Tango One (2 page)

“Were they killed on tape?” asked Latham.

Mackie shook his head.

“So why this time? What was special about Middleton?”

“It's a warning,” said Mackie, sitting down in the armchair opposite Latham and refilling their glasses.

“He's telling us what he'll do to anyone we send against him.”

Latham sipped his whisky.

“It's unusual, isn't it, killing a Customs officer?”

“Not in the league Donovan's in. If it was just a case of a couple of kilos, maybe, but the last consignment of Donovan's that went belly up had a street value of thirty million dollars. If the DEA catch him with the goods, he'll go down for life without parole.”

“Even so, he could just give them a kicking and send them packing, couldn't he?”

“I guess we've become a thorn in his side and this is his way of saying enough is enough.”

“And is it? From your perspective?”

Mackie looked at the Assistant Commissioner with unblinking grey eyes.

“I knew all three of them, Peter. I worked with Andy way back when. Checking cars at Dover, believe it or not. I'm not going to send any more men into the lion's den.”

“So he's won?”

“Not exactly.” Mackie fell silent and stared at a painting of a vase of flowers above one of the beds.

“Spit it out, Ray,” said Latham eventually.

“We've had an idea,” said Mackie, still studying the painting.

“Well, I guessed that much.”

“The problem is, no matter how good our agents are, and Andy Middleton was one of the best, an operator like Donovan can still spot them. They don't have his background, his instincts. No matter how good they are, they're still playing a role. One slip, one wrong move, and their cover's blown.”

Latham nodded but didn't say anything.

Mackie put his glass on the table and stood up, his knees cracking like snapping twigs. He walked around the room, his left shoe squeaking each time it touched the floor.

“We put our guys through the most intense training imaginable, same as you do with your SO10 people. We teach them about surveillance and counter-surveillance, we teach them how to act, how to think like a criminal. And up against low-level operators they pass muster. You see, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, then the bad guys assume that it's probably a duck. But probably isn't good enough for a man like Donovan. First, he only does business with people he's known personally for a long time. He treats all strangers with suspicion. And he has an instinct for undercover agents. It's as if he can smell them. Apart from the three who've died, I've had half a dozen bail out of their own accord, convinced that Donovan was on to them.”

“I get the picture, Ray. I even get the duck analogy. But what do you want from me? From the Met?”

Mackie took a deep breath and turned to look at the Assistant Commissioner.

“Virgins,” he said, quietly.

“We need virgins.”

Jamie Fullerton gritted his teeth as he pounded along the pavement on the last leg of his two-mile run. He was barely sweating and knew that he had the stamina to run for at least another hour, but he had nothing to prove. If it had been the weekend he might have pushed himself harder, but it was Monday, the start of a new week. The start of a new life. He looked left and right and dashed across the King's Road, heading for his basement flat in Oakley Street. London wasn't the most convenient place in the world for an early-morning run, but Fullerton couldn't abide the clinical efficiency and mechanical contraptions of a health club. Fitness was a way of life to him; it had nothing to do with spending an hour on an exercise bike reading the FT and listening to the latest Simply Red CD.

He increased the pace as he turned into Oakley Street and sprinted the last hundred yards, then stood stretching as he held on to the black railings at the top of the stairs that led down to his flat. A blonde in a smart pale green suit carrying a Louis Vuitton briefcase flashed him a dazzlingly white smile and he grinned back.

“Looking good,” she said, then she was gone, heading for South Kensington Tube station.

Fullerton had seen her three times during the past week and had the feeling that she was deliberately timing her journey to coincide with his return from his run. He'd noticed the wedding ring on her finger the first time he'd seen her, but her smiles were getting wider and there was a definite swing to her hips as she walked away. She was pretty enough, but she was in her early thirties, probably a decade his senior, and Fullerton had long since passed through the stage of being attracted to older women.

He went down the metal steps to his front door and let himself in. The flat had a minimum of furniture: two simple grey sofas facing each other either side of a coal-effect gas fire, a low coffee table made from some dark veneer that hadn't been within a mile of a genuine tree, and a sideboard which was bare except for an inoffensive African wood carving that he would have thrown out if it hadn't been high up on the list of the landlord's inventory that he'd had to sign when he'd taken on the lease.

Fullerton stripped off his tracksuit top and tossed it on to the sofa by the window before dropping on to the beige carpet and doing his daily one hundred and twenty sit-ups. He was sweating by the time he finished, but his breathing was still regular and though his abdominal muscles ached he knew that he was nowhere near his limit.

He walked through to the bathroom, which was as utilitarian as the sitting room, and showered before going into the bedroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. On the back of the bedroom door a dark blue uniform with silver buttons hung on a wooden hanger. He picked up the hanger and grinned at the uniform.

“A fucking cop,” he chuckled to himself.

“Who'd've believed it?”

He tossed the uniform on to the bed. The helmet with its gleaming silver emblem of the Metropolitan Police was on the dressing table and Fullerton picked it up. He placed it on his head and adjusted the chin strip. It was heavy but it sat firmly on his head. He turned to look at his reflection in the mirrored door of the wardrobe. He stopped grinning and snapped to attention, then slowly saluted.

“Evening all,” he said. He flexed his biceps, then stepped into a bodybuilder's pose. His towel slid to the floor and he grinned at his naked reflection.

He jumped as his doorbell rang, and his face flushed involuntarily as he realised how ridiculous he looked, naked except for a policeman's helmet.

He put the helmet on the bed next to the uniform, wrapped the towel around his waist and rushed down the hallway to the front door. He opened it, expecting to see the postman, but instead was faced with a man in his thirties wearing a dark blue blazer and grey slacks, like a holiday rep preparing to greet a planeload of holiday makers.

“James Fullerton?” asked the man, his face a blank mask as if he didn't care either way whether or not he was.

“Yes?” said Fullerton hesitantly.

“There's been a change of venue,” said the man.

“And you are?”

“The man who's been sent to take you to the new venue,” he said without a trace of humour. He was holding a set of car keys in his right hand. His shoes were as highly polished as the pair that Fullerton kept in the bottom of his wardrobe. Policeman's shoes.

“Look, I'm supposed to be at Hendon at eight thirty,” said Fullerton.

“The police college.”

“I know what Hendon is, sir,” said the man in the blazer.

“You're to come with me instead.”

“Do you have a letter or something?”

“No,” said the man coldly.

“No letter.”

Fullerton looked at the man. The man returned his look with total impassivity as he clasped his hands together over his groin and waited patiently. It was clear that he wasn't going to divulge any further information.

“Right,” said Fullerton.

“Let me get dressed.” He started to close the door.

“The uniform won't be necessary, sir.” Fullerton stopped closing the door.

“Excuse me?”

“The uniform. It won't be necessary.” Fullerton frowned.

“What do I wear, then?” The man in the blazer leaned forward as if about to whisper conspiratorially.

“Frankly, sir,” he said, “I couldn't give a fuck.” Fullerton closed the door and stood in the hallway with his head in the hands wondering what the hell was going on. His application to join the Metropolitan Police had been accepted three months earlier, and the letter telling him when to report to Hendon had arrived shortly afterwards. The sudden change of plan could only be bad news.

Cliff "Bunny' Warren poured a slug of milk over his Shredded Wheat, dumped on two heaped spoonfuls of brown sugar and carried the bowl over to the Formica table in the corner of his kitchen. He wrapped his dressing gown around himself, propped up a textbook against the wall and read as he ate. Reforming Social Services. The content of the book was as dry as the cereal straight from the packet, but Warren knew that it was required reading. He was already behind in his Open University reading and had a stack of videos next to the television that he still had to watch.

The doorbell rang, three sharp blasts as if whoever was ringing was in a hurry. Warren put down his spoon and walked slowly down the hallway. He put the chain on the door before opening it. The part of Harlesden he lived in was home to an assortment of drug addicts and petty thieves who wouldn't think twice about kicking down a door, beating him senseless and taking what few possessions he had. His upstairs neighbour, a widower in his seventies, had been broken into six times in the past two years.

A white man in a dark blue blazer smiled through the gap.

“Clifford Warren?”

“Who wants to know?”

“I've a car waiting for you, sir.”

Warren's brow furrowed as he opened the door further. Parked in the street a few doors away was a brand new Vauxhall Vectra that was already attracting the attention of two West Indian teenagers.

“You don't want to leave it there,” warned Warren.

“Not if you want to see your radio again.”

The man took a quick look over his shoulder.

“Thanks for the tip, sir,” he said.

“I'll wait with the vehicle.”

“Does every new recruit get this treatment?” asked Warren.

“You're a bit of a special case, I'm told, sir,” said the man, adjusting his red and blue tie.

“I've been told to tell you that the uniform won't be necessary.”

“Am I in some sort of trouble?” asked Warren, suddenly concerned.

The man shrugged.

“Not that I'm aware of, sir, but then they don't tell me much, me being a driver and all.” He looked at his watch.

“Best not to be late, sir.”

Warren nodded.

“Okay, okay,” he said and closed the door as the man went back to guard his car.

He walked slowly into his bedroom and took off his dressing gown. His police uniform was hanging from the key that locked the wardrobe door. He reached out and stroked the blue serge. Warren had thought long and hard before applying to join the Metropolitan Police. He'd had a few minor convictions when he was a teenager, mainly joy riding and stealing from cars, and he'd been up front about his past during the many interviews they'd put him through. However, in the wake of a slump in recruitment, the Met had been forced to drop its requirement that applicants had a completely trouble-free past. They were especially keen on Warren as he was West Indian, and were currently bending over backwards to increase their intake of ethnic minorities. It was racism, albeit acting in reverse, and Warren figured that he might as well take advantage of it. However, the presence of the man in the blazer waiting in the car outside suggested that his entry into the ranks of the Metropolitan Police wasn't going to go as smoothly as he'd hoped.

Christina Leigh lit her first cigarette of the morning, inhaled deeply, then spent a good thirty seconds coughing as she walked slowly towards the kitchen, wrapping her robe around her.

“Tomorrow I'm giving up,” she promised herself for the thousandth time.

She switched on the kettle and heaped two spoonfuls of Nescafe Gold Blend into a white mug. As she took a second pull on her Silk Cut she frowned at the clock above the ten-year-old refrigerator.

“Eight o'clock?” she muttered.

“How the hell can it be eight o'clock already?” She hurried back into the bedroom and took her blue uniform out of the wardrobe and laid it carefully on the bed. Her regulation shoes sat on her dressing table, gleaming under the fluorescent strip light above her mirror, and her hat hung on a hook on the back of the door. She picked up the hat and sat it carefully on her head, then adjusted the angle. Try as she might, it didn't look right and she wondered whether day one at Hendon would involve teaching recruits how to wear the bloody things. At least she didn't have to wear the same silly pointed helmets as the men. The doorbell rang and she jumped.

She rushed to the door of her flat and flung it open. A grey-haired man in his early fifties smiled down at her. He was wearing a dark blue blazer and grey trousers and must have been almost seven feet tall, because Tina had to crane her neck to look at his face.

“Whatever you're selling, I really don't have the time,” she said. She took a quick pull on her cigarette.

“Or the money. And how did you get in? The front door's supposed to be locked.”

“Didn't anyone tell you that smoking in uniform is grounds for dismissal?” said the man in a soft Northumbrian accent.

“What?” said Tina, but as soon as the word had left her mouth she realised that she was still wearing the police hat. She grabbed it and held it behind her back.

“I'm not a cop,” she said.

“Not yet. A police officer, I mean. I'm not actually a police officer.” She leaned over and stabbed the cigarette into an ashtray on the hall table.

“What do you want?”

The man smiled at her, the skin at the side of his eyes creasing into deep crow's feet.

“Christina Leigh?”

“Yes?” said Tina hesitantly.

“Your chariot awaits.”

“My what?”

“Your car.”