‘ Get in the car.’ Loz pointed to the brown Benz. It had stopped close by.
‘ Not until I know where I’m going.’ Hodge dug his heels in with a show of bravado.
‘ To see the boss.’
‘ Not good enough.’
Loz eyed him with pissed-off contempt. ‘Look, I don’t give a monkey’s fart whether you get in or not — and nor does my boss. You can fuck off back on the ferry if you want, but don’t even think of going back to the apartment if you do. The hospitality will have ended. Just fuck off back to England.’
‘ I’ve got something your boss wants.’
‘ Yeah, sure,’ Loz sighed. ‘Just make your mind up.’ He walked to the car and opened a rear door, made a sweeping gesture with his good hand, as a footman might, and raised his eyebrows.
The spur of the moment saw Hodge climb in. The prospect of a share in fifty million pounds overwhelmed him and made the danger seem worthwhile.
Loz sat in the front seat next to the driver. He slid on a pair of shades and gave a quick wave to a cop lounging by a police car. The Mercedes swung round on the harbour and headed towards San Sebastian.
‘ What happened to your hand?’ Hodge asked.
‘ I stuck it in a lion’s mouth.’
It is never a good thing to walk out of a briefing feeling that you have been lied to, but that is exactly what Henry Christie did that afternoon. He left the classroom and wandered out of the training school into the car park which had once been a parade square.
Henry easily and affectionately remembered the early days of his police service — the mid-1970s — when drill had still been a big part of a Probationer Constable’s curriculum and he had marched everywhere. Now very little drill was done. The modern philosophy was that discipline and responsibility should come from within a person, rather than from the parent-like authority of the organisation, via a drill pig.
Henry had hated drill. Not having any natural rhythm (on the dance-floor he was a ludicrous spectacle), he had been uncoordinated and gangling — particularly as a spotty, pasty-faced youth of nineteen; he was often out of step, having to constantly readjust and re-time his stride with a series of silly shuffles. He could never take marching seriously. Even then, when he knew no different, he thought it was a complete waste of time. Consequently he had suffered much ritual humiliation and tongue-lashings by Drill Sergeants, usually for his lack of timing, often for having hair that was too long (very early in his service, he had been literally dragged to the Force joiner, a position no longer in existence, who also doubled as a barber: the man scalped Henry without mercy) and for his untidy uniform and non-regulation socks and shoes. In those days, being a bit of a rebel, he insisted on wearing black socks with coloured flecks in them and black brogues, as opposed to the prescribed black socks and plain-fronted black shoes or boots.
These days, he in turn often complained bitterly about the standard of recruits, their cockiness and slovenly appearance… such was the perspective of age.
Henry perched his backside on the wing of the XJS and unhooked his mobile phone from his belt. He tapped in a number.
It was, as they say in the world of the undercover cop, ‘scam time’.
This was the most enjoyable part of the job. Daily trying to think up ways of setting up villains for a fall, yet protecting all the players and informants along the way. Plotting against the bastards with the only limit being imagination and creativity. The beauty of it being that no matter how outlandish the plot, if it seemed remotely feasible, then it would be attempted.
Henry had once concocted a beautiful one which had taken only a few weeks to jack up and execute. It had been the ‘scamming’ of a bent solicitor in Carlisle who was strongly suspected of laundering money for the criminals he defended. The set-up had included going into a police station posing as contracted painters and decorators without anyone who worked there, other than the Superintendent in charge of the station, knowing they were undercover cops. Henry and a small team actually redecorated the custody suite and at the same time installed miniature cameras, which recorded sound too, in one of the interview rooms. These devices were connected to a transmitter fitted secretly on the roof of the police station which beamed sound and pictures a mile across town to an office which had been rented for the operation.
The next part of the scam involved the use of two U/C officers from the South of England and their real arrest on suspicion of possession of drugs; the timing of this had to coincide with a period when the bent brief was on call as the duty solicitor.
It worked like a dream. The solicitor was requested by the ‘prisoners’, who then embroiled him unwittingly into the seam, but willingly into a conspiracy involving?300,000, a stash of cocaine and some false passports. He was subsequently arrested and convicted, and received six years for his troubles.
The operation highlighted another danger facing U/C cops: sometimes they got arrested together with their targets and there is no possible way of saying to the Custody Officer, ‘Oh, by the way, I’m really a cop.’ For one thing, they won’t believe you, but if they did, they would still detain you and then your troubles would really begin.
Henry had once been arrested. It had been a real arse-twitching, bottle-testing time, sitting in a cell with a dry mouth, wondering if it was going to work out without his cover being blown, or whether he would be spending a week on remand where the possibility of recognition was very real.
Henry held the mobile phone to his ear. It rang for a short time and then was answered, making his stomach lurch.
‘ Is that Gary Thompson?… It’s Frank Jagger here…’ Scam time had begun.
They drove out of San Sebastian and immediately began to climb the excellent but winding highway which snaked across the centre of La Gomera. Soon they were on top of the island. The air was clear and the brilliant blue sky seemed close enough to touch.
Then they were in the cloud forest, high trees either side of the road, obscuring views but with occasional breaks through which spectacular vistas could be glimpsed.
‘ I need a cigarette,’ Loz said to the driver, who had yet to speak. ‘What about you?’ he asked over his shoulder to Hodge.
‘ You bet.’ He was gasping.
‘ Pull in here,’ Loz indicated to the driver. It was a lay-by next to the road with a sign indicating a viewpoint.
The Mercedes slowed and edged off the road, tyres scrunching on the loose stones. Loz dived out and meandered to a bench which he leaned against, blinking at the scenery.
Hodge came up behind him, cigarette in the corner of his mouth. ‘Where we going?’
‘ You’ll see soon.’
They smoked in silence until Loz stamped his cigarette out and turned to Hodge who had just finished his. ‘Time to go.’
The driver, who had approached quietly, slid a black hood over Hodge’s head, drew a string tightly around his neck and wrestled him to the ground. Loz assisted him to strap Hodge’s hands together with tape and drag him to the Mercedes, where they threw him bodily across the back seat.
Danny spent the day reading everything that had accumulated from the murders of Cheryl, Spencer and the unidentified male. Even in such a short space of time, masses of material — intelligence, evidence and dross — had accumulated. She studied it all carefully in the hope that her detective’s mind would find the missing link, or hit on that one vital piece of information everyone else had missed, slot everything together and come up with some answers.
It did not happen.
Although she acknowledged her ‘action’ was probably a key to the whole thing, the most likely avenue for a result in the short term was through the garage owner, Peter Maynard. Three people don’t just get murdered in your business premises without you knowing something about it.
