Gone

39

The high street was typical of a thousand others in England, with a Superdrug and a Boots interspersed with a couple of local retailers. The shop lights battled with the rain and the beginnings of dusk. Eight men were waiting for Caffery when he arrived at the RV point in a supermarket car park two hundred yards down the street from Richard Moon’s flat. They were dressed in protective gear: Kevlar vests, shields, helmets in their hands. He recognized some of them: the Underwater Search Unit, out on the regular support-group duties they did from time to time.

‘Where’s your sergeant?’ Their van’s lights were still on, the doors open. ‘She on board, is she?’

‘Afternoon, sir.’ A shortish man with cropped blond hair stepped forward, his hand out. ‘Acting Sergeant Wellard. I spoke to you on the phone.’

‘You’re acting? Where’s Sergeant Marley, then?’

‘She’s back on tomorrow. You can get her on her mobile if you need her.’ Wellard positioned himself with his back to the rest of the men so he couldn’t be heard. He lowered his voice. ‘Sir? I don’t know who’s been talking but some of the lads’ve got it into their head that this is the carjacker we’re doing today. Are they right?’

Caffery raised his gaze past Wellard, down to where the little street they stood on met the big thoroughfare and the entrance to the flat. ‘Tell them I don’t want excitement. I want them to keep their respect for this job. Make sure they’re ready for the unexpected. This guy is clever, clever, clever. Even if he’s in there it’s not going to be fairy dust.’

The house with Moon’s flat in it was a two-storey plain Victorian terrace with a Chinese takeaway – ‘The Happy Wok’ – on the ground floor. The stairs from the flat, as with most buildings like this, ran down the side of the takeaway and opened straight out on to the pavement, where pedestrians were passing, hurrying home from work, heads down, fighting the cold. The back of the flat overlooked a small car park where the takeaway owner dumped his empty containers and probably sold off his used cooking oil to the local boy-racers. The curtains were drawn tightly at all the windows. But they’d already made enquiries with the takeaway owner, who said Richard Moon did live upstairs and that there had been movements up there all afternoon. Already members of another unit were assembling at the back of the building. More cops still were discreetly diverting the pedestrians. A rash of sweat prickled on Caffery’s upper lip.

‘How do you want us to work it?’ Wellard stood in typical support-group stance: arms folded at chest height, feet planted wide. ‘Do you want us to knock on the door or do you want to handle that part with us backing you up?’

‘I’ll do the knock. You back me up.’

‘You want to do the caution, do you?’

‘Yes.’

‘And if he doesn’t answer?’

‘Then it’s the big red key.’ He nodded to where two men were unstrapping the red battering ram. ‘Whatever way, I’m going in with you. I want to see it first hand.’

‘If you do, sir, please come in behind us. Stay back, give us space. When we’ve found the target, I’ll assess it and give you a shout. I’ll tell you one of three things: compliant, non-compliant or deranged. We’ll cuff him if it’s a non-compliant—’

‘No. You’ll cuff him even if it’s a compliant. I don’t trust this guy.’

‘OK – I’ll cuff him for either of the first two and you can come in to do the caution. If it’s a deranged, you know the routine. It’ll be Armageddon in there. He’ll be up against the wall, two shields on him, squashed. We’ll take him down by the back of his knees if we have to. That’ll be the point you might want to think about letting me do the caution.’

‘No. I’ll do it.’

‘Whatever. But stand clear till we’ve got him completely cuffed. Shout it at him from the doorway if you have to.’

As they walked down the street – Caffery, Turner and the Underwater Search Unit – the mood was superficially calm. Casual, even. The USU guys chatted among themselves, fiddling with gear, checking the channels on their radios so the only communication they’d get would be from officers on this operation. One or two squinted up at the curtained windows, assessing the flat. Only Caffery was silent. He was thinking of what the Walking Man had said: This man is cleverer than any of the others you’ve brought to me before. He’s laughing at you.

It wasn’t going to be straightforward. He just knew it. It couldn’t be this simple.

They stopped at the shabby little front door. The support officers fell instantly into time-tested formation around Caffery, who stood, hand poised, ready to press the bell. To his left three men grouped together as a shield entry team, riot shields rigid in front of them. To his right Wellard spearheaded the rest, batons and CS gas at the ready. Caffery turned his eyes to Wellard. They exchanged a small nod. Caffery took a breath, and rang the bell.

Silence. Five seconds of nothing.

The men held each other’s eyes, expecting at any moment the familiar crackle of the radio to tell them their target had jumped from a back window. But nothing happened. Caffery licked his lips. Rang again.

This time there was a noise. A footfall on the steps. From the other side of the door came the sound of bolts being pulled back, a Yale lock turning. The men around Caffery stiffened. He took a step back, feeling in his pocket for his warrant card. He flipped it open, held it up in front of his face.

‘Yeah?’

Caffery lowered his card. He realized he’d been squinting, half expecting something to explode in his face. But standing in the doorway was a small man in his sixties. He wore a filthy vest, trousers held up with braces. His head was completely bald. You’d have mistaken him for someone at a BNP meeting if it wasn’t for the slippers.

‘Mr Moon?’

‘Yeah?’

‘I’m DI Caffery.’

‘Yeah?’

‘You’re not Richard Moon?’

‘Richard? No, I’m Peter. Richard’s my boy.’

‘We’d like to speak to Richard. Do you know where he is?’

‘Yes.’

There was a pause. The team exchanged glances. It never went this smoothly. There’d be a pay-off. ‘Then would you like to tell me where he is?’

‘Yeah – he’s upstairs in bed.’ Peter Moon stood back from the door and Caffery peered past him into the hallway and up the stairs. The carpet was shabby and covered with mud. The walls were marked with years of use and nicotine, lines of brown at waist height where hands had scuffed and trailed over the years. ‘Do you want to come in? I’ll go and get him.’

‘No. I want you to step outside, sir, if you don’t mind. You can wait here with my colleagues.’

Peter Moon stepped out into the street, shivering at the cold. ‘Jesus. What’s going on?’

‘Any questions, Sergeant Wellard?’ said Caffery. ‘Got any queries for him?’

‘Yes. Mr Moon, there aren’t any firearms on the premises as far as you know?’

‘Not in a million years.’

‘And your son’s not armed?’

‘Armed?’

‘Yes. Is he armed?’

Peter Moon looked carefully at Wellard. His eyes were dead. ‘Give me a break.’

‘Yes or no?’

‘No. And you’re going to frighten the crap out of him. He doesn’t like unexpected visitors. That’s just Richard’s way.’

‘I’m sure he’ll understand. Under the circumstances. He’s in bed, then? So how many bedrooms are there?’

‘Two. You go through the living room down the corridor – there’s one on the left, then a bathroom and the door at the back is his bedroom. Mind you, I wouldn’t go too near the bathroom at the moment. Richard’s just been in it. Smells like something crawled up inside him and died. Don’t know how he does it.’

‘End of the corridor.’ Caffery jerked his head at the door. ‘Wellard? You got it? We good to go?’

Wellard nodded. On a count of three they went: the three-man shield team first, running up the stairs, shouting at the top of their voices: ‘Police, police, police!’ The hallway filled with noise and the smell of sweat. Wellard followed with three of his men, and Caffery brought up the rear, taking the steps two at a time.

At the top a large room was heated by a paraffin stove, and crowded with cheap MFI furniture and pictures. The team swarmed all over it, dragging out sofas, checking behind curtains and on top of a large cupboard. Wellard held up a hand flat – the unit’s signal for a clear. He pointed at the kitchen. They searched and cleared it. They continued down the corridor, switching on lights, past the bathroom: ‘I’d do them a favour and open a fucking window if I didn’t think he’d use it as any excuse to leg it,’ Wellard muttered, under his breath. They cleared the second bedroom and arrived outside a flimsy veneer door at the end of the corridor.

‘Ready?’ Wellard murmured to Caffery. He nodded to the bottom of the door, getting Caffery to register there was no light coming from under it. ‘This is it.’

‘Right – but remember. Expect the unexpected.’

Wellard turned the knob, pushed the door open a crack and stepped back. ‘Police,’ he said loudly. ‘We are the police.’

Nothing happened so he pushed the door wider with his foot, reached in and clicked on the light.

‘Police!’

He waited again. The team stood in the corridor with their backs to the wall, sweat on their foreheads, only their eyes moving, darting around, coming back to Wellard’s face. When there was no answer from inside Wellard gave them a signal and pushed the door wide. Immediately the team ran in, adopting the defensive stance behind their shields. From where Caffery stood in the hallway he could see the vague reflection of a room on their polycarbonate visors. A window, curtains open. A bed. No more. Behind the reflection, the officers’ eyes flicked back and forth, assessing what was in front of them.

‘Duvet,’ an officer mouthed to Wellard.

He leaned into the crack in the door and shouted, ‘Throw the duvet off, please, sir. Please throw the duvet on to the floor in front of my officers so they can see it.’

There was a pause, then the soft sound of it falling. Caffery could see it on the floor – a dingy cover with a geometric design.

‘Sir?’ The nearest man relaxed his hold on the shield a little. ‘It’s a compliant. You can come in.’

‘A compliant,’ Wellard told Caffery, pulling his quickcuffs from his body armour. ‘You can do the caution.’ He shouldered the door aside and paused when he saw what was inside the room. ‘Uh.’ He turned to Caffery. ‘Maybe you need to come in.’

Caffery put a hand on the door and stepped cautiously inside. The bedroom was small and smelt stale. Men’s clothing was scattered everywhere. There was a cheap chest of drawers with a smeared mirror. But it was the man who lay on the bed that was drawing everyone’s eyes. He was mountainous – and naked. He probably weighed close to thirty stone. His hands were at his sides and he was shaking as if an electric current was going through him. A high-pitched whine, a kind of stridor, came from his mouth.

‘Richard Moon?’ Caffery held up his card. ‘Are you Richard Moon?’

‘That’s me,’ he wheezed. ‘It’s me.’

‘It’s nice to meet you, sir. Do you mind if we have a chat?’