6
A rap on the table indicated she was ready. Mark Roscoe didn’t know her, and his detective inspector said that Phoebe Bermingham, rank of chief superintendent and uniform, was a novice – or, from behind his hand, a ‘virgin’ – at playing Gold Commander. She, ‘Ma’am’, was at the head of the table, Roscoe and his boss at the far end, and between them were representatives from Surveillance, and Firearms, and Intelligence. Hers was the only uniform on show. Roscoe had been late: Chrissie had come back from work at three that morning, had woken him and wanted to talk. He’d hardly slept till five and then had missed his wake-up call. It had been a stampede to get into Scotland Yard by seven thirty, and he was dressed badly, half shaven, his hair a mess. He had missed the croissants and coffee, and his boss had given him a foul look. Surveillance wore a suit and Firearms was smart- casual. He had a pain in his head and… She chaired briskly and he thought a paper must have been written on the conduct of a Gold Group meeting.
Did the intelligence have provenance?
If the spooks had been invited, they hadn’t shown. Most likely they hadn’t been invited because it was certain they wouldn’t attend. There was a knock on the door and a young woman half fell through it. She looked as if she’d rather be anywhere else and had a pillar-box blush as she stammered a name. Penny something. Revenue and Customs, Alpha team. Grovelling. A bus not turning up. Had walked two miles. She had a file under her arm, heavy. She dropped into the chair between Firearms and Roscoe’s boss.
Ma’am did it all again. Wasn’t pleased. Started at the beginning. Should the intelligence be believed?
Same answer. Couldn’t say, and the people who could had stayed away.
Moved on. Who was Harvey Gillot?
Roscoe’s boss said he’d been through criminal records and had drawn the big blank, except that the joker dealt in arms. Legitimate? A shrug, didn’t know. A silence. Ma’am looked at the young woman, Penny something, and gestured to her with a well-sharpened pencil.
And Penny something, in Roscoe’s opinion, gave it a good fist. ‘He’s one of the top ten independent arms dealers in the UK. To stay legal, the arms dealer, or broker, must remain inside the strictures of the Military List – it governs what weapons may be sent to which countries. Where transactions are authorised he must provide an end-user certificate that lists the items being sold, their origin and destination. Our rationale is that we don’t want our enemy in the field to be well armed, particularly if we have made those arms and sold them. So, export permission wouldn’t be given for sale to – say – Somalia, North Korea, Burma. Harvery Gillot is a big player and a target of ours. Can I summarise? We don’t want weapons bought in Minsk, shipped to a Baltic port, then transported to the Gulf, moved on to Karachi, then into the Tribal Territories and finally to Helmand where they kill a nineteen-year-old lance corporal from Leeds. All these characters in the top ten stay on the right side of legislation until a mouthwatering deal drops into their lap. Then they break the law. As I said, Harvey Gillot is a target of ours. As yet we don’t have the dirt.’
What was the significance of Croatia? Ma’am asked.
His boss queried whether they’d had a war there, maybe twenty years back, but Surveillance said that was Bosnia. His boss countered that there had been war-crimes stuff there, but Firearms chipped in that the war crime was at Srebrenica and also in Bosnia. Roscoe remembered Torvill and Dean and the Bolero music, the gold medal for skating at a Winter Olympics in Sarajevo.
Penny something coughed sharply as if to kill the blundering. She said quietly, with authority, ‘There was a United Nations embargo on the selling of weapons to all parties when Yugoslavia broke up. Under a resolution passed in September ’ninety-one it was illegal to supply Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia with weapons, and it was ignored. There was a feeding frenzy for the sale of weapons. The dealers, brokers, never had it so good. We have no record on our files of Gillot being involved.’
Was Gillot in place and selling at that time? Ma’am questioned.
‘According to our records he was taken on to the staff of an old-time dealer, Solly Lieberman, in 1984. Lieberman died in Russia in 1990, and we understand that the business and goodwill were passed to Gillot without cost. He has been on his own since then. If he was in Croatia in 1991 it would have been one of his early ventures as an independent, at only twenty-eight.’
Would she, Ma’am requested, paint a picture?
‘Well, I’ve never met him, so this is all third hand. Very clever, and verges on cunning. I’m not talking intellectual, academic. At heart, he’s a salesman – that’s his driving force. Doing deals, pushing the limits, winning through – all those matter to him. He would be cautious, suspicious, and expect us to be targeting him. Formidable, I’d say. Something else. Self-sufficient. Lives on the Isle of Portland and I have no perception of social life there, but he will stay clear of commitments, involvements, and will most certainly not want it spread about that he sells tanks, hand grenades or landmines. If it were known, he would be a pariah in the community so he’d make certain it wasn’t. But I’d expect him to be charming – sort of goes with the territory. But the business is loathsome.’
Ma’am looked at her, a stiletto glance, then launched: ‘We don’t often have the luxury of choosing who we consider worth protecting and who we don’t. Anyone, be they a convicted and released paedophile or a drugs- trafficker who has reneged on a deal with his supplier, is entitled to an efficient service. We will be mindful in this case, as in every case, of the “duty of care” owed to Mr Gillot, and his human rights as laid down by statute. We are not here to approve or disapprove of his commercial activities. We are here to prevent the very considerable crime of murder being committed and him becoming a target for a murderer.’
Didn’t they know what was required of them? Roscoe and his boss did. Firearms would know it, chapter and verse. Surveillance lived inside the restrictions imposed by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and the hoops to be jumped through before his people could do covert or intrusive surveillance on a suspect. The young woman, Penny something, had frowned at the mention of ‘duty of care’ owed to the Tango and had grimaced at ‘human rights’. Roscoe thought she’d done well, and might just have been the only one at the table who, given a blank map of the European coastlines, had a fair idea of where Croatia figured on it. He remembered.
They broke, and more coffee was brought in.
Roscoe offered the young woman a biscuit from the plate. ‘Not myself this morning. God, you told me last night… The Beatles, Penny – you’re Penny Laing. I thought you did well, and that Ma’am was impressed.’
‘Are you patronising me?’
He blinked. ‘Don’t think so, not intended.’
‘Seemed in here that no one had much of a clue what happened south of Bognor and the Channel.’
‘Right, fine. Anyway, have a nice day. Remember to send me a postcard next time you get south of Bognor.’
‘Actually, I’m hoping I’ll get a long way south. I’ll be suggesting to my team leader that we go out to Croatia, find out what Gillot was at – because it’ll be sanctions-busting and a criminal offence. Then there’s a good chance of us putting together a case, charging him.’
‘Well, let’s hope nothing inconvenient gets in the way, like him being shot first. Just a thought – don’t arms- traffickers have links with the spooks? Is that a stereotype? Aren’t they arm in arm, sort of big-brotherly protection for the trafficker, and deciding where the business is done?’
The answer was almost spat: ‘They may indeed be in bed and sweaty, but it won’t help him. They cut lesser mortals adrift, make a better job than Pilate at washing off responsibility. We go after them because we know the law is the law, and isn’t chucked out of the window for the spies’ convenience.’
Roscoe blinked again, but harder. She was a bloody crusader. God protect him from crusaders and those who made the world a better place and… He was so tired, and he had the drive in front of him. He slipped away.
‘You’ll not take me wrong, Robbie.’
‘I’m hearing you, Granddad, hearing what you say.’
It was a conversation they had not had before. He had always admired his grandfather and liked him. He knew him better – trusted him more – than he did his father.
‘You’ll not take offence?’
‘Do I ever?’
They walked along Albion Street, past the terrace of shops, fast-food outlets, the launderette and the betting shop. Across the other side was the library – no lie, Robbie Cairns had not been inside it for more than ten years – and up the road from it was the Norwegian church and the seamen’s mission. The only time he’d been inside a
