Tip Off (32 page)

 

Canal Road was a thoroughfare of over a mile, with a smart end up by the main artery of Maida Vale, and a rough end, where the twenty-storey blocks which had replaced cheap Edwardian housing were already past their use-by-date, just thirty-five years after they'd been built.

Every cost-cutting device known to the LCC architects' and surveyors' departments had been used in these shabby stacks of multiple dwellings and their inbuilt obsolescence was well advanced.

Nobody lived here now from choice, and most of the inhabitants moved in and out like human jetsam on the ebb and flow of a grimy urban estuary.

The police and the social services knew they were fighting a lost battle against benefit fraud, drugs and all the supplementary crimes and deprivation these attracted to this desolate area.

It was four o'clock. I looked at the faded plastic panels, the rusting debris and waste-paper swirling in the damp March wind which eddied around the five bleak tower blocks and thought that a man could get lost in a place like this and not be missed for weeks.

Our cars looked too bright and new for this decaying landscape. We'd left them well secured at the better end of the long, degenerating avenue, and walked singly, in scruffy jeans and jackets, towards the barren hunk of concrete that had been graced with the name ‘Mulberry House'.

Emma had come with us in my sister's less than gleaming VW Beetle, which despite its credibility among Catherine's girlfriends in the fashion world, didn't look too much out of place on a North London council estate either.

Matt, using a plan of the estate and his experience of operations like this in Northern Ireland, had already formed an outline strategy for siting us. As we came to the actual place, he fine-tuned our positioning until he was confident that flat 16 was covered by the six of us from every available vantage point.

It was on the fourth floor of the building; Dougie and Jack had gone in and were stationed on the floor above. I could see Dougie from time to time over the concrete balustrade of a walkway opposite Lincoln's address.

As we waited, the wind dropped and the clouds straggled in thin, ragged pink trails high across the London sky, and the lowered sun lit the towers with a surreal red light, reflecting off the grimy window panes.

By six, the vista had reverted to gloomy monochrome, and watching became harder. We moved a little, from one covert spot to another, each doing our best to check the others hadn't attracted any attention.

There was some coming and going around the block; a few men returning from work, many more leaving their homes for an evening's escape into drink, dope or larceny.

We were all connected to Matt and each other with radios open on the same wavelength and exchanged minimal observations on any possibly significant arrivals, but so far no one had entered or exited Lincoln's lair.

Matt's strategy was to allow twenty minutes after the appointed time of Captain Greeves's arrival for any back-up to arrive.

Six o'clock came and passed. At 6.15 Matt's voice hissed over the radio, ‘Start making your way to the target.'

No one had come to the flat; we'd had no sign that Lincoln was in there or that he didn't have a dozen heavies already waiting with him.

I found my blood pumping and suddenly realised what a buzz I was getting from this. Until then, I'd never really believed Matt when he'd told me how the anticipation of danger could offer such a massive adrenaline rush.

As I made my way to the entrance of the block, I stole a glance across an expanse of rubbish-strewn concrete to where Emma sat in the VW, among the battered Fords and rusting bangers in the car-park.

If she saw me, she did nothing to acknowledge it; I wondered if she was getting the same buzz that I was.

I pulled the collar of my jacket up behind my neck and carried on to the wire-toughened glass doors that swung open into a bare lobby. Inside, three of the four lifts had signs to say they were out of order. Seeing no one else, though aware that Matt wasn't far behind, I took the shallow, gum-spattered concrete steps up to the fourth floor.

I came out into an open walkway where I could feel the crisp night breeze which had sprung up. Lurking in the shadows beyond the door to flat 16, I saw Larry already in place. A moment later, Dougie and Jack slid down the stairs into view. Taking a screw-driver from my pocket, I reached up and removed the wire and glass cover from the bulkhead light. With a sleeve wrapped around my hand, I took out the bulb and placed it on a nearby window sill.

When Matt finally came up the stairs, there were five of us. He stopped in the stairwell, twenty feet away, and whispered to Emma over his radio. She gave the all clear; he nodded at us, and almost soundlessly, lit only by the single remaining bulb in the stairway, we converged on the door of Lincoln's flat.

Larry and Jack were the largest of us. They took a few paces back, ready to charge the door and hammer it with their shoulders.

Before they did, Matt put his fist around the dented aluminium knob, and turned it. Tense but utterly silent, he pushed, and the door opened half an inch.

I saw his mouth turn up in a grin of satisfaction; he wasn't used to finding unlocked doors. With a quick glance at the rest of the team, he pushed the faded blue door wide open into a cramped, rancid hallway, lit only by a sliver of light from beneath one of the three doors that gave on to it.

Matt went in; we followed, until all five of us were crowded into the cramped space.

A sound – a chair scraping on a hard floor – froze us for a few seconds as we waited for the door to open. But the only other noise that followed was the slight cough of a man who had just taken a sharp drag on a cigarette.

We stood motionless, trying to gauge how many people might have been responsible for these sounds. I thought that since Lincoln hadn't even bothered to secure his door, he wasn't expecting trouble and wouldn't have any back-up.

Matt came to the same conclusion. He nudged me and Larry, motioned the others to stay back for the time being, and grasped the handle of the door in front of us.

He opened it and revealed a dirty kitchen, cluttered with fast-food debris and overflowing ashtrays. At the same time, we were hit with the stink of stale fried food and cigarette smoke.

Lincoln looked up from a newspaper, not alarmed in the first instant, as though he'd been expecting his visitor to let himself in. It took him a moment to register who we were; when he did, he was overcome by sudden, uncomprehending fear.

Before he'd recovered his wits, Matt and Larry were on him, pinning his arms over a cheap kitchen chair and taping his wrists behind him.

‘What the fuck . . .' Lincoln screamed, before Larry's large fist clamped over his mouth.

‘Listen, chum,' Larry hissed calmly, ‘if you don't want to get seriously hurt, don't make a bloody sound. All right?'

Lincoln's eyes slid rapidly from me to Matt as he struggled for breath with Larry's hand still clamped over his nose and mouth.

Matt nodded.

Larry relaxed his grip; Lincoln gasped, but didn't yell. ‘Where's Greeves?' he asked flatly.

‘He's not coming,' Matt snapped.

‘What do you want, then?'

Matt drew out the only other chair and sat on the opposite side of the Formica table from Lincoln. He stretched and leaned back. ‘Who have you been blackmailing?'

‘You're not the filth. I don't know what you're talking about.'

I was struck by the sibilance of his harsh London accent and the startling brightness of his coffee-brown eyes.

‘Fine,' Matt said. ‘We'll call the police if you'd rather talk to them. But they've got less leeway than we have in what they can do to you.'

‘Who are you then?'

‘I'm sure you know who Simon is?'

Lincoln looked at me harder than he had before, and recognition dawned on his face. ‘Oh,' he said. ‘You knew Toby, didn't you?'

‘Yes,' I said. ‘I did.'

‘So? What do you want?'

‘We want to know who killed him.'

Lincoln blinked at my bluntness. ‘Well, it wasn't me, all right? So you can piss off!' he snapped unexpectedly with a hiss. ‘He behaved like a right bitch to me, but I wouldn't never do anything like that.'

I could see now why Miles had been so disparaging about Lincoln; if ever anyone fitted the description ‘rough trade', Steve Lincoln did.

‘Like what?' Matt asked.

‘Well . . . kill 'im, like.'

‘But you went to see him the night before, didn't you?' Matt went on, suddenly leaning forward, right across the table, making Lincoln cower back against Larry. ‘And someone saw you leave.'

‘I did, I did!' he wailed. ‘About one-thirty, after . . .'

Matt cut in as he leaned back again. ‘Did he give you any more money?'

‘He paid me some of what he owed me, that's all. I was his partner, you know, before they started riggin' the races. And then he gets paid off – bloody millions – and I don't get a sniff of it! He was in a right state when I left him – crying like a baby. But I never killed him,' Lincoln added again hastily.

‘Let's go back to my first question then. Who are you blackmailing?'

Lincoln answered by turning his head to one side and sniffing noisily with a pout of his narrow lips.

‘Would it help if I told you that we know he gave you a large packet of money at the Jazz Café in Knightsbridge, the Thursday before last.'

Lincoln's eyes flashed. ‘That was peanuts. He never left it all 'cause he had the filth on to me; he only put in enough to make sure I'd see some notes in there before they pulled me. But I was too bloody quick for 'em. And he won't try that again. I got something on him now he can't just rub out. I already give half of it to the
News of the World
– in case he does.' He turned to Matt with a malicious, triumphant grin.

‘Listen, we're not interested in anyone dumb enough to give you money unless it was them who killed Toby. So, tell us now!' Matt's voice was still quiet but there was a steely edge to it which wasn't lost on Lincoln.

‘You didn't see him then?' Lincoln crowed with relief.

Matt didn't register any reaction for a moment. ‘Listen, you nasty little piece of shit . . .' He stood and walked round the table, grabbing the collar of the quivering man's shirt at the throat and twisting it as he brought his face close up to Lincoln's. ‘If you want to get out of this stinking dump alive, just start telling me what happened.'

I stayed silent, praying that Matt wouldn't lose his cool and blow everything we'd achieved.

But from the look on his victim's face, it seemed as if he was having the right effect.

‘Okay, okay,' Lincoln whispered hoarsely as the pressure on his throat increased. When Matt relaxed it a fraction, he went on with a gasp, ‘I knew someone was fixing it for Toby's naps and I knew it wasn't him – he hated cheats. You didn't have to be no rocket scientist to work out someone was doping the horses and getting away with it. Either they had a new masking agent,' he paused, ‘or someone was swapping the samples. The geezer with the camera stood out like a sore thumb. Who takes pictures of horses with a bloody great zoom lens when they're almost near enough to touch them?' He looked around at us with beady eyes and underlined my discomfiture at having missed such an obvious pointer. Matt and I were supposed to be the smart ones, but this dirty, ignorant little crook had been sharper than the pair of us.

‘So, who's the guy you're tumbling?' Matt took an envelope from his jacket and pulled out a photograph which he held in front of Lincoln's nose. ‘Is this him?'

Lincoln nodded slowly. ‘He's the one.'

‘What's he called?' Matt snapped.

‘Tresidder,' Lincoln sighed, ‘but it's not him who's paying me.'

‘No,' Matt agreed. ‘What did you organise with Tresidder?'

‘Nothin'. But I reckoned he had to be getting the tests rubbished, so I went down to the Equine Forensic place, and when I saw Greeves, I knew I'd seen him talking to Tresidder at the races one time. Then I remembered that poncey photo in Toby's toilet – all them army types – and I knew I had 'em. And despite Greeves's toffee-nosed bullshit I could tell he was boracic.'

‘When was that?'

‘Just after . . .' Lincoln stopped.

‘After what?'

‘After Toby died.'

At that moment, Dougie's large, ginger head appeared around the flimsy panel door.

‘The girl's just seen someone coming up.'

Matt clicked on his radio. ‘Emma? Give me a description.'

‘Tall, big anorak, trapper cap, ear-flaps down. Sorry, couldn't get a look at his face.'

‘Where is he?'

‘Just going up the stairs . . . second floor, now.'

‘Okay,' Matt whispered. ‘We'll assume he's coming here.' He turned to me. ‘You, me and Larry can wait in here. Dougie, close the front door but leave it on the latch, then get ready to get behind him with Jack if he does come in.' While Matt was giving the orders, he deftly taped Lincoln's mouth and bound his wrists and ankles to the chair.

As Dougie silently carried out his instructions, we heard firm, metal-capped footfalls echo along the open landing, incongruous in this place of shuffling trainers. They slowed as their owner checked the numbers of other doors on the landing and finally stopped outside number 16.

There was a brief pause before the handle turned and the door was slowly pushed open.