The Face (Harry Tyler Book 1) (8 page)

Hitchcock came to an abrupt stop. They were outside the conference room. Detective Chief Inspector Leonard Kent from the Covert Operations department was there to greet them. He was accompanied by DI Edward “Rottweiler” Richardson. Shaw’s spirits lifted. He and Richardson had been regional officers together 15 years earlier. The guy was all policeman, 110 per cent on the square. Richardson had earned his nickname. He didn’t know how to let go. Once he had his teeth into a case, he wasn’t happy until both legs and an arm were off. Gary Shaw clasped the Rottweiler’s hand with both of his. “Eddie, good to see ya.” Perhaps this place wasn’t entirely staffed with poncified fairies after all.

Detective Sgt Michael Boyce was already seated and waiting in the conference room. Nicknamed Bond, Boyce was from the Technical Support Unit and renowned for his espionage skills. It was said he could stick a miniature camera up a fly’s arse and give you better reception quality than Channel 5.

Everyone present was aware of the Bakers, but Hitchcock gave them a full run-down of the major players. Johnny Baker got special attention. “He is one cocky little incubus, gentlemen,” said Hitchcock gravely, “with aspirations to go big time.” He produced surveillance pictures of Johnny dining at The Ivy with Geraldine and a couple of well-known,
woolly-brained
soap stars who enjoyed the company of villains. “Baker cannot be underestimated. Certainly he is a thug, but he is also intelligent. He has a bit of form for thieving and ABH but nothing recent. Behind his jolly hardcase act, Baker is a shrewd and cunning criminal entrepreneur. He has investment portfolios, legitimate business plans. If we don’t capture him soon, Baker may become so far removed from crime as to be as untouchable as he already believes himself to be. He has two weaknesses, his arrogance and his brother.” Hitchcock placed a picture of Joey on the table.

“Joey Baker is 100 per cent evil,” he said. “You can’t rehabilitate a scumbag like Joey any more than you could rehabilitate a cockroach. He has a record as long as your arm for violence and armed robbery. His preferred weapon is a Stanley knife. He jokes that he performed his own Caesarean with it. Joey never goes out without his “squirter”, a nasal spray full of ammonia. He calls it Easy Stop.”

Hitchcock reeled off a list of Joey’s convictions and a further set of crimes with which he was suspected of being involved. He produced a picture of a man whose face appeared to be covered in miniature railway lines.

“David Long, a small-time con artist,” Hitchcock said. “We know Joey Baker did this to him, but Long would never testify against him. These are his main accomplices.” He removed pictures of Dougie The Dog and Rhino from his folder. “Douglas Richards is a violent psychopath, who has been heavily involved with football disturbances since his teens and was the brains behind the M25 raves. John Irvine, known as Rhino, is a more serious villain. He began life as a doorman and plays on his blackness. Irvine swallows a live goldfish every time he is about to go into battle. He says it gives him ‘two souls’ and the strength of ten men. He is reputed to have skinned a small-time Scouse villain called Terence Whicker alive. Whicker has indeed vanished but his body has never been recovered. Richards is married to a black girl, former pickpocket Antonia Hodge, whose brother Oggy is on the fringes of The Firm. Oggy connects the Bakers to the Brixton boys.”

Hitchcock gave his assembled colleagues “the SP” on the rest of the hardcore Baker henchmen then opened the meeting for discussion. It was generally agreed it would take real cunning to put them away. Shaw couldn’t help but be impressed by the level of questions put to him by DO Kent. He wanted to know everything – what kind of people drank in the Ned Kelly, what were their ages, what cars did they drive, had any got legitimate jobs, did they have regular meeting places away from the pub, a cafe or a second-hand car plot? Was there anywhere that could be bugged where they think they are safe to talk? The only area skimmed over was details of police operations against the Baker firm to date. Every decent cop in London was fully aware of that particular catalogue of failure, involving the police and Customs & Excise.

The use of informants was kicked into touch when Kent revealed that two previous informant-led operations had been a disaster. One had resulted in the informant going “missing in action”, the second had given Joey the opportunity to play Doctors and Nurses with a poor sod who thought he was helping the community by letting the local plod use his bedroom as an OP on Joey’s front door. It had taken two weeks for all the body parts to wash up.

Gary Shaw appreciated Kent’s energy and his thoroughness, but what next?

“So what direction do you see this going, guv?” he said.

Kent took a deep breath. “There is no question that the Bakers have got to go and a major operation has got to be mounted,” he said. “I’ve been in touch with one of the National Crime Squad teams who have been working alongside the Church on this.”

“Church?” said Hitchcock.

“Customs and Excise, C of E,” Shaw explained.

“Sorry, Gordon,” Kent said. “Bloody police speak. Work up here for five years and you don’t even realise you’re doing it.”

“So how do you see this going forward, Len?” Hitchcock asked.

“Well, clearly you wouldn’t have the back-up and resources to service a U/C officer,” Kent replied. “And the commitment would have to be twenty-four hours a day. Then we have the problem of local officers knowing what’s going on and, of course, that might compromise any covert operation. As I perceive it, any sting or long-term infiltration would have to be serviced by an operational team. I know the National Squad want another go and I think if we tie this in with what they’ve got going then we should get to a successful conclusion quicker.”

Hitchcock looked surprised. “And us,” he said. “Have we got any input?”

“Only from the intelligence-gathering side,” Kent replied. “The National Crime Squad DI will keep you abreast of developments but not specifically of the details of the operation. Clearly, Gordon, your people will need to link in, but servicing any covert technical equipment and the U/C side of things are best left to them. If I’ve got your backing on it, Gordon, then I’ll put it all into place.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Hitchcock said. “DS Shaw can act as your point of contact for any running around.”

Over the course of the next week, meetings took place with all interested players. The NCS and the Church sat at the same table and made some effort to try and be honest with each other over who knew what. Slowly, a plan came together that was simple, but clever. But it would need someone with balls to go in and shape it up. This was the hardest part – selecting the right U/C operative. Klan or woman? Geordie, or carrot cruncher, or maybe some flash, good-looking, tough-talking Essex boy? Whatever, the infiltration would have to be done through someone the Bakers trusted. They needed a patsy, someone dumb enough to walk a cowboy into the teepee long enough to catch Johnny and Joey hands on and bring the entire Baker empire crashing down around their ears.

Gary Shaw was ordered to unearth Rotherhithe’s answer to Homer Simpson, while the top brass decided on the right U/C man. When they did, he was briefed, a convincing background was agreed, and an almost water-tight history put in place.

O
utside the front door, a milk bottle rattled on the walkway. Harry Tyler shot out of bed like the five dog at Wimbledon, grabbed his Louisville Slugger baseball bat and erupted on to the third-floor landing looking as mean as any man in Kenneth Williams
Carry On
boxer shorts ever reasonably could. Half a minute later he was back in the flat.

“Did you get him?” said a voice from Harry’s bed.

“No,” Harry replied. “That’s the third day that little Kosovan fucker has had my milk. Where’s the Old Bill when you need ’em?”

“Yeah, you want the Filth wrapped round yer, ’Arry, don’tcha, with a front room full of moody trainers.” The voice, lacerated by 16 years of dedicated 40-a-day trachea-trashing nicotine abuse, belonged to Elaine Geggus, Harry’s new and currently nude next door neighbour on the run-down Turpin estate in Stratford, East London. “They’re no fucking use anyway,” he replied.

“They’d hand him over to a social worker, who’d get a report from a shrink saying he had developed antisocial tendencies as a result of his traumatic childhood, and the courts would give him a free holiday to fucking Barbados courtesy of me and you. Well, maybe not me and you but all the law-abiding, hardworking mugs who pay their taxes, when we all know he’s a two-bob
toe-rag
who needs to learn you don’t nick off yer own.”

Harry paused for breath. “Why can’t he get on the bus out to Epping and nick off the posh fuckers out there?”

Elaine sat up to light up her first fag of the morning. The duvet fell off her revealing a pair of heavy breasts adorned with stretch marks. Her nipples were huge and pierced, genuinely like the “blind cobbler’s thumbs” to which stag comics always referred, Harry thought. She looked like a less stylish Annie Lennox … if you could imagine the sainted Eurythmics singer with “Satan’s Slaves” tattooed on her biceps and a swallow in flight with a scroll bearing the name “Dougal” on her backside. Still, in a bad light, if you squinted …

Harry had moved in three weeks before and had taken four days to get ex-biker girl Elaine into his bed. Dougal, it turned out, was her deceased pit-bull. Elaine explained he had been her only true friend since her old man pissed off with her sister. Harry realised he was deep in Jerry Springer territory,
hobnobbing
– make that hobgoblin, knobbing – with the underclass and loving every minute. Once you got past her ingrained
all-men
-are-bastards defences, Elaine was a good kid, with a decent sense of humour. She drank vodka and Red Bull, loved Iron Maiden as much as she did her three kids, and above all she really enjoyed shagging.

Harry stepped out of his boxers and got back into bed. Elaine stubbed her fag out and sunk under the duvet to nosh amicably on his morning glory. Her hand moved under the pillow and back again. Harry heard a buzz like a muffled road drill outside, then realised it was coming from down below. Elaine did love her toys and the thought that all biker girls love other girls – a lingering Mod prejudice – had never left his mind for a second …

Two orgasms later Elaine lit up again.

“You want me to fix you some breakfast, babe?” she asked.

“No,” replied Harry, ever the gentleman. “You fuck off next door and get them kids ready to bunk off school.”

He pulled
£
20 from a wad of notes on the bedside cabinet and laid it between her breasts. “Sort yerself out some puff and get the clan some Teletubby-flavoured pop tarts or whatever kids eat these days. I’ll get something out.”

Elaine kissed him. “You’re a lovely man, H.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

She pulled on a tight black jumper, black miniskirt and black sandals, put the kettle on for him and left. It was 7.57 am.

Thanks to Elaine, half of Clegg House believed Harry Tyler was making a reasonable living as a third-division tealeaf. Everything about his flat, the vast array of door locks, the alarm, the DVD player, said he was a small-time villain who’d had a few nice touches. The sparse furnishings confirmed his divorcee cover story. He never worked regular hours but always told her he had “things to do, people to see”. It was particularly true today. Today he was making First Contact.

Shortly after noon, Harry Tyler sauntered into the Sir Sidney Smith, one of three South London pubs owned by the Bakers. It was just off the Old Kent Road, a ten-minute stroll away from the New Den, or one minute fifty seconds in a squad car. Combat-ready, Harry had the
Sporting Life
in his hand, his mobile and
£
350 in cash in his pockets.

Propped up against the bar was ex-face Peter Miller, 56 years old and a confirmed lush. If you wanted moody tenners or a snide tax disc for the motor, Miller could always supply, for the customary drink on top, of course. His breath could sterilise scalpels but Miller was still trusted by the Baker firm. For all his faults, Miller had never grassed. He’d never dealt with the Filth, except once when he’d sent a probationer PC two miles out of his way to the local nick – a story he’s only told twice. This week. If he was caught holding, he took the rap, did his bird, came out and cracked on. He was your authentic South London good old boy, a likeable prat.

For Harry, hooking Miller was about as hard as signing a TV contract is for Carol Vorderman. He was over his shoulder as soon as Harry sat beside him studying form. A bit of chat about the nags and football, buy him a drink, let him see the wad, refuse to let him buy you one back, well, you had a nice win at the weekend … within half an hour, Miller was putty in his hands. Harry had four Buds and bowed out. He could find his prey any time he wanted and now they were mates for as long as he needed him.

Harry was back in the Sid three days out of the next four, claiming to have business in the area. By the end of the week, Miller wanted to super-glue himself to his generous new pal. The guy was skint – “borracic, H, some cunt knocked me” – so Harry offered him a “bulls-eye” to come and watch over him during a trade in his Stratford local. He jumped at the chance. The next day, Miller sat in the Trojan watching Harry do a deal at an adjoining table over a copy of the
Daily Sport
. The deal done, Miller followed the three black men out of the pub, watched them climb into a BMW and glide away. He wrote the car’s plate number down on his comic and went back in to collect his
£
50.

The first seeds of doubt appeared in Miller’s mind about ten minutes into the journey home. “If that’s your local, H, why get me involved?” he said. “Why not one of yer mates?”

“The spades are all local too,” Harry explained. “I needed someone they didn’t know to clock the car.

Reassured, Miller heard a business opportunity knocking. “Do you want the number checked?”

“Yeah. Know someone?”

“Possible. What’s it worth?”

“A drink.”

“A nice drink?”

“For the right info.”

“I’ll ask.”

“Whatever. I think they’re OK, but first-time trade, you know.”

“Big parcel?”

“Don’t be so fucking nosey.”

“No, no. It’s – just I know people who’ll take a lorry-load of whatever.”

“I’ll bear that in mind. It was red wine by the way.”

“I could get that shifted.”

Harry looked over at him and appeared pensive. “Tell you what,” he said eventually. “How good are them snide cockles and scores you said are about?”

“Yeah, OK. They pass in a busy boozer when the barmaid’s hands are a bit wet, but I’ve had better.”

“Sort me out half a dozen of each and I’ll see how they move down this end.”

“No problem, Harry.”

Over the next few days, Peter Miller became a regular at the Trojan. He soon realised that Harry was a respected local face. He clocked all the hounds in the boozer pull Harry into corners to discuss deals. He saw how the barmaids flirted with him. He watched how popular he was with the regulars. He lost count of the number of times he left the pub muttering into his mobile. The black economy of London E15 appeared to rely on Harry Tyler waking up in the morning.

On day five, Miller was trusted with the biggest secret of all. He was allowed in to Harry’s flat where Elaine made him pie and chips. Peter Miller felt honoured. This he knew was a friendship that would last forever.

Johnny Baker’s fuck-off Mercedes was winding its way over Tower Bridge when he took a call from Geraldine. She was so upset she could hardly speak. Thirteen minutes later he met her in The Soho House. Her face was flushed, her eyes swollen from crying. Gently Johnny coaxed the story out of her. Between sobs, she told him how her ex-lover Golding had called her into his office and closed the door behind them. He’d been drinking. He’d grabbed at her breasts and forced his tongue down her throat. When she pushed him away her ex lost it. He’d slapped her face, called her a slut and a prick teaser and told her he was going to have her sacked. Johnny Too never heard the rest of what she’d said. The red mist had already descended.

It was 8.30 pm when the Merc glided past Golding’s splendid detached home in Finchley, North London. Geraldine pointed the house out. There was a W reg Lexus on the drive, next to a series eight BMW. Johnny got out of the car.

“Be careful,” Geraldine said. Then wondered why. She wasn’t concerned with Johnny’s physical well-being, Golding was a tub of lard who got breathless popping the cork out of a bottle of Dom Perignon. But what had she started? Somehow she didn’t think Baker would be telling Golding he’d been a naughty boy, but having lit the blue touch-paper now all she could do was sit back and wait for the firework display.

Johnny Too told his driver, Tony Boniface, to pull across the drive. Geraldine had the front door in full view through the Merc’s blacked-out back windows.

Johnny walked up the drive and rang the bell. As Golding answered the door, a waft of soothing midbrow classical music filled the air.

Golding studied the man before him suspiciously. He was well-dressed, but looked brutal. “Yes?” he said.

Johnny half-smiled. “What music is that?” he asked.

“I’m sorry?”

“What music are you playing? Who’s it by?”

“What the hell has that got to do with you? Who are you and why are you disturbing our supper? What the hell do you want?”

Johnny Too grabbed Golding’s tie and dragged him out of the front door, nutting him square in the face. Golding’s broken nose went East and West as the claret gushed.

Now Johnny was shouting. “I said what fucking music is that, you snivelling cunt?” Golding clutched his nose and shook like a shellshocked war casualty.

“It’s called ‘Montagues And Capulets’,” he stuttered. “It’s by Prokofiev. P-p-please don’t hurt me. Do you want money? Let me get my wallet. Just d-d-don’t hurt me.”

By Johnny Baker standards, Golding wasn’t hurt. By the standards of reasonable men, he was battered to a pulp. When Johnny Too finally left him unconscious on the tarmac drive, a bloody mass of blubber, he looked like a whale that had been dropped 100 feet, face down on to jagged rocks.

Johnny Too smirked. “Fucking nice music, geezer,” he said. He strolled back towards the car. Geraldine saw him remove a hefty knuckle-duster from the fingers of his right hand. She felt strange. Half of her was horrified by the terrible violence she had just witnessed, but the other half was strangely excited, and just a little turned on. Confused she started to sob. Johnny opened the car door and his expression changed from psychopathic to concerned lover.

“Don’t cry, baby,” he whispered, holding her tight. “Don’t cry. He won’t ever hurt you again.”

“But my job,” she said.

“You just quit, darling. You work for me now. You are officially Johnny Baker’s PA.”

“Oh, Johnny,” she said, kissing him. “I love you so much.”

Johnny Too smiled. Then looked down at his suit trousers and scowled. “Who told that cunt he could bleed on my strides?” he said.

He had Boniface drop them off at the Tower Hotel where Johnny helped Geraldine get over the trauma of the day by introducing her to the delights of sucking cocaine off his cock in between giving her one in as many positions as he could manage.

The following lunchtime, Harry Tyler stood alone in the surprisingly busy Ned Kelly while Peter Miller did the rounds of his mates. It was the first time he had brought Harry here and now Miller was making like a bumble bee, buzzing from flower to flower telling everyone about his new pal. Harry was trying to study Templegate, but kept getting distracted by the vision of peroxide perfection that was Lesley Gore, rushed off her feet and cursing Slobberin’ Ron for taking half an hour in the khazi. Harry rang Directory Enquiries, got the number for the Ned and rang it.

“Yeah, Ned Kelly,” a harassed Lesley answered.

“Can you hear me, luv?” said Harry.

“Just about, it’s chaos in ’ere. ’Oo is it?”

“One of your customers, turn left and I’m the one waving.”

“Why are you ringing?” said Lesley, turning.

“I was just worried I was in a no-service area …”

“You cheeky sod … what can I get you?”

“Aroused, I reckon, but I’ll settle for a Bud.”

Lesley hung up and took him a cold bottle from the back of the fridge.

“And one for you?”

“I’ll have a gin and slim with you, please, darling. Thanks.”

As soon as Harry took out a note, Peter Miller was by his side.

“And the usual for Pete, please.”

Lesley pulled him a pint of Murphy’s, gave Harry his change and was off serving on the other side of the bar, giving the handsome stranger a discreet glance. There was something about him she liked, the twinkle in his eye, the rough diamond patter, the whiff of decent after-shave.

Harry downed his Bud and told Miller he had to leave.

“But you’ve only just got ’ere,” Peter protested.

“Business calls, Pete. Deals to do over my side. Laters, mate.”

“Yeah, laters.”