Paul Cornell: London Falling

Costain entered the service station and stopped when he saw Quill standing there, not even pretending to look at the chocolate bars displayed in front of him. Costain headed for the toilets, and Quill immediately followed, as if he didn’t care who noticed. Costain made astonished eye contact with him just before the door, turning to take in the SUVs he’d left on the forecourt outside, with Mick and Lazlo currently filling up the first two vehicles with diesel. No, nobody was watching. He closed the toilet door behind them.

They stood in the cubicle, with the door bolted: the seat gone, the toilet bowl blocked, everything smelling of shit, a single bulb making it all ghostly white. The cold made their breath bloom around them.

‘What the fuck is Toshack doing?’ asked Quill. He was speaking too loudly.

‘I don’t know.’

‘“I don’t know, sir !”’

‘I don’t know, sir . Do you want me to recite my rank, nick and surname, too, in case Lazlo pops in for some fags?’

Quill looked affronted, as if a detective sergeant had never talked back to him in his entire life. He seemed to choose his next words carefully and, thankfully, they were closer to a whisper. ‘You know how long it’s been for us lot on Operation Goodfellow? Four years now, from you first getting in with Pa Toil’s gang. And maybe you ought to have stayed in the Toil, because now you’re in Toshack’s sodding Chelsea tractor, leading this convoy or whatever it is, and him looking as if he might run for an airport any second.’

‘He’s not going to do that.’

‘How do you know, if you don’t even know what he’s doing?’

‘’Cos he’s looking for somebody. He said we’ll be going house to house.’

‘So you do know what he’s doing. But earlier you said you didn’t.’

‘I meant that I don’t know what he’s doing in the wider sense, Detective Inspector . I don’t know who he’s looking for — or why. He went off on his own, and couldn’t find them, came back to the Bermondsey house, decided to take us lot with him. He’s off his head tonight, playing with his guns. He’s been at the supply.’

‘What?’

‘Chisel. Crack.’

‘What, now — as a little treat on New Year’s Eve?’

‘His first time. Ask the second undercover, if you want.’

‘I don’t want anything unpredictable tonight.’

‘Well, what you want -’

Quill put a finger to Costain’s lips. ‘The top brass are pushing Superintendent Lofthouse to end this right now , understand? Right now, you are the lead UC in the least successful operation SCD 10 has ever mounted in the capital, and that, my son, is a fucking highly contested honour. The boom is going to come down tonight, or tomorrow or the day after. We have run out of money and good will, so the bastards are going to settle just for the small fry. Toshack will laugh his arse off at us again, get off any charges brought against him again, and just a few of his soldiers and toms and lads down the chop shop will get put away, but none of the fucking terrifying ones. The risks you and Sefton have taken for the last four years, and all the working hours of your comrades back at the nick, will have been basically about nothing . And if that happens, I will make sure that you burn . Now, what do you have to say to me?’

Costain licked his lips. Oh, piss off : that’s what he wanted to say. Don’t you think I can see it coming? You’re setting me up to take the fall for this. You’re going to burn me anyway . This fucking insane meeting, with no real excuse for being here, could have been achieved by a brush contact or a dead letter box. And never before had Costain dealt with a DI in charge of an operation who’d even known what he looked like. He’d been sold the lack of a handler this time on the basis that Lofthouse had her own way of doing things, and she had been given the freedom to pursue it this way because of all that Toshack had previously got away with. But now Quill was raising the stakes on him, deliberately pushing him. He made himself take a deep breath, then realized that was a mistake. The coke was roaring through him, putting him in charge, but he knew it made him paranoid too. He had no way any more of telling what was true, but, looking into Quill’s eyes, he knew he couldn’t trust him. ‘He’s not making a run for the airport. I know it . So tell Lofthouse that’s the opinion of the lead UC.’

‘Sefton’s in there with you, does he share that opinion?’

Why do you want to know? ‘’Course he does. We’ve got a window. In this present state of his, Toshack might start talking about his supply and his connections at any moment, but while I could be listening, you’ve got me in here -’

‘’Cos you’ve done everything so well already, haven’t you? You’re in his car and you’ve established access like that, but, over four years, the quality of the information-’

‘You think I’ve gone native?’

‘Oh, you don’t catch me out like that, sunshine. I wouldn’t dream of using such ill-considered language to a gentleman of West Indian extraction. . who’d be on to Professional Standards like a shot.’

If I had a gun I’d put it on his forehead, see him sweat! ‘I’ve tried to tell you. He doesn’t talk about the bodies he’s dropped, his supply, how he absorbed the other gangs. When it needs to be done, he goes off on his own and nobody goes with him. He must hire freelancers, but we’ve never had a sniff of them. There’s been nothing heard over the lines, and obviously nothing from probably a dozen approaches you haven’t told me about, or you wouldn’t even be here.’

‘Oh yeah.’

‘So why do you think I am at fault, sir?’ He let a little of the Guyanese accent creep in, the way a lot of soldiers did when they wanted to act hard. Blam! Quill flew back! Blam!

‘Because you’re a wrong ’un.’

‘Sefton will have corroborated all of this.’

But, of course, Quill didn’t have a word to say about Sefton. ‘Wrong ’un, I said, and Lofthouse shouldn’t have picked you.’ Quill reached into the pocket of the enormous old overcoat that smelt of mints, and took out a Nagra tape recorder. A bloody Nagra — last century’s recording device of choice. ‘If I were you, I’d be highly motivated to grab one last chance.’

Costain considered the device for a long moment. ‘I don’t know when I’d get a chance to switch it on.’

‘Do it now, then.’

Blam . Or else bow your head. Fuck it. Fuck him. Costain dropped his jacket onto the hook on the back of the door, pulled his shirt out of his trousers and reached around to attach the Nagra to his belt, at his back. He hadn’t used one of these devices in years, but he remembered the awkwardness of them. He found the little hook on top of the recorder, and flicked it to the On position. Then he tucked his shirt back in and put his jacket back on over it, careful not to touch the hook again. Judges took a dim view of interrupted recordings.

‘I am a serving police officer,’ he said, making eye contact with Quill, who seemed to be wondering if the UC would remember the necessary words, ‘who for the purpose of this operation will be known as Anthony Blake. I can, should a court require, produce my warrant card. The date is 31 December. The time is twenty-two-oh-four hours, and I have just switched on the tape.’

Quill nodded to him. ‘Two hours of tape,’ he said. ‘Last chance — for all of us.’ He unbolted the cubicle door. ‘If the suspect heads for the airport. .’ And then, mindful of the recorder, he gestured to Costain and then pointed upwards with a grim little smile.