Fogarty: A City of London Thriller (35 page)

“Barrett speaking,” the gruff voice on the other end of the phone announced. Max smiled as he uttered the code
phrase he had used in the past.

“
Read all about it, Mr Barrett.”

“That’s Senior Preventive Officer Barrett to you, Richmond.” Max could hear the smile in his old friend’s voice. “How is life as a freelance, now that the News of t
he World has gone the journey?”

“We aren’t freelancers any more, Greg, we’re independents. And life is great, thanks for a
sking. You and yours doing OK?”

“Absolutely fine. Oh, by the way, thanks for the note on Mr Peters and Mr Willem. All I can say is that we are all over them like a rash already. Europol have them under surveillance, so don’t go writi
ng any stories about them yet.”

“I won’t, don’t worry, but I have some further information which should blow the case wide open for you. “ Max noticed that there was silence at the other end of th
e phone. “Are you still there?”

“I am, Max, but be careful what you s
ay. This is an unsecured line.”

Max told Greg Barrett about Florabel and the flower boxes which contained more than just carnations. He also explained that he had visited Florabel’s website and, posing as a customer, had been given a
number of references to check.

“Greg, from what the retailers say, a lorry comes over twice a week. It uses the Hull Ferry on Mondays, I think, and then comes into Harwich on Thursdays. One big InterFlora flower shop up in Darlington told me that they get deliveries weekly. My guess is that these drugs are going all around the country. I’ve called references from Darlington in the north t
o Plymouth on the south coast.”

“Max, who else knows about this? Think carefully before you answer. This is really important.”

“No-one else, as far as I know, just me. And the criminals who us
e the service, obviously. Why?”

“Last week we found drugs in boxes of flowers coming into Newhaven in containers, and we’ve been following the vans that picked them up all over the south of England. Those flowers came from the Netherlands. If what you say is true, we’re missing over half of the illegal imports because they are coming from Belgium via a genuine exporter. You’ll have to leave this with
me, Max; I’ll get back to you.”

“Greg, I don’t want to be pushy but I have to make a living. Can I be embedded into the team th
at goes in to seize the drugs?”

“Ar
e you asking for an exclusive?”

“If I can, I’ll bring a Press Association photographer along for the ride and we’ll break the story online before you go on air on the BBC News and Sky and show your
ugly mug.”

“I’ll see what I can do; no promises, though. Keep safe, Max. These are heavyweight
criminals you’re dealing with.”

***

The Assistant Chief Preventive Officer sat alongside Greg Barrett as the conference call was established. The last party, one of five, joined the call, signing in by giving his surname an
d citing his employer, Europol.

“Ladies and gentlemen, sorry for the urgent unscheduled call but I believe that we now have the missing link. I now think I know how our terrorist friends are shipping their cann
abis into the rest of the UK.”

The ACPO shared his new found information with his overseas
colleagues on the secured link.

A female voice with a distinctive Flemish accent, the only female on the group call, closed the proceedings. “Gentlemen, we need to bring the operation forward. We will take direct action against Florabel Bloemen, and Mr Willem and Mr Peters, at 8am GMT on Thursday. Gregory will apprehend the flower lorry upon its arrival in the UK, and our Dutch colleagues will move into the bonded warehouse in Rotterdam, where the last container came from.” She paused before issuing a rallying call. “Here’s hoping this will be a major blow against these drug smugglers and the terrorists they fund.”

Vine Street Crescent, Tower Hill, London.

Tuesday 23
rd
August 2011; 7pm.

Ben and Max sat at either end of the luxurious brown leather sofa which had, allegedly, once accommodated the pert posterior of Victoria Beckham. In their hands they held glasses of a ruby red wine. The label on the bottle described it as Saint Clair Pioneer Block Pinot Noir 2010 Marlborough.

Ben swilled the wine around in the glass and looked at it before taking a mouthful, running the liquid across
his palate before swallowing.

“This is a great New Zealand wine, Max. I hope you can appreciate it. It has a nose of raspberry and plum but the palate, well, that is redolent
with redcurrants and cherries.”

Max tasted the wine and agreed that it was smooth and fruity, but had to acknowledge that Ben’s palate was rather m
ore sophisticated than his own.

“The reason it’s so warm and flavourful is because they age it in Fren
ch oak barrels,” Ben continued.

“So, you know quite a bit about wine, then?” Ma
x asked as he took another sip.

“Not really,” Ben replied. “That was what it s
aid on the shelf at Waitrose.”

Max laughed, and red liquid spilled from his lips. Ben joined in the laughter; it had been a long day. After a few minutes of silence Max asked a serious question, after hearing about Ben’s advent
ures during the afternoon.

“Why in heaven’s name did you tell that little weasel Pennell th
at you cut Grierson’s throat?”

“I wanted him to think he was going to die in that office, Max. I wanted him to feel a little bit of what my mother felt when she saw that car aiming straight at her. I wanted to hurt him, Max, and hurt him badly. And that just isn’t me. I’m not usually like that. You know, some people think that because a person plays rugby they must somehow be predisposed to violence. That isn’t necessarily the case. They might be physically capable of it, but capability and execut
ion are very different things.”

Max sat in silence, allowing his
friend to unload his feelings.

“In the outback, with Ihaka, the old Maori elder, we had to fend for ourselves. It would have been easy to survive on docile animals like deer, and so on, but that was not his way. He had me kill and butcher wild pigs, at great cost to my family treasure. The little devils run straight at your groin. I have never really thought about killing since, until I saw Mary earlier today. When I saw what those animals had done to two old ladies, I realised then that I could kill a man and sleep easily afterwards.” Ben swilled back the last of the wine in his glass before rising in silence to collect the bottle. Walking over to Max, he held the bott
le aloft without saying a word.

“Don’t mind if I do, mate,” Max said apprecia
tively. Ben refilled his glass.

“I also told
Pannell to warn Mapperley that I was coming after him. Now, in hindsight, I accept that might not have been the wisest thing to do.” The influence of the wine was taking effect, and Ben smiled before he suddenly laughed out loud, with Max joining in. In the cold light of day, when they were both sober, they would come to realise the danger they were in. Mapperley may be a desk bound accountant, but some of London’s nastiest criminals were on his payroll.

New Scotland Yard, London.

Tuesday 23rd August 2011
; 11pm.

DCI Bob Radlett would normally have been at home with his feet up at this time of night, but he was worried. His contacts had not been able to track down Conn Parker, and that could only mean bad news. It was now clear that Conn Parker had heard about Rafe and gone into hiding, fearing, quite correctly, that he would be next. If Radlett could not find Parker before he gave himself up, Radlett’s career would be over. It was odds on, in Radlett’s estimation, that Connal Parker knew that he was in the pay of Mapperley, and such information could not be allowed into the public domain.

The DCI’s evening had been spent
on the phone, canvassing the regular haunts of the criminal underclass, leaving the incentive of a decent cash reward for anyone who helped him catch Parker. In between calls he keyed in a long alpha numeric code which was represented as stars in the bank’s dialogue box. The screen had shown that he had approximately $480,000 on deposit in a high yield account; all accounts were in US Dollars in Belize. With another $100,000 he would be able to pay off the loan on his beachfront villa before the loan fell due for settlement in September. He was tempted to transfer his remaining UK life savings, miserable though they were, into the account so that the property would be his in perpetuity, but his wife would wonder where the money was going. She would be surprised to find that she didn’t figure in his retirement plans, as would his lazy, sponging kids. “Sod ‘em all,” he thought to himself, and he sent the sterling equivalent of $102,800 to Belize with a request to use all of his liquid funds to settle the house loan. It was a risk; if he had to flee the UK he would have a nice house in Belize but no cash. Such a prospect didn’t really worry him, since he could always raise a loan on the property if he was desperate. If he could just find that prat Conn Parker, he could see out his last year or so at the Yard and retire on a full pension.

His mobile phone tril
led and he looked at the screen. The incoming call was from the Albert Arms in Elephant and Castle, south of the river.

“Radlett,” h
e announced into the mouthpiece.

“Mr Radlett,
this is Troy at the Albert Arms. We’ve got Conn Parker sitting here in the snug, nursing a pint of Guinness.”

“You need to keep him there for
the next twenty minutes if you want the money,” Radlett explained as he ended the call and picked up his jacket. Unbeknown to DCI Radlett, he had been under visual and electronic surveillance for most of the day. Now his two watchers from the IAB, Internal Affairs Bureau, were on the move. Rare visitors to the Yard, to avoid recognition, the two detectives were assigned to the Police Misconduct Section. When DCI Bob Radlett drove his Volvo out of the police garage a silver Nissan followed at a safe distance. There was little chance of the IAB boys losing the Volvo, as it had a remote tracker affixed to the inside of the rear bumper.

***

It was close to midnight when Conn Parker left the Albert Arms. The pub was located on a corner plot on Gladstone Road, which meant that all exits could be seen from a single point on the opposite side of the road. Conn was keen to get back to Marcie’s place, where he could figure how to get himself out of this mess. Marcie was an old friend who had grown too old for prostitution and now worked as a shelf stacker for Sainsbury’s. She would be on her shift by now and so he didn’t need to make polite conversation or, god forbid, have sex with the woman. There was no telling what she could pass on to him or any other bloke desperate enough to shag her.

As he walked along a Volvo E
state car drew up alongside him. He was immediately alert, ready for trouble, until he saw a man inside scratching his head and studying a London A to Z.

“
’Scuse me, mate,” the man asked in the local dialect through the open driver’s window. “Am I close to the Elephant and Castle roundabout?”

Conn
approached the car and was about to assist when the man grabbed his wrist and clamped on handcuffs, initially fastening the other end to the arm rest in the door.

“Hello
, Conn. Nice to see you. You’re nicked!” DCI Radlett said nastily.

Connal Par
ker knew he had to play it cool. He must not let on he knew what this was about, and more especially, he must not let on that he knew Radlett was bent. Even so, he was very reluctant to accompany the lone officer back to the Yard for questioning. Unfortunately, he had no choice in the matter. He was cuffed to the car door, and Radlett had threatened to drive off at speed with him still attached if he refused to cooperate. That being the case, within a few minutes they were driving across South London with Conn Parker lying on the back seat, his hands cuffed behind his back. Conn’s face was pressed to the rear passenger seat and he was unimpressed with the odours that were filling his nostrils. He tried to manoeuvre his body around.

“Sorry about the smell back there,
Conn. That’d be Granny Clayton. Wife insists on us taking her shopping, even though she’s soft in the head and wears a nappy.” He laughed at Parker’s discomfort. Conn Parker would have been even more uncomfortable if he had realised the Volvo was not in fact heading in the direction of New Scotland Yard.

***

A young Bob Radlett had played amongst the buildings scattered around Clapham Junction railway
yard with his mates in the 1970s. In those days it was still in use, and they were regularly chased away by railway personnel. Now, forty years later, the old abandoned brick buildings were stripped bare and covered in gang tags and graffiti. Pushing a gagged and terrified Conn Parker ahead of him, Radlett headed towards a square brick building with a flat concrete roof. The door was missing, but it was a long way from the street, and there was no chance of being overheard by anyone passing by. At this time of night, there was nobody around, except for a scrawny cat and a few rodents.