Team Spirit (Special Crime Unit Book 1) (9 page)

There
was a stir in the room as the man who’d been sitting behind Sophia’s desk got
to his feet. He was tall, thin and bloodless, with Brylcreemed grey hair and
dark, deep-set eyes. His lean face bore a trace of beard shadow. He moved with
a feline fluidity which seemed to have come with his expensive grey suit. He
commanded attention effortlessly, startling some of the team who hadn’t even
realised he was in the room until he’d stood up. The whole effect was almost
sinister, like a vampire in an old Hammer movie. They would more readily have
marked him down as a spook than a member of the legendary Sweeney.

His
speech betrayed his origins at once as the western Scottish Highlands, familiar
to many of those present who’d watched
Monarch of the Glen
on TV. But any association the
accent might have had with whimsical good humour dissipated swiftly:
Macmillan’s dark, reedy purr was as unsettling as the rest of him.

He
glided over to the board, on which had been written, in large red capitals,
THRALL. He looked at it and said, ‘If you ask NCIS nicely, they’ll tell you
that name belongs to an ultra-right wing, white supremacy group. It’s an
acronym: it stands for Terror Hate Race Alliance. As you may gather from that,
they’re not overly concerned about respectability.’ No-one laughed, for the
simple reason that it was very probably not a joke. ‘The first indication of
them as an autonomous entity is three years back, although it seems they
started out some time before that as a faction within the main far right
parties. What, you wonder, has this got to do with me?’

He
turned and drifted over to the projector he’d set in the middle of the office,
signalling as he went to a wretched-looking Jeff Wetherby, who was standing by
the blind. As the room darkened, a slide of a slim, balding, fortyish man lit
up part of the board. Obviously a surveillance photo, it showed the man turning
away from a front door with the number 90 on it.

‘This,’
the wintry Highland voice floated out of the gloom, ‘is Edward Alan Porter, age
forty-five. Last known address, 90 Highbury Road, SW12, where this was taken
last August. Regarded in the underworld as one of the best blaggers around,
largely because he’s never been caught.’ Macmillan broke off and paced a short
way across the floor. ‘Word on the street says one secret of his success is
that he’s found witnesses tend to describe black men, even when the robbers
wear masks. Why wouldn’t this lead us to look for him? Because Edward Porter is
a fully paid-up member of the BNP and the EDL, and generally has a hand in any
marches, rallies or concerts of an extreme right or nationalist bent that go on
in the London area. Outspoken and an organiser. Not the sort of man to be using
black talent on bank jobs. Definitely the sort canny enough to exploit the
subconscious racism of the great British public.’

There
was a moment of silence, broken only by the faint click of a mouse as Macmillan
brought the next slide up. A broad-shouldered, powerful-looking man with a
ruddy face and a red crew cut stared out at them, prison slate held defiantly
in front of his chest.

‘More
and more,’ Macmillan said, ‘we’re finding these extremist groups are starting
to use some of the same fundraising methods as the Northern Ireland
paramilitaries: armed robbery, fraud, extortion
et cetera
. That may be where this guy
comes in. Michael Philip Quaife.’ He pointed. ‘Age thirty-four. Released from
Albany Prison on the Isle of Wight in February from a three-year stretch for
armed robbery. He’s an ex-para and did four tours in Afghanistan and Iraq,
where he seems to have picked up some handy tips regarding the practical use of
explosives.’

‘Is
that the link between him and Porter?’ someone asked. ‘He brought the tactics
back from the military?’

The
soft whirr of the projector stopped. Uncertainly, Jeff drew the blind back up.
Macmillan prowled back to the centre of the room. ‘Not that smart,’ he
answered, ‘although certainly he could have rigged the devices that caused your
fire. More likely he’s the enforcer. The one who actually goes and does the
ethnic cleansing while Porter plans.’

‘So
what you’re saying,’ Sophia put in, ‘is these two
are
Thrall?’

‘Porter’s
the brains. Without him it wouldnae exist. Too subtle. Thrall aren’t in the
business of claiming credit. They prefer to make the hit and let the rumour
mill do the talking.’

Abruptly,
he turned away and went and sat down beside Sophia. She stepped forward, the
familiar rustle of her tights drawing the team back as if from a trance. It was
as if Macmillan had never stirred.

‘The
point being,’ she said, ‘Porter’s the one we want to be measuring up. His and
Quaife’s current whereabouts are now a priority. Any questions?’

There
were few takers. No-one fancied digging too deeply into Sweeney territory, even
if their knowledge was on offer. But Kim stuck her hand up and called out, ‘Do
we know how big Thrall actually is?’

‘Big?’
Only Macmillan’s lips moved.

‘How
many are there? Besides Porter and Quaife.’

‘They
don’t publish a membership list.’

This
produced a smattering of nervous laughter. Undaunted, Kim persisted, ‘You’ve
more or less said Mark Watkins was down to them. I mean there’s people in this
room who were on that case and know there was way more to it than got to court.
He was kicked unconscious, stabbed to death and then bloody tarred and
feathered. That wasn’t two slags with a baseball bat. Nor was a six foot high
flaming cross. Somebody knows their Klan history. Sir,’ she added, as Macmillan
rose.

He
nodded to her. ‘What I should have said is that it’s hard to quantify. Thrall
is less an organisation than a rallying cry. They’ve adherents throughout the
far right, on whom they call when necessary. Simon Carruth, the man acquitted
of the Watkins murder, was one. Makes infiltration difficult, particularly when
we’re used to impersonating armed robbers, not political extremists.’

There
were icicles in Kim’s stomach. If the Sweeney couldn’t get on the inside of
Thrall, what chance did Debbie Clarke have? A thought occurred to her, so
momentous it shocked her into standing.

She
didn’t realise at first. Sophia said, ‘Kim?’

The
whole room was staring in her direction.

‘This
is gonna sound daft.’

‘Say
it,’ Sophia ordered, her blue gaze leaving no doubt that she was the one to
decide what was daft.

‘What
if we’re looking at this the wrong way?’ It seemed to Kim that she was standing
to one side, watching herself speak. ‘What if Porter found Debbie out? Maybe
she
was the target, not the Bentons.’

‘Seems
a bit drastic,’ Sandra Jones said. ‘What’s wrong with a spanner and a rubbish
skip on a dark night?’

‘Then
there’s the cross,’ Helen Wallace chipped in.

‘And
the no forced entry.’

‘I
mean, why would she put herself in the frame?’

Kim
sat down.

‘All
valid objections,’ Sophia said, looking in turn at their contributors.
‘Nevertheless, it’s worth bearing in mind. At the moment we can’t confirm one
way or the other, because there are no witnesses and no evidence. In the
meantime, we know we’re looking for dangerous people.
Armed
people. Hold that thought.’
She clapped her hands together to signal the end of the meeting.

The
low chatter, the bustle of backsides transferring from desktops to chairs,
occupied the next few moments. When next anyone looked, the seat behind
Sophia’s desk was empty. No-one had seen Macmillan leave.

Following Kim’s
contribution there’d been one or two remarks about the grinding of axes, whose
perpetrators hadn’t taken a great deal of care to voice out of her hearing.
Such things she’d long grown used to handling, but not from colleagues she’d
come to trust. She felt she was in danger of being marginalised because of her
colour, and she didn’t like it.

Of
course the attacks on Mark Watkins and the Bentons made her angry. They were,
in many ways, personal. But it was righteous anger that honed, rather than
clouded, her judgement, and it was nothing like the exasperation she now felt.
Either you involved black officers and accepted their attitudes, or you didn’t,
and went on fielding the old accusations about the police being out of touch.
There seemed to be an assumption that white coppers didn’t feel the same
outrage at violence against a black person, and could work more effectively
because of the impartiality this gave them. Bollocks, she thought. White or
black, the police service would not be doing its duty to minorities until every
officer in it looked on racism as an evil to be ground into the dirt,
destroyed.

As
she pulled up in Ballards Way that evening, she was surprised to see her
guv’nor emerge from the Clarkes’ house and drive off in her green Saab. Of
course, she remembered, Sophia was calling on them daily, keeping them up to
date; probably, knowing her, timing the visits to just before Kim or Nina were
scheduled to show up, so as to render them less likely to expect additional
police attention. Nothing to worry about. She switched off the engine and
settled down to wait.

At a
quarter to nine Andrew Clarke emerged from the house and climbed into his
wife’s VW Golf. He reversed into the street and headed off towards Addington.
Kim pulled out and followed him at a distance.

He
led her to the Keeper and Wicket in Addington village, where he parked and went
into the saloon bar. While she was still debating whether to go in after him he
reappeared, got into the car and started back the way he’d come. With a growing
suspicion this was all there was to the excursion, Kim followed. If he’d gone
to the pub for a drink there was no way he could have finished it that quickly.
Maybe he’d bought some cigarettes or bottled beer to take home, but she’d seen
nothing in his hands, and there were two off licences in Selsdon, much closer
to his house. The only conclusion Kim could come to was that he’d gone there to
meet someone. Someone he had reason for not wanting his wife - or the police -
to know about.

As
expected, he drove straight back to Ballards Way. Kim noted his movements in
the log. She saw no further activity that evening.

The
duty barman of the Keeper and Wicket wouldn’t swear to having seen Andrew
Clarke talking to anyone or, indeed, to having seen Andrew Clarke. He couldn’t
be expected to take notice of every stingy sod who came in and didn’t even buy
a bloody drink. Bloody rushed off his feet, he’d been.

The
fact that it was the quietest night of the week did not shake him from this
standpoint. He hovered while Kim finished her half and then ushered her out
past empty tables. He hadn’t even had to call time.

Detective Inspector
Zoltan Schneider remained, six months into the team’s operational life, a man
of mystery. As such he was the subject of much speculation among his
colleagues, generally in pubs after work, when a few adult beverages had
enhanced the tendency to gossip. Under such influences most of them had decided
that the sarcastic, quietly intimidating exterior hid a lonely, friendless man,
with an indefinable something on his shoulder that was not so much a chip as a
large log.

One
of them knew this to be untrue. Anne White had been going out with him for more
than two years. They’d met when Zoltan had been a DS at Richmond, and she a PC
on prisoner transport duty. Zoltan had said nothing of this to Sophia Beadle
during the setting up of the team. Relationships between coppers who worked
together were frowned on. But Zoltan and Anne’s personal intimacy seemed to
prejudice their work not at all, and they saw no reason, especially now, why it
should be anyone’s concern but their own.

Zoltan
cast a pleasant, relaxed gaze over her as she sat up in bed reading. He sometimes
wondered what a girl like Anne saw in him. She was thirty-three, with skin and
hair that were fair almost to the point of albino. Too tall for her weight, she
maintained by squirrelish eating an enviable, waspish slimness that sat well
with her refined, angular face. She looked up and smiled, took off her glasses
- all she’d been wearing - and met his kiss with ardent interest. He wasn’t
fooled.

‘Penny
for your thoughts.’

‘Damn.
You guessed.’

‘You
can tell me, I’m a policeman.’ He shrugged, half turning on the way to the
bathroom. ‘Be with you in a minute.’

For
a time there were assorted clatterings through the half-closed doorway, and
then Zoltan reappeared, his clothes slung over one arm. He tossed them across
the back of Anne’s dressing table chair. Still wearing his glasses - he
couldn’t see three feet ahead without them - he climbed into bed, where he
removed them and set them on the night table.

‘So
what’s up?’ he said, as she settled into his arms.

‘I’m
just a bit sad.’

He
turned his head and looked down into her face. It wasn’t much more than an oval
blur, but it pleased him anyway.

‘Brought
it home to me this morning,’ she said, ‘all that stuff with my leaving do. I’m
actually going.’