Simon Kernick - The Crime Trade

‘You can stay at our house tonight but I want you to pack in the morning and go. You’ll still be allowed to see Luke as long as you give me notice. I don’t suppose you’ll be applying for custody of him, since you hardly give him the time of day, even in those rare moments when you are around.’

‘You can’t fucking do this to me! You can’t!’

Stegs realized he was shouting and that people on the street were looking at him strangely. He also realized, before he could say anything else, that the missus had hung up on him, the first time she’d done that in years.

He put the phone back in his pocket and started walking. He walked and walked, wondering how he hadn’t spotted that his missus disliked him that much. He’d win her back, though. When she realized he was going to change, and that he had some money behind him, then she’d come running back. In the end, what was the alternative? Single motherhood. No way. She’d change her mind.

By the time he got to a pub on the Woodhouse Road called the Dog and Badger, he was feeling a lot better. He went inside and ordered a pint of reassuringly expensive Stella.

You can knock Stegs Jenner down. Plenty of people had over the years. But he always got back up again. Always.

According to the Land Registry, 10 Haymarket Road was registered in the name of a Mr Aptar Singh. A quick search revealed he’d never been in trouble with the police before. Number 12, meanwhile, belonged to a Mr Anthony John Cross. Records showed that he’d owned the property for sixteen years, the first eight jointly with a Mrs Angela Nola Cross, the last eight on his own.

Anthony John Cross. I logged into the database and typed in his name. The long, baleful face of a man in his late fifties, who’d been dyeing his grey hair blond with only mixed success, appeared. No convictions, but he was currently in custody, facing seven charges of possession of a firearm without a certificate, with intent to commit a crime contrary to the 1968 Firearms Act. Date of arrest, 2nd March this year. I found a link to the arrest report. It stated that Cross, a retired career soldier, had been suspected by police of supplying firearms to local criminals either for rental or purchase for some considerable time. It was believed that he’d procured the firearms from various military contacts, and had also been responsible for reactivating replica firearms — a common and easily executable crime — to bolster his collection. Acting on intelligence, officers from Acton CID had raided his home in the early hours of 2 March, arresting Cross and recovering a total of seven handguns of various calibres. Further, more serious charges of supplying firearms contrary to Section 16 of the Firearms Act were expected to follow.

I sat back in my seat and took a gulp from the cup of coffee on the desk, feeling a lot calmer now that I’d had confirmation from the hospital that the operation on Tina had been successful and that she was going to be all right. Getting back to working on the case was a good way of taking my mind off the tumultuous events of that morning.

So what did this new information tell me? My initial reaction was that it wasn’t a great deal of help. Since the gun in the O’Brien slayings had been used only a week ago, it was obviously not one of the seven netted by the local police. Which meant that it had either been hired out or sold by Cross between the time Panner fired it into Fiona Ragdale’s ceiling on 27 February and the police raid on his house three days later. Either that or Panner was lying. But how would he have known about Anthony Cross? We were going to need to speak to Cross himself and see if he could provide a link to Murk. Perhaps Murk had been spotted at the premises while it had been under surveillance.

I looked at my watch. It was almost two o’clock. I really needed to eat. My stomach growled and whined, but the hunger simply wasn’t there, the morning’s drama having played havoc with my appetite. In the end, I got up and bought the last, forlorn-looking cheese sandwich from the canteen and forced it down back at my desk, managing to consume all but a quarter of it. My stomach stopped growling anyway, and it made me feel a little bit better.

The incident room was almost empty that afternoon, and there was a sense that the O’Brien case was as good as solved. Trevor Murk had been pronounced dead at Charing Cross hospital at ten past twelve that afternoon without regaining consciousness, and DCI Woodham had got a number of mugshots of his printed up from his police record (he had two convictions: one for theft, one for receiving stolen goods, neither recent) which murder squad detectives were showing to real and potential witnesses to see if they could get final confirmation that he was the shooter. I didn’t think that there would be much doubt that they’d get it, which was a testimony to Tina’s detective work. Woodham, meanwhile, was chairing a news conference at Scotland Yard, scheduled for 3.30, in which some of the heat would finally be taken off the team.

As for Flanagan, no-one could get hold of him. According to his wife, he’d gone to see the doctor, and that was all she’d say.

I picked up the phone and called Acton CID. When I got through I introduced myself and was put through to a detective constable called Greg Blake. I told him about the lead that had come up involving the gun Panner had fired, and how it impinged upon our murder investigation. ‘I’m interested in talking to someone who was involved in the raid to see if they remember anything about it that could be of help.’

‘Well, you’re talking to the right bloke,’ Blake answered. ‘I was there, but I don’t know how much I can tell you.’

‘I don’t know either,’ I said truthfully. ‘Was there any way anyone could have missed anything?’

‘No,’ said Blake emphatically. ‘No way. We went over the whole place with a fine toothcomb and we videoed the raid too. We recovered everything there was to recover. It sounds like your man’s lying.’

I sighed. ‘I’m sure you’re right.’ And then something else struck me, something I hadn’t thought about before. ‘Do you remember who else was there from CID on the raid?’

Blake’s tone turned suspicious. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘Because I’m going to need to make a report of this lead, so I’ve got to cover my arse. You know the score.’

‘It was a big op, so it was run by my DCI, Frank Trummer. He was there, so was DC Bradshaw, and me obviously. Half a dozen uniforms and. .’ He paused at this point. ‘One of my former colleagues, Paul Vokerman. You might have heard about him. He got killed the other day on that Heathrow thing.’

‘Yes,’ I said quietly. ‘I’ve heard of him. I was sorry to hear about that.’

‘He was a good bloke.’

‘It always happens to the best. Look, thanks for that.’

‘No problem. Anything else you need to know?’

‘No. That’ll be fine.’

I hung up and sat staring at the phone for a long time.

So it was Vokes Vokerman who was the traitor. I hadn’t been expecting that.

I was still staring at the telephone when Malik came into the incident room with his jacket on, looking like he was in a hurry. ‘Heard the latest, John?’ he asked me, picking up some papers from his desk. He was obviously going somewhere.

I swivelled round in my seat. ‘No, tell me. Then I’ve got something for you.’

‘I don’t think it’ll be as eye-opening as mine. Trevor Murk. .’

‘Yes?’

‘He’s a registered informant. Up until very recently, one of his main handlers was none other than Stegs Jenner.’ I think I must have looked confused because Malik pulled a face. ‘What’s wrong? I thought you’d be pleased. Tina will be. She’s been convinced he was the source of the leak all along.’