Deep Cover (20 page)

‘Yes, I've met that type before.'

‘Bet you have . . . and often. Anyway, here's a couple of hundred quid.' He handed her an envelope. ‘Buy a train ticket to Stoke-on-Trent . . . go and familiarize yourself with the locality. Remember to get a coat from a charity shop and rough it up, tear a button off and roll it in the gutter a bit.' The man stood, and looked to Penny Yewdall to be every inch an ex-con, a real hard nose; someone you didn't want to give grief to.

‘Understood, sir.'

‘And get out of police-speak.'

‘Sorry, chief, mate, darlin' . . .'

‘Better. Be like a good actor, don't just go through the motion and say the lines, think yourself into the part. Be the character in question, don't pretend to be a young female dosser . . . actually become one.'

‘Understood.'

‘And it starts now. When you get to Hanley, walk round all night, stay up all night, huddle in a doorway if you get really tired.'

‘Yes, mate.'

‘Get real. Stay out two nights running, get to be that no one wants to sit next to you on the bus or train back to London . . . but it's all grist to the mill. Get an early bus or train back . . . bus is better, it's cheaper, but get rid of the ticket as soon as. Short of money, coming to London, you'll take the bus.' He handed her a coin-bag containing twenty pence pieces. ‘That's for the phone calls to the photographic studio. Keep it separate from any other cash you have. If you're asked about it, say you nipped a geezer for change who was screwing parking meters.'

‘If I say that, they'll want me to work King's Cross.'

‘So say the geezer was a personal friend, so you didn't sell yourself to a stranger.'

‘Good idea.'

‘So we'll have to hope Yates will take you as a gofer.'

‘Yes, mate.'

The man grinned. ‘Don't ask questions. Very important. Remember – be the part, don't pretend, and a dosser who accepts a roof in return for gofering does not ask questions.'

‘Got you.'

‘Start smoking roll-ups and roll them thin. And look at the ground when you walk down the street.'

‘The ground.'

‘Yes, scan it, the ground is where you find half-smoked fags and dropped coins, half-eaten sandwiches . . . especially round bus stops. If you ask questions and walk looking around you like a cop on the beat, you'll be clocked as an undercover officer and then . . . well, then it's goodnight Vienna for you, princess. Frightened?'

‘Yes.'

‘Good, that'll keep you on your toes. Get light-fingered, and if you are invited to take part in petty crime, go along with it, and get used to calling the police “pigs”, “filth”, etc.'

‘OK.'

‘You won't be staying there long enough to get confused about your identity, which can happen if you stay undercover for long enough.'

‘So I have heard. Have you been under long?'

‘Don't ask questions,' the man growled.

‘Sorry.'

‘When you return to London find a pitch in the Dilly Lady subway. I'll find you. Don't show any sign of recognition. Spend any money you collect on food. Find a doss and pick up dirty habits.'

‘Like rubbing fag ash into my jeans?'

‘Yes, like that . . . and use bad language, all you can muster, but let it be natural. People can tell when it's forced.'

‘How long do I keep it up?'

‘A few days; someone will tell you when to walk into WLM Rents saying that you heard they had drums in return for work.'

‘We can't find Rusher – he's gone to ground.'

‘He does that,' Clive Sherwin replied casually. ‘He plays the mole when he wants to play the mole. If he don't want to be found, he won't be found.' Sherwin glanced to his left at the tape recording machine. The light was off, the spools stationary. ‘This is not being recorded?'

‘No.' Brunnie smiled. ‘This is unofficial, just a casual chat, all nice and cosy.'

‘There's nothing cosy about a police station,' Sherwin replied sourly. He was a well-built, muscular man – pleasant, easy on the eye, Brunnie thought; a comfortable six-footer; a man whom women would find attractive, and very tidy indeed . . . decorative . . . edible in the extreme.

‘Dare say that depends upon your situation – you realize you are looking at life if we can convict you of the murder of Dunwoodie?'

‘If . . .' Sherwin sneered.

‘We have a witness. How do you think we found you? He heard you address the other geezer as Rusher. A record check – only one felon in the Smoke known as Rusher, and you get flagged up as an associate.'

‘So I heard . . . that photofit you showed at the removals depot looked nothing like me. Your witness was way off.'

‘Oh, that wasn't an E-FIT of you or Rusher, that was just an old E-FIT from an unrelated case – my governor just handed it round to collect a few fingerprints.'

Clive Sherwin's jaw sagged. ‘You can do that?'

‘Oh yes, we do it all the time, believe me. We can't use any fingerprints gathered in that manner to aid the prosecution's case, but it helps us to let us know who we are dealing with. We like to know who we are up against. E-FITs are useful that way – lovely glossy surface, ideal for gathering fingerprints. Tell me about Gail Bowling.'

‘Nothing to tell.'

‘She seemed to be in charge of the import/export depot.'

‘Did she?'

‘Is she linked to Yates in any other way . . . other than business?'

‘I wouldn't know.'

‘You would. You're just not saying. OK, probably safer to say nothing. So what will you tell them?'

‘Them?'

‘Yates, Bowling, Rusher . . . they will know you've been lifted – they'll want to know everything that was said.'

Sherwin looked at Brunnie with wide appealing eyes, like a salesman desperate to make a sale. ‘You're in deep, Clive. Very deep. Too deep.'

Sherwin remained silent but Brunnie knew that he had the man's attention.

‘You see, Clive . . . you don't mind if I call you Clive? You're not a bad lad, not really. OK, so you could be looking at life for the murder of J.J. Dunwoodie, but that doesn't mean you're bad . . . not . . . evil bad, just easily led. You met Rusher in the army, I believe?'

‘Yes. He stood up for me.'

‘Did he?'

‘Yes.'

‘So you feel you owe him?'

‘Yes . . . there were some heavy boys in the army. A lot of money lending went on, Rusher looked after me.'

‘I see . . . hence the feeling of owing him something?'

‘Yes, reckon you could put it like that . . . reckon you could.'

‘Or did he just want to put some sense of debt and loyalty into you so you'd be useful to him one day? Geezers do that you know.'

‘Do they?'

‘Yes . . . yes, they do, happens all the time. So did you and Rusher do any more jobs for Yates?'

‘This is off the record?'

‘It isn't happening at all, my good mate, we are not even here.'

‘OK, well a few. We got teamed up. We worked well together.'

‘With Rusher the wheel man?'

‘Wheel man?'

‘In the lead.'

‘Oh, yes, Rusher always decided what we'd do and how we'd do it.'

‘Always you two?'

‘No, usually but not always. “Mongoose Charlie” was there as well sometimes, if it was a three-hander. Rusher liked Mongoose because he was handy if you got into a proper skirmish, or if the mark was putting up resistance – but Mongoose and Rusher, they'd argue, and I never argued with Rusher because he knew best.'

‘And he'd looked after you when you were in the forces?'

‘Yes.'

‘We've heard of Mongoose . . .'

‘So why talk to me?'

Brunnie paused. ‘Look, Clive . . .' He glanced up at the opaque panes of glass set high in the walls of the interview room, then down at the orange hessian carpet. ‘I'll be straight with you.'

‘OK.'

‘We are closing in on Yates. We are closing in and we are going to close him down. For good. We have been interested in him for a long time, a lot of summers . . . the Murder Squad, the Drug Squad, and we want as many of his lieutenants as we can get as well. He's not hiding behind the likes of Michael Dalkeith any more; he's going to eat porridge, mucho, mucho porridge. He's going down big time.'

‘His lieutenants? He's not in the army.'

Brunnie smiled, ‘Just an expression. We want his right-hand men, the top fitters.'

‘Like “Mongoose Charlie” . . . like Gail Bowling, you mean?'

‘Yes, like them.'

‘I knew it had to come.'

‘It had to come?'

‘The end.'

‘It's been a long time coming, but it's now just round the corner.'

‘So soon?'

Brunnie smiled and nodded. ‘We can work something out for you.'

‘Work something out?'

‘You're talking to me. If you carry on talking like this, you could talk yourself into a new life.'

‘I heard . . . new name?'

‘New place to live . . . it's called witness protection.'

‘Like I said, I've heard of it. They say it doesn't work.'

‘Well, they're bound to say that; they don't want you squealing like a stuck pig, telling us where the bodies are buried, but witness protection works. If anyone in witness protection gets chilled, it's always because they blew their own cover. Believe me, it's the real deal . . . the full monty . . . new identity, new place to live, new National Insurance number, new passport. How old are you now Clive?'

‘Thirty-two.'

‘Still a youth – time to start again, settle in a new city, forget all this.'

‘How far away? I don't want to be too far from London.'

‘To be safe, it has to be north of Watford and west of Swindon. We avoid the south coast – too many blaggers take their girls to Brighton for a weekend – you run the risk of being bumped into and then bumped off.'

‘Plymouth?'

‘Yes, possible . . . so's Portsmouth and Southampton, but avoid the holiday resorts.'

‘You've set me to thinking.'

‘You won't do well in the pokey, Clive. You're a big lad but you're too soft inside. So I am glad I've got you thinking, it's what I intended to do.'

‘I'll have to give evidence?'

‘Possibly.' Brunnie opened his right hand. ‘But if you tell us where we can find evidence that will convict Yates . . . a smoking gun with his prints on it.'

‘He doesn't like shooters, too messy, he says.'

‘It was just an expression . . . just another expression.'

‘Yates once told me that only cowboys use shooters – you don't need shooters to off some old geezer.'

‘It's really time to start working for yourself, Clive . . . help us get Yates off the street, help us seize his assets.'

‘Assets?'

‘Possessions . . . like his house in Virginia Water.'

‘He won't be happy about losing that.'

‘If he can't prove he bought it with honest cash . . .' Brunnie shrugged. ‘That's what really hurts them – loss of their houses, all the money they've got stashed away. We put the forensic accountants to work under the proceeds of crime legislation . . . and they do fifteen to twenty years, and come out to the queue at the Sally Army soup kitchen. That's some drop.'

Sherwin gasped. ‘I've seen what happens to grasses. If I grass Yates up, I know what will happen to me. I need to think.'

‘No worries, think all you like, but if we arrest him without your help, you go down with him . . . the clock's ticking, Clive. If you want to turn Queen's evidence, all you need to do is to walk into a police station, any police station.'

‘They watch police stations. They'll have seen me being brought in.'

‘So take a train to somewhere outside the smoke.'

‘I need to think.'

‘So think, Clive. I'd like to say take your time, but I can't . . . because you can't.'

Penny Yewdall had survived for forty-eight hours, and sat on the steps of the underground at Piccadilly Circus with a small white plastic beaker resting on the ground in front of her. An occasional coin was dropped therein, but for the most part, almost the whole part, people passed her in their hundreds, if not thousands, and spared her not a glance. She slept in doorways and spent what money she had on fast food from street vendors. On the morning of the third day she walked from Piccadilly Circus to Kilburn and entered the premises of WLM Rents. She approached the man at the desk hesitantly; she felt unkempt, unwashed. ‘Posh in here,' she said looking about her.

‘Too posh for you, darling.' The man in his thirties behind the desk avoided eye contact.

‘Well they say out there that you have rooms for dossers . . . just askin' . . .'

The man sat back in his chair and looked at her. He had a hard face, the face of an ex-con. If he did posses a sense of humour, Yewdall felt that it must live deep within his psyche.

‘Is that what is said?'

‘Yes.'

‘Word gets round.' He paused. ‘What else is said?'

‘That it's not free. You have to work.'