undercover for long enough.’
‘So I have heard. Have you been under long?’
‘Don’t ask questions,’ the man growled.
‘Sorry.’
‘When you return to London find a pitch in the Dilly Lady subway. I’ll find you. Don’t show any sign of recognition. Spend any money you collect on food. Find a doss and pick up dirty habits.’
‘Like rubbing fag ash into my jeans?’
‘Yes, like that. . and use bad language, all you can muster, but let it be natural. People can tell when it’s forced.’
‘How long do I keep it up?’
‘A few days; someone will tell you when to walk into WLM Rents saying that you heard they had drums in return for work.’
‘We can’t find Rusher — he’s gone to ground.’
‘He does that,’ Clive Sherwin replied casually. ‘He plays the mole when he wants to play the mole. If he don’t want to be found, he won’t be found.’ Sherwin glanced to his left at the tape recording machine. The light was off, the spools stationary. ‘This is not being recorded?’
‘No.’ Brunnie smiled. ‘This is unofficial, just a casual chat, all nice and cosy.’
‘There’s nothing cosy about a police station,’ Sherwin replied sourly. He was a well-built, muscular man — pleasant, easy on the eye, Brunnie thought; a comfortable six-footer; a man whom women would find attractive, and very tidy indeed. . decorative. . edible in the extreme.
‘Dare say that depends upon your situation — you realize you are looking at life if we can convict you of the murder of Dunwoodie?’
‘If. .’ Sherwin sneered.
‘We have a witness. How do you think we found you? He heard you address the other geezer as Rusher. A record check — only one felon in the Smoke known as Rusher, and you get flagged up as an associate.’
‘So I heard. . that photofit you showed at the removals depot looked nothing like me. Your witness was way off.’
‘Oh, that wasn’t an E-FIT of you or Rusher, that was just an old E-FIT from an unrelated case — my governor just handed it round to collect a few fingerprints.’
Clive Sherwin’s jaw sagged. ‘You can do that?’
‘Oh yes, we do it all the time, believe me. We can’t use any fingerprints gathered in that manner to aid the prosecution’s case, but it helps us to let us know who we are dealing with. We like to know who we are up against. E-FITs are useful that way — lovely glossy surface, ideal for gathering fingerprints. Tell me about Gail Bowling.’
‘Nothing to tell.’
‘She seemed to be in charge of the import/export depot.’
‘Did she?’
‘Is she linked to Yates in any other way. . other than business?’
‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘You would. You’re just not saying. OK, probably safer to say nothing. So what will you tell them?’
‘Them?’
‘Yates, Bowling, Rusher. . they will know you’ve been lifted — they’ll want to know everything that was said.’
Sherwin looked at Brunnie with wide appealing eyes, like a salesman desperate to make a sale. ‘You’re in deep, Clive. Very deep. Too deep.’
Sherwin remained silent but Brunnie knew that he had the man’s attention.
‘You see, Clive. . you don’t mind if I call you Clive? You’re not a bad lad, not really. OK, so you could be looking at life for the murder of J.J. Dunwoodie, but that doesn’t mean you’re bad. . not. . evil bad, just easily led. You met Rusher in the army, I believe?’
‘Yes. He stood up for me.’
‘Did he?’
‘Yes.’
‘So you feel you owe him?’
‘Yes. . there were some heavy boys in the army. A lot of money lending went on, Rusher looked after me.’
‘I see. . hence the feeling of owing him something?’
‘Yes, reckon you could put it like that. . reckon you could.’
‘Or did he just want to put some sense of debt and loyalty into you so you’d be useful to him one day? Geezers do that you know.’
‘Do they?’
‘Yes. . yes, they do, happens all the time. So did you and Rusher do any more jobs for Yates?’
‘This is off the record?’
‘It isn’t happening at all, my good mate, we are not even here.’
‘OK, well a few. We got teamed up. We worked well together.’
‘With Rusher the wheel man?’
‘Wheel man?’
‘In the lead.’
‘Oh, yes, Rusher always decided what we’d do and how we’d do it.’
‘Always you two?’
‘No, usually but not always. “Mongoose Charlie” was there as well sometimes, if it was a three-hander. Rusher liked Mongoose because he was handy if you got into a proper skirmish, or if the mark was putting up resistance — but Mongoose and Rusher, they’d argue, and I never argued with Rusher because he knew best.’
‘And he’d looked after you when you were in the forces?’
‘Yes.’
‘We’ve heard of Mongoose. .’
‘So why talk to me?’
Brunnie paused. ‘Look, Clive. .’ He glanced up at the opaque panes of glass set high in the walls of the interview room, then down at the orange hessian carpet. ‘I’ll be straight with you.’
‘OK.’
‘We are closing in on Yates. We are closing in and we are going to close him down. For good. We have been interested in him for a long time, a lot of summers. . the Murder Squad, the Drug Squad, and we want as many of his lieutenants as we can get as well. He’s not hiding behind the likes of Michael Dalkeith any more; he’s going to eat porridge, mucho, mucho porridge. He’s going down big time.’
‘His lieutenants? He’s not in the army.’
Brunnie smiled, ‘Just an expression. We want his right-hand men, the top fitters.’
‘Like “Mongoose Charlie”. . like Gail Bowling, you mean?’
‘Yes, like them.’
‘I knew it had to come.’
‘It had to come?’
‘The end.’
‘It’s been a long time coming, but it’s now just round the corner.’
‘So soon?’
Brunnie smiled and nodded. ‘We can work something out for you.’
‘Work something out?’
‘You’re talking to me. If you carry on talking like this, you could talk yourself into a new life.’
‘I heard. . new name?’
‘New place to live. . it’s called witness protection.’
‘Like I said, I’ve heard of it. They say it doesn’t work.’
‘Well, they’re bound to say that; they don’t want you squealing like a stuck pig, telling us where the bodies
