Simon Kernick - The Crime Trade

‘Let me just get out of these clothes,’ she said. ‘Then we’ll talk.’ An invitation, if ever I’d heard one.

‘Talking wasn’t what I had in mind,’ I said as I followed her into the bedroom.

I wasn’t sure whether she was up for it or not, but it was either that or she was feeling sorry for me, because she took me in her arms and nature took its all-too-swift course. I’m not the world’s greatest lover, nor does the mood take me every waking hour like it does some men, but when I put my mind to the task I can be pretty successful, if I say so myself. Dogged rather than devastating, but Tina seemed to enjoy it which, as she would tell you, was the main thing.

‘Well, that wasn’t exactly romantic,’ she said after we’d finished and were lying naked on the bed, she smoking the obligatory cigarette, ‘but it did the trick.’

‘We aim to please,’ I told her, thinking that there weren’t many things better than sex with someone you care about. ‘Do you fancy something to eat?’ Though good food was probably a close second.

‘Are you cooking?’

‘I’ve even bought the wine.’

She smiled, ruffling my hair. ‘I could get used to this.’

‘Fine by me. I’m hoping you do.’

We looked at each other for a moment and I suddenly felt awkward, as if I’d just been caught putting pressure on her. These last few weeks I’d been finding it harder to keep the pace of our relationship casual, but I was also keen not to scare her away, knowing that she wanted to take things one step at a time.

‘I’ll go and rustle something up for us.’ I kissed her on the cheek, threw on my dressing gown and headed into the kitchen to attempt to produce some home-made chicken fried rice.

While the rice boiled and the chicken browned in the wok, I cracked open the bottle of white wine and poured half the contents into two large glasses. A few minutes later, Tina followed me in, dressed in a white dressing gown and slippers, her hair wet from the shower, and it occurred to me, not for the first time since we’d got together, that I was a very lucky man.

‘Smells nice,’ she said, coming over and giving me a kiss on the cheek.

‘So do you.’

She stepped away, picked up her wine, then asked me what I’d found out that afternoon. Whatever she said about leaving the Force and doing something a bit more in line with her background and education, she lived the job just as much as me. I was sure she wouldn’t last five minutes in an office, dealing with customer enquiries or adding numbers to balance sheets. Our job was a bad one, whatever the recruitment ads might say. Underpaid and under-supported, over-stressed and increasingly over-dangerous. But it was still addictive to the right sort of person, and Tina, like me, was the right sort of person. Maybe it was one of the reasons I liked her so much. Because she knew the pressures, and unlike a lot of the wives and girlfriends of coppers, she could tolerate them.

I gave her a brief rundown of my interview with Clay, and she raised her eyebrows when I told her about Stegs’s previous run-in with Flanagan.

‘That’s an interesting one,’ she said, lighting another cigarette and taking a decent-sized gulp of the wine. ‘I thought there was some tension between them on Wednesday. I found out something as well.’

‘What?’

‘Stegs used to partner up with a guy called Jeff Benson at SO10, before he worked with Vokes. I spoke to Benson today. He left the Force three years ago, very suddenly. Just before he slung his hook, he got inside the Holtzes, posing as a doorman who was also a drug dealer and enforcer. He was well inside too, not just on the periphery. It took him months, but he got to the point where they trusted him, and he even got introduced to the big boss, Stefan Holtz.’

I chucked some Chinese vegetables in with the chicken and gave the whole lot a good stir. ‘Go on.’

‘It was a top-secret op. Only his controller was meant to know about it, but Benson made a mistake. He let slip what he was doing to Stegs one night when they were out drinking, against all the rules. He told me it was because the pressure was getting to him and he wanted to talk to someone about it. Since he couldn’t say a word to his family, he chose someone he felt he could confide in. Three weeks later his wife and child got a visit from a group of Holtz thugs. No-one was hurt, but she was given a letter containing photos of her going in and out of the shop where she worked, plus the nursery where she dropped her baby off every day. And then, the very same night, Benson, who knew nothing about the visit, was getting into his car outside a pub when a man with a scarf round his face leant in the window and stuck a gun against his head. The shooter said, “This is a message from the Holtzes to their favourite copper,” and pulled the trigger. Thankfully the gun was empty, but Benson knew they were serious. When he saw the photos, that was it. He resigned on the spot.’

‘I remember Malik telling me something about that when I first met up with him,’ I said, emptying the rice into a colander before adding it to the mix in the wok, and giving it another stir. I was getting hungry now. ‘I didn’t know the guy had had anything to do with Stegs, though. Not that it necessarily means anything.’

‘Except that Benson’s certain Stegs was the leak. He said that within days of him telling Stegs, his contacts within the Holtzes began to shut him out of things. Meetings were postponed, the information he was gathering seemed to dry up. Then obviously all this other stuff happened, and that was it. Another career beckoned. He left within days and refused point-blank to tell his controller what he’d found out. The Holtzes knew what they were doing. He’s still scared now, even though they’re no longer a threat. I visited him at home today. He’s moved south of the river and become head of security for an investment company in Kent. A lot less money, but at least he sleeps at night. The thing is, he blames Stegs for what happened, without a doubt. They’ve never spoken since, and they were good friends.’

I thought about that for a moment. ‘There’s never been any evidence that Stegs had anything to do with the Holtzes, though, has there?’

‘I asked Benson about that and he said no, not that he was aware of. That’s why the controller didn’t buy it. But he’s sure, John. Benson’s sure Stegs set him up, and let’s face it, Stegs is not exactly whiter than white, is he?’ She took another long drag on the cigarette.

‘But if he did work for the Holtzes, then how come when we first used Stegs to set up Slim Robbie, Robbie didn’t recognize him?’

Tina shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps Stegs was only known to a handful of people in the organization, and Slim Robbie wasn’t one of them. It still doesn’t seem right, whatever you might think.’

I could hardly disagree with that. ‘We’ll need to keep our ears to the ground, but we’ll also have to be careful. He’s going to know we’re asking questions, but it’s important we make him believe that it’s only routine, and we don’t rattle him.’

I dished up and we ate at the kitchen table while steadily draining the bottle of wine. The conversation remained on the case for a few minutes but, with some prompting on my part, finally moved on to other things, and after we’d finished eating I brought up the idea of a holiday together.

‘It sounds nice,’ she said carefully, ‘but it means everything’s going to end up out in the open, doesn’t it?’

‘It’s going to have to come out eventually. And anyway, I think most people in CID have got a pretty good idea of what’s going on. They are detectives, after all. I’d be a bit concerned if they hadn’t.’