Peter Turnbull - Deep Cover

‘So, we’ll leave you — we have a dinner party to attend; got to get back home and get dressed for it. . but there’s nothing like a trip to the country to put an edge on your appetite.’

Bowling and Yates left the barn. Henry Packer followed shortly afterwards, turning off the light and shutting the door behind him.

Yewdall tugged at the chain and then gave up. The only sound was the wheezing Billy Kemp.

Harry Vicary forced the door of 123 Claremont Road and stormed into the hall, followed by Brunnie and Ainsclough, and four uniformed constables. He yelled, ‘Police!’ and then turned to the constables. ‘Search the house. Bring everyone down to the kitchen.’

The only person in the house at the time proved to be Sonya Clements, who was dragged protesting into the kitchen.

‘So where is she?’

‘Who?’

‘My officer!’

‘Your officer?’

‘Yes. .’ Vicary snarled, ‘my officer, Penny Yewdall.’

‘Penny’s a cop!’ Clements gasped.

‘Yes. . Penny’s a cop and Yates has her. Yates is finished and everyone associated with him is finished too. So where is she?’

‘Don’t know! Honest. She was driven off about an hour ago.’

‘Who drove her off!’

‘Dunno. . Rusher did. . her and Billy Kemp.’

‘Where did they go?’

‘I don’t know. . look, I’m just a girl, I don’t know anything.’

‘But you know Rusher works for Yates!’

‘Yes. .’

‘So what do you do for Yates?’

‘Just a gofer, fetch and deliver stuff — just little stuff. Do what I’m told.’

‘Take her in, suspicion of handling stolen property.’ Vicary paused. ‘That’ll do for now. . but listen you,’ he addressed Sonya, ‘listen, we are wrapping up Yates. He’s going down and he’ll be well tucked-up for a long time. So right now it’s just handling stolen goods, but if anything happens to Penny it could be conspiracy to murder a police officer. . and when a firm like Yates’s firm starts collapsing, everyone is out to save themselves. Everyone starts squealing like a sty full of stuck pork, it’s a hell of a racket, and we’ll then find out what has gone on and who has done what. So, do some thinking while you’re in the van and start working for yourself. Alright, take her away!’ Two constables dragged a wide-eyed and worried looking Sonya Clements out of the house and into a police van.

‘Take the house apart.’ Vicary spoke to Ainsclough and the two remaining officers. ‘I don’t know what you are looking for but take the place apart.’ He tapped Frankie Brunnie on the shoulder and said, ‘Come with me.’

Vicary walked aggressively out of the house, turned on to Fernhead Road, and headed to the offices of WLM Rents. He and Brunnie entered aggressively. The manager stood reverentially as they entered, and managed to say, ‘Good afternoon, gent-’ before Vicary grabbed his lapels, pulled him over the desk and threw him on the floor. ‘Penny Yewdall,’ he shouted. ‘Where is she?’

‘Who?’ The youthful manager looked shocked and frightened. He was one Nicholas Batty, by his name badge.

‘My officer!’

‘Your officer,’ he stammered.

‘Yes, Metropolitan Police. . and my officer was driven away about an hour ago by Curtis Yates’s thugs. .’

‘I just look after the office.’

‘Sure?’

‘Yes. .’

‘We’ll find out, we’ll find out everything.’

Brunnie leaned forward, and taking the man by his lapels, once again, he pulled him to his feet and brushed the man’s jacket. ‘You’re out of work, sunshine.’

‘Out. .’

‘Of work,’ Vicary completed the sentence for him. ‘Yates is finished, his firm is on the way out and we’ll find out the extent of everyone’s involvement.’

‘Including yours, Nicky boy,’ Brunnie added, ‘including yours.’

Vicary’s mobile vibrated. He took it out of his pocket and snatched it open. ‘Yes!’ He listened. He then said, ‘It doesn’t look like she’s here either.’ He snapped the phone shut. He turned to Brunnie. ‘She’s not at Piccadilly.’

‘So now what?’ Brunnie kept hold of Nicholas Batty’s arm.

‘Don’t know. . bring him with us.’

‘On what charge, boss?’

‘Dunno. . we’ll think of one — can’t leave him out here now he knows Penny’s a copper. You got the keys to this office?’

‘Desk drawer.’

Vicary strode across the floor to the desk, opened the drawer and took out a bunch of keys. ‘These?’

‘Yes.’

‘Right.’ He walked back to where Brunnie and Batty stood and handed the keys to Brunnie. ‘Check in the back room, then lock up and give the keys back to me. . and you, start to think about working for yourself, Nicholas. Curtis Yates is finished; he’s got nothing to hold over you now.’

The long afternoon stretched into an even longer night. Billy Kemp, to whom Penny Yewdall was chained, had eventually, but only eventually, stopped asking questions which Yewdall could not answer — ‘Which one of us will they kill first?’, ‘Will they drown us like they drowned him?’, ‘Will our bodies ever be found?’, ‘Will anyone know what happened?’ He then gave up the futile tugging of the chain, seemed to curl up into a ball and settled into a prolonged whimpering, which he kept up until the dawn.

In time, a certain calm, a certain peace settled over Penny Yewdall. So, she thought, so it has come to this — an early death at the hands of thieves and gangsters, but it was also a death she felt proud to die. . for the police force. She had joined to serve, and had joined accepting the risks therein. Not perhaps as much of a risk as is faced by those who enlist in the armed services, but nonetheless police officers not infrequently lose their lives when on duty. Penny Yewdall, noticing that sounds appeared louder, smells stronger as she waited to die, realized that she was not worried for herself — she had hoped for a quick and painless death when her time came, and like the whimpering youth she did not relish the thought of drowning, the panic. . the struggle. . the bursting lungs. . and likewise she did not want to die by falling from a great height, nor by incineration — but her worry turned to fear for her parents, her real, actual parents, still alive and living in retirement on the coast, and her sister and brother. Her family must know what had happened to her; they would need a grave to visit, a place to lay wreaths and a place where they could gather and grieve, but they were not going to have that. She would disappear, leaving them not knowing what had happened to her. They would never know peace. They would be in permanent distress. It was for them that she worried, endlessly fretting while her earthly remains putrefied under a sapling of a flowering cherry tree, so pretty in the spring, in a meadow in Hertfordshire. That was the worry — she felt for her family; aggravated by the sense of guilt that she had, somehow, betrayed them.

It became cold that night. Very cold. In the barn rats rustled about. Outside in the still air, an owl hooted.

Victor Swannell stepped nimbly out of the drizzle and off the greasy pavement, entered the main entrance of the London Hospital and was immediately assailed by the strong smell of formaldehyde. He consulted the hospital directory and took the stairs, in preference to the lift, to the second floor. Upon reaching the second floor he turned left and entered the ward, and approached the nursing station. He showed his ID. ‘I was told a patient wishes to see the police as a matter of urgency. A man called Sherwin. . Clive Sherwin.’

‘Ah, yes.’ The senior of the two nurses at the station stood. She was one Sister Jewell, by her name badge, which was fixed perfectly horizontal on the lapel of her uniform. She was a short, finely built woman — serious-minded, thought Swannell — the sort of nursing sister who is always right all the time about everything and a terror of trainees. ‘I’ll take you to him. We have put him in a private room, wholly for the benefit of the other patients I might add. He would distress them.’