Ultimatum

Eighteen

12.14

There are no noble causes. Even those with the purest motives taint themselves in their pursuit of justice.

I was thinking that as I watched Mike Bolt walk towards me through the park. He’d approached me a year earlier, after I’d been charged with GBH over the incident with Alfonse Webber, and had offered me a straightforward deal. Work for him and get a short sentence — no more than a year — or take my chances with the courts and risk going down for three or four. Maybe even more. Webber had sustained serious injuries. A campaign — Justice for Alfonse — had been set up in his name, fronted by a high-powered human-rights lawyer who clearly cared a lot more about Webber’s rights than those of the girl who’d been tied naked to a bed in his flat. There was serious media interest amid claims of police brutality and racism. The point was, I was on my own.

At the time, I didn’t think the police were able to make deals like that. I’d always been led to believe that it was up to judges to set prison sentences. Since then, I’ve learned a lot of things I didn’t know about.

Bolt was heading up a team trying to find out who else had been involved in setting up the Stanhope attacks, and it seemed he had a lot of clout. He was also convinced that one of the terrorists involved — William Garrett, aka Fox — could provide the answers. The idea was that I’d be placed on remand alongside him, my brief being to build up a rapport and try to glean what information I could from him, and then pass it back to Bolt and his team. As an ex-soldier, just like Fox, who’d served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and who’d also committed a serious crime, I was the perfect candidate.

There was another reason too. I’d lost someone in the Stanhope siege. I wouldn’t say I’d ever been that close to my cousin Martin, but we’d seen a lot of each other as kids, and we’d met up at family events now and again, and we’d always got on well. He’d died inside the hotel trying to disarm one of the terrorists, and I remember how angry that had made me. He was one of the good guys, and he’d died a hero, murdered trying to protect other people, just because he’d ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Just like those people in the cafe this morning.

You see, that’s the thing with terrorists. They don’t care who dies in the pursuit of their cause.

Well, I did. Which was why I’d agreed to help Bolt.

I spent six months in the cell next to Fox. I talked to him a lot in that time. I’d even say we got on quite well, given our shared background. But he was no fool, and he steadfastly refused to talk about his part in the siege, so I was never able to give Bolt anything of use. No names. No evidence. Nothing.

When I came out, having served eight months for my crime — much to the anger of Alfonse Webber and his extremely vocal supporters — Bolt wanted me to continue working for him, and the man he wanted me to go after was none other than Cecil Boorman, one of my old army colleagues. Cecil was suspected of being an associate of some of those involved in the Stanhope siege, and being part of a larger network of extreme right-wing terrorists. I found that part difficult to believe. Cecil was a hard man and a stone-cold killer, but the evidence against him seemed pretty scant.

I could have said no. Should have done really. I was under no obligation to continue helping Bolt. I’d been given my sentence and served it, so there was no way of putting me back inside. But in the end, what else was I going to do? I was an ex-con; I’d been fired from the Met; my criminal record prevented me from going back into the army; my wife had left me. I was facing the scrapheap. At least doing this gave me a chance for some excitement.

My brief had been simple: find out what Cecil is up to and who he’s working for.

At the time he’d been running an outfit providing security for nightclub doors in north London and the occasional bodyguard work, and I’d asked him for work. We might not have seen each other for close to five years, but we’d hit it off again straight away. I was an angry man after my time inside, and it hadn’t been hard to convince him of my right-wing credentials. Nor to let him believe that I would be up for more lucrative, illegal work if it was available.

I knew straight away he was involved in something bad, but like Fox, he was very careful not to give too much away. So I’d made the classic mistake and compromised myself to gain his trust.

The robbery should have sorted everything. We’d hold up a scumbag drug dealer, put the fear of God into him, and leave with plenty of cash, knowing that he’d never report what had happened to the police. But you know the rest. And now suddenly I was in a lot of trouble. If Cecil went down, he’d take me with him. I’d debated long and hard this morning whether I should say anything to Bolt, but in the end I’d decided I had no choice. I needed to see this through, and if I played my cards right, when Cecil went down he’d have no idea that I’d been the one to betray him.

All I had to do was make it happen.