Two Faced (Harry Tyler Book 2) (2 page)

Disclaimer

The views and sexual mores of the fictional character Harry Tyler do not necessarily reflect those of the author.

A
ugust 22, 1986. A hot and lazy Friday; Chris de Burgh’s ‘The Lady In Red’ oozed out of the radio like musical slime for only the seventh time that morning, but Ronnie Clavin wasn’t listening. His head buried in the
Sun
, Ronnie was lost in a private fantasy involving Suzanne Mizzi’s breasts and the back seat of the Ford Sierra he was planning to crush as soon as he’d finished his bacon roll. When the big man came in, Ronnie looked up. He had to. He hadn’t heard him arrive but Goliath was blocking out the light. He must have been six-foot-five and so wide he’d had to turn sideways to fit through the door of Ron’s ramshackle office. Ronnie’s young assistant tensed. He was used to the constant stream of underworld faces at Ronnie’s scrapyard, from shadowy ne’er-do-wells – the ducking, diving plankton – to sharks whose sharp suits had been paid for in buckets of blood, bird and battered boat races. But he had never seen anyone as physically awesome as this dishevelled man mountain.

The newcomer was a Hell’s Angel. His arms were huge, like inflated truck tyres, and so heavily tattooed it was impossible to make out a single square inch of unmolested flesh. He wore dirty denims and a stained Motörhead T-shirt under a sleeveless leather jacket. An iron cross dangled beneath the ‘Cut Here’ inscription around his neck, which was noticeably wider than his ears.

The Angel’s face was scarred and weather-beaten; his nose was broken, his features Cro-Magnon. The beard could have been on loan from Hagar the Horrible.

This had to mean trouble.

‘You dirty no-good cowson,’ Ronnie snarled with menace. He rose swiftly and stepped over his sleeping mutt to face the barbarian intruder. His assistant’s hand shot down to the monkey wrench at his feet.

‘Potman!’ Ronnie exclaimed, grinning widely. ‘Oo loves ya, baby?’

The two men embraced.

‘You ain’t got no prettier, Ronald,’ the Angel rasped.

‘Is Noodles not with you today, son?’

‘No, mate,’ Potman replied. ‘It was such a nice day, Mummy let me catch the bus here on me tod.’

‘Ha bloody ha,’ said a smaller, frowning rat-faced man in US army surplus clothing as he stepped out from behind his colossal companion and shook Ronnie’s hand. He was as thin as fuse wire and just as resilient.

‘Delighted to press flesh as always, Ronaldo,’ the rodent-like Noodles said, the wrinkles momentarily leaving his brow. ‘And who’s this?’

He poked a silver-ringed, fag-stained finger at Ronnie’s sidekick.

The younger man stood up and proffered a hand. ‘I was going to introduce meself,’ he said with a grin. ‘But yer boyfriend looks like the jealous type.’

For a moment there was silence. The assistant’s smile began to freeze. Had he misjudged the situation? A strong hand settled on his shoulder. ‘This is Harry,’ said Ronnie, almost gleaming with paternal pride. ‘Harry Tyler. He’s one of yer own.’

Potman grabbed Harry in a headlock and pulled him close. ‘You’ll do, Harry,’ he said, shaking with laughter. ‘You’ve got some balls, son.’

Harry grinned. He didn’t know the half of it.

‘Right H, put the kettle on,’ Ronnie commanded. ‘No, on second thoughts sling us over the Scotch, there’s a good chap.’

‘How’s the missus, Ron?’ asked Potman.

‘Not good,’ replied Ronnie. ‘She’s got hormonal problems’ – he waited a beat – ‘I can’t stop the whore moaning.’

‘They’re all the fucking same, mate,’ Potman grunted.

‘Ain’t that the truth? Here, did I tell you about the funny old magic dressing table that my old woman’s bought? Yeah, she picked it up from a flea market over in Greenwich and it keeps giving her winners. Marlene stands in front of it of a morning, she reads out a race meeting and the table jumps up and down. If it jumps five times, she backs the Number Five nag and they keep coming in. Well, the other day, she’s out and I ask the table how much dosh she’s got tucked away. Stone me, that table jumps up and down twenty thousand times. So I says: how did she get that much? And with that the legs fall open and the drawers shoot off.’

The others roared as Ronnie poured.

‘As amusifying as ever,’ said Noodles in his endearingly mangled deadpan way. ‘But I must stop you for a moment, friend. This isn’t just a social visit.’

‘No,’ growled Potman. ‘We’ve got a bit of a problem.’

There was a squeal of tyres outside as a car jerked to a halt. Potman gazed through the office window. ‘And from the look of it, so have you, son.’

‘Who is it?’ asked Ronnie.

‘Well, put it this way, it’s a fair bet to say they ain’t the Fun Boy Three.’

They left the office to face the three heavy-set men who had climbed out of the showroom-new, royal blue Daimler Sovereign 4.2.

‘The Nelsons,’ said Ronnie under his breath.

‘Who?’ whispered Harry, playing dumb – he knew the names and reputations of the North London crime family through the underworld grapevine. They weren’t First Division, but they were right up there at the top of Division Two fighting for promotion. Old Man Nelson himself, known as Buck, was ten feet away from him. He wore a Chester Barrie suit, Gucci shoes and a Cartier watch; and he was flanked by two of his six sons – David and Georgie, both bull-necked and shaven-headed. The real bastard, Nicky, must have taken the day off for knuckle-dragging practice.

‘Get in the car, Ronnie,’ Buck commanded. ‘We’ve got business to settle.’

‘Fuck that,’ said Ronnie, who turned and began to desperately clamber away over a mountain of scrap.

David and Georgie Nelson started to follow him. Potman blocked their way. Georgie pulled a cosh out of his suit jacket; Noodles produced a .45 from his army greens.

‘Checkmate,’ he said, taking a puff of the Jamaican woodbine in his free hand. ‘It’s in perfect working order, gentlemen.’

‘Cute, very cute,’ said Buck.

‘Who are ya?’ snarled David.

‘Renee and Renato, can’t you tell?’

David’s stare could have shattered stone, but he backed off.

‘Ignore these soppy cunts,’ Buck barked. He turned to Harry Tyler.

‘Tell Mr Clavin he’s got a meet with me on Monday, twelve noon at the George in Islington, OK son? He’ll turn up; he’ll know it makes sense. And if he don’t’ – Buck flashed a crocodile smile – ‘then Georgie and David will be back with their big brother Nicky. And he ain’t as reasonable as I am. Know what I mean?’

Harry nodded and watched the Daimler pull away. He shook hands with Potman and Noodles and hit the office phone. The dog had slept through the whole exchange.

Harry left messages for Ronnie Clavin in pubs, clubs and snooker rooms all over Greenwich borough to no avail. He finally found him in person six hours later nursing a large malt at the Liberal Club in Charlton Church Lane. When he passed on Buck’s message the colour drained from Ronnie’s face. He nodded and asked Harry to go. Harry didn’t see Ronnie again until the following Thursday, and by then he was in hospital.

Three months earlier: it was the oddest picture that Limp-wrist Larry Steinmetz, the rampantly gay Bristol police college photographer, had ever been asked to take. Nine detectives, four female and five male, were lined up in front of him with their backs to the camera.

‘Now,’ said Limp-wrist. ‘Should I tell you to say cheese or just ask you to cut it?’

The Americanism was lost on DI Holmes, who looked on nervously. ‘Please don’t let any of them decide to moon the camera,’ the DI muttered as Limp-wrist fussed about making sure not one of the ensemble’s faces could be seen.

With such a distinguished surname, the young Holmes was always going to be attracted to detective work. In his early days he had hoped to earn the nickname ‘Sherlock’, but inevitably, given his genial manner and remarkable physical resemblance to Russ Abbot, he had become known affectionately to all and sundry as Barrett.

From the windows above he could hear the ‘trainee bell-heads’ – uniform probationer constables – jokingly speculate about who this mixed group of strangers could be.

‘Muppets’, ‘Wurzels’ and ‘The Wild Bunch’ were some of the kinder comments that wafted down. The odd muttered ‘faggot’ was almost certainly aimed at Limp-wrist, who relished the attention and had dressed to impress in a duck blue suede jacket, white roll-neck jumper and leather trousers so tight that they left less to the imagination than a Ron Jeremy porn movie.

‘Look at them leather pants! Mr Magoo could make out his religion, already,’ joked one cop.

‘Say cheese!’ another cop shouted camply.

‘Knob cheese!’ a third man oafishly guffawed.

‘Larry’s got half a lob-on,’ said the first cop again. ‘If he doesn’t get this shot soon, Chernobyl won’t be the only thing in meltdown.’

Even Holmes smiled at that one. Another heckler yelled, ‘Tell ’im to give his Botox a polish, Barrett,’ but the DI pretended not to hear. He could understand why the probationers were so fascinated by their mysterious colleagues. What branch of the service could possibly employ such a motley crew? One man was clearly from the Bob Geldof school of personal hygiene. Long matted hair. Bearded. Pungent. Revolting. The chap hadn’t washed since he got there, wore clothes Michael Foot would think scruffy, and screeched out of the college gates most nights on a Harley Davidson with sulphurous fumes belching from its knackered exhaust.

‘That cunt wants hosing down.’

‘He ain’t seen a bath since the vicar ducked him in the font.’

‘And I bet he left a ring round that.’

Another guy was eighteen stone, bald, black and built like a nightclub bouncer. ‘Oi, Mr T, does Hannibal know you’re moonlighting down here?’ shouted one bold bell-head.

‘Hey, Limp-wrist,’ hollered another. ‘Is this the closest you’ve ever got to a black mass?’

Inevitably a woman got the most stick – blonde Denise Watts, who was more top-heavy than Sam Fox in a centrifuge.

‘She’ll never drown in a swimming pool,’ cackled one young observer.

‘Fuck the pool, let’s see her on a trampoline,’ quipped his pal.

‘If they fall out of her blouse, they could have Larry’s eye out.’

‘Here, titty, titty, titty …’

Holmes tutted. It was like working on a building site. But he was relieved that the young probationers had no idea what was going on here. Undercover police infiltration remained a well-kept secret. Despite major successes against some of Britain’s leading organised crime gangs, top-drawer villains were still being caught on the toilet with their trousers around their ankles. Why? That was simple: when the cases came to court, the police were not yet compelled to disclose to the defence that ‘the one who got away’ was undercover Old Bill.

UC operatives, trained here and known as the Dream Factory team, were a logical response to a drug-fuelled crime wave that was fast turning tidal. Not that you’d know it from their budgets. The dinosaurs who controlled police purse strings could not quite get their heads around the new game of infiltration. UC operations were tolerated rather than encouraged. Many officers of senior rank felt it just wasn’t cricket. They didn’t like to acknowledge that the game had changed and it wasn’t George Dixon versus the Lavender Hill Mob out there any more. Yet it was becoming ever harder even for them to cling on to the old comforting belief that drug culture was safely confined to a few poverty-blighted urban pockets. It was bad, and it was nationwide. And the sheer tonnage of powder and pills recovered by UC operatives in the last twelve months, along with high-value stolen goods, counterfeit currency and firearms, proved it beyond question. Crime in the 1980s was increasingly about supplying a growing and ravenous demand for drugs, and by turning a blind eye to it for so many years the police establishment had allowed a new aristocracy of law-breakers to flourish. Britain’s drug-peddling criminal elite were richer, more ruthless and far more successful than Al Capone, Bugs Moran, Johnny Torrio, the Gennas, the O’Banions or any other of the organised mobs whose growth was rooted in the fertile soil of the Prohibition years in 1920s America.

Alerted by a cough behind him, DI Holmes turned to warmly greet his DCI, thanking his lucky stars that the small band of heroes had resisted the urge to drop their trousers. He turned back to see nine bare arses pointed towards Limp-wrist Larry’s zoom lens. ‘Full moon tonight then, Barrett,’ the DCI said with a wan smile, before turning on his heels and walking away.

Down in the courtyard, the ponytailed Harry Dean smiled as Limp-wrist gave his instructions in a voice that screamed theatrical queen: ‘OK, put your right hand on the left cheek of the person to your right. That’s it, dear. Now, you on the end, put your right hand on your hips.’ This was clearly a shot for his private collection.

‘Are you sure you don’t want it mounted, mate?’ grumbled Warren Walker, the black UC officer, in a heavy Midlands accent.

‘No,’ quipped Harry Dean. ‘But he’ll help you to get it enlarged.’

‘Easy, tiger.’ Limp-wrist laughed. ‘You’ll make Mr Holmes jealous. Now, everyone touching …?’

Harry glanced sideways to his right at brunette Rachel Freeman, a flirty, loud-mouthed Mancunian detective from the Avon and Somerset force. She wasn’t bad looking but she never shut up. What Rachel didn’t know about anything wasn’t worth knowing – well, according to her, that was. She had turned on Harry in their first week for eating his favourite breakfast – two fried bangers in a crusty roll, smothered in brown sauce and spread with so much butter that it dripped from the sides as it melted.

‘Lips and arseholes, that’s what sausages are,’ she had said before setting off on an uninvited rant about the perils of cholesterol and animal fat.

Rachel Freeman, Harry thought: no opinion unexpressed, no prick unteased. She’d been out with two of the five blokes in the line-up since they’d got here, but neither of them had got past first base with her. Harry put his hand on her plump little bottom and squeezed it gingerly, hoping she wouldn’t bite. There had to be teeth down there somewhere, she was always talking out of it. Yeah, lips and arseholes, all right.

Harry Aaron Dean was 27. Born in Colchester, Essex, he had grown up poor but proud on a Romford council estate and drifted into the Essex police seven years before on the advice of his former father-in-law, a tough retired cop. The force served Harry better than the marriage. Dawn had run off with the six-foot-two physical training officer next door. Harry’s world fell apart the day he came home to the ‘Dear John’ letter on the kitchen table. She still loved him, she said, but she never saw him. She needed more. That’s where Harry had gone wrong, see, doing all that overtime to try and buy the bitch a better fucking lifestyle – the nicer house, the holidays in Benidorm and Majorca.

He didn’t tell anyone how much Dawn had mangled his insides. Who could he tell? His parents were dead, he had no siblings, he had never let anyone get close enough to become bosom buddies and it wasn’t exactly the kind of thing you chatted about in the canteen at the nick. So Harry bottled it all up. He never let the pain show; and he never gave all of himself to anyone again.

It’s surprising how quickly a broken heart heals up when you’ve got something to live for. Dawn left him in the February of 1985, the year Harry transferred into the CID after six years in uniform. A move to the Essex wing of the Regional Crime Squad followed swiftly as he threw himself into detective work. Harry was a natural thief-taker. His assured manner and innate gift of the gab helped him move with ease in the criminal underworld. He relished the shady demi-monde of strippers, drippers, bent publicans and snouts. This was his turf, this other Britain – a world of lock-ins, lock-ups and unlicensed brawls. And Harry notched up more felt collars than a Savile Row tailor. His superior officers recognised his natural abilities. Who better to send on the undercover course at Bristol?

So Harry and his fellow maverick gladiators went through four hard months of training. They were taught tactics and psychology, how to bluff and double bluff, how to deflect suspicion and get inside the heads of their prey. Their job was to bring on the parcel and make sure the top men on the firm they were targeting were caught ‘hands-on’ with the illicit merchandise. But you couldn’t incite a criminal to commit a crime he would not have committed if it weren’t for you urging him to do so. That was the cardinal rule – ‘the prime directive’ as they called it, Captain Kirk-style. The pitfalls were plentiful, the consequences of any mistake plainly life-threatening. And if the course were mentally and physically draining, the nine knew that it would be nothing compared to the challenge of the real job to come.

Studying was especially tough for Harry Dean because he had been placed in the smaller group with Rachel and his initial dislike of the woman was confirmed by her incessant chatter. He had sat next to her once in the canteen and paid a terrible price.

‘Why can’t they do summat healthy?’ she’d moaned as he tucked into a plate of ham, egg and chips. ‘I would kill for a bowl of broccoli soup, y’know? I’m trying t’stay clear of stuff like bread ’cos I was right poorly a while back and this fella in t’health shop said I should cut down on my wheat intake. But as a vegetarian that’s tough. I don’t want to turn into one of those foodie weirdos. Can I pinch one of your chips? Can I dip it in the sauce …?’ And so she had gone on for the entire dinner break. Verbal diarrhoea didn’t come into it. The woman would give an aspirin a headache. It was a mark of how good Harry was going to be at submerging his true feelings that nobody in the group even remotely suspected that he found her as irritating as thrush.

For her part Rachel took Harry’s polite coldness as a sign of hidden depths. He was a good-looking guy, a little over six feet tall with blue eyes and dark brown hair. He was fit and muscular, clearly with something promising in the trouser department. He dressed well, he was funny, wore no wedding ring and hadn’t made a single attempt to chat her up since they had arrived. That made him a challenge, and on their last night at Bristol, after six hours of serious drinking, Rachel Freeman engineered a situation where she and Harry were alone. Jeremy Tyler, the biker, had the hots for the busty blonde Denise Watts, the top-heavy temptress from Torbay. Inevitably she was known as ‘Dirty Den’ because of the character in BBC1’s new hit soap
EastEnders
; although, as Jeremy was to discover, the nickname was a triumph of hope over reality. ‘She just lay on that bed like a corpse,’ he had moaned to Harry the next day. ‘I might as well have been sticking my dick in a plate of cold suet.’

Jeremy had brought Harry along as back-up and so it was that all four of them ended up back at Rachel’s digs, until the Northern lass tipped Denise the wink and she scooted Jeremy away. Harry made a half-hearted attempt to leave but it was late and besides, he had started to get a taste for Rachel’s brandy. As she saw the others out, Harry went for a slash. There was nothing wrong with the toilet, but it amused him to use the sink instead and then clear up the splashes with her flannel. Coming back, Harry noticed that Rachel’s bedroom door was opened so he stuck his head inside for a quick shufti: no cuddly toys – she wasn’t the type – but there was a Man City scarf over the headboard, a Prince poster on the wall, and a picture of her and presumably a sister on the bedside table.

‘So what are you, Harry chuck, forward or just nosey?’

Shit. He hadn’t meant to get caught.

‘That Prince is some kind of ponce,’ he said, hoping to provoke a row. He’d wanted to ruck her since day one. Rachel changed the subject.

‘Let’s not kid around – you know you want me,’ she said, stepping into the room and shutting the bedroom door behind her.

‘Do I?’

‘Oh yeah.’

‘I think I’d better go …’

‘Sure you will. What’s the score then, pretend you’re not interested then go home and wank about what might have been?’

Ordinarily Harry would have walked away, but he was smashed, his resistance worn down by duty-free Courvoisier. He could feel his distaste for the woman battling with pure lust – and, as he hadn’t had a shag for weeks, the lust won hands down. He smiled. Rachel came at him like a predator, eyes blazing, mouth open. Harry kissed her roughly. Too roughly. He was hurting her; he knew it but made no attempt to stop. Oddly, his aggression seemed to turn her on. Rachel pushed against him, relishing his hardness. She reached down and grabbed him through the crotch of his Farah slacks, just as the sound of Ashford and Simpson drifted in from the other room: ‘Solid! Solid as a rock.’ That made them both laugh.

‘Fuck me,’ she said, barking out the words like an order. But Harry had other ideas. He wanted her to suck him before he gave the dog a bone. He unzipped his fly and urgently pressed her head in the right direction. ‘Right, cock,’ she giggled drunkenly. ‘I’m munchin’ on yer truncheon. But don’t come in my mouth, all right? And tell me if I hurt you with me teeth, I’m not very good at this …’

Shut the fuck up!

‘Shhh. Go on, you’ll be fine.’

She took him greedily. Harry looked down at her as her head bobbed away industriously. Finally he had silenced the voice of the North.