The Last Big Job (12 page)

That was Lee’s initial and very profitable nibble into what
Frank Jagger had to offer. There then followed a series of
transactions which Lee believed were dodgy, but were in fact as
straight as a die.

It was important to keep Lee believing that Frank Jagger was
totally and utterly reliable. So when the next undercover cop came
on the scene, expertly and sneakily introduced by Henry, Lee’ had
fallen into the beginning of a complex and brilliantly executed
trap.

Nine months later when he was arrested on a multitude of
conspiracy charges, he did not have a clue that the person to blame
for it all - other than the original informant who had been well
protected by the police operation - was none other than Frank
Jagger. Four years in the slammer, brooding about which bastard had
set him up, led him down a complete blind alley with the tragic
result that he wiped out an innocent guy.

But no one stays an undercover cop if they don’t like
it.

Not liking it makes them a liability to themselves and
others.

Henry was not enamoured of the role.

Long spells away made his home life very difficult. His wife,
Kate, having to manage two young daughters on her own, was
struggling and becoming depressed. She was brave about it, denying
there was a problem. Yet Henry could sense it, almost touch it, and
when he was away he desperately missed them all.

Having had a very successful run at U/C work, he pulled out
without loss of face.

Through his legends, though, he continued to exist as other
people.

‘
You want me to go back undercover?’ Henry croaked
dryly.

The two higher-ranking officers nodded in unison.

‘
Exactly,’ said Davison. ‘I know from my enquiries that you
did a superb job last time, had Lee eating out of your hand. I’d
like you to get back into his confidence, get him to admit the
murder to you - and this time, you nail him.’

‘
You’re the only one for the job,’ FB
supported Davison. ‘The only one capable of pulling this off.
Lee trusts you.’

Henry’s lips pouted sardonically. ‘You realise it’s very
dangerous going back in, don’t you? It would have to be handled
very carefully. I couldn’t just turn up on his doorstep and say,
“Hiya Jacky, I’m back.” He’d be so suspicious. And the other thing
is that working in Manchester could be really iffy for me. I’ve
done a lot of straight-up detective work there when I was on the
squad and the Manchester crims know me well. I could easily be
compromised.’

‘
I understand that,’ Davison said. ‘If you ever felt you were
in danger, you could just pull out. Wouldn’t be a problem. I want a
quick result anyway. Here, I’ve prepared these.’ He reached across
to FB’s desk and slid a sheet of paper over to Henry.

Henry made no move to take the paper. ‘What’s this?’ he
asked.

‘
A list of questions I’d like you to ask Lee.’

Aghast, Henry held up both hands and said, ‘No!’ sharply. ‘I
don’t want to see them.’ He wasn’t all that surprised that the
higher-ranking officer had suggested such a stupid thing; most had
limited dealings with undercover cops and had unreasonable
expectations of them and knew little about how they actually
operated.

‘
I don’t want to see them,’ he reiterated, ‘nor do I want to
hear anything further about the police operation against Lee. You
must understand that if I say I’ll go back in, you’ll have to leave
everything to me. There cannot be a timescale and there can’t be
any set questions and I can’t know anything about the
investigation.’

‘
Why not?’ Davison asked crossly.

‘
Because there has to be a natural course of events. Just
supposing I let slip something that can only have come from a
police source. Jacky Lee’d have me strung up before I finished
talking. Undercover work is an art, a craft, and it can’t be
rushed. If you want to push things along, then I can’t do it for
you.’

‘
So you will do it?’ Davison now became eager.

‘
I don’t know yet ... let me have a think.’ Henry excused
himself and drifted down to the Headquarters canteen for a lone cup
of tea.

There was no doubt about it - he didn’t really want to go back
undercover. Yet the thought of it excited him. It was a challenge,
a dangerous one. And there was something else playing in the
background which actually made the offer irresistible: it would
give him an excuse to get away from home, give him time to think,
mull over things that were happening to him and get his head
together one way or the other. See if what he thought he was
feeling was really true, or was it just a passing fad which would
go away. Distance from the problem would enable him, he hoped, to
put things into perspective.

Wrongly - and Henry knew it was outrageously wrong – it was
his personal circumstances which swung it for him.

He went back to FB’s office and announced, ‘I’ll do
it.’

Both officers looked relieved.

‘
Have you got a pocket book for me?’ Henry asked Davison, who
looked blankly at him.

‘
Why? Won’t your normal one do?’

‘
Undercover officers have a unique one, issued at the
beginning of any operation,’ Henry said slowly, trying not to show
his impatience. ‘The first page of it has some instructions which
you need to read aloud to me, make sure I understand them and sign
them as Frank Jagger.’

‘
Oh,’ said Davison, stumped, betraying a further lack of
knowledge of undercover policing which Henry found slightly
disconcerting. He was not terribly impressed with Davison who, it
seemed, had risen through the ranks very quickly indeed. ‘I’ll get
you one,’ he said hurriedly.

Later, when Henry told Kate that he had taken on this new U/C
job, there was a storming row between them. She did not want him to
go back to such work, did not trust him being away from home for
such lengthy periods. Their marriage, she pointed out, had enough
sticking plasters over the cracks and was ready to bleed
again.

But Henry went anyway because he knew that in so doing he
would either repair the marriage or break it for good. He needed to
know in his own mind which way to go.

Now, ten weeks later, sitting at the breakfast table with
Jacky Lee, Henry realised that he hadn’t phoned home for three
days, not even when he’d had the opportunity. It was getting harder
and harder to talk to Kate . . . Shit, he cursed, shaking domestic
thoughts from his mind, and placed his coffee cup down.

‘
What can I do for you, Jacky?’

‘
I want to know what you can offer me, Frank.’

Henry made a show of rolling his neck as if it was aching,
letting his gaze drift slyly towards Natasha. She was looking away
from him. ‘What do you want?’

Frank Jagger was a person who could get most things, but he
specialised in booze.

‘
Cheap spirits for a start.’ Jacky Lee stood up. ‘Come and
have a look at this view,’ he said, taking a mug of coffee across
to the picture window. Henry watched him. He was a squat,
powerfully-built individual who moved with the confidence that
comes from toughness. Henry joined him, admiring the development
around the canal basin. The penthouse was in a very desirable
position.

‘
Nice,’ Henry murmured.

‘
People seem to float to the surface in it,’ Lee ruminated.
His face was contorted in frustration. ‘Pity, that.’

‘
What do you mean?’ Henry probed, thinking: Come on, you
bastard, admit what you’ve done.

‘
Nah, nothing.’ Lee shook his head. Henry hid his
disappointment and did not push the matter. ‘Cheap booze is what I
want and fags, maybe.’

‘
I can do both,’ Henry said. It was no boast.

‘
OK then, let’s chat.’

Despite the sunshine, a cold wind was cutting in from the
Irish Sea like razor blades. The Russian shivered and wrapped his
winter coat tightly around himself. The chill reminded him of the
old days, being frozen to the bone in the severe Russian climate.
Not pleasant.

Nowadays he spent much of his spare time mooching around the
Mediterranean, only returning to Russia when his masters demanded
it.

Arrangements had been made to meet his contact here in
Fleetwood, on the Lancashire coast. After a stroll around the small
town, he wandered back into the North Euston Hotel and went to the
bar where he ordered a coffee. Then he took his cup to a table from
which he could easily see the revolving door at the main entrance,
but where he could not easily be spotted by someone entering the
hotel. He sat down to wait, checking his watch. It was almost 4
p.m.

Two men came into the hotel, walked past the desk and made
purposefully for the tiny lift at the end of the foyer. One was
carrying a briefcase.

From his position, the Russian watched them. He had never seen
either man before, yet he knew they were the ones. His nostrils
flared and a little flush of adrenaline gushed into his
bloodstream.

The men stepped into the lift. The doors closed and the lift
rose to the first floor.

The Russian was seething with anger. He had been told there
would only be one contact. It was very unprofessional to send
two.

He stood up and walked swiftly to the stairs.

The cases of Spencer Grayson and Cheryl Jones were the last to
be heard that day at Blackpool Magistrates’ Court.

Spencer, sober, bad-tempered and reeking to high heaven,
slouched defiantly in the dock.

Cheryl stood next to him, head bowed, terrified: not of the
judicial consequences Gail would have been a godsend) but of the
other, more sinister form of retribution she might have to
face.

Their cases - bail hearings only - were dealt with swiftly.
Both were remanded on bail to reappear before the court in three
weeks’ time. Because of the additional charges levelled against
Cheryl, extra conditions were imposed on her: her passport was
confiscated and she was ordered to report twice daily to Blackpool
police station and ‘sign on’.

The pair shuffled out of the court in silence and mooched
moodily towards the town centre on their release. Neither noticed
the man who was following them.

The two men were huddled by the room door, concentrating hard,
paying no attention to what was going on around them. The corridor
was dimly lit, shadows everywhere, enabling the Russian to tread
with silence, unseen, towards them. His martial arts skills seemed
to make him invisible.

He was on the men before they knew he was there. He chopped
the neck of the first one, landing the hand-edge blow underneath
the ear. The man crumbled like a bad wall.

The second man uttered something incomprehensible, but all he
saw was the blur of something coming towards him in the half-light,
felt a blinding crash of excruciating pain in his forehead and then
the blackness of unconsciousness.

They awoke within seconds of each other, lying side by side on
the double bed in the Russian’s hotel room. Their wrists were
secured behind their backs and the position in which they found
themselves was extremely painful and uncomfortable with little room
to even wriggle.

The Russian had drawn the dressing-table chair up to the bed.
He was sitting on it, legs crossed, leaning forwards with an elbow
on his knee. Dangling loosely in his right hand was the Browning
automatic; the weapon, combined with the stocking mask pulled tight
over his face, distorting his features, made for a truly terrifying
sight.

‘
So, you wake up?’ he observed, purposely adopting a thick,
stereotypical Russian accent, reminiscent of James Bond
films.

The first man, named Gary Thompson, the one who should have
come alone, focused his eyes. ‘What d’you think you’re playing at,
you bastard?’ he demanded, struggling to free himself, but instead
rolling precariously towards the edge of the bed. The Russian
pushed him back using the bottom of his foot.

‘
I don’t play at anything,’ the Russian replied evenly, a hint
of irritation in his voice. ‘I follow instructions and expect
others to do likewise.’

‘
Meaning what?’

‘
You came with a colleague. Our meeting was supposed to be one
to one.’

Thompson’s mouth twisted with guilt. ‘So fucking
what?’

‘
I was naturally upset by the change of plan and wished to
negotiate from a position of control, shall we say?’

‘
You can say what you fucking well like. Now let me go
or-’

‘
What?’ the Russian asked sharply. ‘My friends in Russia will
be very disappointed by this lack of professionalism on your part.
You should have realised at an early stage in our relationship that
we always stick to our word and demand that others do the same. It
is not much to ask. So, why the two of you?’

Thompson glanced at the other man who had remained silent. He
was a bruiser of a guy, shaven head, earring, fairly low
intelligence. A goon. His name was Gunk Elphick. ‘He came to watch
my back.’