Simon Kernick - The Crime Trade

‘What’s going on?’ called Merriweather from the other side of the house, his voice booming down the hallway. ‘Whatchoo doing back, Asif?’

‘Let’s get all the lights off,’ said Cheek, switching off the lamp by the chair he’d been sitting in. ‘And pull the curtains. Dan, go down and make sure Merriweather stays put.’

‘Do you want me to let him know what’s happening?’

‘Yes.’

Malik had put the number of DCI Norman Thackston of Crawley Police, the nearest station with armed support, into his mobile a few days earlier, just in case of this eventuality, even though he’d always thought it unlikely in the extreme. He speed-dialled it now, at the same time flicking off the hall light. Thackston wasn’t there, but after a dozen or so rings, someone else picked up.

‘Thackston’s line, DS Kamal speaking.’

Malik strode into the kitchen, switching off the light and pulling the curtains across. As he did so, he told Kamal as rapidly as possible what was happening, and how urgent the situation was, before giving him the address. Twice. ‘I need armed response units here immediately. We’re going to have to move our man as soon as possible, but I’m not doing anything until you get here. Be quick, for God’s sake. We lose the target and heads’ll roll, I promise you that.’

He hung up before Kamal had a chance to get a word in edgeways, then headed back into the hall. In the darkness, he could make out Cheek standing there with his gun drawn. It brought home the danger of the situation to him. They were in trouble, serious trouble, and because he was unarmed, having never had the desire to take up firearms training, Malik was going to have to rely on other people to bring him out of the situation alive and unhurt. It wasn’t a situation he was either used to, or relished.

‘They’re on their way,’ he told Cheek.

‘Good. You need to get down with Merriweather. We’ll watch the back and front doors.’

Malik nodded and headed down the hallway in the gloom to the office where he’d spent the last three hours, Cheek following.

Merriweather was in the chair where he’d been sitting all afternoon. He’d lit a cigarette and was still swigging from the can. He didn’t appear too concerned. Harold stood next to him, his gun also drawn.

‘What’s happening then, Asif?’ Merriweather asked, trying to sound casually cheery, but not quite achieving it. ‘We got trouble or something?’

‘You could say that,’ said Malik.

‘All right, Merriweather,’ said Cheek, ‘put the fag out. Now. And get on the floor. Dan, you watch the back door, I’ll watch the front. Everyone turn their mobiles off. I want it to sound like we’re not here. All right?’

Merriweather reluctantly put out his smoke and sat down heavily on the floor. Malik crouched down next to him, and the other two left the room. Now it was simply a matter of waiting.

‘How the fuck did they find out where we were?’ demanded Merriweather. ‘Can’t you lot do anything right? I thought it was meant to be a fucking secret.’

‘Keep your voice down, Jack. Please.’

The two of them fell silent. Malik reached down and switched off his mobile, wondering what his wife was doing even as he crouched there on the floor of a darkened, silent house, his mouth as dry as a bone as he silently prayed for help to arrive. Probably preparing the dinner or putting the children to bed. Perhaps even reading them a story. The thought comforted him somehow. He looked at his watch. And waited.

A minute became two, then three. Time passed slowly. He could hear Merriweather’s heavy breathing.

‘I can’t believe you’ve fucked up again,’ hissed the other man eventually.

‘Shut up, Jack.’

He looked at his watch again, wondering how long it was going to take the ARVs to get up from Crawley. Fifteen minutes probably, even going at breakneck pace. However, their sirens would startle any would-be assassins before then, so time was probably on their side. But it still felt like a long wait.

There was a noise outside the window. A shuffling. Muffled voices. He tensed in the darkness. So did Merriweather, his eyes widening. They were here.

Then the noise was gone, and the dead silence returned, broken only by the faint hiss of traffic in the distance.

‘They’ll jimmy the door,’ said Merriweather quietly, an ominous tone in his voice.

I saw him standing in the middle of the playing fields, in the shadow of an impressive beech tree, about fifty yards away, his back to me. He was staring straight ahead, facing the school. Several lights burned in the clutch of two- and three-storey buildings in the distance. Beside me by the gate at the playing fields entrance stood DCI Woodham and two uniformed coppers.

‘Let me go and speak to him first,’ I said. ‘I think we might startle him if he hears us all coming, and I don’t much fancy a chase round here.’

Woodham nodded. ‘All right,’ he answered, probably feeling charitable towards me on the basis that my partner (work, to him) had been so recently injured, ‘but I don’t want to lose him, John. Make sure you bring him back here, and if he starts running, you’re in shit.’

‘Fair enough,’ I said, and started walking.

Stegs heard me when I was about ten yards behind him, and turned round curiously, but without fear. He was smoking a cigarette, and was about halfway down to the butt. ‘Hello, John,’ he said. ‘I was wondering when you lot’d turn up.’

I stopped beside him and he turned back towards the school. We stood there watching it together for a few moments.

‘We’ve got to bring you in, Stegs. We’ve got a warrant for your arrest.’

Stegs didn’t seem to hear me. ‘Five years I spent in this place,’ he said, dragging hard on his cigarette. ‘And the whole time I couldn’t wait to leave. But do you know what? They were the best years of my life. No worries, no fears, no people you trusted fucking you up behind your back. No broken marriages. Just having a laugh with your mates, bunking off, trying to get laid.’ He managed a weak smile. ‘They were the best years of my life, and I never fucking knew it.’

‘I’ve got to take you in, Stegs. We’ll talk down the station.’

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he continued, still not looking at me. ‘You’re thinking I was involved in the Heathrow robbery, but I wasn’t. I did everything by the book, and that’s a promise. Vokes was the one, John. It was him, I swear it. I loved that bloke, you know. He was like a brother to me. We were joined at the fucking hip. We watched each other’s backs on ops that would have had most men shitting themselves in fear. But all the time the bastard was bent, and I never knew it. He hid behind this Christian front, made out he was one of the good guys, but all the time I knew him, all those years, he was on the make. Did you know he was working for the Holtzes? Had been for years. Did you know that?’

‘If we’d known it, he wouldn’t have still been a serving copper.’

‘There was a bloke I sometimes used to work with in SO10, a bloke called Jeff Benson. He was good, fucking good. He got into the Holtzes, was getting close to pulling in some real evidence against them, particularly Neil Vamen. He told me about it. . stupid of him really. Because then one night I went out with Vokes and I’d had a few drinks, which has always been my fucking downfall, and I let slip about it. I didn’t even mention him by name, but Vokes had enough info to warn the Holtzes, and they put the frighteners on Benson and scuppered the whole op.’

Stegs sighed and stubbed out the cigarette, immediately lighting another one. I let him do it, making no move to take him back to Woodham and the others. Although none of it was admissible in court, I wanted to hear what he had to say, particularly as he was so talkative. He sounded slightly pissed. Not badly so, but there was definitely an edge to his voice.