Howard Linskey - The Drop

I tried to look blank, ‘New Year’s Honours?’

‘SOCA’s hit parade.’

SOCA or the Serious Organised Crime Agency, was created with the merger of the National Crime Squad and the National Criminal Intelligence Service, to become an organisation the tabloids had taken to referring to as the British F.B.I. They were meant to tackle drug barons, people traffickers and large scale money laundering.

‘It’s like top of the pops,’ DI Clifford continued, ‘only you don’t want to be in their chart and I wouldn’t be surprised if Bobby isn’t number one with a bullet. The man most wanted. You know they have a list of all the major players in organised crime right across the country and they are gunning for them all. They are going to get them too. You know who’s in charge at SOCA, the former head of MI5, Britain’s Counter Intelligence service, the spooks. They fought the cold war, the IRA and Al Qaeda so they are going to make mincemeat of your lot.’

‘So why are you even here?’ I asked, ‘if they are that good, you can just sit back and relax and watch while the show happens all around you.’

‘I am here to offer you a way out. Your only way out, come to mention it. Cooperate with me and when the wheels do come off, as they will, spectacularly, you’ll have at least one friend who can put a word in for you when it matters. Otherwise you’ll be just another pretty boy getting gang-raped in the showers at Strangeways.’

‘Cooperate? How exactly?’ I asked him calmly.

He straightened, full of adrenalin now. He was doing a selling job on me and I could tell he was pretty sure I was interested, ‘tell me what you know and maybe it will be easier for Bobby if his local nick does the arresting. I might even be persuaded to bust him on lesser charges just as long as it takes him off the streets. We could focus on his role in the vice game and play down his little drugs empire?’ He said that last bit like I should be impressed he knew we were shifting drugs. Well whoop-tee-doo. He folded his arms smugly and sat back in his chair.

‘Know what I think?’ I asked him, ‘honestly want to hear it?’

‘Go on,’ he urged me.

‘You’ve got nothing and you’re shit scared. You’re worried that SOCA are going to carry out some huge bust up here on your new doorstep and you’ll be left standing there like the ugly bird at the party no one wants to dance with.’ He seemed a bit taken aback to be spoken to like that.

‘How long have you been a DI, Clifford? A bit too long I’d say, from the look of you. Bet you were the star Detective Constable weren’t you, but then most of them are fucking numpties. Maybe you were even a fast-tracked DS but somehow it hasn’t happened for you has it? You were standing on the dockside in your cheap suit and you’ve missed the boat? And what’s all this ‘we’? We busted the Marshall Brothers, we brought them down. The guy who really made that bust is well high up in the funny handshake brigade by now. He’s probably Assistant Commissioner, at least. Am I right? And you, you’re stuck up here in the grim old north, miles from home. Bet the wife hates it and secretly hates you too these days. Frankly Clifford, you look tired. You’re classic heart attack material. I can smell the desperation on you from here. I reckon you’d give someone a blowjob if they made you Superintendent. Well I could make you a Chief Super overnight, so are you going to suck me off now or what?’

He didn’t say a word. He just sat there trying to rein in his fury. I think he was actually trembling with rage at that point. I wondered if I was about to be on the receiving end of a bit of good, old fashioned Police brutality.

‘It’s alright Clifford,’ I told him, ‘you don’t have to worry, you’re not really my type. Now why don’t you fuck off out of my face and take the other Chuckle Brother with you. My wine is getting warm.’

He pointed his finger at me as he rose from his seat, ‘you won’t be laughing.’ he said, jabbing it at me, ‘you… won’t… be… fucking… laughing… ’ it wasn’t exactly Noel Coward but I was surprised he could string the words of a sentence together the way he looked. I guess I’d touched a nerve. I don’t normally like to rattle the cages of the local law enforcement and I try to keep it from turning personal. They’ve got their job to do and we’ve got ours and I never want to give them any more incentive to come after us than they’ve already got, but this cocky fucker needed taking down a peg for thinking he could turn me into a grass. I reckon he’d be up half the night churning my words over in his head, wondering if they were at least partially true.

Clifford walked out, leaving DS Sharp to trail after him. Sharp went a bit over the top, turning back to me, and shouting, ‘we’ll be back!’ but I supposed he had to play the part.

It was dark and cold and threatening rain as I climbed out of the car outside my apartment. I couldn’t wait to get inside in the warm but then Vince called, ‘I’m at Mirage. You need to come down here and see something.’

‘Now? It’s not my brother again is it?’

‘Not this time.’

‘It better be important Vince, it’s late and I’m knackered. I’m not coming down there if some prat’s glassed someone on the dance floor. You can handle that.’

‘No it’s not that,’ he assured me, ‘I wouldn’t bother you with that.’

‘Well what then?’

‘It’s hard to explain over the phone,’ he said, ‘you’re better off coming down here, believe me.’

‘Okay,’ I said, ‘I’m on my way.’

I climbed back into my car.

I called Finney and picked him up on the way over to Mirage. It was a venue we had a full share in, part bar, part nightclub. The idea was to get the young ‘uns into the bar with cheap happy-hour offers then, when they were pissed and happy, encourage them to pay to get through a set of double doors into the night club. The music was good, the crowd wasn’t too rough and we made decent money out of the place. Obviously our own boys manned the doors on both the bar and the club, so I couldn’t imagine anything that could have gone seriously wrong in there.

‘You don’t think one of Benny’s lads has gone ape and killed some muppet do you?’ asked Finney.

‘I hope not,’ I said, ‘the paperwork would be a nightmare. They’d close us down for sure.’

The place was still open when we got there and fairly busy for a Monday, late evening, but there was no one on the door and that was more than a bit strange. I told a barman to fetch Vince and we waited for him to make an appearance. I clocked Finney looking up at the big screen where they were showing videos on MTV.

‘Look at that preening prat.’ He didn’t bother to disguise his disgust. I looked over to see what had offended him.

‘What’s wrong with him?’ I asked.

‘What’s wrong with him? To start with his shorts are at half mast. How can he walk in them? I’ve not seen shorts like that since Stanley Fucking Matthews. He’s got a dog lead round his neck and a plaster on his face. What’s he done? Cut himself shaving? There’s bum fluff on his lip and he’s wearing a hat I wouldn’t have on at the beach. Who is he? He’s a disgrace.’

‘That’s Nelly.’ I told him.

‘Nelly? For fuck’s sake,’ he snorted, ‘I used to have an Aunt Nelly,’ he jabbed a sausage-sized finger at the screen, ‘and she was probably harder than him.’

She probably was, if she was related to Finney.

When Vince showed up I asked him, ‘why is there no one on the door?’ in reply he simply jerked his head to one side to indicate we should follow and took us behind the scenes to the little office with the CCTV monitors in it. ‘You need to see this,’ he said, pushing a button to play a scene he had obviously set up for us.