‘We’ll not know until we break the door down.’
‘A frontal assault?’
‘This time. There’s not a lot of space around the back.’
Isaac and Larry stood back, about forty feet from the front door of the house. A voice, amplified by a megaphone, could be heard. ‘This is the police. Lay down your weapons and exit the house.’ No response. One more time. ‘This is the police. Please lay down your weapons and exit the house.’
After sixty seconds, the front door of the house was knocked open with an enforcer, a specially designed battering ram. From in the house, a shot. ‘Back off,’ the lead officer ordered. The police retreated out of the line of fire.
‘Throw out your weapons,’ the lead officer shouted. Inside the house, no noise, bar a door banging on its hinges.
‘We can’t use tear gas,’ the lead officer said as he came over to Isaac and Larry. ‘If there’s someone old and infirm or with breathing difficulties in an adjacent house, it could do them harm. We’ll just have to rush the house.’
‘You’re the experts. Just let us know when it’s clear, and we’ll come and take charge of them.’
Twelve minutes later, watches coordinated, one team entered at the front, another held firm at the rear. A brief flurry of gunfire, and then the all clear. Isaac and Larry moved forward once the signal had been given. Three men came out of the building, securely wedged between the police officers, their hands cable-tied.
‘Where’s Negril Bob?’ Isaac asked as he looked at the three men.
‘He’s not here,’ one of the three replied. Isaac had seen him around before. The man had a scar on the left-hand side of his face and a surly manner.
‘Which two of you were with Negril Bob when Rasta Joe was killed?’
‘None of us,’ one of the other three said.
‘Samuel Devon? What can you tell me about him?’
‘Never heard of him. What are you doing here, arresting us? We were watching the television, having a few drinks. We were going to get a few women over tonight, as well.’
‘They can visit you in the cells at Challis Street,’ Larry said.
‘Very funny,’ the first of the three said, ‘a regular comedian. Our lawyer will deal with this false arrest. He’ll haul your sorry arses through the courts.’
‘There’s nothing false here,’ Larry said.
Isaac made a phone call to Wendy. ‘Get over to Charisa Devon’s place with some uniforms, check that she’s alright.’
‘Problems?’
‘We’ve not found Negril Bob.’
Chapter 15
Jeremy Brice’s radio programme was enjoying record ratings, his contacts within the political arena were firm, and his biting invective was at its very best. It had been some time since his daughter’s death; enough time to get over the initial sorrow and to move back into the house where she had died. Nevertheless, he had a sense of foreboding.
That day, he had had the prime minister in his studio; the man was floundering in the polls, and another scandal was about to engulf him, and he had let him off. There would be criticism from the other political commentators, aspersions about why Jeremy Brice, the most vexatious interviewer, had let the prime minister off when he had him on the ropes. The chancellor of the exchequer had fudged the figures on unemployment to portray the state of the economy in a better light than it was. It was a lie given in Westminster; a lie that should ensure a resignation, but the numbers were tight between the governing party and those on the opposition side, and the prime minister could not afford to lose an experienced debater, let alone someone who supported him in the party room.
Brice knew this, having regarded the PM and his chancellor as personal friends, though it wouldn’t stop him laying into them when the situation demanded, and it certainly did that day, but he had let the man off the hook.
‘What is it, Brice?’ the owner of the radio station asked. ‘Have you lost it? You had the man where you wanted him.’
Brice did not like the man, regarded him as charmless and uncouth, but he knew that he was right. On the one hand, he was in the studio with a microphone in front of him and on the other, he was reading the messages on his phone, checking the latest news on the internet: a shootout in London, not far from where he lived.
He knew that his daughter, knowingly or otherwise, would remain a thorn in his side, and he cursed her. He had loved her as a father loves his child, but she had grown into a mature woman who couldn’t keep the one man she should have married. And then there were the men she spent time with: gangsters, hustlers, pimps. He never knew if Amelia had sold herself, but why the men? The scum of society, lacking in finesse and class, a world laterally opposed to the upbringing that she had had. The best of schools, trips to the continent, skiing in Switzerland in winter, the Caribbean in summer. And in the end, after Quentin Waverley had moved on to Gwen Happold, she had found love and lust in the arms of the criminal classes, downing drinks in the pub, no more than a serving wench, no more than a whore.
It had been the same with her mother; as beautiful as the daughter. Jeremy Brice remembered when they had met; he, the up-and-coming political reporter, she, a fashion designer. They had instantly been attracted to each other, made love that first day, and had been inseparable, their lives blessed with a beautiful daughter. And now, mother and daughter were both dead.
The love for his wife had faded after ten, or maybe it was eleven, years. Her need to stay young, to take young lovers; his
