The Price Of Darkness (26 page)

‘What about access?’

‘The main entrance to the hospital is here, off Locksway Road.’ The grid of thumbnails had been replaced by a full-screen map. ‘There’s a roundabout in front of the main building and a one-way system that takes you round the whole site. The bike was found here, on the eastern edge of the site. There’s a building still in use in front of the derelict villa but coming in from the back you’d be home safe. No one to clock you. Nothing but rubbish and scrub.’ Proctor’s thick finger settled briefly on a carefully drawn rectangle close to the perimeter of the site. ‘The access road they used leads straight to the villa.’

Faraday followed the thin black line. From the villa to Locksway Road, according to Proctor, was five hundred metres.

‘So what are we saying?’ He leaned back in the chair.

‘My guess is this. They drive in along the access road past The Orchards, just like the woman said. They push the bike round the back. There’s a rough path through the undergrowth.’

‘Tyre tracks?’

‘The lads have trampled most of it. We’re still looking.’ He frowned, staring at the map. ‘So when these guys get to the access gate round the back of the building, they do the padlock, push the bike in, do the second padlock on the door, then get the bike inside the building itself. Once you’ve got the door shut behind you, you can take your time.’

Faraday nodded. He remembered reports of the holdall on the back of the Kawasaki.

‘They’re carrying the acid?’

‘Yeah.’

‘They douse the bike? Get changed? Stuff the leathers and the helmets in the holdall? Leave?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Replacing the padlock on the gate in the fence?’

‘Yeah. That way we’d assume the building was still secure.’

‘Then what?’

‘Then they’ve got options. They’re in civvy kit now, just a couple of guys. The hospital’s wide open. They could have been anybody.’

‘But how do they leave?’

‘Either back the way they came, which wouldn’t be favourite.’

‘Why not?’

‘Too exposed. For my money they’d just walk through the hospital site and come out the back gate. There’s a neat little estate just here …’ he indicated a tangle of roads north of the hospital grounds ‘… plus a route that takes you out to Warren Avenue and away. They’d have pre-parked a car. Piece of piss.’

Faraday was still eyeing the map. ‘What about the playing fields? How high’s the wall?’

‘Two metres at least. And once you’re over, there’s a longish walk.’

‘You’re right. And it’s overlooked.’

The playing fields backed on to Faraday’s house. He gazed at the screen, lost for words. The thought that these two men might have been visible from his own back window was deeply ironic.

‘They’d obviously done a recce, planned the whole thing out.’ Proctor was clearly impressed. ‘All in all, it was a beautiful piece of work. If our lad hadn’t wondered about the gate in the fence, we’d still be looking.’

‘Sure.’ Faraday nodded. ‘So how did they do the padlock?’

‘Pad
locks
, boss, plural. Remember, there were two of them. Bolt cutters. Had to be. Just the way we did it.’

‘But how do you manage cutters on a bike?’

‘You’d slip them under your leathers. It’s not something you’d want to make a habit of but it’s perfectly do-able.’

‘And afterwards?’

‘You’d walk out with them.’

‘You don’t think they’d be too big for the holdall?’

‘Yeah, definitely, but that wouldn’t be a problem. You’d just carry them.’

‘You’re serious? Guys this organised. This
careful
?’

‘Sure. It’s a tiny risk.’

‘No it isn’t, Jerry. And you know why? Because these guys don’t take risks.’ Faraday nodded at the site map. ‘We need a Polsa search, every square inch of those grounds. We’re looking for the bolt cutters, and if we’re really lucky we might find the padlocks he went through, though my guess is he’d have taken them with him.’

‘Done, boss. Under way.’

‘Excellent.’ Faraday got to his feet. ‘Then keep me briefed, eh?’

 

At Havant Station, Winter found himself on the same platform as D/S Dave Michaels. Barely weeks before Winter handed in his warrant card, Michaels had left Major Crimes to take up a new posting with the Serious Organised Crime Squad, which operated from a suite of offices at Havant Police Station. Michaels, an age ago, had been with the Met and he still carried with him a whiff of old-style coppering. He’d always shared Winter’s appetite for laying artful traps and keeping occasionally dangerous company and had potted some decent villains in the process. With CID becoming daily more risk-averse, Michaels was one of the few ex-colleagues Winter would describe as a real thief-taker.

As the train approached, Winter debated whether or not to make himself known. In the event he needn’t have bothered. Michaels, as ever, had spotted him first. He strolled down the platform, nursing a carry-out bag from the station buffet.

‘Mr W …’ He was beaming. ‘What a surprise.’

This time in the afternoon the train was virtually empty. They found a couple of seats either side of a table in a carriage towards the back. Michaels had always been direct to the point of bluntness. To Winter’s relief, nothing had changed.

‘How’s Bazza then?’

‘Fine.’

‘What’s he up to?’

Winter explained briefly about his brother’s accident and Mackenzie’s plans to mark his passing.

‘That sounds almost legit. Where’s the dodge?’

‘I’m not sure there is one. You know Bazza. It’s not money he’s after any more, it’s status. He wants people to give him a bit of respect. Plus he bores easily. Needs to do something with his time.’

Michaels nodded. He was a big man with a lifelong passion for sport. Like Bazza, he adored football and horse racing and the two men regularly bumped into each other at various venues. The last time he’d seen Mackenzie, he said, was at Glorious Goodwood barely a month ago, the day Kilburn came home in the Maiden Stakes.

‘Twenty-five to one,’ he said. ‘And Bazza had £500 on. Always the same, isn’t it? It’s the guys with money who make money.’

Afterwards, in the bar, Mackenzie had bought a great deal of champagne.

‘I took a couple of glasses off him. He was having a moan about some accountant fella from the Revenue who was always chasing him for paperwork. He thought we’d put him up to it. Pain in the arse, he said.’

‘Had you?’

‘Not to my knowledge. After
Tumbril
I said we couldn’t afford him any more. He thought that was really funny. Kept telling his mates.’

Winter smiled, knowing it had to be true. A couple of years back Willard had mounted Operation
Tumbril,
a covert bid to bring Bazza Mackenzie to his knees. With Faraday at the helm, it had operated in conditions of extreme secrecy. Bazza, alas, had known of its existence from the start, and Dave Michaels was one of the coppers who hadn’t been the least bit surprised when
Tumbril
retreated to lick its wounds.

‘Complete waste of time.’ He was demolishing a bacon roll. ‘A year’s work and what do you end up with? A six-figure bill and blokes all over the city thinking we’d lost it. The point was, they were right. We
had
fucking lost it. It’s way too late to take down someone like Bazza. He’s made his money. He’s arm’s length now. Plus he’s protected by people who know what they’re doing. Am I right? Of course I fucking am. And you know something else? You’re one of them.’

‘I am?’

‘Of course you are. I’m not blaming you, mate. If we’re thinking career move, you’re playing a blinder. When was the last time you lost sleep over getting a RIPA through or having a ruck with the fucking budget manager? I bet you really miss all that bollocks.’

Winter sat back as the train whined up the long gradient towards the Buriton tunnel while Michaels mused about his latest posting. His new squad at Havant had a target list of local criminals as long as your arm plus a decent budget to try and stitch them up. They could call on surveillance, test purchase, covert ops and a variety of elaborate scams, but a couple of months on this new job had made him wary of banking on success.

‘It’s never easy, Paul.’ He wolfed the last of the roll. ‘Some of the blokes we’re targeting will roll over for a bunch of ripped-off iPods at a silly price, they’re that stupid, but the good ones, the quality blokes, they always see us coming, always. And
they’re
the ones we’re really after. Still …’ he balled his paper napkin and dropped it in the bag, ‘… you’d know about that, eh?’

Winter was beginning to wonder exactly where this conversation might lead. Michael’s affable matiness had always disguised the sharpest of brains. He obviously knew that Winter was now working for Mackenzie’s organisation. What else might he have picked up?

‘Covert was never easy, skip,’ Winter said. ‘You talk to some of the blokes who go U/C and half of them are headcases.’

Michaels nodded.

‘Too right,’ he said. ‘Spend your waking life pretending to be someone else and you end up not having a clue
who
you fucking are. I’ve seen it time and again. These poor bastards start out thinking they’re Al Pacino but then it dawns on them they’re well and truly fucked, bang in the middle of no-man’s-land, totally on their tod. If they score any kind of result, then some other fucker grabs the credit. If it all kicks off and they end up hurt, no one bloody wants to know, absolutely
no one
. Watch my lips, mate. U/C sucks.’

The train was seconds away from the tunnel. Winter recognised the trees and scrub crowding in on both sides of the line. Then, without warning, they were plunged into the roaring darkness.

Winter could dimly make out Dave Michaels across the table. The whiteness of his teeth told him the Organised Crime D/S was grinning.

 

Martin Barrie was back in his office, briefing Faraday on developments at Headquarters. The word pressure, he said, didn’t do the situation justice.

‘The Chief evidently thinks the politicians are using us as a stick to beat the intelligence people. They’re feeling badly let down. They’re claiming the threat assessment just wasn’t there. The word they’re using is naked.’

‘They’re still thinking terrorist?’

‘Absolutely. But I gather that’s political too. They’re looking to build the case for everything from ID cards to surveillance on Muslim communities and Goldsmith Avenue is a gift. The cynic in me says their best result would be no result at all.’

‘Meaning?’

‘We end up drawing a blank. That way they can keep the pot boiling. The faceless enemy within. The need for constant vigilance. You know something? I never realised how many votes there are in fear. Scare ourselves shitless and these clowns will be in power for ever.’

‘And the pressure?’

‘It’s coming from the Chief. Call him old-fashioned, but he thinks we’re investigating attempted murder. He says fairy tales are for politicians. I must say it’s extremely refreshing.’

A knock on the door brought Jerry Proctor into the room. For once he had a smile on his face.

‘You were right, boss.’ He was looking at Faraday. ‘They were under a bush, covered in leaves. I get the impression we were lucky to find them.’

‘The bolt cutters?’

‘Yeah. I had a call a couple of minutes ago.’

‘Under a bush where exactly?’ Faraday was trying to remember the site plan of the hospital grounds.

‘About twenty metres from the back of the derelict villa. Dense undergrowth. Perfect spot.’

‘He’s coming back for them then.’

‘Exactly. We’ve left it where it is for the time being. So …’ he glanced across at Barrie, ‘… what do you want us to do, boss? Your call.’

Faraday brought the Detective Superintendent up to speed. The bolt cutters might well yield DNA or fingerprints, though Faraday rather doubted it. Barrie was looking at Proctor.

‘This location isn’t overlooked?’

‘I understand not, sir.’

‘Then recover them. We’ll need to mount surveillance overnight. Anyone in the area, anyone, we want to know the reason why. Joe? You want to action that?’

‘Yes, sir. There’s something else, though.’ Proctor had backed out of the office. ‘This villa where they stashed the bike, I took a look at it this afternoon. It’s derelict, fenced off. For what those guys needed, like Jerry said, the place is absolutely perfect.”

‘So what does that tell us?’ Barrie was scrolling through a long list of e-mails.

‘It tells me, sir, that whoever chose the villa must have known about it beforehand. And to do that they must have had some connection with the hospital.’

Barrie’s head lifted from his PC.

‘You’re saying these guys are loonies? You’re telling me we’re looking for a
patient
?’

‘I doubt it. But maybe a member of staff, or a voluntary worker, or a relative on a visit. Or maybe someone who drops off supplies, laundry, whatever - someone who had a reason for being there, someone who’d have access to the grounds.’

‘But not a terrorist?’ Barrie, smiling now, reached for the phone.

 

Katherine Brodie was waiting in the American Bar by the time Winter made it to the Savoy. The ankle-length raincoat was spotted from the thin drizzle that curtained the view from the window, and the tan seemed to have faded a little since they’d last met.

‘I’ve just arrived myself.’ She shrugged away Winter’s apologies for being a couple of minutes late. ‘What are you having?’

‘My shout. Spritzer again?’

The drinks were served at a table in the corner. Already the bar was beginning to fill, mainly women laden with booty from the pricier corners of Covent Garden, and Winter scanned the room, wondering just how many people could afford to cap an afternoon’s shopping with seven-quid glasses of diluted white wine.