Two Faced (Harry Tyler Book 2) (11 page)

‘Thanks, Dawn.’

‘Here’s a toothbrush.’

He took the toothbrush from her, noting that she had already squirted enough paste on it to freshen up Esther Rantzen.

‘Ta.’

‘Don’t thank me, this is the one I use to clean the toilet with.’

Harry smiled. ‘You still look great, girl.’

‘Shall I ring your wife and let her know where you are?’

He looked at her. The way he felt now, he wouldn’t have cared if she had.

‘No,’ he said finally. ‘I’ll square that one later.’

‘Thinks you’re working, does she? Bet she loves being constantly lied to and kept in the dark. I know I did.’

‘Oi, it was you that cheated on me, Dawn. Don’t forget that.’

‘You want a coffee?’

‘No, ta, just some water.’

‘For Christ’s sake Harry, go and get in the spare bed and sleep it off. I’ve gotta go out. Be back in four hours or so.’

He didn’t argue. Dawn steered him into the spare room by the elbow.

‘When I get back I don’t wanna find you in my bed. Nor in me knickers drawer neither.’

‘OK. Thanks, darling.’

‘I am NOT your darling.’

Harry blew her a kiss and slumped between the sheets. He came to just before 6pm. He could hear his ex-wife moving about downstairs. She had placed a towelling dressing gown at the end of the bed. He put it on and wandered down to the kitchen. Dawn handed him a glass of murky-looking liquid.

‘What’s that?’

‘Olive oil, tomato ketchup, raw egg yolk, salt, pepper, Tabasco, Worcestershire sauce and vinegar. The best hangover cure known to man.’

Harry didn’t look sure.

‘The olive oil flushes out your liver, the raw egg cleans out the toxins from the booze, the ketchup boosts your immune system with anti-oxidants …’

‘When did you get so smart?’

‘The day I left you.’

Harry took a sip and pulled a face.

‘Can I have a shot of vodka in this to perk it up?’

‘No, you silly bugger. What you need is a banana as well to restore potassium but I’ve not got any of them so I’ve made you a corned beef sandwich. You’d better eat it.’

He sat at the kitchen table opposite her.

‘Sorry, Dawn, I shouldn’t have come.’

She lit up a Silk Cut and sighed smoke towards him.

‘So, you’re finished with your guy then?’ Harry asked.

‘Yeah, it was going nowhere. Bernard. Nice man but a little strange. His family were hounds but he’s respectable, a top accountant.’

‘From round here?’

‘No, North London.’

‘How was he strange?’

‘He …’Dawn hesitated. ‘He …’

‘What?’

‘Well, he was straight as a dye, really successful and all that. But he believed …’

Dawn collapsed in a fit of giggles.

‘What?’

‘He believed that God was an astronaut and the world is run by lizard men, like that David Icke does.’

‘Lizard men?’

‘Yeah. Prince Philip is a lizard, George Bush, Bin Laden, Putin, Saddam. All these world leaders are lizards according to him. One day I asked him why, if George Bush was a lizard and Bin Laden was a lizard, did they hate each other? And he said, “Where did you read it? In the papers. And who runs the papers? Lizard men.”’

‘Crack up! How did you keep a straight face?’

‘I couldn’t. I had to avoid the subject all the time. On every other level he was normal, it was just the lizard thing.’

‘How do you know he weren’t a lizard? Did he have a scaly cock?’

‘NO!’

‘I had a chameleon once, dropped it on a tartan rug and wore the fucker out.’

‘That is a bad gag, Harry.’ She laughed.

‘Is Eddie Izzard a lizard? Is Steve Irwin the lizard of Aus?’

She held her hand up to stop him.

‘So has there been anyone else in your life then, after the lizard man?’

‘No, only me rampant rabbit … but what’s that got to do with you?’

‘Just curious.’

‘Where’s this going, H?’

‘Matter for you, sarge. But I wouldn’t mind crashing the night, I need some space to get me head together. No sex, just stay here?’

‘Harry, when you used to say that it meant I had to get me twangers on.’

‘Nah, look, I’ll take you for a nice Italian as a thank-you for putting up with me and afterwards I promise I’ll behave.’

‘OK.’

‘Absolutely no sex.’

‘No sex.’

He kissed her gently on the lips.

‘Just a little snuggle.’

They sank into her bed at 10.15pm. ‘No sex,’ Dawn whispered. She turned her back to him.

‘No sex,’ said Harry as he spooned his body against her and slipped a hand around her stomach. Just the smell of Dawn excited him. She felt his hardness against her and didn’t pull away.

‘You can massage my shoulders if you like.’

‘You’d better slip your nightie off then,’ he said.

‘Why?’

‘It gets in the way.’

Even in the half-light, Harry could see the faded bruises and scratch marks on Dawn’s back. He rubbed them tenderly.

‘How did you do this?’

‘What?’

‘These bruises.’

‘Oh,’ she said, pausing just a moment too long. ‘I was just mucking about with Tracy’s boys. They’re a handful now. They don’t know their own strength.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Don’t go all Sherlock Holmes on me, Harry.’

‘OK.’

‘Just get on with the job in hand.’

‘Yes, sarge.’

They made love twice before sheer physical exhaustion overpowered his libido.

Dawn woke Harry up at 9am with two rounds of bacon sandwiches and a mug of hot tea; she slipped back into bed with him as he ate.

‘So, you’re doing well?’ she asked.

‘Ticking over, can’t complain. You?’

‘Fine.’

‘Sure?’

‘Yeah. Does this feel a bit awkward to you?’

‘No. To be honest it feels just right.’

‘What was that about last night then?’

‘A clear case of déjà screw.’

‘Be serious, Harry. I’m confused. It’s like we haven’t seen each other for so many years, and here we are shagging again. I mean, I don’t even know what’s happened in your life. I know you’re still in the job, which doesn’t surprise me, but you were rambling away incoherently about your undercover work. How long have you been doing that now?’

‘On and off for the best part of sixteen years.’

‘You ever been caught out?’

‘Not yet.’

‘So what was the best “infiltration”?’

‘The best result was putting Johnny Too away, the Baker gang out of South London.’

‘I saw that on the news.’

‘But the most enjoyable case was a few years ago when I had to get into the road crew of a shock rock band, a right lairy bunch of scumbags. They were running drugs, handguns, all sorts. It’s a long story.’

‘And will I have to wait another ten years to hear it?’

‘Say the word and I’m back here tomorrow, doll.’

Dawn hesitated for a heartbeat.

‘You enjoy your work, Harry?’

‘Love it.’

‘As much as sex?’

‘Almost.’

‘Really?’ Dawn reached under the covers and caressed Harry’s cock. He put what was left of his sandwich on the bedside table.

‘Maybe I’m exaggerating,’ he grinned, reacting immediately to her touch. ‘There ain’t nothing in the world as good as this …’

Harry got home at 2.37pm. The house was empty, but Kara’s clothes were still in the wardrobe. He undressed and got into bed. It was 8pm when he heard the front door slam. He heard Kara’s footsteps on the stairs as she put the children to bed. He feigned sleep but his wife never came in. She slept in the spare room.

When Harry went down to breakfast, Kara was standing over the washing machine. She didn’t turn around.

‘Morning, love,’ he chirped.

‘Where have you been?’

‘Up North.’

‘No,’ she said turning towards him. ‘Since you came back.’

Harry looked at her blankly.

‘They rang yesterday to tell you the funeral is next Thursday. And, Harry, I don’t use Fabreeze. Your clothes have been washed in it.’

‘I …’

‘Shut up. I don’t want any more of your lies. I don’t want anything. I’m going out with the kids, and when we come home we want you out of our life. Do you understand, Harry? We don’t want you no more.’

O
ctober 25, 1987.
‘Pump up the volume, pump up the volume, DANCE! DANCE!’

Bob Stovell turned off the radio as he parked. He didn’t mind Gillingham; he had never had any agg here. Stovell pulled up the handbrake of the security van and stared long and hard into the near-side wing mirror. He was on the lookout for anyone suspicious, anyone loitering. A slim, pimply young man in a leather windbreak was holding his gurgling baby above his head and laughing at their reflection in a darkened window. Two teenage girls idled along trying to look older than they were, although the Rick Astley lapel badges conspired against them. And what was this? Stovell noticed a large, powerfully built geezer smoking a fag in the recess of the shop window next door to the North Kent Building Society. Stovell tensed. A maroon Ford Granada driven by a woman pulled up. The big man smiled and then hurried across the pavement to get in. Stovell watched the car drive off and relaxed. It was always the same; he saw an armed robber in every shop front. He had been robbed at gun-point last year and to his great embarrassment had soiled his pants. That would never happen again.

Phil Letts, his assistant guard, tightened the strap on his blue crash helmet and glanced across at him. Bob nodded. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘It’s all clear.’ Both men got out of the vehicle and crossed the cold, wet pavement at a brisk pace. A sleety wintry shower was drawing an evening curtain of darkness down behind it. At least the building society was warm. Stovell and Letts smiled courteously at the staff and knocked on the door of the cash office at the far end of the shop. Rose, the shop manageress, let them in. She smiled at both, but held Phil Letts’s eyes the longest.

‘Roll on Christmas,’ she said. ‘We need something to cheer us up.’

‘Christmas, Rose?’ said Stovell. ‘Blimey, we’ve only just had summer, ain’t we?’

‘It seems a lifetime ago,’ Rose replied dreamily. ‘Where did you go, anywhere nice?’

‘I took the wife and kids to Benidorm. Phineas Fogg here went to Butlin’s in Bognor Regis.’

‘Bognor!’ Rose laughed. ‘I thought you’d be getting those big strong legs brown in the sun, Phil. Does your wife like Butlin’s?’

‘I’m not married.’

Rose smiled, noting his embarrassment. ‘That’s a waste,’ she said. ‘So, any other pick-ups to do today, boys?’

Bob Stovell nodded. ‘One more but we’re running half-hour late, bloody traffic’s a nightmare. And I’ve got to get the kids from their gran’s on the way home.’

Rose glimpsed at Letts. ‘Never mind, eh? Soon be home in the warm, then out on the pull no doubt.’

Letts blushed, aware of the older woman’s interest but uncertain how to respond to her. ‘Just four ten-grand bags to go,’ she said, offering Letts the form to sign. Rose then handed him four sealed red bags. All the bags they used were colour coded. Red was £10k, yellow meant £5k and green bags were £20K. As custodian, it was Phil’s responsibility to sign for the money. He then placed all four bags into an empty, larger bag that he had been carrying under his arm.

‘Right, we’ll be off then,’ said Bob Stovell. ‘See you Friday.’

He never felt like small talk when they had the money. Rose smiled. ‘See you then,’ she said. The two security guards hurried through the customer area of the shop. Stovell opened the exit door and looked up and down the street. He nodded to Letts, who was holding the money bag, and they stepped out briskly and turned left towards the security van.

As they emerged, a figure rushed at them from the far side of their vehicle. He was dressed all in black and wearing a motorcycle helmet with a darkened visor. In his hands was a double-barreled sawn-off shotgun. Bob stopped in his tracks. His right arm shot out to stop Letts. Now, a second helmeted figure jumped from the rear doors of a white Ford Transit van parked on the pavement to their right. This man, also dressed in black, was armed with a sawn-off pump-action shotgun. Both were running at them. ‘GIVE US YOUR FUCKIN’ MONEY!’ yelled the first robber. ‘Or I will BLOW your FUCKIN’EADSOFF!’

The second man was screaming too. ‘Give him the money or I’ll fuckin’ DO YA!’

Both guards froze. The first man rammed Phil Letts in the face with the butt of his shooter. Letts felt his nose crack as the claret exploded. Stovell was luckier – he only had his legs kicked away from under him. Before he hit the ground, the bag was gone and both assailants were heading for the tranny. Phil Letts was screaming, ‘STOP THEM!’ but nobody responded. No one wanted to know. The men were into the back and the van doors were closing as it pulled away. The whole blag had taken under twenty seconds. ‘Cunts,’ said Letts, who was holding a handkerchief to his nose. Bob Stovell said nothing. He had shit himself again.

Three days later a similar scene was acted out in nearby Maidstone. This time £65,000 was snatched by four armed men dressed in black and all wearing motorcycle helmets with darkened visors. Again, a security guard was smashed in the face. He had his nose and cheekbone broken. Although both crimes were in Kent, the Sweeney took charge of the investigation. The name derived from Sweeney Todd, Cockney rhyming slang for Flying Squad; a section of top Metropolitan Police detectives set up specifically to take on the violent elite of armed robbers – blaggers! – who were plaguing the capital. London banks and building societies had suffered almost twenty similar robberies over the previous three years. The perpetrators operated in teams of between three to six, depending on the size of the job. In each case, the custodians had been hit returning to security vans or Post Office remittance vans.

Since 1984, the villains had racked up in excess of three-quarters of a million pounds.

There had been plenty of nods from the detectives’ snouts but no one really knew who the team was. Grasses grassed, the same old faces had their front doors spanked in and the usual suspects were lifted but the Sweeney kept drawing a blank. Whoever these villains were, they were as discreet as they were ruthlessly efficient.
DI Andy Martin had served as a DC and a DS on the Sweeney and now felt honoured to be running his own Flying Squad team. He was a squad man through and through, proud to wear the Sweeney’s distinctive ‘club tie’ – a swooping golden eagle, talons like daggers reaching down to grab the unsuspecting robbers. Martin’s team had been tasked with the seemingly impossible mission of identifying these bad boys and putting them away. The sheer scale of the robberies was causing the Met serious embarrassment, which meant the pressure from above was unrelenting.

Martin lit an Embassy and sank back in the chair in his tiny Barkingside office. On the desk in front of him was a half-drunk cup of strong black coffee and every report on every crime the mystery ‘crash helmet team’, as they had been dubbed by the press, had ever pulled off. There were several common features: the gang’s attire, the words they used, the ruthless use of unnecessary violence and the fact that the getaway vehicles were always abandoned near a footbridge over a railway line or river. All the getaway vehicles had been stolen and professionally ‘rung’ to another vehicle of the same make and colour. All of the real vehicle identities had been obtained from cars on car-fronts from other parts of England, lessening the chance of a real owner spotting a clone of their own motor. Martin read the reports over again as if hoping for some small piece of fresh info that could trigger a revelation. His head began to droop forward as exhaustion set in. He was an inch away from dozing off when his desk phone rang.

‘DI Martin,’ he said gruffly.

‘Hello, guv, DS James – Peter James from SO11. I’m told by the CO that you’re dealing with the series of blags in London and the home counties with the fellas in crash helmets.’

Martin lit another cigarette. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Go on.’

‘Well, the Central Drug Squad were doing some photographic work in Essex when they snapped a known felon called Lenny Richards out of South London looking around the car-front they were watching. They weren’t happy with him and their surveillance team followed him back up into the Smoke, where they got him pulled by uniform. The motor he was driving was a ringer, and in his pockets he had a list of various vehicle numbers, what makes they were, and a list of identical vehicles that all seem to be on car-fronts in the Essex area.’

The information was aural caffeine to Martin, who snapped wide awake.

‘Go on.’

‘So, he’s well nicked and it tops up he’s on a bender for conspiracy to steal cars. So he’s asking to talk to someone from the Flying Squad but he won’t say why.’

‘Where’s he banged up?’

‘Kennington. They were gonna run him to a drum but got jumpy that he’d clocked ’em, so they got him tugged. He’s given his home address as “no fixed abode”.’

‘Thanks Peter. Who’s dealing at the local factory?’

‘Uniform were, but an ex-regional DC, Wally O’Reilly, has got hold of it and battened down the hatches awaiting your call.’

‘On the case.’

Fifty minutes later Martin and his DS Pat Goddard were sitting across the table in the Kennington nick interview room staring at the prisoner, Lenny Richards.

Andy Martin took a sip of black coffee and spoke. ‘I’m DI Martin, this is DS Goddard. You wanted to see us.’

Richards stared down the table, deep in concentration. His shoulders were hunched, his arms crossed. Beads of sweat began to form on his temples as he weighed up his choices one more time. He could give it all up for self-preservation or he could do the right thing – take the rap and do time. Martin took his time. This was just as difficult for him. If he came on too strong he could push Richards the wrong way, but he wasn’t going to roll over and beg. Finally he said, ‘Well, are you going to fucking talk to me or waste my time and sit there looking sorry for yourself all night?’

Richards raised his head and stared straight at Andy Martin, the guy who could bury him for three years or keep him out of a cell stinking of shit, piss and desperation. Richards was small and wiry with ferrety eyes, thin lips and a narrow, bony nose. He ran his left hand through his greasy, straggly hair and thought some more. Martin noticed that his top teeth were biting tight into his lower lip. Finally he nodded gently to himself and gave a sigh so deep it sounded as if his life-force were leaving his body.

‘I’ve got a missus and two kids, boss. That’s what I’m mulling over. I need help, there ain’t no denying that.’

‘So, what’s the problem? You help me and I’ll get them and you off the plot.’

Richards sat up straight. ‘No bird for me and a new ID for all of us,’ he said.

‘Could happen. Depends what you’re offering up.’

‘You wouldn’t be here unless you had a fair idea.’

‘Only you can set the ball rolling, Lenny. What’s the problem?’

‘Four six-foot-deep holes in the ground, I’d call that a problem.’

‘Well, you’ve just gotta trust me.’

‘No,’ Richards barked back like a wounded dog. ‘I ain’t gotta trust you or no one. That’s the point. I either sell my soul to the devil or I don’t.’

‘Mate, there ain’t no brimstone here, though you wouldn’t know it drinking this shit. This all comes down to trusting me to be an honest Joe and keeping any deals we make.’

‘Oh yeah, the famous Sweeney promise of looking after the grass.’

Martin scraped his chair backwards and began to stand. ‘Well, I’m wasting my time here. You asked to see me, Lenny, not vice versa.’

As he turned to walk away, Richards crossed the start line.

‘OK, OK, sit down. Let’s dance.’

Martin sat, pulled out his packet of Embassy and rolled one across the table to Richards. DS Goddard produced a lighter. Richards dragged in the smoke and held it in puffed cheeks for four or five seconds, then exhaled a blue-grey stream up towards the ceiling before he stubbed it out.

‘I gave up two years ago, but that still tastes sweet. I reckon I could be doing a lot of smoking over the next few years.’

‘Ball’s in your court.’

‘Here goes then. You lot have been disappearing up your own arseholes for a few years now looking for the little team who’ve been running riot with the security companies’ cash, right? The crash helmet mob who hit the Transit vans.’

Martin nodded.

Richards went on. ‘You heard of the Nelsons out of North London?’

‘No.’

‘Six brothers but one of them ain’t involved, he’s off the manor over in Essex somewhere through the pipe. There’s Nicky, he’s a vicious, spiteful bastard, I think he’s the oldest. Charles, never Charlie, David, Georgie and Richard. I forget the name of the straight one. They’re all in their late twenties, early thirties. Richard gets called the Indian ’cos he’s got a dodgy ticker. Anyway, the old man’s well known to your lot. Buck Nelson – ring a bell? He’s still up there with the top firm but don’t get his hands too dirty no more, and he is well connected through the funny handshake brigade to your lot. He holds what they call provisional grand rank or something. Word is Buck has got some top Scotland Yard bod in his lodge, and in his pocket.’

‘Well, I’m not on the square and neither is Pat.’

‘Thing is, guv’nor, these people are like spiders with big webs. My name gets out and what I’m saying and bosh, that’s it. Goodnight, Vienna. You can kiss my skinny white arse goodbye.’

‘Lenny, you have my word, this thing will be tighter than Minnie Mouse’s minge.’

Richards smiled. ‘There’s a couple of others on the firm, or was. Fella called Paul Wellings from Chatham, but he was killed in a motorbike accident in the Algarve three or four months ago, and the face you will know is Stevey Whale out of Stockwell.’

Richards paused. Martin and Goddard were looking at him blankly.

‘Fucking hell,’ said Richards. ‘I thought you were the Sweeney. You don’t know Steve Whale? He’s been going over the pavement for years. I think he’s the only one who’s done proper bird.’

‘Never mind us. You keep talking, Lenny. You’re doing a good job.’

As the night wore on, Lenny Richards gave them everything he knew about the Nelsons, their crimes and their modus operandi. He told how the blags were meticulously planned, that the firm would watch security vans as they did the same runs to the same building society branches week after week. Same days, same times. He also revealed that the security guard in Gillingham got the butt of a gun in his face just because they’d been forty minutes late and he’d kept them waiting in a freezing cold Transit van. Nicky had been right up for letting off a barrel into the guard’s legs but had thought better of it.