The Drop (11 page)

If it’s done properly, the mug on the receiving end of this patter will walk away convinced that the legitimate businessman who, after all, has been solidly vetted in advance, has an eccentric but touchingly heartfelt belief in, for example, the provision of community bobbies, who will patrol the streets every night, catching burglars as they shin down drainpipes with bags marked ‘swag’ on their shoulders. Frankly, he will deduce that for a quarter of a mill in the party coffers, humouring the old boy seems a small price to pay.

A discreet missive will then go out to the Chief Constable of Northumbria Police Force, telling him that the Home Office wishes to see an increased clean-up rate on burglaries. There may even be a follow-up phone call, containing a hint that their Chief Constable is on the shortlist the next time the Head Boy at the Met implodes and there’s a vacancy. Overnight the emphasis on solving a certain kind of crime shifts. Officers once earmarked to investigate the supply of blow and Es in nightclubs suddenly find themselves stepped down and redirected to intelligence gathering on burgling crews. A few months down the line and a notorious gang of burglars is arrested, charged then convicted, receiving lengthy jail sentences for their evil deeds. The Police Commissioner will even go on television to boast of his officers’ success in combating a crime he himself finds personally abhorrent. He will then do everything in his power to ensure footage of this interview finds its way to the relevant minister in Whitehall. It’s all perfectly legitimate and everybody involved, kids themselves, are somehow fulfilling a public need. Meanwhile we carry on earning our living largely unmolested.

You might not believe it works like that but I’m telling you that it does. Why do you think people like Bobby Mahoney carry on operating for so long when everybody out there knows who they are?

We parked the car down by the river next to a little hotel I’d stayed in once before. Not today though. I wanted to be in and out of there as quick as you like. We walked through Shepperton. It was a small place, just a couple of pubs and restaurants, the hotel and some houses normal people couldn’t afford. Not much to do but pretty enough. The place seemed to exist purely to give prosperous southerners somewhere respectable to retire to.

‘It’s a bit quiet,’ said Finney, looking about him at all the trees that lined the route between the centre of the little town and Amrein’s property.

‘I don’t know,’ I said looking about me at the old houses bathed in a sunlight that rarely ventured as far north as Newcastle, ‘I quite like it.’

You’d be forgiven for assuming a place like Shepperton is about as far removed from the world of drugs and protection money as it is possible to be and it is, at first glance, which is why we bring the Drop here. What’s the alternative? Handing it over in disused factories or at the top floor of an NCP car park after dark? That’s strictly for the movies. Those places are usually covered by CCTV or full of junkies shooting up. Not the kind of venue you’d choose to hand over a lot of cash safely.

Here, at the weekend, the population is swelled by amateur boatmen mucking about on the Thames, but during the week it’s quiet. It was the kind of place where the vicar walked by and said good morning to strangers, somewhere there’d be a cricket match played on Sundays. I had to remind myself that we were on our way to meet the most dangerous man I knew.

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A
mrein’s house was at the bottom of a country lane. All the houses here were set back discreetly from the public road and we had to press a buzzer at the gate. I looked up directly into the CCTV camera so they could get a good look at my face, frowning impatiently as if this was a routine drop and I didn’t have the time to be messed about. There was a loud buzzing sound and the gate clicked and swung in on its hinge. We walked up the long, gravel driveway and Finney looked about him at the vast expanse of manicured lawn on either side.

‘Jesus,’ he hissed, ‘how the other half live eh? You could put a full size football pitch on that lawn.’

‘I think you should suggest it,’ I said.

Our destination was a huge, white-painted house at the end of the drive. It was tucked away just far enough round a natural bend that it couldn’t be seen from the road. Lord knows how many rooms Amrein had. He was clearly doing pretty well for himself, on the back of us and others.

Two of Amrein’s men met us at the door and patted us down, quick and professional like. They even took our keys, car keys, wallets and my silver Cross pen, leaving nothing that could remotely be used as a weapon. The only thing they didn’t touch was the case Finney was carrying. He wasn’t going to let go of that until he was face to face with Amrein.

We were shown into a large dining room with a highly-polished table that would have comfortably seated a dozen for dinner. Sunlight shone through the enormous French windows at the far end, picking out little specks of dust that hung in the air.

‘Mister Amrein will be here presently Mister Blake,’ said one of the men who’d patted us down. We stayed on our feet and, sure enough, a few moments later, Amrein himself arrived with yet another bodyguard and a third man who didn’t look like muscle. Amrein was a small man in late middle age. His hair was receding around a widow’s peak and he wore wire-framed spectacles on his long, angular nose. His thin, bloodless lips were pressed tightly together like he meant business. Amrein looked more like a banker than a villain. Some times I think the world is run by small men in wire-framed spectacles.

There were handshakes and I introduced Finney. If Amrein was put off by the presence of Bobby’s scariest employee, he chose not to show it.

‘Gentlemen please,’ he said amiably as he held out a hand to indicate we should each take a seat around the table. Amrein’s English was flawless, without a trace of accent. He’d been educated somewhere very expensive but he still had the look of a foreigner. Was he Swiss, Belgian, Nordic? He was impossible to place. Amrein sat with us while the bodyguard stayed on his feet behind him. Finney handed over the case and left the talking to me.

‘Thank you,’ he said, immediately handing the case to the bodyguard who in turn gave it to the third man. He opened it on a small table and began to silently count the contents, expertly skimming the notes with his fingertips.

Amrein smiled slightly, like I’d just given him a belated birthday present. ‘Of course I don’t have to mention that it is late.’

‘A week late,’ I admitted, ‘we had a problem,’ I wasn’t looking to concede much more than that, ‘which is why you will find an additional payment,’ I assured him.

‘Most gracious,’ he dipped his head to acknowledge this, ‘but I am afraid the issue is rather more complicated than a little… ’ he seemed to be searching for the right word, ‘… interest. The funds were already allocated,’ he told me, ‘committed elsewhere. The lateness of the payment caused me considerable embarrassment. There was some… ’ again he thought for a while before choosing his words carefully, ‘… consternation,’ he spread his palms and in one gesture seemed to convey the fact that he was a reasonable man who had been placed in an entirely unreasonable position. I knew I had to walk a thin line between winning him over and acting like his poodle.

‘Mister Mahoney understands your liquidity issue and he appreciates your position, which is why he sends his apologies, along with a generous commission to alleviate the inconvenience caused.’ God I was starting to sound just like Amrein. We both glanced over at the man who had been counting. He finished and gave Amrein an affirmative nod, as if to confirm the generosity of Bobby’s additional bung. My guess was all of it would go straight into Amrein’s pocket without being kicked up to any one.

‘Notwithstanding,’ he said, in that lawyer-speak he favoured, ‘this must never be allowed to happen again. You do understand that? Bobby Mahoney does understand that?’

‘Of course,’ I told him, ‘that’s why I am here personally. That’s why Mister Finney has accompanied me today.’

‘Good,’ he said as if the matter was concluded, ‘would you walk with me in my garden?’

I nodded, assuming he didn’t just want to show me his rhododendrons. Finney and I both rose with Amrein and the bodyguard opened the French windows for us to step through. Amrein looked at Finney, ‘would you excuse us for a time?’ he asked. Finney looked at me for confirmation and I nodded. Amrein and I walked out onto a manicured lawn so immaculate he must have had a platoon of Eastern-Europeans attacking it each morning with nail scissors.

‘There are some matters I don’t like to discuss in front of employees. Ours or yours,’ he told me.

‘Please,’ I urged him, ‘speak freely.’

‘I will. Thank you.’ He assured me, ‘the Drop has never been late before. Not once. Not in all these years,’ we were walking across the lawn, heading for a clump of trees by a wall at the far end, ‘of course you don’t have to give me an explanation,’ he said calmly but I was left with the impression that it would be much better for us if I did.

‘A little local difficulty,’ I assured him.

‘Local difficulty?’ he mulled that ambiguous phrase over, clearly unsatisfied by it.

‘An employee of ours turned out to be untrustworthy,’ I said, bending the truth a little.

‘Mmm, I see.’

‘All organisations have them,’ I said, ‘just as all major businesses have problems from time to time. That’s not what matters. What matters is how you deal with those problems.’

‘And you have dealt with this… problem?’

‘It’s in hand,’ I assured him.

‘Good,’ he said firmly. ‘There is one other thing; Serious and organised.’

‘Expressing an interest in us?’

‘Yes,’ he said calmly, as if an old family friend had been asking about our wellbeing. My heart sank. One of the reasons we paid the Drop every month was to avoid the close attention of SOCA. Perhaps DI Clifford was right after all.

‘They aren’t even policemen,’ I said dismissively, ‘just glorified customs officers,’

‘Technically speaking, they are not actual police officers - but that will be of little consolation to any of us if they succeed in bringing Bobby Mahoney down.’ He was right and I was more worried than I let on. Because SOCA was relatively new, it was still a bit of an unknown quantity. ‘We’ve heard they’ve opened another file on Mister Mahoney. They developed a strong interest in certain aspects of his business following that very public and regrettable incident in Ibiza.’

‘That was more than two years ago,’ I reminded him.

We’d been looking for a share of the action in Ibiza for some time. The Scousers had had the whole island tied up for years and were making a fortune. The place had a steady supply of clubbers looking for Es and blow and the customs officials were woeful; undermanned, under-resourced and frankly uninterested. Keeping it all to themselves was just being greedy, though we realised the Scousers wouldn’t see it that way. We reached an accord of sorts, eventually, but not before they lost a couple of their lower level men in a very public shoot-out with some of Bobby’s young turks. Apparently both sides were driving parallel at high speed along the highway, trying to shoot the shit out of each other, till one car overturned, killing the Scouse dealers. It was all very unsubtle and it took quite a bit of sorting out but we got there in the end. Why? Because of the cash and because, whatever you might see in the movies, nobody really wants to be at war. They just want the money to keep on flowing like water.

‘Everybody knows what Bobby does,’ I told him, ‘
proving
it is the issue and nobody has ever come close to that.’

‘Indeed, which is why their new-found interest concerns us,’ Amrein cleared his throat and continued, ‘what do they have? Why are they sparing man hours when they cannot afford to waste time on no-hope investigations? In short, what have they got on Bobby Mahoney?’

‘Are these rhetorical questions?’ I asked, ‘or are you going to tell me what you’ve found?’

‘They have an insider,’ he said, ‘somebody in your business, someone who has enough information to put a case together against Mister Mahoney that will lead to a conviction, and a very long prison sentence.’

I was stunned. ‘There are only half a dozen men in our organisation who could even attempt to do that.’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘and you are one of them.’ He looked me in the eye and smiled, ‘that should narrow it down for you when you begin your investigation. You are responsible for Mister Mahoney’s security are you not?’ I nodded, ‘then you have work to do, if you are to keep him from dying in prison.’

‘We pay handsomely for this kind of information,’ I reminded him, ‘is that all you have for me? What about a name?’

‘We are working on that, I can assure you,’ it was my turn to look unimpressed, ‘for some time now we have been attempting to infiltrate SOCA,’ he continued, ‘recently we succeeded in getting a man into HUMINT, the department responsible for Covert Human Intelligence.’

‘I know what it is. They turn and run sources,’ in other words they recruited rats, sometimes for money, sometimes for the promise of a place on the UK equivalent of the witness protection programme. It was just like DI Clifford had described it. Most often these guys turned against their bosses because they had been caught red-handed doing something that would get them twenty years on its own. Then they received a simple choice: go down for the rest of your natural life or grass up your boss. The only trouble with choosing to be a rat is the strong chance the boss’ll find out about it and shut you up forever before you get near a trial. ‘So if you have discovered there’s a rat, why don’t you have a name for me?’

‘It’s not that simple, as I am sure you will appreciate. Our man must move carefully. He can’t just tap into a computer file with the word ‘sources’ on it and look for a name he recognises. If he opens a file on Bobby Mahoney his accessing of it will immediately be logged and he will be exposed. His enquiries must be more circumspect.’

‘What if these circumspect enquiries take too long? What if our rat disappears into the programme next week and Bobby is arrested the next day?’

We’d all be fucked, me included. That’s what.

‘I’m afraid that’s a risk you must live with, for now.’

‘Easy for you to say,’ I said.

We had reached a glade and I noticed for the first time that, set back against the far garden wall was a little summer house. It had glass windows, an ornately carved door and a timber roof. It looked old, like it had been put up long before by a dutiful family man, so his wife and children could take afternoon tea here overlooking the lawn. It was hard to imagine a world as genteel as this could ever have existed.

‘Beautiful isn’t it?’ Amrein noticed I was looking at the summer house, ‘and so quaint, don’t you think, the product of a more innocent era. I think that is why I appreciate it so.’ We both stood in silence for a moment in front of this expensive little folly then he said, ‘thank you for coming down,’ as he offered me his hand and I shook it. ‘I will look forward to your next visit, which I feel certain will be more timely.’

‘It will be.’

He turned to look me in the eye, ‘I do hope so,’ he said it placidly, with a hint of the implied regret he would feel over what he would be forced to do if it wasn’t. As threats go it was very low key but he used those four simple words masterfully. They left me in no doubt that another late drop would simply not be tolerated.

The journey back gave me ample time to think about our new problem. As if Cartwright’s murder and the disappearance of our money, coupled with DI Clifford’s personal vendetta against us, wasn’t enough for one week, I now learned SOCA had got themselves a top grass in our firm. This could bring us all down. We kept on top of the law, following each new development as if we and the police were opposing superpowers in some new version of the Cold War. The Supergrass had been discredited by the abuses of the 80s, when grasses were often paid for duff info that was invariably chucked out on appeal. Lately though, they had come back into vogue, with the Met landing some high profile villains on the back of their testimony. The key was linking the word of the grass to other, more substantial evidence. That was how you got your conviction.

If a hit man, say, is caught, found guilty and handed down a longer-than-life sentence for multiple murders the police still aren’t too happy, because he is basically just a hired hand. It doesn’t get them any closer to the man who gave the order for the hits. The bloke who pulls the trigger, well he could be anybody and there are always plenty of others willing to fill his shoes. The police know this, so they offer the hit man a deal to rat out his boss.

One guy had a sixty-year sentence cut to four, so the story goes. If it all works out he gets a new ID and the Met get the crime boss they’ve been after for decades. The dubious morality of letting a hit man back on the streets looking for a job, when all he’s qualified to be is a hit man, is usually forgotten in all of the euphoria.

If SOCA were after Bobby and they had a man on the inside, I had to find him and fast. I couldn’t rely on Amrein to deliver that name. Even if he was really trying, it might take too long and I was sure there was something he wasn’t telling me. So, we were on our own.

‘What did Amrein have to say while you had your walk in the garden?’ asked Finney, once he realised I wasn’t going to volunteer the information.