Blood Money (24 page)

The more he walks, the more he realises that his easiest point of access will be the basement under the church next door to 60 Lombard Street. Thankfully, none of the old-fashioned CCTV cameras seem to be trained on its front door, so it really becomes just a question of access. It's not ideal that the building is in use during the day, but in the middle of the night he could come and go as he pleases. If only he can get hold of a spare front door key then he'd be able to check out it's basement properly and despite having only just made himself a promise to work alone, he ‘s realising this task is going to need him to involve an outsider.

Being a copper, he knows just the place to find the sort of people who can get him what he wants, and what's more they'd be sure of keeping their mouths shut about it.

Walking to the western end of Lombard Street, John descends into Bank tube station. Paying cash at a machine he gets a return ticket to St Pancras Station and within four minutes he's at his destination. Climbing several flights of dirty grey steps he now finds himself standing in a massive covered space, bustling with commuters.

St Pancras terminus is notorious as being a hotspot for pickpockets. Mingling with the crowds, they usually hang around on the central concourse whilst selecting suitable targets.

People in crowds are far more tolerant to being jostled, and in most cases they're completely oblivious to their shoulder bag having been unzipped (or slit-open with a razor blade). The prey of choice for ‘dippers' are the well dressed disorientated tourists coming off the Eurostar trains. Working alone or in pairs, they follow their victims into small shops or onto the escalators, then they distract them, steal what they can and disappear. To a trained eye they are easily identified because of certain unusual behavioural patterns such as hanging around whilst glancing at people's bags and showing no interest in the train timetable displays. However in a terminus this vast with so many exits it's nigh on impossible for London Transport Police to keep out these petty criminals for very long.

Adult pickpockets are pretty good at blending into the crowd, but their teenage counterparts are a little bit easier to spot for a copper like John. Even when compared to your everyday idle, bored teenager, they're just that little bit more shifty and aimless than you'd expect. Normal adolescents awkwardly skulk around in groups, shuffling around shopping malls or skateboarding in town centres. But one or two individuals in somewhere like this enormous central London railway terminus, glancing around at people rather than playing on some portable game station or messing around on an android phone like regular kids would…if you look for it, it does kind of stand out.

John spots a shifty looking youth with bad skin, no more than 14 years old. Tufts of dark unkempt hair poke-out from underneath his grey hooded top. John's not quite sure how to ask for the boy's help and doesn't want to say anything too incriminating, at least not to begin with, so he just approaches the lad and tries to strike a balance somewhere between discreet and direct.

“Hey kid, I need your help with something. Interested?” The boy slowly lifts up his head to squint through his greasy fringe. He remains silent and disinterested. John perseveres, “Won't take long and it'll be easy money. C'mon, what do you say?”

At last the kid mumbles a response. “Suppose that depends on what it is and how well it pays, but if you're some kind of nonce you can jog on, I ain't interested.”

It's past five already and John doesn't have time to waste. Relieved to be making some progress at last he takes a risk and gets straight to the point. “I need to make a copy of a key. At six o'clock someone's gonna be leaving a building and locking a door. Whatever key they use I need an imprint of it. I'll buy you a tube ticket to get you up-town and back and I'll get you some putty to use. Call it £50 for half an hour's work. Not bad, eh?”

“You'd best not be wasting my time.” Only now does the urchin stand-up in order to look John up and down with suspicion. “Is this for real or are you trying to fit me up for something?”

“Nah.. I'm being totally straight with you. Serious. Just need your help that's all. If you don't think you can do it then I'll walk away and find someone else.”

Hitching-up his baggy jeans, the lad takes a quick look around, checking for police just in case it's a trap. Satisfied that there's no plain clothes bizzies close-by, he begins to show a bit more interest. “Sounds easy enough. You came to the right man…–but I'll need me mate along with me to be the distraction. So make it one-hundred and you might just have a deal. Anyway, what's this place you're talking about?”

“It's a church turned bookshop up-town. I want to play a practical joke on someone who works there, that's all. You see he deserves to be taken down a peg or two, and I know just how I'm going to do it.”

“Sure you do, whatever you say…But a church?! –You're having a laugh ain't you mate? A church!! That's gonna cost extra that is…”

“Oh come on? What for? -This is already costing me a ton. I'm not made of money…”

“But a church is a church innit?! Look, call it one-twenty and you've got yourself a deal. You just want an imprint of this key yeah?”

“Yeah, no questions asked. Once it's done, we never even met, understand?”

Hitching-up his saggy jeans once more, the nameless boy agrees to the terms. “Oh I understand right enough. Seems like we've gotta deal. But it's cash. Half now, half after. Yeah?”

“Deal.” John gets out his wallet, relieved that it's still there considering the company he's keeping. “Mmm, don't suppose you know where I can get some putty from do you?” John pauses, unwilling to hand over the sixty quid just yet.

The boy keeps his eyes on the wallet, keen to spy how many notes and credit cards are inside. “What are ya, some kinda divvy? Putty'll be too oily and sticky, init? End-up as a right mess that will. Use kiddies modelling clay, that way it'll leave the key nice ‘an' clean, -and it won't dry-out or shrink neither. You can get some from the toy shop across the street.”

Relieved that he won't have very far to go, John counts out two tenners and hands them over. “You get your mate and wait for me here; I'll nip across to that toy shop. Won't be more than a couple of minutes. If you're still here when I get back, you'll get the other forty, and then we'll get ourselves uptown. When you hand me the imprint you get the final sixty and we'll never see each other ever again, ok?”

“Christ, it's like you don't trust me! Alright, alright. It's a deal…”

*

Now accompanied by a second kid of similar age and appearance they all get onto a tube and by a quarter to six they've reached Bank tube station. As they walk along Lombard Street, John takes out the slab of modelling clay and pealing back the cellophane he breaks off a generous lump the size of a tangerine and hands it over. I'll be waiting inside the Maccie D's in Cannon Street. Keep it as discrete as you can, don't get clever and end up hurting him. If you do, you can be sure I'll hear about it. I just want a nice sharp key imprint, agreed? Get it without him seeing and then throw the keys back to him.” They grunt their acceptance. “It'll be a big church key, probably the biggest in the set, make sure you see the one he uses on the outer door, that's the one I want a copy of. Right, we're almost here, 50 yards on the left, see the church yeah?”

“Got it. You need to relax man! This is what we do. There ain't nuffink to worry about. See you in fifteen minutes.”

John splits off down Nicholas Lane, leaving the two ne'er-do-wells to their task and hoping that it'll all just look like a bit of mischief. Sitting himself down on a bar stool John slowly sips on a cola whilst the seconds tick by. With time to think he begins to regret having involved a couple of untrustworthy children, but at the same time, there seemed to have been no other alternative. He certainly can't risk taking the keys himself and then someone remembering his face.

When John wakes up the next morning he's relieved to find that (for the first time since Rebecca's death) he's managed to get something approximating a proper night's sleep.

The pretty intense events of yesterday had left him feeling utterly exhausted. Long periods of mental concentration intermixed with short but intense spells of nervous tension had fatigued him so much that his fretful mind had no choice other than to succumb to the deep sleep it craved so badly.

Whilst still being haunted by the distressing memories of Rebecca's death, John has also been suffering from anxiety attacks and paranoia. He has a very real fear that either his activities over the recent days or those he has planned for the coming week will result in him getting murdered at some unknowable point in the very near future, a thought that he's struggling to shake from his mind.

Being a street-wise policeman who's trained to be watchful for people acting suspiciously, he'd felt pretty confident at the time that there hadn't been anyone following him across town. However, if Slater's as good as John fears then maybe he'd actually been under observation the whole time without him realising it. Perhaps the barman in the Lamb and Lion had by now begun telling people about the suspicious man he'd allowed down into the beer cellar. The pretence over that ‘escaped snake' may yet prove to have been too elaborate and may somehow play a part in his downfall. And surely it had been sheer lunacy for him to involve children! What on earth had possessed him?

John stops himself before these concerns get too far out of control. He really needs to banish all these doubts from his mind if he's going to keep his head straight-enough to think clearly. Though there are a thousand reasons gnawing away telling him to stop his current course of action, he knows the only voice he must listen to is the one that commands him to continue. Forcing himself to begin think positively, John starts by congratulating himself for selecting the basement below St Gregory's as the best way to breach-through into the vault next door. And involving two unknown, underage kids who (because of what they do for a living) are almost guaranteed in keeping their mouths shut had actually been a very safe way to get the antique key ‘impressioned' onto a piece of modelling clay.

But surely, if he keeps taking risks at the same rate then the odds of leaving witnesses or evidence behind will increase exponentially…

Although he's gotten this far without mishap, the next phase is going to need playing a lot more cautiously if he's going to live long enough to see Vasilakos and Slater punished for their crimes.

A further positive is his surprising realisation at how well he's overcoming his instinctive nature to always stay on the right side of the law. With opponents as wily as these, the only way he'll be able to make the breakthrough in getting justice for Rebecca's murder is for him too to adopt a few illegal methods himself. And though he'll do his very best not to get caught, if he screws-up he'll just have to take his punishment like a man.

Picking up the modelling clay from the bedside table he can feel its surface has hardened slightly overnight. Hopefully this doesn't mean it's also shrunk significantly, because if it has, the key he's about to make will prove useless. Realising the importance of this point, John immediately gets out of bed and goes to the kitchen. He tears off a piece of cling-film from a roll and returns to his bedroom to wrap it around the impression to prevent it from drying-out any further.

Since he's up and out of bed, he busies himself by making a shopping list of all the items he'll need in order to make a duplicate key to St Gregory's. Once he's made the copy, his plan is to enter the church under cover of darkness, long after the last customer from the Lamb and Lion pub has gone home. Then he'll gain access into the church basement and make a proper survey of the supporting wall that lies alongside the bank vault.

Shuffling into the bathroom, John takes a good close look at the dishevelled appearance that stares back at him from the mirror. Deciding it'll make sense to start looking more ‘street' and less like a clean-shaven off-duty copper he's going to leave his uncharacteristic stubble-growth in place.

And he'll need to change his sensible ‘office-boy' hairstyle somehow; it's just not grungy enough to allow him to go about his business unnoticed. Opening the cupboard doors under the sink unit, he begins rummaging around in Rebecca's log-jam of clutter until eventually he catches a glimpse of what he's after.

At the very back, still in its original box there's an all-in-one beard and hair trimmer that he'd been given as a present for his 21st birthday. Opening it up for the first time in ten years it now looks a bit old fashioned but nevertheless it'll do just fine. Adjusting it for a ½ inch cut, John rises to his feet and plugs it into the shaving socket. Saying goodbye to his old self he begins shearing-away the layered brown locks from his head. In a matter of minutes the transformation is complete.

Putting the trimmer down, he runs his fingers across his unfamiliar, fuzzy scalp. The face looking back at him now looks like it belongs to a man who's ready to tackle anything.

Hopefully, the poor old chap who'd locked-up the religious bookshop last night would just think it'd been a couple of kids getting a cheap laugh at his expense. So long as it was only his dignity that had been hurt he probably wouldn't even bother reporting the matter to the police. And even if he did, John was sure they wouldn't treat it seriously, as nothing had been stolen and no one had been hurt. Under enormous pressure to keep the crime statistics trending in the right direction most police officers would refuse to issue a crime number for something so trivial.

Standing head-bowed under the steaming downpour from the shower-head John now tries to think several steps ahead. He must try to anticipate his enemy's next moves before they've even been made. The most important question is whether Slater considers Rebecca Kavanagh's policeman boyfriend to represent a significant threat to the Kronos operation. The bodyguard's best strategy would be simply to watch, listen and wait. There's no need for Eddie to rush in and over-react; after all, he's probably confident of having everything totally under control.

Towelled and dry, John unearths some of the scruffiest clothes he can find from the back of his wardrobe. Adopting some ‘street-wear' for the next few days will be more in keeping with his newly cropped hair and stubbly jaw-line. He slips on a tatty old pair of paint-spattered ‘decorating jeans', along with a plain black t-shirt, a grey hooded top and some battered old trainers. He checks in the mirror and sees an unfamiliar man looking back at him.

A few more cheap and unremarkable shabby garments like these would come in handy over the next few days. After all, once this is over, anything he's worn or used whilst operating undercover will need to be incinerated so nothing remains to be used as evidence against him should he get caught.

Starting from today he'll stop using the London Underground because he knows the tube stations to be too well covered by CCTV. And even though nowadays many London buses and taxis are also fitted with internal cameras, in a bus there'd be far more scope to avoid their focus, simply wearing a baseball cap and keeping his head down should be enough to remain incognito. In a taxi however, especially with John being the only passenger, there'd be nowhere to hide.

That's another decision made. It'll be buses only from now on. He'll avoid conversation and eye contact at all costs and'll only get on and off a bus if it's at least a kilometre away from Lombard Street. It'd be prudent to use several different routes with diverse pick-up and put-down points as much as possible to make it harder for anyone following him to predict his movements.

With a piece of buttered toast in his mouth John leaves the flat and walks purposefully through the tree-lined paths of Finsbury Park to pay a visit to the local DIY superstore. Before going inside he stops off first at a hole-in-the-wall machine and uses both his debit card and credit card to draw out as much cash as his limits allow. He knows he's going to need plenty of ‘folding' in his pocket if he's to avoid using plastic over the next few days.

Once inside he picks up a trolley from just within the store's entrance and goes straight over to the painting and decorating section. Checking down the list he's made, he grabs a multi-pack of plastic dust sheets, then picks out some white cover-all suits, several packs of disposable overshoes (the blue-plastic elasticated ones), a box of latex gloves, a big roll of dustbin sacks and a ruck-load of dust masks.

Hitting the hardware section, it's taking John several minutes to decide which type of metal to buy. There's a wide selection on display and he's sorely tempted to use some thin aluminium or brass which will be easy to work, but knowing the duplicate key will need to be as thick and as strong as the real thing he picks-out a metre length of 35mm x 4mm flat ‘hot rolled steel'. It'll be just wide enough to complete the job and won't be so flimsy that it bends trying to move the heavy mechanism within the antique lock. Unfortunately, the length of steel he's chosen must weigh at least ten pounds, so he takes great care as he lays it down in the trolley so the other items aren't damaged.

Finally he approaches the tool section. He's thought back to his metalworking lessons of 15 years ago and gathers together everything he'll need: an electric hand held multi-tool with lots of little cutting and grinding wheels, a couple of hacksaws, one large, one ‘junior', along with some spare blades. He also picks-out a scribe, a steel rule, a selection of needle files and a small metal-working vice just light enough that it may still be possible for him to carry it all the way home without giving himself a hernia.

The walk back through the park takes twice as long now that he's carrying all this weight. John's over-burdened shuffling action is making him feel highly self-consciousness and he's sure that anyone watching him will immediately realise he's up to no good. At about the halfway mark, he stops and sits down on a bench so he can catch his breath and take a good look around. Pausing for at least a couple of minutes, he scans the perimeter of the park for a single man, someone who's loitering aimlessly at a distance, maybe sitting inside a stationary vehicle. The search proves fruitless and John eventually satisfies himself that there's nobody out there spying on him.

Having struggled the rest of the way back home, the first thing he does is to turn the radio on in the lounge. Even though the listening bug he'd found in the seam of the curtains had insufficient battery power to still be active he can't be sure there aren't other devices (still operational) that he's failed to uncover. John sets the volume moderately loud so it will obscure the noise of his work but not so excessive as to be unusual. With chart-music playing out across the flat John takes his equipment into the spare bedroom and shuts himself in. He lifts the single mattress up off the bed and rests it against the back of the door in the hope that this will further deaden the racket he's about to create.

Rebecca would be very unhappy to see the mess he's making in the spare room. As he locks down the small vice onto their cheap writing desk he can hear the soft laminated chipboard being crushed as he turns the clamps hard enough to secure it properly in place.

Removing the cling-film, John now begins to look at the clay impression with its bold pattern of notches and slots. The symmetry tells him it's designed to operate on a warded lock from both the inside and outside of the church door. However, it's not immediately clear what will be the best way for him to go about making a duplicate. If he messes about trying to measure all the dimensions then he risks damaging the delicate clay impression. John decides he'd much prefer to make some prints of it, so he pulls open the desk drawer and takes out a cartridge from a fountain pen so he can squeeze enough dark blue ink over the clay to wet its entire surface. Next he gently takes a piece of A4 paper and presses it against the impression. The first attempt carries-over too much ink and results in a smudgy, unusable mess. The second attempt is better, and he gets a near-perfect pattern of the all key's features. After a minutes wait, the ink is fully dry and John makes several photocopies of it using the scanner function on his deskjet printer. He carefully cuts one of these out and glues it onto the end of the steel flat to serve as a cutting template.

Clamping-up the metre length of black steel, John begins by cutting off a good eight inches with a large hacksaw, and then he delicately begins making progressive cuts using the paper template as his guide, firstly creating the vertical slots.

After no more than an hour, it's clear this initial attempt isn't going too well, but he perseveres for a little longer until he becomes dissatisfied with several areas where his cuts seem to be either too angular or are overly large. It's simply too misshapen to waste any more time on, so he admits defeat, cuts off a fresh 8” section and glues on another paper template to begin again with.

This time he uses the hacksaw with greater care, paying far more attention to achieving squarer and truer cuts. He leaves sufficient ‘end' on the tip to form a round ‘pin' just as the impression requires. To make the longitudinal cuts he starts off by making a series of drill holes until he can get a small file in to square them up into right-angled notches. Having spent a couple of hours on this second attempt John slows down and begins repeatedly checking his work against the clay impression. He knows he can't afford the time to have many more attempts, so he's determined to make this one a working copy.

It isn't looking too shabby and some minor adjustments with the needle files result in a pretty accurate blade pattern. There's an obvious problem to resolve however…–exactly how thick should the key be? It's hard to tell from the impression, but he can see the size of the shaft and makes a judgement as to how much deeper it is relative to the flat of the bit. He gets out a rule and re-checks the impression before making an educated guess. He decides to file the ‘bit' of the key down from 4mm to something more like 3mm. It's a decision of compromise, leaving the key too thick might mean it doesn't even fit through the key-hole. Too thin and it may twist and jam, possibly damaging the wards inside the lock.