Fogarty: A City of London Thriller (14 page)

“Did you see where they went? Did they get into a car,
anything like that?” Ben asked.

“No, I didn
’t see where they were headed.” Lenny sipped his Guinness. He studied Ben’s reaction carefully, noting the look of disappointment on his face. He took another mouthful of Guinness, and then added, “But I know where they went.”

“Really? How do you know?” Ben
tried not to sound too hopeful.

“Because those two were in and out of
the Rectory day and night while the renovations were going on. I was the electrician on the job.”

“And where is the Rectory, Lenny?” Ben asked. Lenny looked out of the window and pointed across the common to a series of build
ings probably half a mile away.

“Over there, that’s Blackheath Vale. See those trees? Behind them is the C of E School and beside it is an old brick house. It has four floors; cellars, raised ground floor, first floor and atti
c rooms. It’s a big old house.”

“Who owns it?”

“Don’t rightly know. It did belong to some property developers but they went bust. Now, who knows? Some rich banker, I expect. Must be worth the neck end of a million around here.”

Ben knew that he had to get a look inside that Rectory. Ashley was in there, he could feel it in his bones.

***

The New Zealander walked across the great expanse of green and headed towards the Rectory, feeling somewhat exposed. The good thing was that the Rectory was shrouded in its summer foliage and no one looking out would be ab
le to see as far as the common.

When he reached Duke Humphrey Road he turned left, away from the Rectory and towards two Georgian red
brick semi detached houses that also had three floors above ground. Between these houses and the Rectory stood a modern building which housed a school. It was deserted, as it was August. Ben walked around it, in the hope that he could find a way into the Rectory from the rear, but he soon determined that there was no direct access to the property other than from the front.

Concealed by the school and the trees for the most part, Ben stealthily worked his way to the Rectory. There was a brick wall with a gap where a gate had once hung and a path leading
to five concrete steps up to the front door. Ben stood in concealment for a full five minutes before deciding that no one was looking out of the front windows. He darted in through the gate and ran to the left hand side of the house, where he was now under the cover of more dense foliage. A gate into the rear garden stood open, and so he deftly slipped through it, making no noise. He was now at the back of the house overlooking a huge private garden, which seemed out of place on the edge of the metropolis. A quick look showed him that a kitchen door and French windows at the back of the house were closed, but some of the windows were open. It was, after all, a hot summer’s day.

Ben sneaked towards one of the
open windows and crouched beneath the sill. He flapped away the wasp buzzing around his head. He could hear voices clearly now, drifting out into the still, hot air. Certain that he could not be seen, he peeked in through the window. The room was some form of formal sitting room with heavy furnishings and period decorations. Bingo!” he thought, as he watched the proceedings inside the room. A seated Dennis Grierson groped his twin sister in a way a father never should. Pulling Ashley towards him, Grierson pulled her head down and kissed her passionately as she tried to recoil. As she pulled away, Grierson grabbed her hair and pulled her head down towards his groin, reaching for his zipper.

“That’s enough, Grierson!” Ben recognised the tremulous voice
which was tinged with fear and loathing. “I’ve done what you asked. Let Ashley go.” Grierson laughed as Lawrence Garner moved into Ben’s field of view to take his wife’s hand.

“Shit!” Ben muttered as he realised his schoolboy error. He turned to his right to see Len
ny looking at him and grinning.

“Thanks for the drink, mate,” Lenny scoffed as he fired the taser into Ben’s chest.

New Scotland Yard, London.

Tuesday 16
th
August 2011, 6pm.

DCI Coombes and DS Scott had been invited to the six o’clock meeting in the special operations room on the ground floor. The decor was trendy Metropolitan Police chic, with pale blue walls and inoffensive light blue carpeting. The furniture was uniformly light grey with dark blue upholstery, the briefing desk and lectern were the same style but they were finished in an oak coloured veneer rather than the grey melamine on the other tables.

The walls were liberally covered with
full colour posters, their messages ranging from bleak warnings about contracting Hepatitis B and Aids from concealed needles to motivational posters showing fully uniformed policemen walking into some brighter tomorrow. Every poster was branded with the Metropolitan Police logo.

“We could have another five hundred police in London if we didn’t have to pay Saa
tchi and Saatchi for these useless posters,” DCI Coombes observed as the room filled. Scott and Coombes were sitting at the back of the room in the section reserved for observers, and to amplify the point a young man in a suit placed a card on the table in front of them that read ‘OBSERVERS’. He smiled at them somewhat absently as he whizzed off to his next important assignment. DCI Coombes groaned audibly, and Scott shook with restrained laughter.

The
room was filling with plain-clothes police officers from the Drugs squad and the London Gangs Initiative. On the screen was a PowerPoint presentation that scrolled through the Met’s mission statements relating to ‘empowering communities’, ‘Substance Free London’ and ‘Protecting the marginalised in a multicultural society.’ Currently the slide showed a blue Metropolitan Police master slide with a statement in white text.

“
The MPS Drug Strategy 2010-13 'Confident, Safe and secure' has now been launched. This sets out our strategic aims and supporting delivery plan to tackle the threat and harm caused by drugs across London. It provides a framework in which our resources can be used to tackle the demand posed by drugs
.
”

“Bloody hell! Did you notice
,
Scott
,
not a single mention of policing on the slide?”

The next slide slid in from the side of the screen.

“Our performance in achieving the strategic objectives across the key activity areas will be measured through the level of public confidence and satisfaction within our communities.”

“Please start the briefing, before we all die from jargon poisoning,” Coombes begged, and almost immediately he was granted his wish as three uniformed officers walked into the room in order of time served. Each carried an identical blue folder. All three were Assistant Commissioners; the two women headed up Specialist Crime and Special Operations, whilst their male counterpart was respon
sible for Territorial Policing.

The most senior officer, AC Penelope Thomas, sat in the centre, flanked by her two colleagues. Sitting down to address the gathering of around fifty male and female police officers, AC Thom
as read from a prepared script.

“Colleagues, since the early 1980s we have faced problems policing the large development that became known as the Broadwater Farm Estate. Whilst I was not in
the service at the time, as a University student I was aware that there had been errors of judgement in the way the area was policed. Many of those mistakes have been officially recorded and apologies made, and now we have a strong link with the communities in the area.

Nonetheless, criminal gangs have been active in the area since they were driven out of the East End of London in the 1970s and now they have risen again. I am quite satisfied that the riots were not gang related, but we do have eviden
ce that gangs became involved.

Members of two such gangs, the N17 Postcode Gang and the Trafalgar House Flats Gang, are in custody and in secure hospital accommodation. Information gathered by our colleagues in Central Operations,” she nodded to the lady on her left
, who acknowledged her remark with a smile, “and Territorial Policing”, she looked at the man on her right, “means that now we have sufficient data to launch an operation. May I introduce you to Operation Bilbao?”

The screen changed and the title of the operation lit up the screen. It was s
hown written in an exotic font.

“My God, we’re even market branding the operations now,” Coombes whispered to DS
Scott, none too quietly. AC Thomas waited for the nods of appreciation of the carefully selected operational tag and then continued.

“Consequently we will be launching the operation on two flanks.” An aerial photo of Tottenham popped up on the screen. “Bilbao
One will confront suspects believed to be members of the N17 gang.” The screen now showed a red line around half of the aerial photo and the words Bilbao One faded in, the text in matching red. “Bilbao Two will address the Trafalgar House Flats.” A blue perimeter was added to the slide, showing the flats before blue text appeared, confirming this was the target area for Bilbao Two.

“We will be going into both areas simultaneously at five forty five in the morning. One hundred and twenty two officers have been called in to take part in Operation Bilbao and to assist those of you in this room. The operational details are being distributed now and Bilbao One and Bilbao Two team leaders will brief you later. Any questions?”

“Are we going in hard and heavy, Ma’am?”
one middle aged officer asked.

“We will be well armed and protected
, and we will use the force necessary to make the arrest, and that is all. So no, ‘hard and heavy’ is not an expression that sits comfortably with the vision of a modern police service.”

Coombes and Scott could hardly contain their agitation. This was the woman who ordered plain clothes policemen to shoot an innocent man in the head on a
crowded tube train, yet she was now lecturing others about excessive force.

The meeting soon broke up and the Assistant Commissioners walked out in order. The room became noisy and disorderly as the police officers came to terms with t
heir roles in Operation Bilbao.

DCI Trevor Griffiths, Griff to his friends, approached DCI Coombes and DS Scott. Griff was tasked with heading up operation Bilbao Two, the roun
ding up of the TH Crew.

“Hello, there,
Terry.” He addressed DCI Coombes as an old friend, his Welsh accent still strong after fifteen years in London. “It seems we have the two of you to thank for the information on the TH Crew. We might get a conviction on little Robbie’s case after all this time. His mother still lives in the flats, you know. Must be a right to do, living in the flats with your son’s killer and not knowing who did it or why.”

“It was the same old story, Guv,
” DS Scott chimed in. “The kid didn’t mean to kill anyone, he was just sent to scare off a member of another gang.”

“That just makes it all the more tragic, that does.” Griff shook his head. “Will you be joining us in th
e support van in the morning, Terry?”

“Didn’t know we were invited,” Coomb
es replied, a little surprised.

“Well, it’
s my show now and you’re welcome, if you can be arsed to get up at four in the morning. Will the AC’s never learn that we could go around at ten in the morning and still catch these lazy bastards in bed?” Griff laughed, and Scott and Coombes joined in. “Until tomorrow, then, boys.” Griff shook the hands of both men and strode off to talk to another detective.

The Rectory, Duke Humphreys Road, Blackheath, London.

Tuesday 16
th
August 2011; 6pm.

Ben Fogarty paced restlessly around the locked cellar, looking for some means of escape but finding no encouragement. The ceiling was almost twelve feet from the ground and the walls were all brick and plaster. The renovations had sealed off the only window, and the sole means of ventilation was a galvanised steel louvred shutter door on the inside wall, paired with an equivalent stainless steel louvre on the external skin of the wall. The louvre looked out over the rear garden, which meant that attracting the attention of any passers by was going to be difficult, if not impossible.

Ben had to keep moving. His muscles were cramping in reaction to the electrical discharge that
had surged through his body earlier. The floor was clean and was covered in contract carpeting, the hard-wearing kind often found in offices, so Ben took advantage and ran through a sequence of floor exercises and isometrics. Squats, crunches and stretches were intermingled with running on the spot and skipping with an imaginary rope. He was soon perspiring, even though the cellar was cool despite the late British summer heat outside.

There was a tap at the door
, followed by a man’s voice.

“Stand against the back wall, Fogarty. W
e’ve brought some food for you.” Ben did as he was told; he could cover that distance in a second whilst aiming a disabling blow at any man who stood in the doorway. As the door swung open, Ben saw Lenny pointing a handgun in his direction. A woman came into view carrying a tray. She was lithe and athletically built, around five feet ten inches in height, and she would probably be lost in a size twelve dress. As she looked up from the tray he saw her eyes. He had seen the same eyes many times before, in the mirror. Lenny began to close the door.