’

  These were targeted from information in the Method Index files, which were searched for the most obvious suspects, hoping they would have some connection. Pyle hadn’t found a connection but these four villains were still their best candidates.

  As the detectives began to disperse, a dc who was the newest recruit to his squad approached. ‘Guv, ’s it all right if I take my own car out to Peckham? – I’ve got that one at Bromley Magistrates’ Court in the morning. I could shoot straight off then.’

  ‘That’s okay, Roger,’ Pyle said. Most detectives wouldn’t have asked.

  ‘’S that something I didn’t see?’ Simmons wanted to know.

  ‘From when I was on division, guv. The suspect’s only just got out of hospital.’

  The dci nodded. ‘Shouldn’t hit them so hard.’

  ‘Leave your car at the nick, Rog’,’ Pyle said to the young detective. After dismissing him he turned and took a pastel-coloured foolscap file from his desk and handed it to Simmons. ‘Something a snout gave me earlier. Jack Lynn. He looks like he might be worthwhile. He’s supposed to have one coming off down at Catford.’ He waited as he glanced through the thick, well established CRO file.

  ‘He’s not been idle, has he?’ Simmons said.

  ‘From what I hear there ought to be a few more down there. We missed him on a couple.’

  ‘One of your regular grasses, Fred?’ The dci was weighing up the prospects.

  Pyle nodded. ‘A right good ’un an all.’ He watched his governor read on before nodding.

  ‘See if we can’t nick him for something this time. He looks due.’

  ‘Overdue, I’d say, guv.’

  Without knowing Jack Lynn and from the limited information he had gathered since talking to his grass, he had no doubt it was this villain’s turn. It was like a game the cid played with the felonry, with both parties knowing sooner or later where the spotlight of police attention would turn. Most villains strove to make it later with all manner of strokes being pulled: other bodies traded, more worthwhile crimes, or money going on offer. When a detective decided it was someone’s turn often none of those would help the villain keep his liberty. Sometimes that decision came out of anger or disgust with the crime, sometimes mere perversity, but whatever the reason, the bottom line was always the clear-up rate: keeping your numbers up. Pyle kept his numbers up; Jack Lynn would go anyway.

  None of the villains they were raiding was expected to be armed, so the detectives weren’t issued with guns, nor was the Armed Tactical Support Unit being called out. Instead Pyle encouraged his people to take along baseball bats and sawn-down snooker cues to give them an advantage which surprise numbers might not. One dc, Peter Fenton, not averse to putting some stick about, kept track of their tools, wrapped in brown paper dog food sacks. Other detectives were collecting last-minute things as Pyle moved out of the office and along the corridor. John Redvers fell into step.

  ‘What’s the di like out at Paddington, Fred?’ Redvers asked. ‘Frank Polden. You know him?’

  ‘Yeah. Lazy fat bastard. He won’t even get up out of his chair – unless it’s to pour you a drink.’

  ‘Pity.’ Redvers said. ‘I was hoping we could have left the collar to him.’

  They stepped into a lift.

  #

  The local di, who was waiting at Peckham nick with his detectives, seemed relieved when Pyle told him they wouldn’t need his help. ‘Pleased to hear it,’ he said. ‘Some of my lads have had a long day.’ He took Pyle and Lethridge through the details of the target addresses, telling them nothing about the location that they couldn’t have got from the area map.

  The target house was in a street of late Victorian terraced houses built for the lower middle classes, the tradesmen with aspirations. Houses now with motorbikes or bits of broken cars lodged behind threadbare shrubbery in tiny front gardens and paint-flaking facades.

  Parked without lights, Pyle’s scruffy blue Ford Sierra was distinguished in the line of parked vehicles only by the four men sitting in it. The firm’s car was at his disposal most of the time he was on duty. There were a few minutes to spare before kick-off for the synchronised raids, and even though a minute or two either way would make no difference, Pyle waited anyway. There was no conversation in the car. Earlier there had been animat
ed talk between the two dcs and the driver about a case reported in the Sunday Sport of a dentist and his anaesthetist who’d been stiffing their patients wholesale.

  Pyle glanced at his watch again. Twenty-eight minutes past five and still not light. ‘Give us that, Frank,’ he said to the driver, reaching for the r/t handset. He said, ‘You awake back there?’

  ‘Just about,’ Jack Barcy replied from his car parked at the back of the houses. Their exchanges on the air were casual. ‘So quiet you’d think no one was at it.’

  ‘About two minutes, Jack.’ Pyle stared down the road towards the target house as the street lights popped out and the first glimmer in the eastern sky became noticeable. ‘Okay, we’re going in now.’ He handed the phone to the driver, who would stay with the car.

  Pyle and the other two detectives walked abreast at an unhurried pace and climbed the steps to the house, hammering the door-knocker and stabbing the bell-push, shattering the still­ness.

  Somewhere nearby a dog started barking. Then another joined in.

  Pyle rang the doorbell again, the long, insistent ring demanded an answer. At last the door was opened by the target, Clifford Harding, who displayed angry surprise where he stood in trousers and a vest, no shoes or socks.

  A baby was wailing now. ‘Took your time, son, didn’t you?’ Pyle said, pushing into the hall, followed by the detectives, ‘Thought perhaps you were legging it.’

  ‘Here, what is this?’ Harding said.

  ‘You’re an active villain, Clifford, we’re detectives. All right,’ he said to the others, ‘make it thorough. Give Jack and the lads out the back a shout.’

  ‘Look, you got a warrant, have you? Coming here upsetting my family this time of morning. You’re well out of order.’

  Pyle gave him a look, before nodding. ‘I’d say so, son.’

  Whatever he took from that Harding fell silent. He was frightened. Dawn raids by detectives were meant to have that effect. Pyle knew he’d have no trouble here.

  He watched his men go through Clifford Harding’s house, taking care to be thorough, but not tidy. Carpets were taken up, and some floorboards too; loose skirting boards were removed, cupboards emptied, even dismantled. They searched anything and everything that looked like it could hide something – money most likely, part of the proceeds from the robbery at Barclay’s Bank in Lewisham last week as Securicor was collecting money. One of the guards took a severe beating when he refused to part with the cash sack. Forty thousand pounds in old, unrecorded notes had been blagged that day. The local cid got nowhere with their investigation, and the Squad’s subsequent involvement hadn’t pushed it much further ahead. The only positive development was the injured guard coming off the danger list.

  Standing in the living room, where he questioned Harding about his movements on the day, Pyle watched without concern as damage to the house increased.

  The villain, who was now dressed in anticipation of being taken in, protested each time something got broken or was spilled. ‘Look, tell ’em to leave off, for fuck sake, will you?’

  These protests were restrained compared with those of his wife, who followed the detectives around the house, clutching her youngest child. ‘You no-good bastards!’ she screamed. ‘Coming in here upsetting my children. You lousy sods, I could murder you.’ The only peace they got was when she went to comfort her other kids.

  The orange and brown carpet in the hall was taken up, but nothing found. The detectives didn’t replace it.

  Harding shook his head. ‘Look at that fucking mess. You haven’t got a warrant, I know you haven’t’ – as though he believed it would gain him something.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Clifford,’ Pyle said. ‘You think we’d take a liberty like that? That would be out of order –’ the standard reply, carrying with it faint mockery. There were warrants for all four raids. He studied Harding with his thin frame, round shoulders and bad posture. They were about the same age, he guessed, but there the similarity ended. He didn’t subscribe to the theory of similarities between cid and villains, with only a quirk of fate putting one on one side of the law. Maybe at the start there would have been little difference between them. As a kid Pyle scraped through without getting himself nicked while some of his contemporaries weren’t so lucky. Perhaps that was how it had been for Harding, unlucky.

  ‘Of course, you could save yourself all this aggravation, Clifford.’

  ‘I already told you, I weren’t nowhere near Lewisham.’

  ‘Course you weren’t. Your alibi sounds terrific.’

  ‘Guv!’ – excitement in dc Fenton’s voice on account of the shooter he had found.

  ‘Handle it carefully, son,’ Pyle cautioned, finding a felt-tip pen and pushing it down the barrel. ‘We’ll want his fingerprints off it or his brief’ll claim we planted it. S’a million. Where was it?’

  ‘Beneath the floorboards in the cupboard under the sink.’

  A mirthless smile parted Pyle’s lips as he turned back to Harding. ‘This is it, I’d say. Wouldn’t you, son?’ The villain said nothing. ‘There’s nothing to say, is there? The gun makes you bang to rights.’

  7

  THE COMPOUND AT THE REAR of Peckham police station was deserted. The arc lamps fixed high on the building spread a harsh light in the early morning gloom. A Panda car was parked with its lights on and static issuing from the radio as a constable, who carried more weight than his uniform wanted to accommodate, sauntered from the building, letting the door bang. He went across to the car, showing no interest in the blue Ford Sierra that stopped in the yard. Pyle watched the uniform carrier’s uncomfortable gait, feet at ten to two, his boots going over at the side and wondered how he passed muster.

  In the back of the car Clifford Harding was facing his moment of truth, living his biggest regret. ‘If only you could turn back the clock, Clifford,’ Pyle commiserated, ‘wouldn’t that be something? You wouldn’t get caught twice with that shooter at your house. It makes you a candidate for a long ’un over the wall. Being nicked before you had it off, and could provide for the family, I s’pose that hurts.’

  Once this villain was past his initial shock, Pyle knew he would try to think in practical terms, find some solution. Maybe he would offer him a way out.

  The interior of the 60s-built nick was as tacky as the exterior suggested, the traditional colours of green and cream needed some fresh paint. The furniture in the back reception area had seen a lot of service. The overall impression was depressing, but Pyle wasn’t sensitive to his surroundings for, even though paid overtime had been cut to a total of fifteen hours a week, he was still too tired to care.

  He entered the charge room, which was narrow with a high ceiling and no windows. There was a tall charge desk in the centre of the room, like some obelisk in honour of a more distant epoch, while opposite was a bench seat bolted to the floor. Nothing here could have been picked up and used as a weapon by any violent suspect.

  The two dcs brought in Harding.

  ‘Sit down,’ Pyle said, indicating the bench. ‘It’s going to be a long night, Cliff.’

  Harding didn’t move. ‘I want to call my brief,’ he said, as though believing he had the right.

  Glancing at him, Pyle now noticed his gaunt face with prominent bones and flesh that would split wide open from a punch.

  ‘You’re going to need more than a solicitor, son. A miracle’s what you need.’

  Still the suspect remained standing, as if ready to challenge that statement.

  ‘Sit down,’ dc Fenton said, putting his hand on Harding’s shoulder. Harding didn’t argue.

  ‘Slip up and find the di, Rog’. Tell him we’re here.’ Pyle moved off to the custody officer’s room, one of several doors beyond the charge room. Visiting the custody officer was more than a courtesy, he was supposed to know everything here concerning prisoners. ‘Have you got a minute, Skip?�
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  The pear-shaped sergeant climbed out of his chair. ‘Morning, sir. Your other lads got here a short while ago. They’re in the cells.’

  Pyle had spoken to ds Lethridge on the radio earlier about the body they’d nicked. ‘Got another cell spare, have you?’

  ‘You can take your pick,’ he said with what looked like an apologetic smile. ‘We’ve only a couple of black dealers we want to keep. The rest are drunks. We can throw them out. Save giving them breakfast.’

  ‘A quiet room’ll be handy.’ He winked at the custody officer who knew at once what he wanted: a room where the initial interview wouldn’t be recorded.

  The uniform sergeant indicated a door at the side of the large room, which opened into a windowless cubicle about eight feet square. There were two such rooms either side of the corridor leading to the cells. Both were painted dark green with a scarred table and two straight-backed chairs.

  ‘Come on, son.’ Pyle nodded to Harding, whom dc Fenton encouraged to rise.

  The local di came through from the back reception and gave Harding a cursory glance as he was taken into the room. ‘Busy morning,’ he commented.

  ‘I won’t be sliding off to bed in a hurry.’

  ‘The one with the shooter?’

  ‘Under the sink.’ There was a smile on Pyle’s face. ‘Some of the hiding places villains use make you die.’

  ‘I swear they get a fucking sight sillier.’ The local man shook his head in dismay.

  There was a brief hiatus. They had little to say to one another. Pyle guessed this di wanted to go home.

  ‘Anything you needed us around for, is there?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Thanks for your help.’