Crucified

Chapter 16

That afternoon, Jack got stuck into the pile of files on his desk relating to Armani’s gang war. After three hours of concerted reading, Laura passed his desk and saw what he was doing.

‘She’s brought you in on this now then?’

‘Yep. And I’d better stay in.’

‘Jack Warr, that sounded like a threat.’ Laura sat down next to him.

Jack slid his chair closer to Laura, so their knees touched beneath the desk.

‘You know that domestic she sent me on.’ Laura nodded. ‘Detective Sergeant Armani was the investigating and interviewing officer in an assault case against George Barras five years ago. It’s got to be DI Armani before she was promoted.’

‘There might be another Armani in the Met.’

‘The report is full of psychology and profiling jargon... it’s her. The odd thing is that it’s incomplete; missing key details I’d normally expect.’

‘That’s not like her... she’s normally boringly thorough with her reports.’

‘I knew something was up when she sent me to interview Maria Barras, and I’m going to find out what it is.’

Laura nudged Jack when Armani appeared behind him. ‘Well, here you both are again, whispering in corners. I’d prefer you to concentrate on the gang war case and the list of suspects I asked you to look through, if it’s not too much trouble.’

Jack flushed with anger but controlled himself. ‘I was just asking Laura if she could recommend any of the new young probationers to assist me.’

Armani frowned, then nodded. ‘You can use the boardroom for a briefing. They are all very keen and have been carefully selected; they should be of particular value for the case in question. I hope it will be beneficial, as your performance since your return to work has not particularly impressed me so far.’

‘Yes, Ma’am.’ He wanted to tell her to fuck off but knew it would be better to bide his time until he’d discovered whatever she was hiding from her past. For now, Jack was just glad to be on board with the meatier operation of gang wars.

The meeting in the boardroom started with Jack introducing himself to the six new officers DI Armani had brought onto the team. They were five strapping lads and a young woman he’d seen showing signs of nerves in the canteen. Jack linked his laptop to the digital whiteboard to show images of the known and suspected gang members. Ranging in age from twelve to their early twenties, and mostly males, they had previous convictions for assault, robbery, possession of an offensive weapon and drug offences. Some were known to police but had no convictions. Jack had just brought up the picture of the suspected leader of one notorious local gang when Armani entered the room. The young officers all stood up. She crossed the room, stood beside Jack, and addressed them.

‘I will oversee this operation, and DS Warr will be my deputy supervising officer.’ Jack tried to mask his delight with a blank expression. ‘I know that none of you have ever worked on this division before, but that is why I selected you all.’ The young officers looking at each other with confused expressions. ‘You have been selected for your ethnicity. This operation is about learning as much as possible about two rival gangs operating in our division. Some of you will infiltrate the community and covertly gather information about the young men and women on the list so we can identify which gangs they belong to and who the ring-leaders are. We need to know as much about them as possible: where they live, who their parents are, what street corners they frequent etcetera. Others of you will speak with headteachers at the local schools and find out who’s been expelled or is a regular truant... these kids are so easily sucked into gang life. Find out who the weaker members are, as they may have been enticed into a gang and be a useful source of information. Check out and photograph all local graffiti... identifying a tag to a name on the list of suspected members will help us to identify who’s who and hopefully identify others not yet on the list.’

The young officers remained attentive, and the glint in their eyes revealed how pleased they were to be part of the team.

‘Kids as young as twelve are being used as drug runners. They deal in any and all drugs, from feeding local junkies to supplying high-end parties.’ Armani’s tone became more serious. ‘I want you to understand that any drugs on my streets are unacceptable. Cannabis and Skunk are class B, but they still kill people. Get behind the wheel of a car with that in your system, with the paranoia and hallucinations, and the reactions of a snail, you get the picture. Your job is not to arrest the couriers or dealers; it’s to work covertly and gather information to build the bigger picture. Then we’ll regroup, move to phase two, and take the ringleaders off the streets, disrupting the gang’s way of life.’

Jack was impressed with her knowledge and the confident way she spoke, underlining the need for them to be totally covert. This also kept them as safe as possible. No challenges, no confrontations. He knew that once the ‘bigger picture’ was complete, search warrants would be obtained for simultaneous early morning home raids, followed by the arrest, interview and charging of as many of the gang members as possible. The only problem, as Josh had told him, was that dealing and drug-taking was as rife inside prison as it was in the outside world.

PC Nala Coley had been called ‘Fishy’ since arriving at Hendon police college two years ago. She’d married her childhood sweet-heart who unfortunately had a terrible surname for a probi copper. But Fishy was an old head on young shoulders and had the makings of an exceptional officer. She, along with PC Kwame Abara, had been tasked with working undercover at the local snooker hall as general dogsbodies doing bar work and cleaning. Although both were in their early twenties, they easily looked late teens. They used their real first names for simplicity and Kwame quickly made it known that he was a user by allowing himself to get caught smoking weed in the backyard. Within days of starting work, Kwame and Nala were sitting at the bar having a beer when Denny, a lad high up in one of the local gangs, approached with three other boys, none of whom could have been more than sixteen.

‘You ain’t selling on my turf are you, blood?’

Kwame was instantly submissive so as not to cause trouble. ‘Shit, no man. I didn’t know this was your patch, but I figured it was someone’s. I don’t sell. I just use a little.’

One of the lads looked Nala up and down, smirking and licking his lips. As his eyes came all the way back up her body, she spoke strongly and firmly. ‘I don’t go for jailbait.’ Her comment made the others laugh which really pissed him off. Kwame put a hand on her knee as if to say, ‘be respectful’, but she ignored him.

Denny sent the others off to play snooker while he discussed business with Kwame, but the three lads knew to stay close, hovering with cues in their hands. ‘The top three tables over there are mine,’ Denny explained. ‘On weekends the school kids come in wanting to hang out with the big boys. Talk to them. Find me some customers, yeah.’ Kwame said that he didn’t want to get involved with anything illegal but was quickly put in his place. ‘Then you came to the wrong place, blood.’ He stared Kwame straight in the eyes, unblinking, and put his hand on Nala’s thigh. This time, she knew enough to be frightened. She froze as Denny slid his hand towards her groin.

‘All right,’ Kwame said quickly.

Denny smirked, removed his hand and bounced away as if nothing had happened. ‘Be in touch, yeah.’

Nala couldn’t believe how much she was shaking. ‘Jeez, K,’ she whispered, ‘what the hell have we agreed to?’

Jack and Maggie both slept late on Saturday morning. Maggie was still getting used to her hectic schedule at the hospital but she was relieved Penny and Gladys were coping well with the children. She also noticed Jack made no further complaints about DI Armani, who he was beginning to feel he’d misjudged. She’d certainly been more respectful towards him since they’d been working directly together, even giving him the weekend off as he had been working long hours late into the night. He seemed impressed with her leadership and with the progress of the investigation, as they were making a lot of headway.

After breakfast Maggie asked Jack if they could finish painting the bookcases in the loft extension, as they now had the new bed and mattress installed. He was not that eager but agreed to get the job out of the way and was mixing the paint when she came to look over the room.

‘Do you remember that place selling the mattresses? Next to it was an Indian shop with a stall and some nice carpets and rugs. With the pine floor, it might be nice to have a rug beside the bed, and we could do with another little chest of drawers. What do you think?’

‘Do you want me to paint this now or come back and do it?’

Maggie grinned. ‘Marius is downstairs; he can take you in his van.’

‘My God, you’ve already organised it,’ Jack smiled wryly.

‘I didn’t organise it really, he came by to fix the showerhead upstairs and, well...’

Half an hour later, Jack and Marius left for Portobello Road. Their first stop was the carpet shop, where Jack bought a rug, and then managed to find a nice six-drawer cabinet with brass handles.

Jack was sweating as he carried the heavy cabinet, while Marius had the rug over his shoulder. Getting to the van, they removed the drawers from the cabinet to stack beside it and laid the carpet on top.

‘What about the paint you need?’ Marius said. ‘There’s a good place halfway up the market.’

‘Screw that, I’ve had enough for one day,’ Jack said grumpily as he slammed the van doors.

‘Give me a few minutes. I’ll run and see what I can find. If you go home without it...’ Marius shook his head. ‘Let’s get the job done and dusted.’

Jack climbed into the passenger seat as Marius went off towards the market. He had not been gone long when he came hurrying back, yanking open the driver’s door.

‘Something’s going on down the road. Loads of police cars and they’re putting up crime scene tape. I can’t get down.’

Jack hesitated as Marius got into the driving seat. ‘Hang on, Marius, I’ll go see what’s happening.’

‘I’ll turn the van around and wait here for you.’

Jack headed back towards the market. After a couple of minutes he could see that the framer’s shop was sealed off with yellow crime scene tape while squad cars were blocking off the road. Jack watched as two white-suited SOCOs with their equipment bags got out of a forensics van and entered the shop.

Keeping well back, Jack turned to a woman with a shopping trolley and asked if she knew what was happening. ‘Well...’ she said, ‘I heard one officer say murder.’

Jack took a few steps backwards, telling himself to get away and not get involved. He returned to the van and told Marius vaguely there had been an accident. As they drove home, he hoped there might be something on the lunchtime news about it. Already he had a sinking feeling that Adam Border was somehow involved.