Gunrunner (18 page)

‘Thanks, Harry,’ he said. ‘I’ll have a couple of my officers meet you at the Cantard Street address just before five tomorrow morning.’ He paused, and I heard him rustling through paper. ‘Their names are Jim Foley and Don Bridger.’

The Territorial Support Group was already in place when we reached Walworth at half past four on the Saturday morning. The inspector in charge had parked his carriers in a side street, out of sight of the target warehouse. And it was bloody cold; there was frost on the surrounding roofs and the first snowflakes had started to fall. All of which made me wonder why I’d ever become a policeman.

‘Are you Mr Brock?’ asked the TSG inspector, as I approached him.

‘That’s me,’ I said.

‘Inspector Taylor, sir. We’re ready whenever you are.’

‘What’s your first name, Mr Taylor?’ We detectives are never too bothered about formality.

‘John, sir, but I’m usually known as Buck.’

I quickly introduced Kate Ebdon and Dave Poole, and then asked, ‘How many men have you got in your unit, Buck?’

‘It’s the usual, sir: me, one and ten,’ said Taylor. ‘My other skipper and ten PCs are at Broders Road with your Mr Driscoll. But my lot aren’t all men, sir,’ he added. ‘Four of them are women.’

‘Will they be all right, these women, Buck?’ I was satisfied that one inspector, one sergeant and ten PCs would be enough for our task, but I’m sufficiently old-fashioned enough to be concerned that policewomen might get hurt in situations that could turn violent. It was not unknown for them to have been shot on previous occasions.

Taylor ran a hand round his chin. ‘Let’s put it this way, guv: I wouldn’t argue with any of my girls. By the way, the CO19 firearms unit is tucked in behind my carriers with a skipper in charge.’

‘Ask him to have a word, Buck.’

While I was waiting for the firearms sergeant, a couple of men approached. Wearing jeans and heavy duty Barbour jackets, they had fur hats and scarves. They looked as though they’d rather be someplace else.

‘Chief Inspector Brock?’

‘That’s me.’

‘Jim Foley, Customs Division, Border Agency, and this is my mate Don Bridger,’ Foley said, indicating the man next to him. ‘John Fielding asked us to make our number with you.’

I shook hands with each of the customs men and explained what we were about to do.

‘It’s possible there might be some shooting,’ I said, ‘so it might be as well if you hung back until my chaps have gone in, and then I’ll give you a shout.’

‘Don’t worry, Mr Brock, I make it a rule never to be shot at before breakfast,’ said Bridger, as he and Foley retreated to the safety of the area behind Buck Taylor’s carriers.

‘PS Dan Mason, CO19, sir.’ The sergeant who appeared a couple of minutes later was wearing so much protective gear that he looked like a composite of the Michelin man and the Incredible Hulk. The reassuring part of his equipment was the Heckler and Koch carbine slung across his chest, and the Glock automatic pistol holstered at his belt.

‘Come and have a look at the target, gents,’ I said.

PS Mason and Inspector Taylor followed me to the corner of the street whence we had a good view of the warehouse. There were two large sliding doors with a wicket gate in the left-hand one. Fortunately, there were no windows that would enable the occupants of the building to see the street.

‘That’s the warehouse we’re about to bust,’ I said. ‘I’ve reason to believe that it’s occupied by a villains’ armourer. There might be some shooting, Dan.’

‘Sounds right.’ Mason just nodded, as though such a situation was normal for him, which it probably was. ‘By the way, sir, I’ve already checked out the venue myself. I like to suss out the ground before I take my guys in, so I wandered down yesterday evening and had a discreet look at it.’

‘How d’you think we should approach it, Dan?’ I always believed in leaving the planning of an operation like this to the professionals. That he had conducted a preparatory survey proved that they don’t come much more professional than CO19, although there had been one or two occasions in the past when they’d made a bit of a pig’s ear of things. I just hoped that this would not be one of those occasions.

‘I intend to deploy my team on either side of the wicket gate, sir, and get one of the TSG lads to open it up with a rammer. Then me and my lads will go in fast.’ Mason paused thoughtfully. ‘But if they start shooting straight away, I’ll have no alternative but to return fire.’

‘Understood,’ I said, hoping against hope that our search would proceed peacefully. ‘Can you arrange for the rammer, Buck?’ I asked Taylor.

‘Yes, sir. By the way, ten minutes ago, I arranged with the local Traffic OCU to close the road. We don’t want any of our villains to get knocked over if they do a runner, do we?’ said Taylor. ‘They might sue the Commissioner for pain and suffering,’ he added cynically.

We returned to the side street where the other officers were waiting.

‘Right,’ I said, ‘let’s do it.’

The PC with the rammer, and PS Mason and his team of six, raced across the now silent and empty road until they were stationed immediately adjacent to the wicket gate. The remainder of the TSG serial quickly followed and fanned out on either side of the small door. And my team of detectives ranged themselves behind the uniforms.

‘Right, lad, go for it.’ Mason nodded to the PC known as ‘the fourteen-pound keyholder’.

Swinging the rammer, the PC smashed in the door with a single blow. Within seconds, Sergeant Mason and company were inside the warehouse.

‘Armed police. Get down on the floor.
Now!
’ Mason’s shouts were followed by sounds of scuffling. Ten minutes later, after satisfying himself that there was no one else in the warehouse, he appeared at the broken gate, now hanging drunkenly on its hinges. ‘It’s all clear, sir,’ he said. ‘There were only two men in the warehouse and they’ve been cuffed. It’s safe to bring in the rest of the team.’

Buck Taylor, his sergeant and the ten PCs entered the warehouse, followed by me and my eight detectives.

Lying on the floor of the warehouse were two men, face down, their hands secured behind them with plastic handcuffs.

‘All right, Mr Taylor, we’ll have them on their feet, if you please.’

None too gently, the PCs of the TSG yanked the two prisoners upright.

‘Well, well, well!’ said Dave, as he walked across to one of the men. ‘Look who we have here. None other than
Señor
Miguel Rodriguez, otherwise known as Michael Roberts, former owner of the Spanish Fly nightclub.’

‘I still bloody own it, copper,’ snarled Roberts. His hair was ruffled and he was now without his pointed sideburns.

‘For the time being maybe, but I don’t reckon the governor of Parkhurst will allow you to carry on running it from inside the nick,
señor
,’ said Dave, laying particular emphasis on the
señor
bit. He knew that mention of the feared prison on the Isle of Wight usually succeeded in concentrating the mind of a villain.

‘You can’t prove a thing,’ said Roberts, in an attempt to convince us that he was innocent of any wrongdoing, but I doubt that he even convinced himself.

‘What can’t we prove?’ asked Dave.

Roberts maintained a sullen silence; probably his best option.

‘Right, lads,’ I began, addressing the TSG officers and my detectives. There was a sarcastic cough from one of the women PCs. ‘And ladies,’ I added hurriedly. ‘I want a thorough search of the building. I’m looking for firearms. If you find any, or anything that looks like explosives, let Sergeant Mason know. He’ll ensure that his chaps make them safe before you go any further.’

The ten PCs, led by their sergeant, fanned out and began a systematic search of the warehouse, directed by Inspector Taylor. My team followed them.

It was a large building and the search took nearly an hour, but the result proved to be a bonanza. The haul comprised ten Heckler and Koch carbines, twenty handguns of assorted makes and calibre, and a substantial quantity of ammunition.

‘What were you going to do,
señor
?’ asked Dave, moving closer to Roberts, ‘start another civil war in Spain?’

‘Don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Roberts.

I gave Kate Ebdon the task of overseeing the removal of the weaponry to Lambeth where it could be stored securely. And, just to be on the safe side, I asked PS Mason and his CO19 team to provide an escort. I didn’t want our exhibits to be hijacked on the way. It would be extremely difficult to explain such an unfortunate occurrence to our esteemed commander.

‘What d’you want done with this pair, sir?’ asked Taylor, nodding towards our two prisoners.

‘Take them to Paddington police station, Buck,’ I said, after giving the matter a few moments thought. ‘That’ll be more secure than the local nick.’ I wasn’t too concerned that they might attempt to escape, but rather that other, as yet unknown, villains might attempt to get at them. At this stage, we didn’t know quite how big a network of villainy we were dealing with, and I imagined there to be more people involved than the two we’d captured so far.

The two customs officers now appeared from within the warehouse.

‘We’ve had a look at the firearms your people found, Mr Brock,’ said Foley.

‘Of interest to you?’ I asked.

Foley smiled. ‘Probably,’ he said. ‘My job now is to compile a report for our legal department. They’ll decide what action is to be taken.
Eventually
.’ There was an element of sarcasm in his last comment.

THIRTEEN

A
lthough it seemed that we’d been at work all day, it was still only nine o’clock on that Saturday morning when my team and I arrived at Paddington nick. But detectives, constrained as they are by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, can’t keep office hours, and I could already visualize the rest of the weekend disappearing.

I told the custody sergeant to put Roberts in the interview room, and decided that Kate Ebdon would be best suited to assist me in interrogating him. I let her kick off.

‘When we searched the warehouse at twenty-seven Cantard Street earlier today,’ Kate began, ‘a quantity of firearms was found.’

‘Don’t know anything about them,’ said Roberts, making a statement that came as no surprise.

‘Who is the other man who we arrested at the same time that we nicked you?’

‘No idea.’ Roberts lounged in his chair, fully relaxed. ‘Never seen him before.’

‘What were you doing there?’

‘I’d gone to collect some wine for my nightclub.’

‘We searched the place from top to bottom, mate,’ said Kate, her Australian accent becoming a little more aggressive, ‘and there wasn’t any wine there.’

‘So I made a mistake.’

‘What d’you know about the wine business?’

‘I sell it in my club.’

‘Don’t get bloody clever with me, sport,’ said Kate. ‘Did you ever buy wine from Kerry Hammond?’

Roberts laughed. ‘No, she bought wine from me. That’s what running a nightclub’s all about, darling.’

Kate had had enough. Switching off the tape recorder, she stood up, placed her hands flat on the table and leaned very close to Roberts. ‘The next time you call me “darling”, Roberts, I’ll have you off that chair and kick you straight in the balls. Have you got that,
mate
?’

Roberts sat up straight, and leaned back. He was obviously in no doubt that Kate meant what she said, was capable of carrying out her threat, and wouldn’t hesitate to do so. As I’ve said before, it’s extremely unwise to get on the wrong side of Kate.

Kate sat down and turned on the tape recorder again.

‘Where were you on Christmas Eve, Roberts?’ I asked, deciding to take a hand in the questioning.

‘At the Spanish Fly.’

‘Your bar manager, Fred Goddard,’ I said, ‘who masquerades as a Spaniard called Fernando, told me that you weren’t there at all that evening. What’s more, you did a runner straight after I saw you at the club two days after Christmas. So where were you?’

‘No comment,’ said Roberts, ‘and I want a lawyer, and I want bail.’

‘You can have as many lawyers as you like, but you won’t be getting bail,’ I said. ‘Firstly, I’ll be charging you with unlawful possession of firearms and conspiring illegally to import firearms. There’s also a good chance that I’ll charge you with murdering Kerry Hammond on the twenty-fourth of December last.’

‘I had nothing to with that,’ said Roberts, his face displaying the first sign of fear based on the misapprehension that he was about to be fitted up.

‘You’ve already admitted to having an affair with her,’ I said.

‘So what?’

‘I suggest that she found out about your sideline of smuggling guns and threatened to inform on you if you didn’t cut her in.’ I knew that Kerry Hammond was a rich woman, but I doubted that all her money had come from the haulage business that bore her name. I was fairly certain that Kerry was, or had been, the brains behind the operation, but it was a vain hope that Roberts was about to confirm that.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Roberts nervously, but I got the impression that I’d touched a nerve.

‘So, where were you on Christmas Eve, Roberts?’ asked Kate.

‘With a bird.’

‘Name?’

‘I’m not telling you. She’s married.’

‘Really? Well, my friend, you’re beginning to look quite tasty for the topping of Kerry Hammond. Unless you can come up with a name.’

Roberts capitulated. ‘All right, she was a broad called Patricia Knight.’

‘Does she have an address, this Patricia Knight?’ asked Kate.

‘Seventeen Coxtree Close, Chelsea,’ said Roberts reluctantly. ‘But for God’s sake be discreet, otherwise her old man will kill me, and probably her too.’

‘I’m the soul of discretion,’ said Kate, as she scribbled the details in her pocket book. ‘And where did you spend this evening of romantic shafting, mate?’

‘I’ve got a bedroom at the club.’

‘Who else uses it?’

‘Only close friends, as and when,’ said Roberts miserably.

‘Are you telling me you run a knocking shop at your club?’ Kate was being mischievous now. There was no way we’d have the time to investigate this comparatively trivial breach of the law.