Hunting for Crows (23 page)

‘Go, Phil, before I change my mind.’

‘Thank you, sir, but I do hope you’ve brought a good book with you, you’ll need it with this guy.’

Derek Crow yawned and stretched. At least he could stretch out here in the front seat, because in the rear, the car didn’t offer any leg room at all. In the wake of the Jaguar crash and his rapid escape, his insurance company had given him this poxy Vauxhall until his own car was fixed, but at least it wouldn’t be his transport for much longer.

‘Did you speak to the police?’ Don Levinson, his driver and all-round protector, asked.

‘What about? Leaving the scene of an accident and being in charge of a car while being useless at driving?’

‘No, because I know you sorted that out with the police and they’ve decided not to take it further. About this meeting Paterson set up with your old mate, Mat Street, a known criminal.’

‘No, Street was precise. No police or the meeting’s off, and I need this meeting.’

‘Yeah, but if this guy’s cosha, he knows the identity of someone out there who’s gone and killed three of your buddies. You’re gonna need to involve the police.’

‘Don, you don’t know him. He’s a wily old fox and will only tell me something if it’s on his terms. If not, he’ll shut up and tell me nothing, even if he was being tortured.’

‘He would if I was in charge of doing it.’

‘I’ll wait and hear what he’s got to say. If he’s only got a name, it’s not enough. I’m going to need a lot more evidence before I take it to the police. Don’t forget, the cops were the ones who said the guys died in accidents, and they’re going to be embarrassed, not to mention mighty pissed-off, if I tell them something different. So I need to be sure of my ground.’

‘I guess you do,’ Levinson said. ‘In some ways, I can understand why Street is so wary of cops. He’s been in and out of nick so much he must be shit-scared of doing something wrong that might send him back.’

‘It isn’t his only worry.’

‘No? What else?’

‘Did you see the article in the paper the other day about one of the gold bars from a robbery at Gatwick twenty-odd years ago turning up?’

‘What, this Gatwick?’ Levinson said, laughing as they drove past the junction for the airport and continued heading south.

‘Yep, at the same Gatwick, a gang of seven villains including our Mr Street, robbed a security company who were in the process of shipping gold and money to a bank in Switzerland. The boys have all done time but none of the gold has been recovered.’

‘Until now.’

‘Until now, but this is the first bar to turn up.’

‘So, you think he’s worried in case there’s a shake-down of everybody in the gang as they try and find out where the rest of it is hidden? I would if I was a cop.’

‘Right.’

‘So, the cops are probably out there looking for him.’

‘Yeah,’ Crow said, ‘and maybe it’s the reason he’s moved out of Eastbourne, to get away for a while until the heat cools down.’

‘Sure, but once he’s got his thieving mitts on all the money you’ve got in that bag, he can go where the hell he bloody well likes.’

‘He can’t go far enough away for my liking.’

Crow slumped down in the uncomfortable seat and stared out of the window. He didn’t know if he was doing the right thing but in his experience it was better doing something than sitting at home, twiddling your thumbs and waiting for events to happen all around you.

Street was a street hustler and would do anything for money, including selling out his mates. Derek felt confident if Street knew the identity of the person or persons behind the killings, the lure of fifty grand would be enough to put all thoughts of loyalty, trust and camaraderie behind him.

Fifteen minutes later they reached the outskirts of Brighton, and if his driver had managed to program the sat-nav properly, it would now point them towards Seven Dials. He knew Brighton well and the Dials was a place where he once stayed when he was younger, but he didn’t have a clue how to get there now.

‘What’s the plan when we arrive?’ Levinson asked.

‘Plan? What plan? Why do we need one? I’m meeting an old mate. We talk, we parley; I get the information, he gets the money, and I get the hell out.’

‘I’d like to make sure you get out of there in the same shape you went in.’

He laughed. ‘He’s a sixty-seven-year-old man for God’s sake, what sort of trouble is he likely to cause? Beat me to death with his pension book?’

‘All the same, I’m responsible for your safety, Derek. He might have a piece. He’s a convicted armed robber for Christ’s-sake.’

‘I’m touched by your concern for my welfare, Don, but I think I’ll be fine.’

‘Think on. He might not be the one carrying out the killings, but he might be sitting in his gaff with the three or four heavies who are.’

‘I’ve thought about that too, but Paterson assures me Street keeps himself to himself. He couldn’t rustle up anything heavier than a couple of eight-stone shandy drinkers and frankly, I defer to his better judgement when it comes to the assessment of old cons.’

‘What say I give you fifteen minutes and if you don’t come out, I kick the door in?’

He shook his head. ‘No, don’t do that. We might be nattering like a couple of old maids and quaffing some decent malt, and then you come in with your size-fifteens and smash his door into a thousand pieces. He’d probably get mad and stick a kitchen knife into your chest and I would never be welcome to darken his threshold again, would I?’

‘Suppose not, but would it bother you?’

‘Let’s say, if I’m not out in twenty minutes, you phone me and if I don’t pick up, you come in, but bloody well knock first.’

‘Ok.’

It was good to see Brighton again and it brought back many great memories. Preston Park where he used to kick a ball with a few mates, the seafront where he’d been in a few fights when he was a member of a teenage gang supporting the Albion, and the station, his escape route to London when Brighton became boring, or if somebody was out to get him.

There were more shops around Seven Dials than he remembered, and many with an ethnic flavour. It was not unlike the streets near his house in London where he was never far from Halal food shops, Lebanese restaurants and Polish newsagents offering copies of
Gazeta Wyborcza
.

They couldn’t find a parking space near Street’s house which gave his driver an excuse to drive past and take a good look, ‘reconnoitre’ in squaddie parlance.

‘I can’t see any souped-up BMW’s or blacked-out SUVs,’ Levinson said, his expression tense.

‘Is it a good sign?’

‘Yep, a lot of gangsters and drug dealers use them. They’re a dead giveaway.’

‘Oh. Now I know.’

‘Parking's bloody awful around here.’

‘It’s what the locals get for electing a Green Council, and the PM hates them more than the Trots in his party. They hate cars. They’ll be making everybody grow vegetables next.’

‘I’ll reverse along the road and drop you off outside his gaff and then I’ll go find a space. If it’s ok with you?’

‘Fine.’

‘Remember Derek,’ he said when he’d stopped outside Street’s door, ‘twenty minutes max and you better answer the phone or I’m coming in.’

‘Got it, captain,’ he said, offering a mock salute, making Levinson frown. He stepped out of the car and slammed the door shut.

His knock was answered by Mat Street and after Crow got over the momentary shock of seeing how much the man had aged, moving from a face that looked like a mottled grape to closely resembling a walnut, they shook hands. ‘Hello Mathew, good to see you.’

‘Good to see you too, Derek, come on in.’

He sat on the settee while Street took the armchair. Street had to be a bit deaf as it took him a few seconds to realise the television was blaring behind him, some bloke with perfect white teeth cheering on two contestants pushing large balls up a slope. He and his wife usually sat down for dinner at this time on a Friday night, so he didn’t have a clue what the programme was called or where its entertainment value lay. Street lifted the remote and turned the set off.

‘So how are you, Derek? Long time no see.’

‘Indeed it is. I’m fine, how’s yourself?’

‘I got me a dickey heart but as long as I keep taking the tablets, I’m ok. Other than that, they say I’ll live to a hundred. Right,’ he said, slapping his hands down on the arms of the chair, ‘what can I get you to drink?’

‘What have you got?’

‘Scotch, vodka and beer, I think.’

‘Scotch is good.’

‘How do you take it?’

‘With just a little water.’

He rose from the chair, a tad sprightly for a man with a bad heart, but as an expert on petrol, diesel and 28-second kerosene, Derek didn’t know much about cardiac pulmonary disease,
atherosclerosis
or angina. In fact he was still recovering from the shock of seeing him. His memory harked back twenty-odd years when he’d sported a tousled mop where a sparrow could happily nest and not the sparse back-comb of today, he’d been fuller in the figure and not a nine-stone featherweight, and his face had been chubby and smiling and not sullen, weather-beaten and as craggy as a Shar Pei dog.

Ah well, age came to us all, especially if so much time was spent in the unhealthy environment of HM Prisons and eating such awful food. He made a mental note to have his health checked, not because he was worried about getting old, but if there was a choice, he wanted to do so gracefully.

For a short-term hideaway, his little Brighton house was well-appointed with magazines on the table, pictures on a bookcase and ornaments dotted around the room, as if the occupants were off on holiday, and not a house used for short-term lets. There wasn’t much of a view out front, parked cars and houses across the road, and out back it was dark and he couldn’t see anything at all.

‘Here you are Derek,’ Street said handing him a glass, ‘your health.’

‘Your health Mathew,’ he said downing a gulp. It caught the back of his throat, which he put down to it being a cheap blend, as over the years his palate had become accustomed to twelve-year-old malts like Ardmore, but this stuff didn’t half light a fire under his shirt.

‘Whose place is this?’ he said after recovering the power of speech.

‘It belongs to my son. He’s away with his wife, trying to sort out a rocky marriage.’

‘Where did they go?’

‘Why, are you heading the same way yourself?’

‘Ha, it’s too early to be thinking about anything like that. We’ve only been married five years.’

‘Is this the second or third missus you’re on?’

‘Give me a break, Mathew. It’s only my second. The way things are going, there won’t be another.’

‘They all say the same at some time or other.’ He lifted his glass. ‘Let’s not be cynical, not tonight. Here’s to a long and happy marriage.’

‘I'll drink to that. A long and happy marriage.’

Street began to describe the place in the New Forest where his son had gone, and Derek was sure he knew it but somehow his brain didn’t seem to be joining the dots together with its usual alacrity. Street’s face shifted in and out of focus, making him think the electricity was on the blink or the whisky was stronger than the stuff he was used to; he felt hot.

He rested his head on the sofa and closed his eyes. He could hear voices, as if there was more than one person in the room, but it was too much effort to open his eyes and check. If it was Don, he didn’t hear the door being kicked in, or his regimental bark, ordering everyone to lie down with their hands on their heads.

Five minutes or maybe half an hour had elapsed, he couldn’t be sure, when strong hands gripped his shoulders and lifted him to his feet and he began to move. It had to be a pair of paramedics, here to take him to hospital and treat him for this strange affliction, making him feel he’d contracted a mysterious tropical disease or his brain was experiencing a stroke.

The paramedics seemed to be taking him on a longer walk than the short hop to the front door, where he assumed the ambulance would be parked. The way he felt now, what did he know and what the hell did he care?

DC Phil Bentley had told DI Henderson he would need a book to while away the time while watching Mathew Street, but that was before it turned dark. Now, he couldn’t read a book or a newspaper even if he had one, but there was enough light for him to see Mat Street and his companion coming out of the door at the back of the house in Centurion Road. To Henderson’s surprise, they were carrying a man between them as if he was drunk.

Street’s mate opened the rear doors of the van and the two men eased the drunk inside, not an easy thing to do, as he was a big man and Street was smaller and not as strong as his companion. The doors slammed shut and after giving one another a high five for a job well done, the two men climbed into the front seats and seconds later, the engine of the van fired up.

If they intended going back to Eastbourne, he would follow, and let the next two-man surveillance team already down there take on the night shift. If the plan was to go somewhere else, he would follow as the strange threesome rattled his ‘curiosity’ antenna and convinced him something was going on.

It didn’t take long to discover they weren’t heading back to Eastbourne, as after cutting through Seven Dials they drove west along the Old Shoreham Road. Bentley had told him the van was powerful, and he could hear and see it was, but the driver did him a favour and stuck to the speed limits. He suspected it was not out of consideration for their hapless passenger in the back, who wasn’t, as far as he knew, strapped in, but they were travelling though suburban Brighton and Hove and local cops were good at nabbing the inattentive and the reckless who strayed above the thirty-mile-an-hour speed limit.

He needed to be careful too, as traffic had thinned out from earlier with no slow-moving streams of cars to hide behind, but with the added advantage of darkness. There were side roads every thirty or forty yards on the right, leading to housing estates creeping towards the foothills of the South Downs, and to the left, down to the sea. The next big towns up ahead were Shoreham and Worthing, and more by luck than judgement, he’d recently filled the car with petrol. If they decided to travel to Portsmouth or the New Forest, he was ready to follow; but he wasn’t sure if he fancied a trip to Dorset or Cornwall and watching them enjoying their holidays.

He slowed as they approached the crossroads and traffic lights at Boundary Road, and just then, the left-side indicator of the van started to flash, forcing Henderson to jump a red light to keep up. They drove down Station Road, and after rumbling over the railway tracks at Portslade Station, came to a halt at the traffic lights opposite Shoreham Harbour.

He wound down the window to clear his head and caught the familiar smells: a salty tang of fried food and seaweed, with overtones of diesel oil, smoke and sawn timber, reflecting the industrial nature of this part of town.

He was surprised to be here as he expected the van to turn off into any one of the many small streets around the area, as they led to numerous cheap hotels, seedy commercial premises and oil-stained garages, the ideal stomping ground for an old con, his partner and a drunk friend. When the lights changed, they turned left and headed back into Brighton.

Henderson banged his fist on the steering wheel in frustration. They must have seen him and were toying with him, leading him a merry dance and hoping he would get bored and go home but in a few moments, he realised his mistake. The van stopped at the traffic lights leading into Shoreham Harbour.

Henderson needed to be extra careful here, as it was Friday night and no one in their right mind, employed by one of the myriad of grain merchants, metal-crushing businesses, haulage companies and timber warehouses would be within a mile of the place. They would be either curled up on the settee with a six-pack of lager after a stomach-bloating curry, or well on their way to getting plastered in any one of the hundreds of pubs between here and Brighton, mistaking the ugly girl at the bar for the woman of their dreams.

His knowledge of Shoreham Harbour was as good as any of the residents in the area; it was large and split into two parts, called the West Harbour and the East Harbour. The other large docks in the South, Southampton and Dover handled freight and passenger ships, but Shoreham was an industrial harbour and only dealt with smaller and lighter ships, transporting grain, timber and other loose materials between the UK and Europe.

The traffic lights changed and the van, with Henderson following some way behind, drove into the harbour. He passed a sign for Hove Lagoon where he’d once completed a windsurfing course, meaning they were heading into the East Harbour, the lights of the shore slowly diminishing in his rear view mirror. To the left was the sea, glistening cold in the moonlight, and to the right and behind yet more heavy industrial sites, the dark waters of the canal, a calm inlet where ships could dock to unload precious cargos, protected from the swell of the tide and the rocking of the wind.

Close to a skip-collection business, the public road ended and a private road began, replete with a forbidding sign designed to halt ordinary folk who didn’t possess a port identity card, police warrant card or were not sitting behind the wheel of an ambulance or fire engine. At the top of a rise, the silos of Southern Grain Merchants reflected eerily over the waters of the canal. He passed the site at a slow speed and at the back of the car park and partly-hidden by shadows, he spotted the black van.

He stopped, killed the lights and reversed into the site, not taking his eyes off the van. He saw no movement but kept well away and drove into a gap between two buildings, making sure the car was parked out of sight and facing the right way to make a speedy getaway. He got out of the car and set off on foot.

He approached the van and could see the front seats were empty. He moved to the back door and listened for a few moments but couldn’t hear any signs of life inside. He tapped quietly on the door with his knuckles, but still heard nothing. He tried the handle and opened the door but the van was bare; no passengers and no paralytic drunk.

Sticking close to buildings, he only shifted between them when satisfied no one was lurking around the corner. Set back from the water’s edge, the grain silos reared up like mythical giants, small and insignificant from the shore, but huge and foreboding close-up.

Knowing Brighton as he did, he wouldn’t be surprised if stoned druids came down here once a year to celebrate the summer solstice, mistaking the strange construction for Sussex’s answer to Stonehenge. The buildings closer to the canal were squat and dark, offices rather than warehouses, and as he passed them, he peered inside, trying to spot the slightest flicker of light or the merest hint of movement.

Approaching the canal’s edge, he edged around the corner of the last building, and up ahead saw the dark, looming presence of a ship. Moving closer, he could read the name,
Baltic Star
, although the bright blue star emblem looked faded with rust, which continued in a ragged line like a drip down to the waterline.

It was docked beside the grain silos and it didn’t take the detective skills of Poirot to determine it was likely a grain carrier and bringing wheat, oats or barley to or from the UK and the Baltic states. This area of the dock was lit, not much but enough for security personnel to ensure nothing was being stolen. It begged the question, where were the security staff? But if something bad was about to go down here, Henderson didn’t want some spotty, overweight oik sticking his oar in or ending up at the bottom of the canal.

He searched the buildings lining the docks, an easy job as darkness would highlight the faintest sliver of light inside, but he found no trace of Street or his companions. This left only one logical conclusion, which he knew as soon as he saw it: they were on the ship. He groaned. Boats like this were narrow, cramped and full of equipment and tools designed to injure or be dropped by the careless. It would be a hard place to move around without being spotted and a difficult place to escape from if he was.

The gangplank creaked and moaned despite his best efforts, making sure everyone aboard would now be alerted to his presence, making him feel even more exposed. Close-up, the ship wasn’t as big as it looked from the dock and would be dwarfed by any half-decent-sized cruise ship or cross-channel ferry, but unlike a passenger vessel, most of the capacity of this one, would be given over to the hold.

Walking towards the crew quarters, the ship felt deserted, which was just as well as he didn’t know who would be more surprised if he bumped into a large Latvian with his pecker out, doing his best to lift the level of the canal. Perhaps Street had slipped some largesse into the captain’s palm to give him and his boys a free night on the town, or they were all down in the galley having a party. The second option made him wince but a little voice was telling him this was foolish as he couldn’t see sights or sounds of the crew, and it was being shouted down by another voice called curiosity.

By accident, as ships like this did not have a little map pinned to the wall as they did on cross-Channel ferries, he found the galley. To him, the word conjured up a vision of the one aboard his own boat,
Mingary
, a two-burner hob, a tiny fridge and an oven suitable for cooking nothing bigger than a Guinea Fowl, but this place was on a different scale and would not shame a works canteen or a small school. He could see a full range of modern kitchen appliances, cupboards brimming with pots and crockery and plenty of places for diners to sit. Next door in the sleeping area, were books and magazines, all in a language he couldn’t understand but his best guess would be Russian.

In the background, the ship creaked, squeaked and groaned as it pulled on its mooring, the hull stretching and contracting with the changing temperature, and the current in the canal swishing water against the dock and slapping the sides of the ship. With this level of ambient noise, it was little wonder no one came out to enquire why he was climbing the ship’s gangplank, either that or no one else was on board.

Listening hard, he could hear another sound lurking there, a low humming. It might be the electricity generator used for lighting the ship or running the air-conditioning, but even though the fridges and freezers were all working and the corridors lit, the air felt hot and stale. In which case, the noise wasn’t an air-con system for the crew, but one for the cargo to stop it rotting. It didn’t matter if the crew sweated and sweltered through a Baltic summer, God help them if they didn’t deliver the cargo in tip-top condition.

He moved further down the corridor where he noticed an improvement in the decor with better lighting, the doors and fittings had fewer scuff marks and scratches, and the floor was covered in a smarter looking material, making him think it was the captain’s quarters. He came across what looked like a small dining room, and slipped inside for a breather. Furnished with a table and a couple of cabinets, it looked more spacious than the crowded communal table and benches he’d left behind in the galley area, and not a bad place to be during a long sea voyage.

At the far side of the room and on top of a cabinet, a silver tray with half a dozen small glasses and a bottle of vodka. Curious to discover if Eastern Europeans really did drink high-proof alcohol, or it was a rumour put about by Russians to justify boorish behaviour, he walked over to have a look and maybe try a little taste. He reached out for the bottle and stopped. He heard voices and instinctively ducked down beside the cabinet.

It took him a few seconds to realise the voices were coming not from out in the corridor, as he first assumed, but from the room next door. He stood and reached for the handle of the dining room door, intending to move outside and see if he could get any closer, when he realised he was in an adjoining room. Standing on tip-toes, he could see inside the other room by peering through a small gap at the top of the separating door.

There were times when being a lanky six-foot-two could be a royal pain in the arse, like trying to sleep in a standard-sized bed in a budget hotel, or flying in an aeroplane with seats designed for a slim, five-foot teenager, but at times like this, it was a Godsend.

He had a good view inside the other room and to his utter shock, there was Derek Crow, bound to a chair, his face covered in blood.