Graham Hurley - Cut to Black

"SIO?"

"Me."

Faraday nodded, not beginning to understand. Dave Michaels was a Detective Sergeant. Senior Investigating Officer on a case like this was a role for a DI. There were three DIs on the Major Crimes Team.

With Hayder off the plot and the other DI flat out on a domestic in Waterlooville, that left Faraday. He had nothing pressing on his desk.

He knew Nick Hayder well. So why wasn't he out at Fort Cumberland, marshalling the troops?

There was a tap at the door and Faraday glanced round to find Brian Imber stepping into the office. He must have driven over from the Intelligence Unit, Faraday thought. And he must have been expected.

"Black? Half a sugar?" Willard nodded at the third mug.

Imber sat down, parking his briefcase beside the chair. A lean, combative fifty-four-year-old with a passion for long-distance running, he'd spent a couple of controversial years banging the drum for an aggressive new approach to the drugs issue, and for the first time Faraday had the smallest inkling of what might lie behind Willard's early-morning call. There was a sub-plot here, something more complex than sorting out a serious assault.

Willard had opened his file. He quickly scanned a page or two of notes, then told Imber to get on with it.

Imber glanced across at Faraday.

"You've seen Nick." It was a statement, not a question.

"Yes."

"Not good, eh?"

"No."

"OK, so here's the problem we have." He reached down for his briefcase and produced a thick file of his own. "Nick has been putting a case together. I'm sure the boss will be going into the whys and wherefores in a minute but the point is this: Nick won't be around for a whilp Not the way we'll need him."

"So?"

"So the boss is after a replacement."

Willard's finger was anchored on a page halfway through his file. He glanced up at Faraday.

"We're talking serious covert. You won't have come across it and neither will anyone else, not if Hayder's done his work properly."

Willard paused. "We're calling it Operation Tumbril."

Faraday could only nod. He'd never heard of Tumbril in his life.

"What is it?"

"Number one, it's long-term. A year now?" Willard was looking at Imber.

"Fourteen months, sir."

"Fourteen months. That's a lot of resource, believe me, and there's days I regret even dreaming we could run with something like this.

Tumbril's been like the bastard kid no one really wants. I can name you a dozen people in this organisation who wanted it strangled at birth and most of them are still putting the boot in. If you're looking for serious grief-' he tapped the file 'be my guest."

"So what is it?" Faraday asked again. "This Tumbril?"

Willard abandoned the file and sat back in his chair, briefly savouring this small moment of drama. Normally the most undemonstrative of men, he even allowed himself the beginnings of a smile.

"It's Bazza Mackenzie," he said softly.

"He's the target?"

"Yes. The way we've played it, there are other names in the frame, names that'll make your eyes water, but, fundamentally, yes, we're talking Bazza."

"You finally decided to take him on?"

"Had to. NCIS were talking full flag level three if we got the spadework under way. Even our lot couldn't turn that down."

The National Criminal Intelligence Service was the body charged with ranking the UK's major criminals. To Faraday's knowledge there were only 147 full flag level threes in the country. With the extra funding that came with trying to tackle that kind of notoriety, Willard was right: a major investigation was irresistible.

Faraday glanced at Imber, beginning to wonder how many other Tumbril files were in his briefcase.

"But we're a bit late, aren't we? Mackenzie's made his money, gone legit. These days he's just another businessman… No?"

"No way." Willard was emphatic. "That's what we thought to begin with, but it's not true. What no one ever takes into account is the nature of these blokes, the way they're made. You're right about the money. Mackenzie's millions in, squill ions in, but the truth is he can't leave it alone. The guy's programmed to break the law. That's what he does. That's what he's best at. He's a local boy, Pompey through and through. He's done it his way, right from the off, and the bottom line is, he doesn't care a toss. If it isn't hard drugs, it'll be something else. And that's why we're going to fucking have him."

This, from Willard, was a major speech. In terms of investigative style, the Det-Supt had the lowest blood pressure Faraday had ever come across yet the mere mention of Bazza Mackenzie seemed to put a blush of colour in his face.

Faraday was about to ask a question about last night, about some kind of linkage to Tumbril, but Willard had already handed the baton back to Imber. According to the DS, there was money-laundering legislation they could use. They'd employed a forensic accountant. They'd acquired truckloads of paperwork from various sources and spent months and months crawling over hundreds of transactions, trying to unpick the web of deals behind which Mackenzie had hidden his profits. None of this stuff was easy, and lots of it to be frank was a pain in the arse, but piece by piece the jigsaw was coming together, and that was what mattered.

As Imber warmed to his theme, pausing over a page in his file to make a particular set of points, Faraday let the details wash over him. Soon enough there'd be time for a proper briefing. Just now, here in Willard's office, he wanted to dwell a little on Mackenzie.

Everyone in Pompey knew the name. Bazza was the man who'd first brought serious quantities of cocaine into the city. Bazza was the onetime football hooligan who'd turned kilos of 9 5 per cent Peruvian into cafe-bars and tanning salons, and countless other legitimate enterprises. Bazza was the guy at the wheel of the latest SUV, at the launch of the latest theme restaurant, in the best seats in the South Stand at Fratton Park. Bazza, in short, was living proof that crime serious crime paid.

Faraday, unlike many other local detectives, had never had any firsthand dealings with the man, but his control of the city's cocaine and ecstasy market had been so total, so carefully secured, that it sometimes seemed impossible to come across a drugs-related crime that didn't, in the end, link back to Mackenzie. Over the years the man had become a legend. He gloried in his notoriety, in his reputation, and the more visibly successful he became, the more it seemed to some that the forces of law and order had simply given up. Bazza, as one DC had once remarked, was a bit like the weather. Always there.

Watching Imber, Faraday was more heartened by this sudden development that he could possibly express. Like others in the force, he'd been bewildered by Mackenzie's seeming immunity, failing to understand why he'd never been taken on. Slowly, this bewilderment had turned to frustration, then anger, then to his own quiet shame — resignation. In contemporary policing, he'd finally concluded, certain battles simply weren't worth fighting. Maybe it was a question of resources. Maybe it was the pressure of a million other things to do. Either way, Bazza seemed to have slipped effortlessly into a prosperous middle age, well connected, beyond reach, a role model for every little scroat in the city.

Until, it seemed, now.

Imber was talking about a recent trip to Gibraltar. Faraday touched him lightly on the arm, struck by a sudden thought.

"How come Nick managed to keep the lid on this?"

"I'm not with you."

"His office is next to mine. I know he's always shutting the door but there are limits. Surely…?"

Imber glanced at Willard. Willard hadn't taken his eyes off Faraday.

There was a long silence.

"You're telling me Tumbril's run from somewhere else?"