colleague, the targets. . the whole operation, in jeopardy. And, as a direct result, it all ended in. .’ He chewed around for the right word. ‘Tragedy.’
‘Bullshit! I did what I thought was right. I wanted to get evidence against the target, and that was the only way I could do it. It wasn’t my fault that someone decided to rob us in the middle of it all. If they hadn’t turned up, none of this would have happened.’
The two men continued to stare at each other, the tension between them growing. It had been there since the meeting had started. That’s what I meant about Stegs being a maverick. He didn’t follow procedure; he improvised — on this occasion, with alarming results — and it made him enemies. I could see why he’d done it, and I understood his explanation. If he and Vokes had simply gone in there with the money, they might have been rumbled on the spot as undercover police, too eager to make a purchase. And, to be fair to him, if the robbers hadn’t turned up in the car park, we almost certainly would have got the result we were looking for. I doubted that this would be enough to save him, though.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tina fixing him with an expression of scepticism. She’d never liked him, one of those instinctive dislikes she hadn’t got round to explaining, and it made me think that Stegs really was a one-man band, always on his own against the world. In other words, perfect scapegoat material.
Malik spoke next, his tone calm and even as always, his question one that had also been bugging me. ‘Just after you split up from the two Colombians in the car park, Fellano made a call on his mobile. Do you have any idea who he might have been phoning?’
Stegs shook his head.
‘The reason I ask,’ Malik continued, ‘is that at almost exactly the same time, one of the Colombians in the room received a call on the hotel phone. At the moment, we don’t know what was said, because the individual taking the call didn’t say anything to the caller, but as soon as it ended he became very irate, and, according to our translator, told his colleague that there was a serious problem. They then became far more agitated, and we believe they manhandled Vokes over to the bed.’
‘I thought you had cameras in the room.’
‘We had two cameras in there,’ answered Malik, ‘but it was a big place and they were pointed at the desk to cover the transaction. So there was a blind spot round by the bed. After the call, they heard the shots and decided to bail out, but they finished off Vokes first. Quite why, we’re not sure. And for some reason he didn’t give his codeword.’
‘I’m surprised that when the shooting started out in the car park you lot didn’t go in anyway,’ said Stegs, looking first at Malik, then at Flanagan.
‘SO19 were in the room within twenty seconds of the first shots being fired in the car park,’ said Leon Ferman, a powerfully built black man who looked like he didn’t take criticism lightly. ‘And within thirty, both suspects were dead. How much faster would you have wanted it done?’
‘Fast enough to have saved him,’ said Stegs drily.
Ferman started to say something else but Malik put up a hand to stop him. ‘It’s OK, Leon,’ he said, and Ferman reluctantly quietened. ‘The fact remains, Stegs, that he didn’t give the signal, and we had absolutely no idea they were going to shoot him. SO19 were in the rooms directly on either side, as you’re fully aware, and were given the order to go in as quickly as possible. It’s a tragedy that it wasn’t quick enough, but there was nothing we could have done about that.’
The operation’s handlers — Flanagan, Malik and Ferman — had been watching events unfold from a room some way down the corridor from the one where the meeting had been taking place. Tina and I had been in there too, along with the translator and several other technical staff, and we’d seen near enough everything, bar the final bloody denouement, which had taken place off camera. Because the operations room had been on the other side of the hotel from the car park, and the shooting out of immediate earshot, it had only just been picked up on the surveillance tapes. As a result, there’d been a momentary delay before the order to go in was relayed by Ferman to the SO19 team, a delay that had proved fatal. However, it was difficult to know what could have been done to prevent it. Our operational incident room had deliberately been located some distance from where the deal was going down, because having that many people so close, particularly when we had the tapes of what was being said playing in the room, would have aroused too much suspicion.
Flanagan, though, clearly knew that plenty of people were going to be hunting for mistakes, and would probably find at least some, so he was following the politician’s standard philosophy of blaming someone else. ‘So, you had no idea why Fellano could have made that call, or who he was calling?’ he demanded, the suggestion clear that he thought Jenner must have known.
‘Of course I didn’t. Why would I?’
‘Nothing was discussed?’
‘No.’ Stegs stubbed out his cigarette. ‘Look, I don’t know what the fuck you’re trying to insinuate, but all I was trying to do was nail one of the bad guys. It fucked up, the whole thing fucked up, and I lost a good mate. .’ He paused for a moment as if that particular piece of news had only just fully arrived in his consciousness. ‘But it can’t be my fault that a bunch of blokes I’ve never seen in my life suddenly turn up out of the blue, pull shooters, and stage an armed robbery right in the middle of the op. Someone should have spotted them a mile off. Why didn’t that happen? And why did they get a chance to start shooting?’
‘The op was stretched,’ said Ferman. ‘If you hadn’t decided to go walkabout with the target, then we’d have had a lot better coverage. We had to pull men from all over the place to get them into that car park.’
‘You know, you’re all looking at everything the wrong way.’
‘What do you mean?’ demanded Flanagan.
‘Those blokes who turned up out of the blue were the ones who fucked this job. How did they know about the operation? That’s the question.’
Which was the moment when Flanagan, Ferman and Stegs all turned and looked straight at Tina and me.
‘Hold on,’ said Tina, making a pre-emptive strike. ‘Wait a minute here. We gave you guys a lead, and we’ve had nothing further to do with it, so don’t start setting us up for fall-guys.’
‘It’s a good question, though,’ said Malik. ‘How did they know about the deal? Could your informant have talked?’
Our informant — the one who’d helped organize this meeting — was Robert O’Brien, better known as Slim Robbie on account of the fact that he was as fat as a house. A thirty-year-old thug and career criminal who’d only agreed to set up the Colombians to save himself from a long prison sentence, after being set up in a similar sting by undercover police. It was fair to say that Robbie O’Brien lived and breathed the illegal. Asking if he could have talked, particularly if talking resulted in a profit for him, was like asking if whores have sex or Christians believe. It was pretty much a rhetorical question. Except for one thing.
‘We never told him the details of the op,’ I said. ‘I didn’t even know them myself until a few hours ago. I set up the introductions between the informant and Stegs, and I’ve spoken to him since then, but only about other matters, so if he knew anything about this meeting, he didn’t hear it from us. And anyway, how would he have known that Stegs and the Colombians were going to end up in the car park with the money and the drugs?’
Eyes now returned to Stegs, who shrugged. ‘Robbie O’Brien was involved in setting up today’s meeting. He had to be: the Colombians were his contacts, not ours. And he was involved all along as well, at least up until a few days back. But I never told him the location, and I’m sure Vokes didn’t either. Like you, John’ — he nodded towards me — ‘we didn’t know it ourselves until a few hours back. Fellano likes to leave those sort of things to the last minute, for obvious reasons. O’Brien might have guessed, I suppose, because he knew Fellano had met people at this hotel before. And he would have been aware that Fellano was flying in in the last few days, but I haven’t spoken to him since Sunday, so I can’t see how he’d have known the timing.’
‘We’re going to have to bring O’Brien in for questioning,’ said Flanagan, also looking at me.
‘We’re on the case, sir,’ said Tina firmly, making doubly sure that Flanagan knew she was there too. ‘We’ve already called the station and they’re searching for him.’
‘No joy yet?’
‘Not yet, but we’ll get him,’ she said confidently, a tone in her voice suggesting that you wouldn’t want to be Slim Robbie when she got her hands on him. Tina Boyd might have looked like the pretty, college-educated girl from a good, middle-class family that she was, but you know what they say about appearances. She was a far tougher cookie than most people gave her credit for, and I would have almost felt sorry for Robbie if he hadn’t been such a
