Barry Maitiland: Spider Trap

He had mentioned that he had no plans for Christmas, and Kathy had caught herself actually looking forward to the break for a change. Then one December day she’d found a message on her answering machine. Something had come up and he had to go away for a while. After a couple of attempts to reach him she’d stopped trying, because she’d been down this road before, with another Special Branch officer who had vanished in the same way. In that case she’d discovered later that they’d changed his name, his address and his phone number, and she’d assumed something similar had happened to Tom. She’d told herself that she should have known better, and got on with her life.

She swung the car through the security gates at the back of the police station and switched off the engine.

‘Teddy Vexx is known to us,’ DCI Savage said.‘He and another local, Jay Crocker, have been in Trident’s sights for some time. I was going to mention him as a possibility.’

They were seated at tables arranged in a square in the centre of the large room they’d been given in the local police station. A couple of computers and phone lines had been rigged on a bench along one wall, and on the opposite side a borough street map and crime scene photographs had been pinned up.

‘You know them, Bob?’ Brock turned to DS McCulloch.

‘Oh yes, we know them,’ McCulloch nodded. ‘They’re both bad boys with plenty of form. Vexx is the big shot. He’s connected with the JOS club in some way-part owner, I think. He owns other businesses, too.’

Savage was interested.‘What sort of businesses?’

‘A laundrette on Cove Street that his mother runs, and a tyre yard and repair shop in the lane behind.We’ve long suspected him of selling drugs through the laundrette and recycling stolen cars through the repair shop, maybe a crack laboratory somewhere too, but never been able to get the evidence. He scares people. Nobody wants to talk about Teddy Vexx.’

‘Hm.’ Savage tapped his pen on the table in front of him, thinking.‘Sounds like he needs stirring up.Of course,we could be barking up the wrong tree. It looks as if the girls were on the run from people back in Harlesden,and the odds are those people finally caught up with them down here.Maybe they got Vexx’s help,maybe not.Funny thing is,it doesn’t have the feel of a Yardie killing.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Your classic Yardie murder has a spontaneous feel, all sudden violence in the heat of the moment, even when it’s been preplanned.A drive-by shooting,a shotgun blast through a car window, a burst of fire in a crowded nightclub . . . This seems more drawn out and deliberate.’

‘Hell,’ McCulloch protested,‘the crack, the guns . . .’

‘Yeah, I know. Maybe they were trying to get something from the girls before they killed them. Anyway, people are upset, they want to see some response and soon, and if we can use the opportunity to put pressure on some local bad lads, so much the better.’

They were making an effort at team building, Brock knew, getting to know each other, but their interests were very different. McCulloch would be under pressure to put a blanket over the spotlight of publicity that had been turned on their patch, while Savage was more concerned with broader things, networks and connections beyond the borough. And what was his own interest? To get out of here as soon as possible? He had been less than open with Kathy about his feelings for this place. Cockpit Lane. He had been startled by the intensity of the memories it evoked, powerful feelings he’d long ago locked up tight.

The phone rang and McCulloch reached for it.‘What,now?’ He grimaced and covered the mouthpiece as he turned to Brock. ‘Chief, Michael Grant, local Member of Parliament; he’s downstairs, wants to say hello.’

Savage groaned.

‘All right,’ Brock said.‘I’ll be interested to meet him. Can they bring him up?’

‘Time for a sermon,’ Savage said.

‘You know him, Keith?’

‘Only too well. He’s a member of our Independent Advisory Group. He tells us how to do our jobs.’

McCulloch hurriedly tidied away the remains of their sandwiches. There was a knock at the door and a woman officer showed in the MP. Kathy recognised him from TV, his face lively and intelligent, dressed casually in jeans and a padded jacket.

‘Keith!’ he cried, advancing on Savage with outstretched hand.

‘Michael, great to see you. Let me introduce you to some of the key people in our team. DCI Brock from Special Operations is our SIO, and his colleague DS Kathy Kolla.You may have met Bob McCulloch from local area command, and some of my colleagues from Trident.’

Grant shook their hands warmly.

‘I was just telling them that you’re an invaluable member of our Trident IAG.’

‘He means I’m a pain in the bum,’ Grant said with a smile. He looked around the room and said,‘So, where are the battle plans? I expected great charts with arrows and pincer movements, like the Battle of Stalingrad.’

‘Ah, it’s all done on computers now, Michael. Anyway, this is just our local outpost.’

‘But this is a local problem, Keith. This is where the people are dying.’ He turned to Brock, the bantering tone gone from his voice.‘Not always in as dramatic a fashion as Dana and Dee-Ann, perhaps. Usually it’s an overdose among the dustbins in the back lane, choking on their own vomit, but they’re dying all the same, more quietly, more anonymously, without attracting the attention of Special Operations.’

Kathy wasn’t sure if he was being hostile or just challenging.

Grant went on.‘That’s why we have to strike while people are focused on this local problem.’

‘We shall strike,’ Brock assured him, ‘when we have the evidence. That’s what we’re concentrating on at present, Mr Grant. Don’t worry, we’ll find it.’

‘I admire your confidence.’ Grant held his gaze for a moment, assessing him.

‘We’ve been discussing that very point,’Savage broke in.‘Seizing the moment. And we’re also mindful that the central problem here is the same, whether it’s these two girls or the anonymous body in the alley. It’s drugs.’

‘Actually the central problem isn’t drugs,’ Grant said. ‘The central problem is greed. The drugs are only the means to an end. This is about the exploitation of the weak by the strong, of the poor by the greedy. Don’t you forget that, Keith.’ He held up an admonishing finger.‘Don’t you come to me at the end of the day with a few miserable black junkies locked up in gaol and tell me you’ve done your job.’

‘Point taken, Michael.’

‘Well, I won’t hold you up. Maybe next time I’ll get to see the battle plans. Glad to meet you all. Good hunting.’

After the door closed behind him, Savage let out a deep sigh and murmured,‘That’s what I meant about the sermon.We get it all the time.’

McCulloch snorted.

‘Could you interpret for us, Keith?’ Brock asked.

‘Michael Grant believes that the drug trade in this area is controlled not by the Yardies or the home-grown black gangs,but by white organised criminals who use the black locals as cannon fodder. It makes him feel better. It isn’t blacks shamefully fouling their own nest, it’s the old story of whites brutally exploiting helpless blacks for economic gain.’

‘And he’s wrong?’

‘We have found absolutely no basis for his belief.’

‘Does he say who these whites are?’

‘He has made allegations, yes.’

‘Mind telling me?’

‘Principally a family called Roach. They used to operate out of Cockpit Lane in the old days, had a bit of a reputation for hard dealing and long firm fraud. They moved out a long time ago and became respectable, but Grant is convinced they’ve still got their grip on the place. Right, Bob? He must have bent your DCI’s ear.’