Brock And Kolla - 09 - Spider Trap (24 page)

Brock walked on. The man under the tree had both hands in the pockets of a long coat, a scarf around his neck, face hidden in the shadow of the brim of a hat, and it wasn’t until he cleared his throat with a spittly grunt that Brock realised, with a surge of heat to his face, who it was.

‘Mr Brock.’

‘Spider Roach.’

‘You remember me, then? Course you do. Thought we should talk.’

The voice was weaker, hoarser, but still with something of its old menace. And as the man moved Brock recognised, even muffled by the winter clothing, the angular frame, all elbows and knees, with its stealthy stretching and sudden pouncing gestures, that was the source of his nickname.

‘That business today, with Ricky, what was the point of it?’

‘Solving crimes is what I’m paid to do.’

‘Settling old scores, more like.Your recent visits to Cockpit Lane must have stirred up old memories, eh? Put you in mind of old times. But it’s a mistake to look back, Mr Brock. That way you trip over what’s bang in front of you.’

‘You’re bang in front of me, Spider.’

‘Times have changed.Me and my sons are respectable businessmen.You’ll find that out if you do your homework properly.You and I are very different people now, older and wiser, I hope. I have ten grandchildren, four great-grandchildren, imagine that. What about yourself? That attractive wife of yours still around?’

‘She found someone better a long time ago.’

‘Too bad. And no new wife waiting for you at home, no children, no grandchildren . . .’ It wasn’t a question, Brock realised. Spider Roach had always been careful to keep himself well informed about the opposition.‘Pity,they put things in perspective. Without a family to give him a sense of proportion, a man can get obsessive about things that don’t really matter. Still, there must be other attachments, people you care for. Everyone has those.’

‘It’s cold out here, Spider. Too cold to listen to the ramblings of an old man.What do you want?’

‘What I want ...’the voice was suddenly hard,‘...is to never hear of you again. Make an effort to see that happens, eh? Make an old man happy.’

Spider Roach strode past him towards the archway, the other shadow falling in behind. Brock followed them, watching them get into a black Mercedes four-wheel drive. The interior light showed him the face of Mark Roach, the eldest son, getting in behind the wheel. As they drove away, Brock turned and walked home, thinking over Spider’s words. Inside he went from room to room, but found no signs that they had been there. He poured himself a whisky and sat down. The conversation had brought back two distinctive things about the way Spider used to work. He always took a lot of trouble to gather information about his victims, so that by the time he pounced he would know all about their family and business networks. Brock had no doubt that Spider had brought himself up to date on his situation. The other distinctive thing about Spider was the way he exerted pressure, by threatening someone close to the target, leaving them no choice. He pondered on that, and the throwaway comment about ‘other attachments, people you care for’, and the more he turned the phrase over in his mind, the more uneasy he became.

He made a list of people he cared enough about to interest Spider. It was very short, mostly connected with work. He began by phoning Kathy, then continued through the names. No one had heard from the Roaches. Finally, there was just one name left.

He hesitated, poured another drink, thumbed through his address book and dialled a long number.

‘Hello?’

‘Hello, is that Doug?’

‘Speaking.’

‘This is David Brock, Doug, in London. Suzanne’s friend.’ Was that the best choice of words?

‘Oh ...well,well.Hello,David.What can I do for you?’

‘Is Suzanne there?’

‘No, I’m afraid she’s not with us any more.’

‘What?’ Brock gripped the phone more tightly. ‘What happened?’

‘We put her on a plane last night. Ironic, isn’t it? After all this time, and you miss her by a few hours. She’s on her way home.’

‘Oh . . .’ He let out his suspended breath.‘Is she all right?’

‘Yes, fine. She’s having a couple of day’s stopover in Tokyo on the way back. Do you want to know when she gets in to Heathrow? I’ve got it here somewhere.’

Brock waited, feeling his heart rate subside. Doug came back on the line with the information.‘Better make it a big one,mate,’ he added.

‘What?’

‘The bunch of roses.You’re not exactly flavour of the month.’

‘No, I can imagine. Thanks.’ He hung up and sipped at the Scotch.

Even if Roach’s words had been meant as a threat, there was no possibility, surely, that he would have known of Brock’s friendship with Suzanne.Coming upon him like that,the silent figure waiting in the dark, the familiar features, the toneless voice, Brock had been abruptly transported back two decades, and the experience had unsettled him more than he’d have thought possible. He remembered another winter’s night,long ago,when he had gone to see a snout who provided regular low-level gossip and rumour about the gangs. As usual, they were to meet beneath a spreading plane tree on the edge of a local park. As he approached, Brock could see the man standing there, moonlight casting shadow stripes across his pale anorak, but there was something odd about his posture, the tilt of his head. Closer still and he made out the taut vertical of a rope connecting the man’s throat to the heavy branch above.Brock’s foot crunched on gravel and the figure twitched and gave a hoarse cry.

‘Help me!’

They had made him stand on tiptoe on a brick set on its edge, and had pulled the rope so tight that if he’d lost his footing he’d have been finished. When Brock found him he’d been standing there for twenty minutes and was on the point of passing out. He refused to say who’d done it, but the style was obvious to Brock— the grim joke, choking off the talker, and the indifference as to whether he lived or died.The man never spoke to the police again.

Brock recalled that the last bit of information the man had given Brock at their previous meeting was that the Roaches employed children to take down the numbers of cars driving in and out of the secure yards of local police stations, and now had a comprehensive list of unmarked police cars operating in the area. Spider’s intelligence had always been depressingly good. And still was, obviously. They had known about Singh and Ferguson before Brock had made his move.Did they have a friend at the local station who had told them who had attended the identity parades? Or had they been shadowing Kathy and Bren, himself too, perhaps, as they made their way around the neighbourhood, asking questions? He recalled the blue Peugeot waiting across the street when they’d left Father Maguire’s presbytery.

He had been disturbed by Spider Roach’s unexpected appearance, but Roach had also been unsettled. The case had already collapsed,yet he had felt the need to warn Brock to back off.Something fragile, important, needed to be protected from blundering coppers. Brock wondered what it was.

sixteen

C
ommander Sharpe was philosophical about the Roach case. It was unusual to see him in his office on a Saturday morning, and it was clear from the way he fingered his shirt cuff and the file set out ready on his desk that he had more important things on his mind.‘Good try, Brock, but the odds were stacked against us. Look at it another way, the three unsolved murders go into the 1981 results, not this year’s. So they make the current dismal figures look marginally better, by comparison.’

‘All the same, I’ll keep one or two people working on it for a day or two, tidying up loose ends.’

‘Mm.’ Sharpe’s attention had returned to the cover sheet on his file. ‘You’ll let me have a one-page summary, will you? The OCLG want it on record.’

Brock frowned, puzzled. The Organised Crime Liaison Group was a subcommittee of the Joint Intelligence Committee, the
central body for interdepartmental intelligence, reporting directly to the Prime Minister’s office.‘Is the OCLG interested?’

‘Apparently there’s a standing brief on friend Roach. I’ve warned Penny that she’ll have to go elsewhere for her next motor, but it’ll be hard to avoid Paramounts. Have you seen their latest prices for Côte de Beaune?’

‘I didn’t know they had a file on Roach.’

‘Nothing that would have been useful to us.You know what their research office is like, Brock—hoarders of inconsequential trifles, stamp collectors.’ Then, as if changing the subject completely, Sharpe added,‘You mentioned that MP in your earlier report, Michael Grant. Has he been in touch again?’

‘He gave us some help in tracking down possible witnesses. Useful.’

‘Mm. Admirable fellow by all accounts. Very supportive of Trident,strong anti-drugs and anti-crime stance in his constituency and in the House. Bit of a fanatic, though, I’m told. Cuts corners, ruffles feathers. All right for him, of course, he’s protected by parliamentary privilege. For the rest of us, it’s best to be wary.’

Dismissed, Brock descended to the street and began to walk back to his office in Queen Anne’s Gate. There was a deceptively spring-like lift to the morning, pale sunlight sparkling off wet pavements, a feeling that heavy coats might soon be discarded. He picked up a cappuccino along the way and continued past the end of his street and across Birdcage Walk into St James’s Park, where he crossed the grass to an empty bench in the sun. A military band was playing in the distance, some children chasing along the edge of the lake towards Duck Island, groups of tourists drifting towards the palace. As he sipped at his coffee his phone burbled in his pocket.

‘Chief Inspector Brock? It’s Michael Grant here. How are you? Were my contacts any help?’

‘I was just thinking of you, Mr Grant. They were very useful, helped us put together good likenesses as well as personal information for all three bodies on the railway land.’

‘Yes, I’ve seen the posters.What about the killers?’

‘I’m afraid we haven’t been so successful in that area. Not yet, anyway.’

‘There’s talk in Cockpit Lane that one of Spider Roach’s sons has been charged. Is that not true?’

‘He was arrested yesterday morning, but released later for lack of evidence.’

‘Ah.’ Silence for a moment, then, ‘I can’t honestly say I’m surprised. Are you very busy today?’

‘I’m currently sitting on a bench in St James’s Park contemplating the ducks and envying their simple life.’

Grant chuckled. ‘How do you fancy lunch at my factory? I think I can offer you something better than stale bread.’

‘Sounds interesting.’

‘Do you know the Red Lion pub on Parliament Street? Behind it in Cannon Row there’s an entrance to Portcullis House. I’ll meet you there at twelve-thirty, okay?’

Brock made his way there at the appointed time and found the MP chatting to the security staff at the rear entrance to his ‘factory’, the Houses of Parliament. Further down the lane loomed the striped brickwork of the old Norman Shaw building in which the Metropolitan Police had once had their headquarters, and Brock recalled old photographs of his predecessors in that place, waistcoated, moustached and bowler-hatted men like Chief Inspector Walter Drew, snapped digging with his team in Dr Crippen’s garden in Hilldrop Crescent. A hundred years later, he thought, and we’re still digging.

‘You don’t need to worry about this one, Artie,’ Grant said. ‘He’s a copper.’

‘Seen you on telly, haven’t I, sir?
Britain’s Most Wanted
, was it?’ He chuckled.‘See you later,sir.’

Grant led the way down a corridor that came out into the glazed-roofed atrium forming the centre of Portcullis House, the modern annexe of Parliament across the street from Big Ben. The court was busy with people, groups talking at tables, individuals hurrying to appointments. Brock recognised famous faces among them, one of them stopping to say hello to Grant.

‘Charles, let me introduce you to Detective Chief Inspector Brock.’

‘Ah yes.’ The Home Secretary beamed at Brock, shaking his hand. ‘My wife’s a great admirer of yours, I assume because we both have beards. I hope Michael’s not wasting police time press-ganging you onto his committee, is he?’

Grant laughed.‘It’s not my committee, Charles.’

‘No, just feels like that sometimes.’ He clapped Grant on the shoulder and they moved on.

‘All chums together,’ Grant murmured as they reached the far side of the atrium and entered the corridor leading under Bridge Street to the Houses of Parliament proper. They emerged briefly into the watery sunlight to see a long queue of women in hats moving slowly across New Palace Yard.

‘Widows of war heroes,’ Grant said. ‘The Queen’s holding a reception for them in Westminster Hall. Have you been here before?’

Brock hadn’t.

‘I’ll give you a quick tour, if you like.’

He led the way again,through the Victorian Gothic splendours of the Palace of Westminster, its corridors and lobbies, chambers, libraries and committee rooms, pointing out its treasures with a kind of hushed glee that reminded Brock of a small boy taking a friend into the forbidden haunts of his father’s den.