Crunch Time (6 page)

His head made exaggerated nods.

‘Those are my conditions,' she finished sternly. She reached out and touched his face. ‘You're still just a little boy, aren't you? Excited by dangerous things. Still playing cops and robbers.'

‘You know me so well.'

‘Which makes me so surprised that I'm still here.'

There is a fine balance with the amount of information and intelligence an undercover cop can be given prior to going into an operation, and Henry was adamant about how much he should be told on the subject of Ryan Ingram.

‘I want to know as little as possible,' he said to Andrea Makin two days later as she briefed him. ‘I don't want to know anything about any police operation, nor do I really want to know very much about Ingram himself, other than what he looks like.'

‘Won't that be a disadvantage?' she asked. They had convened in a meeting room at Lancashire Police Headquarters to map out the way forward. She had set up a laptop computer and linked it to the ceiling-mounted data projector, ready and waiting for Henry's arrival. She also had a huge file with her which she had been leafing through.

On his arrival, Henry had purposely seated himself so he couldn't see any of the documents. He had been a trained undercover officer since the early Nineties, and was familiar with the lack of knowledge displayed by senior officers about the role and undercover policing in general, although to be fair to Andrea she did seem to have some idea, but not much.

‘No,' he said in answer to her question.

‘But surely knowledge is power?' she said naively.

‘Only if you're supposed to have that knowledge in the first place. It can trip you up if you're not careful,' he explained. ‘One innocent slip and suddenly the target is wary and suspicious. Next step means a gun in the face, maybe. What I need to know is my own story, not his, so that when I've made contact and when – if – he takes the bait, my background stands up to scrutiny. All I really need from you is his name, a look at his photo and some idea about how we're going to scam him, if that's what we intend to do.'

‘So all this is a waste of time?' She flicked the pages of her fat file and tapped the laptop.

Henry nodded. ‘It's the first contact that needs to be right – that's the important step. How do we meet? How does it come about? Do we get introduced? How does the ball get smashed into his court so he makes the moves, he's in the driving seat and I'm not suggesting anything that'll lead to screams of entrapment. That's the fun bit.'

Henry Christie's undercover legend – the person he became when working undercover – was Frank Jagger. He had chosen the name himself. Frank came from his dear departed father and Jagger from his favourite rock star.

Frank Jagger was a wheeler dealer, a bits 'n' bats guy who operated on the fringes of criminality, dealing with the disposal of goods, usually stolen, from which he skimmed his profit.

Up until about six years before, Henry had known Jagger very well because throughout the Nineties he'd slid in and out of that persona for various operations, some of which had been very hairy indeed.

But his intimate knowledge of Jagger had lapsed, although the legend lived on, sustained by a small office situated within the monster that was now the National Criminal Intelligence Service, formerly the Regional Crime Squad, whose task it was to keep all legends alive and kicking even when they were dormant.

Henry and Andrea spent a while tossing around a few ideas about how to approach Ingram, and getting nowhere fast, when there was a knock on the door of the meeting room and a man, a detective known as ‘the Keeper' came in, nodding at Henry and giving Andrea a muted, ‘Afternoon, ma'am.'

Henry had met the Keeper many times over the years, never actually getting to know his name (nor wanting to), or where he operated from, because the Keeper, of ‘Keeps', as he was referred to in conversation, was the man ultimately responsible for all the undercover legends in existence in the country, some sixty in total. He put together and maintained all the legends with the assistance of a very select group of people who, should they ever have been identified and targeted by crims, could divulge the identity and whereabouts of every undercover cop in England and Wales.

Keeps sat down and opened a folder. He looked at Andrea, who gave him the nod.

‘Frank Jagger, fence, handler, petty thief, fraudster, but mainly a handler,' he began. ‘Last used 2001 in the case of Jacky Lee.' He looked pointedly at Henry, who recalled Lee very well, and his sudden, violent demise at the hands of a Russian hit man. ‘Since then he's been lying dormant, in as much as you haven't used him, but I've been keeping his life going …'

Henry waited, breath baited, wondering just what the hell he'd been up to in the intervening years.

Henry was utterly astounded by the detailed work the Keeper had been doing, giving a ghost a life, especially when he was doing the same thing for all the other U/C operatives. Many of those legends would be up and running, not just lying fallow.

The list was endless: passports, driving licences (with endorsements) bank accounts, tax demands, supermarket bills, parking tickets, library cards; letters from companies chasing debts, mobile phone records and all sort of other detritus people collect throughout their lifetimes. The completely amazing thing was that everything was authentic because it was all produced in collusion and cooperation with businesses and other organizations involved at the very highest level.

‘I'm impressed,' Henry said.

The Keeper gave a modest nod of acknowledgement and tried to mask his pleasure. ‘I try.'

After further discussion, during which the Keeper gave Henry an overview of how he saw Frank Jagger's life having panned out over the last six years, he shook hands with Henry and Andrea, wished them luck, and left them to it. He'd given them the background, the life story, now it was down to them to take it from there.

Henry picked through the paperwork, wondering how Jagger would have continued his life after his involvement with Jacky Lee, the Manchester gangster, and the subsequent mess following his demise, which included a serious assault on Henry, one which he had buried deep in his mind and which still caused him to squirm when it surfaced.

‘Thoughts?' Andrea Makin asked.

Henry's brow creased. ‘Yeah,' he said at length. ‘This guy would have laid very low … he's no hard man and he would've seen it in his best interests to quit the scene, keep his head down …' he ruminated. ‘He's not particularly good with money, as we can see from the debt chasers … so he owes money to legitimate people and there would be every chance of him owing to loan sharks, drug dealers … whoever.'

Andrea watched him, thinking.

Henry glanced across at her and his mind jumped back to the time when he had first met her. He could so easily have become involved – except that he'd been involved with someone else, an illicit relationship that had turned sour. Andrea caught his eye and he was certain she knew what he was thinking. He refocused his mind on the problem at hand.

‘I think Frank Jagger could well be in hock to another crim … I think he could've cadged a loan off someone with the intention of pulling off another deal, skimming his profit and repaying the loan with interest … only, for some reason it's all gone tits up, he's left high and dry with a huge debt and a mountain of goods which he can't shift and which would be of interest to someone like Ryan Ingram.'

‘Porn, in other words?' suggested Andrea.

‘Of the worst kind – hardcore porn. Can you get hold of some if necessary?'

‘Some? The Met has a shit load of the stuff piled up in warehouses all over London, mountains of it.'

‘OK, then that's the premise … now we need to start pulling the stories and characters together … I have an idea on that score … but I'm still not one hundred per cent sure how Jagger and Ingram get together.'

They looked at each other, their minds ticking over, then Andrea said, ‘I have a plan.'

By the time they had finished – the scheming of mice and men – it was early evening. Henry was buzzing with delight and eagerness. They left the now almost deserted HQ building and strolled on to the car park.

‘It's good to be working with you again, Henry,' Andrea said.

‘And you, boss,' he conceded.

They walked across to her car, an S Type Jaguar, where they paused briefly. ‘I'll start to fix up Ingram's arrest with GMP – somehow,' she said.

‘Sounds good.'

He looked at her sleek car, then her sleek body.

‘Are you sure you're up for this, Henry?' she asked with concern. ‘I have to tell you that the report from the psychologist was quite detailed, no stone unturned. You've been through a lot recently … I mean, it probably wouldn't be seemly for you to break down in tears in front of Ingram and blab it all to him.'

‘I'm absolutely fine,' Henry assured her. ‘And the bottom line is that I love it, absolutely love it … which is why I'm keen to do this and why it hurt so much to be booted from being a detective.'

‘OK, OK, I'm convinced.'

He stepped back a foot. ‘I take it you've been assessing me as well?'

‘Something like that … y'see, I want Ryan Ingram and this may be one of the best opportunities we have to nail the perverted bastard and I don't want to blow it—'

‘By having a weak link … i.e., me?'

‘Exactly,' she said stonily, ‘so, as much as I like you, and it is good working with you, I do want to do a proper job.'

He watched her drive out of HQ. She was staying at a hotel somewhere near Bolton. He turned and ambled happily towards his car, his fairly recently acquired Rover 75, which in certain lights and wearing dark glasses, could have been mistaken for a Jaguar. Dream on, he thought.

Firing up the engine he felt light-headed and happy, though his thoughts clouded slightly when he wondered how he was going to deal with Kate again. He planned to tell her he'd seen the force shrink today and been given the mental all-clear, even though it was actually two days since he'd seen the doctor. He didn't want to reveal that the operation was already under way – that would have to wait for another day or two.

So whilst he wasn't actually telling Kate lies, he was rearranging the truth.

Maybe he could use this as a bit of practice ahead of going undercover, even though he knew that when he went under, his whole life would be a complete lie.

He drove through the HQ exit barriers, turned on to the A59, then headed in the direction of Preston, a journey he had taken many times, eventually cutting across on to the A583, which would take him to Blackpool. He could have done the journey on autopilot and in a way that's what he was doing that evening whilst listening to his thoughts and his CD player which had been mysteriously loaded with a disc by an artist called Mika who screamed tunefully at him. Kate would be the culprit. He would have to have strong words with her: don't mess with my Rolling Stones discs.

The evening was getting darker, rain had started to fall and he failed to notice the car that had been following him at a discreet distance since he'd left headquarters.

Once on the A583 he travelled along the dual carriageway up to the lights at Three Nooks, stopping as they were on red with just one vehicle behind him. He glanced in his rear-view mirror, but did not even register it, other than to note there was a car behind. Moving through the lights, the car stayed behind, matching his acceleration up to the 50 mph speed limit on that stretch of road.

The next set of lights was on green. He sailed through, considering pulling in at a petrol station before getting home and buying Kate some flowers and chocs as sweeteners for his news. The car was still behind him, but then it moved out into the right-hand lane and came alongside Henry's Rover. He didn't even glance at it. It was only when the car had remained parallel with him for a few hundred metres did he even acknowledge its presence, eye it once and think, Just get fucking past, will you?

He didn't look at the driver, but noted that the car was a Ford Mondeo, a similar colour to the one he'd previously owned and traded in for the Rover. He could not tell the exact colour in the fading light. He put his foot down slightly, aware that not far ahead was a dreaded speed camera on his side of the road. But he wanted to leave the Mondeo behind now because it was irritating him.

As he nosed forwards, so did the Mondeo, staying with him exactly.

Suddenly, it surged ahead.

A feeling of relief went through him, which evaporated instantly when the Mondeo slotted right in front of him and anchored on.

Henry had to slam the brakes on to avoid tail-ending it. He swerved towards the kerb. ‘Shit!' he gasped, gripping the wheel.

Then the Mondeo accelerated away at high speed.

Henry cursed. What was the arsehole playing at? He caught his breath, considered a pursuit, then thought better of it. To get involved in a road rage incident was something he could do without. He decided it was just someone acting the toss-bag and let it go, reaching the next set of lights at Kirkham without incident or further sight of the Mondeo. A few moments later he was on the long straight stretch of dual carriageway which would take him up to Blackpool.

Fifty was the limit on this section of road, which had seen its fair share of fatalities.

A mirror check revealed a car approaching from behind, main beam on. With a pissed-off utterance, Henry flicked the lever on his interior mirror to cut out the glare. What was it with people tonight? he thought crossly.

The car sped right up his rear end, tailgating, only feet away from his chuff-box, the driver now flashing his lights angrily.

Henry knocked his mirror back into place and squinted at the reflection. He maintained his speed and position, refusing to be intimidated. Casually, he raised the middle finger of his left hand.