Stephen Leather - False Friends

‘Clearly not,’ said Shepherd, ‘or they wouldn’t be letting you loose on their precious operation.’

‘I resent that remark,’ said Sharpe. He grinned. ‘Anyway, I’m a changed man, haven’t you heard? I’ve been on all the diversity courses going and passed with flying colours. I fully understand the role that the police service of the twenty-first century has in maintaining productive and respectful relationships with the various ethnic components of the community.’ He laughed. ‘Load of bollocks.’ He was about to say more when Hargrove’s black Vauxhall Vectra appeared at the end of the road.

‘Here we go,’ said Shepherd.

‘I thought he’d have a driver,’ said Sharpe.

‘I think the days of drivers for senior officers are long gone,’ said Shepherd.

The car pulled up next to them. Shepherd climbed into the front while Sharpe got into the back. Hargrove was wearing a dark-blue suit and had put the jacket on a hanger on the hook at the rear passenger side. ‘Good morning, gentlemen,’ he said.

Shepherd gave Hargrove his coffee and he slotted it into a cup-holder before putting the car into gear and pulling away from the kerb. The drive from London to Birmingham took just under two hours, during which time Hargrove briefed them on the West Midlands operation, which had been codenamed Excalibur. The Major Investigations Unit had targeted a dozen right-wing activists in Birmingham, most of whom were members of the English Defence League. The investigation had begun in 2010 and had initially been little more than low-level intelligence gathering. But following the countrywide riots and looting the activists had started talking about arming themselves. Several had already acquired handguns but at least two of the men under investigation were now looking to buy more serious weaponry. According to the undercover cop that Hargrove had in place, they wanted AK-47s.

‘Why would anyone want an AK-47?’ asked Shepherd.

‘Birmingham is right up there with London and Manchester when it comes to guns on the streets,’ said Hargrove. ‘Most of the illegal guns are in the hands of gang members and there are already plenty of AK-47s, Uzis and Ingrams knocking around.’

‘So what do you think’s going on? Are these guys planning to take on the gangs, is that it?’

‘Our man doesn’t know why they want the guns. Self-protection, maybe. Could be they just want to pose for pictures on their Facebook pages. Hopefully when we throw you into the mix we’ll be able to find out what their intentions are.’

They turned off the A41 and arrived at Lloyd House, the headquarters of West Midlands Police. Hargrove’s car had been approved for secure parking and they went through a rear door from the car park and along a corridor to a main reception area, where Hargrove showed his warrant card. Ten minutes later they were in a fourth-floor meeting room drinking watery coffee with a uniformed superintendent and a plainclothes sergeant in a grey suit that appeared to be two sizes too large for him. They made uncomfortable small talk while they waited for the undercover officer to arrive. The superintendent, Richard Warner, was in his early fifties, grey-haired and wearing thick-lensed spectacles.

They were halfway through the coffee, and the small talk had pretty much dried up, when the door to the meeting room opened. Jimmy Sharpe grinned and cursed under his breath when he recognised the new arrival. ‘Ray Fenby,’ he said. ‘Bloody hell, it’s a small world.’

He stood up and embraced the man. Fenby, in his early twenties, was wearing a brown leather bomber jacket and camouflage cargo pants. His head was shaved and as he hugged Sharpe, Shepherd saw that he had MILL tattooed on the knuckles of his right hand and WALL on the left.

‘How’s it going, Razor?’ said Fenby.

‘I didn’t realise you knew each other,’ said Hargrove.

‘We worked on a SOCA case two years ago,’ said Sharpe, releasing his grip on the younger man. ‘Just after he left school.’

Fenby chuckled and ran a hand over his shaved head. ‘I’m twenty-four,’ he said.

Sharpe grabbed him by the back of the neck and gave him a good-natured shake. ‘He was wearing his school blazer the first time we met.’

‘We were in a pub,’ said Fenby. ‘And the way I remember it, you didn’t even buy a round.’ Fenby glanced shamefacedly at the uniformed superintendent. ‘Sorry, sir.’

The superintendent smiled amiably. ‘Take a seat, Ray,’ he said. Fenby shook hands with Shepherd and introduced himself.

‘Ray was one of a group of officers in training who were pulled out of Hendon and seconded to the Football Intelligence Unit,’ Hargrove explained to Shepherd. ‘We’ve drafted him into the Covert Operations Group and he’s been part of Operation Excalibur from the start.’ Hargrove smiled at the uniformed superintendent. ‘Over to you, Superintendent.’

Superintendent Warner nodded and reached for an open laptop that was connected to a projector. He launched a PowerPoint presentation and clicked on the first slide. Two surveillance photographs filled the screen. ‘Simon Kettering and Paul Thompson. They were big wheels in the EDL, especially on the fundraising side. They’re not your usual right-wing extremist thug. They wear suits, they drive nice cars, they’re well spoken, they have no criminal records. In fact if it wasn’t for Ray here they wouldn’t even be on our radar. They always maintained a low profile when they were with the EDL but they now appear to be heading up their own splinter group. And before anyone asks, it doesn’t seem to have a name. It’s just a group of like-minded people who get together from time to time. Ray has spent some time penetrating this group, and it looks as if he has been accepted. And last week he came to us with the news that two of the men want to buy weapons. Serious weapons. They have been talking about AK-47s and Uzis.’

He tapped the keypad and another picture flashed on to the screen. Kettering and Thompson sitting outside a wine bar with a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket. Both men were smoking large cigars.

‘To any outside observer the two of them seem to be nothing more than a couple of yuppies.’

He clicked the mouse several times and they looked at a succession of photographs, mostly taken with a long lens. Kettering getting into a Porsche. Thompson getting out of a Mini Cooper. The two of them at a football match, shouting and punching the air.

‘But there is a darker side to them,’ said the superintendent. He clicked the mouse again and a photograph that had been taken from CCTV footage popped up. It was grey and grainy, almost as if it had been taken in thick fog. It showed two men in suits kicking a man on the ground. ‘We are fairly sure that this is the two of them attacking an Asian teenager three months ago. The CPS say the footage we have isn’t good enough for a positive identification but they were heard boasting about the attack.’

Another click of the mouse brought up a montage of sixteen photographs of young men — all of them white and aged between twenty and forty. More than half had shaved heads.

‘We have identified these sixteen men as being close to Kettering and Thompson. Between them they have more than fifty convictions for assault, racial abuse and threatening behaviour, mainly against members of the Asian community. Most have been photographed at BNP and EDL demonstrations and are regular posters on anti-Islamic and anti-Asian internet forums. I should make it clear at this point that neither Kettering nor Thompson has ever been charged or convicted of any offence and so we don’t have fingerprints or DNA on file. We think that’s because they’re smarter than the average right-wing thug.’