Spider Trap

TWENTY-THREE

It was one of the more difficult interviews of her life. Tom managed it as well as he could have, speaking with conviction, taking full personal responsibility and painting her role in the most favourable light. But still, she felt rotten. Brock didn’t rant or scold, that wasn’t his way. His silence was far more eloquent. He just sat there behind his desk, expressionless, his eyes fixed on Tom as he told his story, occasionally appearing to focus on some detail of his appearance, his puffy eyes, his inflamed nostrils. He didn’t look at Kathy at all, and she felt his disregard like a weight on her chest. Then, when the story was finished, he bowed his head over the papers and read them carefully, line by line, making notes on a pad in his deliberate script.

Finally he said, ‘You haven’t corroborated any of this? The shipping movements, the customs details, the contractors’ companies?’ This to Tom.

‘No, we thought we’d better talk to you first.’ ‘Check what you can, without arousing suspicion. Come back

at noon.’

‘Right.’ Tom began to draw back his chair.

‘And bring a written report of your operation, as brief and succinct as possible. Leave Kathy out of it.’

‘Fine.’ Tom was on his feet.

‘How did she get hold of the key?’ Brock asked suddenly.

‘The key?’

‘To her father’s safe. You said she had the combination and the key.’

‘Oh, yes. There was a false bottom in one of the drawers of his desk. The key and the note of the combination were kept there, along with other keys. She’d seen him access it.’

‘Hm.’ Brock turned away and they left.

They worked at adjoining desks, Tom tracking the movement of the containers and their consignments of Jamaican Dragon Stout through a friend in Customs and Excise, while Kathy checked the details of companies whose names appeared in the record using Companies House and a contact in the Fraud Squad. By noon they had compiled a fairly comprehensive background to the story outlined in Tom’s photocopied material. He had also written a highly abridged account of how he had come by it, with the help, so he said, of an unnamed member of the Roach family.

‘So there certainly were those orders and those shipments last year, Chief,’ Tom said as Brock finished reading their report.

‘What about this plastics business?’ Brock pointed to one of the names on Kathy’s schedule of companies involved in the transactions.‘Are you sure it existed?’

The order to PC Plastics in Solihull was one of the most incriminating items in the Dragon Stout file, involving the supply of 50,000 brown plastic sleeves, described as ‘wine sample containers’. These would presumably have been used to hold the cocaine inside the ‘special’ bottles of beer, hidden in the middle of each container load. However the company had gone out of business the previous year and Kathy hadn’t been able to contact its directors.

‘It certainly existed,’she said,the first time she’d spoken.‘I got details from Companies House, and I rang the local chamber of commerce, who knew of it. They also know of the managing director, name of Steven Bryce. He has other companies that are still functioning. I tried one of them and was told he’s overseas at present, on a business trip.’

A hurried breakfast and several cups of strong coffee had restored her confidence to some extent. They hadn’t been able to find anything in the papers that didn’t have some form of corroboration,and Kathy was beginning to be infected by Tom’s obvious excitement. Brock, though, betrayed no particular enthusiasm.

‘All right,’ he said eventually. ‘Leave it with me.’ He reached for the phone and they left.

‘I’ll buy you lunch,’ Tom said as they made their way downstairs.‘He might show a little interest.What does he want, signed confessions?’

Kathy turned down lunch. She didn’t want to listen to Tom building up his hopes. She wanted to think.

Later that afternoon she drove into South London and parked in the lane outside PART WORN TYRES.Which part? she wondered. The light was on in the window of the girl’s flat above the laundrette. She silently climbed the stairs to the access deck and listened at the door. She thought she heard the sound of soft music, but not of babies. She knocked.

The door opened on George’s face then began to swing shut

again. Kathy stuck her foot in the gap. ‘Go away,’he complained.‘Go away.’ ‘On your own, George? Don’t keep me standing out here,

there’s a good lad. Someone might see me.’ George gave a moan and let her in.‘Carole’ll be back soon.’ ‘Won’t take long. Just need a bit of help. Nothing heavy. How did you enjoy the concert on Saturday?’ ‘All right.’ ‘I was watching you.You seemed really taken with it.’ He shrugged, scuffed his shoe on the worn carpet tile.

‘It was cool.’ ‘They were raising money for people like you, George, for scholarships-music scholarships, for example.You could apply.’ ‘Nah. I don’t do classical stuff.’ ‘Not just classical,any kind of music.I know Michael Grant,the

bloke who organised it.Would you like me to ask him for you?’ George met her eye with a kind of pained anxiety, as if he knew this was a trap but couldn’t help responding.‘Maybe.’ ‘All right, I will. I passed the JOS last night and saw your

posters.Were you playing?’ He nodded. ‘Teddy Vexx and Jay Crocker were there too, yes? I saw

their car.’ Another nod, more wary. ‘Do you know a girl called Magdalen, friend of theirs?’ ‘Yeah …’ Something about the way he said it made Kathy ask, ‘Fancy

her, do you?’ ‘Nah.’ He looked down at the floor again, embarrassed. ‘She is very pretty though,isn’t she? You’d have to notice her.

Was she with Teddy and Jay at the club last night?’

‘Nah, some other bloke.’

‘Ah. Has she split up with Teddy then?’

‘Not as far as I know.’

‘Didn’t Teddy mind her being with this other bloke?’

George suddenly recognised danger. ‘Did something happen to him? Look, I didn’t see nothing. There wasn’t no trouble at the club. Magdalen and the bloke left about midnight, but Teddy and Jay stayed on till three or four-I swear, I saw them.’

‘That’s okay, George. There was no trouble. Look, between ourselves, Magdalen’s family are worried about her drugs and the company she keeps, that’s all.’

‘Ah.’He looked relieved.‘The other bloke looked okay.White guy. I’ve seen him around. I was surprised, though, that Teddy didn’t seem bothered.’

‘Did he know Teddy?’

‘Don’t think so. I didn’t see them speak.’

‘All right, that’s all I wanted, George, thanks. And I will look into that other thing for you . . .’

At that moment they heard the clatter of feet on the deck outside and the impatient rattle of a key in the door.

‘Oh fuck.’ George panicked. ‘She’ll see you here. She’ll tell Teddy …’

‘What’s her name?’ Kathy said quickly.

‘What?’

‘What’s Carole’s other name?’

‘Marshall, why . . .?’

The door swung open and Carole marched in. ‘Those bleedin’-’ She glared in surprise at Kathy.

‘Ms Marshall?’ Kathy said.‘Hello, I’m from the clinic. There’s been a mix-up over medications. They asked me to come down in person to check you’ve got the right ones. Sorry about this. Can I just see your bottles?’

‘Eh? Clinic?’

‘GUM, dear,’ Kathy murmured tactfully and shot a coy smile at George, who looked blank.‘Are they in the bathroom?’

‘Oh . . . no, they’re here.’ Carole, flustered by Kathy’s imitation of a caring health professional, rummaged in her bag and produced a plastic bottle of pills.

Kathy examined the label. ‘Oh, that’s fine. Not you then. Marvellous. I’ll be on my way. Bye.’

She walked out.

Brock was called to his second meeting with Commander Sharpe the following morning. The first briefing, to acquaint his boss with Tom’s report,had been met with a frosty bewilderment,as if Sharpe really didn’t want to know what had possessed Brock to ignore his earlier advice, and was embarrassed at having to do something about it. By the second meeting, he had regained his usual confidence and precision, and was unambiguous in his instructions.

‘We drop it.’

‘You don’t think it’s evidence of a serious crime?’

‘Absolutely not. I’m advised that it’s flawed, unattributable and potentially scandalous.You will not pursue this, Brock, and you will make sure that your errant team member doesn’t either.’

‘Hm. May I ask if you’re aware of any other ongoing investigation into the affairs of the Roach family, sir?’

‘There is no such thing.’

‘Are you sure? Not even at OCLG level? Five, perhaps?’

Brock noticed a small flush of colour tinge Sharpe’s cheeks as he leaned forward to say, in a lower but even more insistent voice, ‘I am sure, Brock, because your half-baked fantasy went all the way up to JIC, where it was treated with the contempt it deserved. Get Roach out of your head and get on with something else.Do I make myself absolutely plain?’

Tom and Kathy reported to Brock’s room in the early afternoon. The old files had been stacked neatly in a corner, they noticed, as if ready to be returned, and the pin board facing Brock’s desk was bare. Brock himself was eating a sandwich. He popped the last bit into his mouth, smacked his hands together, wiped them on a paper napkin and threw it into the bin.

‘Come in. Sit down.’

There was no sign of their report on his desk.

‘Your little operation has gone through channels,’ he said. ‘There will be no further action.’

There was a moment’s silence,then Tom said,‘What? Why not?’

‘The evidence had no provenance, Tom, no search warrant, no witnesses, no credible means of access. CPS won’t touch it. And the story it told was suggestive at best, open to interpretation.You know that’s true.’

‘Yes, but-’

‘It was taken seriously, it went well up the chain, but the decision was no.We’re bound by that. I expect you to be bound by that. No further action. Sorry. I appreciate your initiative, but that’s it.’

‘I can’t accept that.’ Tom rose to his feet, holding himself rigid, face pale with anger.‘I put myself on the line to gather legitimate, damning evidence-evidence that couldn’t be obtained in any other way. It provides conclusive information about a crime of massive proportions. So what is this? A cover-up or a cop-out? Are you all too bloody weak-’

‘That’s enough, Tom,’ Brock growled.

Kathy couldn’t quite make Brock out. His words were his, but he sounded as if he had something stuck in his gullet. It was hurting him to do this to Tom, and she wished Tom would stop, but he couldn’t.

‘Do you realise what two tonnes of crack on the streets means?’ he yelled, his voice incredulous. ‘Do you have any idea what devastation-’

‘There’s another way of looking at this, Tom.’ Brock’s voice was suddenly hard.‘If you’d come to me before you went in last night, if we’d set it up another way, things could have turned out differently. As it is, the whole case is closed down. Whatever leeway we had has been taken from us.’ He gestured as if to take in the whole office, the empty pin board, the stacked files.

Tom glared at the faded files in disbelief and shook his head, unable to find the words. Then he turned and stormed out of the room.

Brock put his head in his hands for a moment, then looked across at Kathy.‘Couldn’t you have stopped him,Kathy? Couldn’t you have let me know?’