“Yeah guv,” Mickey nodded for the umpteenth time in a row, “Completely
understood.”
“Good.” Tom Chandler sighed and sat down in his leather office chair.
“I wouldn’t want you to screw this investigation up.”
“No chance.” The last thing he wanted to was get a non-result, again,
he knew that if this went down correctly, he would be well on the way to
a promotion to Sergeant, one he wanted desperately.
The pub was crowded and getting so smoky that it was making his eyes
water. Completely bored he swirled his drink around the glass watching
as the liquid glistened in the light. He turned his eyes to the door as
it opened.
“At last.” He breathed deeply as the members of the gang he had been
sent down to infiltrate arrived half an hour after what the landlord had
given to the police as their normal time. They stood at the bar ordering
drinks. There was one large man who he recognised from the mug shots he
had been shown as Sean Mullins the leader, a particularly aggressive and
violent man who had been arrested many times for assault, theft, being
drunk and disorderly the list went on and on, however he had never been
inside prison for more than 8 months at a time. At the moment he looked
as harmless as a fly with his right arm draped over another guy, Tate Williams,
who had been described as his best mate in the briefing. As well as them
there were five other men who had also been in the mug shots as core members
of the gang, and a further two men and one woman that Mickey had never
laid eyes on before, mug shots or otherwise. It seemed the gang had progressed
into bigger things since Sean last got out of prison such as drug dealing.
The girl stuck out from the rest of the gang, in other circumstances he
would have been very much attracted to her, she was younger than the rest
of them and seemed very lively, flitting in between the rest of them holding
more than one conversation simultaneously.
“Hey baby.” Sean called to her as she moved closer to him and settled
down next to Tate.
“Hey honey.” She cooed back fluttering her eyelashes at him.
Mickey looked down into his drink again letting a long breath out trying
to get rid of all the nervousness that was creeping up inside him.
“Do you think he’ll be Ok in there?” Kate asked quietly.
“Why? Are you worried about him? Is there something going on?” Duncan
questioned her in true detective style.
“No.” She answered quickly, almost too quickly to sound innocent but
he had already started talking and didn’t notice.
“He’ll be fine we’ll more or less know where he is most of the time
anyway.”
“I know we’re only supposed to be dropping him off but do you think
we should stick around for a bit?”
“Nah, I really have to get home, Shona was expecting me back half and
hour ago.”
With a quick nod from Kate, Duncan’s car pulled away quickly from the
front of the Cranleigh arms.
“Hey, um, are you Sean Mullins?” He asked, already knowing the answer.
“Who wants to know.” His face hardened into a snarl and some of the
other men from his gang had began to gather round Sean as if to protect
him from the newcomer.
“Someone thats heard you might be worth working for.”
“Oh yeah, and who told you that?”
“I got contacts.” Mickey glared back up into the face of the bear-like
man almost ten years his senior.
“You look like you got enuff money as it is.”
In the rush to get straight out the station to the pub, Mickey had
not had enough time to make himself look a little rough and get changed,
he looked down at his brown leather jacket and shrugged, “Stole it.”
Sean looked almost impressed, “Whats your name boy?”
“Terry, Terry Marshall.” Chandler had informed him of a case he had
once been involved with when an undercover officer had infiltrated a gang
that had found out he was in the police by searching for his name, even
though Mullin’s gang did not seem that intelligent he didn’t want to take
any chances.
“Well Terry, you look like a fighting man, you better come with me.”
Mickey followed him into the pub toilets. “Who was it you said told
you about me?”
“Like I said, contacts.”
Mickey ducked, dodging an unexpected blow from Sean, when he saw there
was no further attack he stood up again, puzzled by the large man’s outburst.
“Well you’re not a bad fight.” He gave Mickey a long look over and
then nodded. “Come with me.”
“Guys,” Sean announced moving quickly back to the gang with Mickey close
behind him. “It seems we have a replacement for Scott.” Mickey nodded to
himself remembering the month before when Scott Turnbull, a previous core
member of their gang had been shot dead in his car, his murderer, a rival
of the gang had been arrested by Don Beech a fortnight later. Mickey furrowed
his brow, weren’t they discarding all cases to do with Don Beech? It was
only a weak link but it was still there and he knew it would annoy him
for a while.
“So Terry.”
Mickey looked at him, already finding it easy to remember which name
he should respond to. “Yeah.”
“You free tonight?”
Mickey glanced in his rear-view mirror and watched as the large black
BMW pulled up into parking space behind him, “And I thought the police
were the only people that anyone could spot following them from about a
mile away.” Pulling his jacket tightly around him he stepped out of the
car and wandered over to where Sean, Tate and some other gang members were
enjoying a joint, “Alright mate?”
Mickey nodded, “Yeah alright, what’re we ere for then?”
“Well Terry, you see we wanted to test you out, theres a guy that wants
to buy from us tonight.” Whispered Sean while Tate squeezed a package in
an inside pocket of his jacket.
“Who?”
“It doesn’t matter who, we’ll point you to the right guy, you go make
a deal.”
Mickey nodded, he had phoned Chandler earlier to tell him what had
happened and as well as being told to keep in regular contact, not to kill
anyone, he had been told that any further contact would have to be through
Alex Cullen who would be meeting him every night to discuss what had been
happening and what Mickey’s limitations were. When they had finished smoking
Sean led them all back to a large warehouse, it reminded Mickey of the
one Paul Riley’s brother had lent out to some French car thieves a while
back, he really did hope that Paul really didn’t know anything at all about
it, the last thing he wanted was to be suspended and maybe out of a job
(again) because of a bent copper. Mickey sat down on a pile of crates with
some of other lads who bantered with him. He hadn’t expected them to be
so sociable not this soon, but he was glad they weren’t giving him grieve
or asking copious questions about his past, why he was there, what he wanted.
To be a good liar you had to have a good memory and Mickey knew that remembering
things was not one of his strong points.
“Hey you’re the new guy aren’t you?” Her voice came from behind him,
he turned and smiled at her. “Hi, I’m Ariana. You?” She extended her hand.
He took it and shook slowly.
“Mi...Terry,” She made circular movements with her hand as if wanting
him to extend. “Marshall, Terry Marshall.”
“Hi Terry, what brings you to this particularly nice region of London?”
Maybe he was wrong about the copious questions. “Kind of got ran out of
my home town.”
“Where’s home?” Boy was she interested.
“Doesn’t matter.” With the other guys starting to gather near him felt
he had to take the emphasis off himself somehow. Luckily Sean looked ready
to speak.
“Right then, Mark, Cal take Terry down th’ pub tonight with the gear.”
Cal nodded and smiled slowly at Mickey, he hadn’t spoken to him yet but
Cal seemed to have quite a lot of respect within the group although he
must of been new as he had not been in the mug shots issued in the first
briefing. Ariana walked over to Cal and started whispering something to
him, Cal glanced in Mickey’s general direction and shrugged then said something
back, maybe there was something deeper going on within the group. “Don’t
worry about that.”
Mickey turned around to see Tate smirking at him. Mickey furrowed his
brow in confusion. “What?”
“Cals her brother, I’ve seen you looking, everyone does.”
“I’m not interested.”
“Yeah sure.” Tate shrugged and walked off, he seemed offended. Mickey
hoped it wouldn’t be a nitch in the plan.
“You warm enough back there?”
“Yeah, fine.”
“Good we wouldn’t want you dying of a cold during your first sale.”
Mickey just shrugged and pulled a face. He rested on the door of the
car thinking of what to say to whoever he ended up selling a kilo of smack
to. He was sat in the back with Mark. Cal was driving and Ariana was in
the passenger seat, Cal had insisted that she go with him, they didn’t
seem to want to be separated.
“You don’t talk much do you Terry?”
“Nuthin’ to say.”
“Well just as long as you can handle yourself with the punters we’ll
be OK won’t we.” Mark commented.
“Whatever.” Ariana stopped as her phone rang, she answered it on the
second bleep, “Hello?...Ah yeah,...2am...OK...Bye then.” She rolled her
eyes and looked at Cal. “Brian.”
“Thats your other brother right?” Mark questioned.
“Yep.” Her and Cal shared a quick smile.
“Right so theres your guy OK.” Mark said handing over the package. Mickey
took it and strode over to the short guy sitting at the table in the centre
of the room, he was glad it would just be the two of them. He put the package
down on the table with both hands. The small man jumped and then looked
up at him. “So you’re the new boy then.”
Mickey nodded. “Yeah thats me.”
“Well no one I know has ever heard of a Terry Marshall.”
“Well that just shows how secretive this business is gonna be then
alright?”
“Where ya from boy?”
“Look do you want to buy this smack or not?” Mickey turned round in
frustration to Mark but he was too busy staring at Ariana to notice. She
just rolled her eyes while Cal motioned Mickey to hurry up. “Well.”
“I just like to know who I’m dealing with.”
“Don’t we all.”
The small and still unnamed man sighed in resignation and nodded. He
took a fat brown envelope out of his pocket and handed it to Mickey. “Its
all there, the agreed price. Check it if you want.”
“Hang on, I didn’t know there was an agreed price.” He signalled to
Mark to come over who just agreed it and then took the envelope.
“Well done mate. Was that your first sale?”
“With your lot, yeah.”
“Right. We’re gonna stay around for a drink anyway, so unless you need
to be off...”
“Nah, I’ll stay with you guys for a bit.”
Cal got the first round of beers and brought them back to the table.
“So anyway, then this guy came up to me and...”
Mickey let his eyes drift around the bar subconsciously listening to
Mark’s banter. He stopped when his eyes settled on a pair of familiar faces,
Duncan and Kate, when he caught his eye Duncan nodded to him. The nod was
directed at the door.
“I’ll be back in a minute, I just wanna get some fresh air.”
Standing alone in the pub car park he leant on his car and watched as
Kate stepped out of pub and walked over to him. She glared at two obviously
drunk men sitting on the bench on the pub’s terrace as they wolf whistled
at her.
The glare continued and she settled it on Mickey. “So hows it going
then? Duncan thought it would look less suspicious if you were caught talking
to me rather than him.”
“Its weird, they aren’t suspicious of me at all.”
“Thats good isn’t it?”
“Well yeah but they’ve just accepted me as one of their own.”
“I really don’t see why you’re complaining.”
“Well if you ran a big mobbo gang and some guy just joined you’d want
to know a bit about him wouldn’t you.”
“Yeah I suppose but aren’t we losing the idea just a bit here, the
idea is to find out whether Sean Mullins gang are into big time stuff...”
“So we can arrest him and then Chandler one more thing he doesn’t have
to worry about.”
“Remember Sean Mullins can be a dangerous guy, he was arrested for
murder twice but the evidence was discounted...”
“Probably due to friends in high places. Yeah I know, put him away
for a long time...” Mickey let a long breath out and drummed his fingers
on the top of the car. “Well definitely drugs. Maybe more, I reckon theres
something else going on too.”
“Like what?”
“I dunno yet, its just a hunch.”
“I’ll pass all this on to Cullen.”
“Right, I’d better get back.” He turned to leave.
“Mickey. Duncan wants you to phone him later about that missing girl.”
“Whats that got to do with this?”
“Mullins might be involved.”
Mickey started to walk again, “Great.”
“OK, I’ll wait in the car,” she glanced in the direction of the shiny
silver Vauxhall Vectra parked nearest the exit, the only flaw in its appearance
were a series small scratches under the taillights from when Debbie McAllister
had managed to hit as many cars as was possible in multi storey car park.
Mickey wondered if Paul ever got in trouble for that. He watched Kate stalk
back past the drunken men, they ignored her this time which made him smile.
The pub door opened and Duncan stepped out and glanced over at Mickey before
joining Kate. They exchanged half smiles and then left Mickey to it.
“Who was that?” The soft voice escaping the darkness made him jump and
he turned to see Ariana staring at him out of the darkness in the small
porched part outside the pub. Her eyes were big and brown and reminded
him of a puppy he used to have as a kid, before his dad had sold it to
make ends meet, but he didn’t want to think of his family know, that was
the least of his worries. “Well.”
“Er,” Mickey paused and rubbed his forehead, “Just some girl that won’t
take no for an answer.” He tried hard to keep himself from smirking at
the irony of what he had just said.
“Popular guy, heh, you said you were new round here.”
“Unfinished business...look I don’t want to...”
At first he didn’t know what was happening, plunged into darkness he realised someone had thrown a bag over him, he struggled to get out by pulling it back but was hit in the chest by something that felt painfully like a baseball bat. He bent over and was hit on the back of his neck, if he wasn’t in complete darkness he would have noticed his eyes go fuzzy. He thought that maybe Sean and friends had found out who he was but he heard muffled shrieks telling him Ariana was undergoing the same treatment. “Ari..” He stopped talking as the bat came down a third time rendering him unconscious.
“When is it then?” Alex Cullen looked annoyed.
“What?” Kate was puzzled.
“The pick-up, Mickey has got enough evidence for an arrest.” It didn’t
sound like a question.
Duncan stepped around Kate, “With all due respect sir, this is only
his second night undercover with Sean.”
Cullen sat down and nodded, “I’ll give him a call later, ask if there
were further developments.”
He was running away, he wasn’t sure what from but it was huge, the ground
shook as it moved swiftly towards him, he stopped as the ground fell away
from him and turned around to face...
Even though now conscious and not being smothered he still could not
see, he soon realised that he was in fact in the back of van and had been
blindfolded, bound and gagged. He moaned and rolled over.
“Terry?” Ariana spoke softly so she could not be heard by the men or
man in the front, he guessed there were at least two as that was the amount
that had abducted them and the amount of voices he could hear coming from
their. He tried to whisper back but it came out as another muffled groan.
He heard sliding noises and tried to move towards them. He and Ariana met
in the middle of the van. She bent down and whispered to him, “I slipped
out of the gag, but I’m still blindfolded but I’ll try and get yours off
OK.” Before he could consent she lowered her head until it came into contact
with his. She felt around with her mouth, no that was his ear.
Mickey felt his face burn as her lips traced from his ear across his
cheek to the blindfold. His heart jumped and he cursed himself for it,
he couldn’t go there, not with someone he knew was on the other side of
the law. He screwed up his eyes as the small amount of light that actually
existed on the inside of the van penetrated his eyes. He looked up at Ariana
and tried to say thanks but it came out as a small muffled moan.
“Gag then.” He watched as she leaned towards him exposing quite a bit
of cleavage. He moved to the right place so her mouth wouldn’t have to
wander anywhere. She pulled hard with her teeth biting him in the process,
through the rough cloth it didn’t hurt too much. At last he could speak
again. “Thanks.”
“Come on then.”
“What?”
“My blindfold.”
Mickey felt his cheeks burning, “Yeah, sorry.” He moved closer to her
and decided it would be less tempting if he took it off from the back.
He ripped it off quickly taking a mouthful of hair with it. Ariana immediately
whipped her hand round to the back of her head.
“Sorry.”
“Its OK, its not like you’ve had a lot of practise at doing that anyway.”
He smiled and looked down unsure of what to say.
“So how did you get into the gang?” He might as well get some more
information out of her for the moment, even if he did feel bad about it.
“My brother got into some financial difficulties a few months ago,
he got involved with some people and they put him in contact with Sean,
and things got going from there, a bit like you.”
“Yeah, I suppose.”
“So was it all financial problems that brought you here?”
“Mostly, yeah.”
“You don’t like talking much about yourself do you?”
“Not much to talk about.”
She smiled and nudged his arm, moving to sit next to him against the
right side of the van. “Oh come on, there must be something.”
There was silence as the van stopped. Two loud bangs told them that
the driver and passenger had exited the vehicle. Both doors at the rear
were opened at the same time.
“Any contact with Mickey guv?” Duncan was worried, Mickey was supposed
to phone him the night before, he tried his mobile but it was switched
off.
“No, not yet.” Cullen walked straight past him.
“Someone got out the wrong side of the bed this morning.”
Vik Singh nodded. “Debbie’s lacking sufficient evidence again. Speak
of the devil.”
Debbie walked out of Cullen’s office fuming. “That is not fair, how
can he say I’m not doing my job properly.”
Vik Singh rolled his eyes as she stalked off to the coffee machine.
“Yeah mate, good job there were more people here or they might’ve escaped
altogether. Clever little bastards slipped out their gags.”
“Well if you’d have tied them up properly in the first place that wouldn’t
have happened would it?”
Mickey heard two loud thuds followed by a muffled apology. Whoever
these people were he knew that they would get exactly what they wanted,
even if it meant a few people dying. He heard shuffling and then felt something
against the side of his head, the world went black again.
“Alex, how can I help you?” Chandler smiled as the DI entered his office.
“Mickey Webbs gone missing, he didn’t phone Duncan or me last night
to report on progress, the gang has been seen but he’s not with them, his
mobile was traced but it was found lying by the side of the road.”
“Ok, I’ll get onto SCG. They’re investigating the gang for a drug smuggling
incident in which two members of a rival gang were killed.”
“Does Mickey know?”
“No. Which road was his mobile found on?”
“West out of London. Way out of our area.”
“Any clues as to where they were heading?”
“Theres a warehouse a few miles down from where his mobile was found.”
“OK, follow that up and keep a search out, alert uniform to keep an
eye out and anyone else thats going out today.”
Getting a concussion twice in one day Mickey had decided was definately
not a good thing, his head felt as if it could explode at any moment. He
carefully assessed his position, his hands were tied behind him around
the back of the chair on which he sat. He had no idea how long he had been
out for but Sean was already there bargaining with them to get his gang
members back.
“Look,” Mickey recognised the voice as belonging to the man that hit
one of his own guys earlier. He heard Ariana moan and the noise made him
even more desperate for them to escape. The voice carried on.
“Ever since the 70’s we were the only ‘business’ round here and now
you lot’ve come into our patch selling for half, stealing our customers,
what we want is a guarentee you’ll move out let us get back to normal.”
“We’ve got as much right...”
“Do you want me to kill her?” She groaned again as if held by the neck
but Mickey couldn’t see there was silence for a moment then he heard a
sigh. “Do you?”
With surprise Mickey heard Sean laugh. “I’d kill her myself if she
got in the way of my business, and him, I’ve only known him a couple of
days, kill them both, it doesn’t make any difference to me.” He stopped
and took a long breath. “In fact I will do it myself.”
As soon as he had finished a shot sounded, followed quickly in succession
by a further two shots. Mickey felt someone untie his hands quickly he
pulled off his blindfold while they undid his gag. He squinted again as
his eyes tried to adjust to the light for the second time. He just stood
unmoving until he could focus again. From behind someone nudged him and
continued running past him.
“Everybody down on the ground, you’re all nicked.” Mickey laid down
on the cold hard floor, he’d tell them later but all he could think about
now was if Ariana had been shot.
After a few minutes they started to get everyone into the vans, “Stand
up Terry.” Ariana handcuffed him and he stared at her in surprise.
“Shit, you’re a copper.”
“Well done, have a gold star.”
“Wait you don’t understand.” Mickey frowned seeing if he could find
anything to prove who he was, “Go in my pocket.”
She looked at him strangely. “Go on, hurry up.”
She took out his mobile, “Phone up Sunhill police station, get someone
down here. I’m DC Mickey Webb, the girl in the car park, DC Kate Spears,
checking on progress, the guy she was with, DC Duncan Lennox. I’m undercover
trying to get Sean but it seems you guys got their first.”
“Thats the joy of being in drug squad.” She handed him over to a uniformed
police officer who looked at him disbelievingly as she went to check it
out with her senior officers. He copper holding him tightened his grip
on Mickeys arms when he sneezed as if he was about to bolt. He guessed
he was from Barton street, they were on their patch anyway. His arms were
beginning to ache he could tell he was in for a long night.
Half an hour later the Sunhill area car pulled up outside the warehouse.
Tom Chandler got out of the back and went straight over to wear Ariana
was standing with four men, probably going to suck up and smarm his way
out of the mess they had created, at least no one had got hurt. Des Taviner
and Nick Klein walked up to him smirking, sharing a joke he wouldn’t want
to hear. Nick Klein undid his handcuffs while Des made comments about the
last time a female police officer had handcuffed him to anything. “You
all right Mickey?”
“I’m fine Nick.”
Ariana walked over to him and smiled, “Thanks for earlier, in the van.”
Mickey shrugged and took her hand shaking it gently, “Mickey Webb.”
“Hi, I’m Jasmine King.”
They stood there for a while as the vans drove away. “So Jasmine, d’you
want to go out for a drink sometime?”