Black Ops: The 12th Spider Shepherd Thriller (16 page)

‘Something like that,’ he said. He waited until he was back home before phoning Jimmy Sharpe. ‘Razor, are you still free for a run to Leeds today?’

‘Are you buying the beer?’

‘Whatever it takes,’ said Shepherd. ‘One snag, I’m in Hereford. Can you get the train to Leeds and I’ll pick you up? I’ll drive you back to London when we’re done.’

‘Can I play with the siren?’ said Sharpe.

‘I don’t have a siren, Razor.’

‘I was joking.’

H
arper flew to Prague on Wednesday morning. The seat next to him in business class was empty and he spent the flight reading through a file that Hansfree had put together for him, containing a mass of documentation on the capacity and black-market prices of a range of Russian- and Czech-manufactured handguns, semi-automatics, machine guns, ammunition, explosives and detonating cord, and even surface-to-air and ground-to-ground missiles. If he was going to be convincing in his role as a big arms dealer, it was the sort of information that he had to have at his fingertips.

After landing in Prague, he took a cab into the centre of the city. He bought a bag full of toiletries from a pharmacy, picked up a Czech hardback book and a couple of magazines, and then spent a couple of hours drinking beer and eating Bohemian food at U Fleku˚. He took another cab back to the airport and flew to Nice, where he rented an S-Class black Mercedes. He drove along the coast towards Monte Carlo and it was late afternoon when he pulled up outside his hotel. It was in the heart of the city, overlooking the harbour and within yards of the casino. Its facade, pierced by marble colonnades, balustrades and wrought-iron balconies, was so elaborately decorated that it could have been a wedding cake. Harper jumped out and dispensed the first of a succession of
€
50 notes to the parking attendant, the doorman, the bellhop, the reception clerk who checked him in, and the barmen and waiters who served him. By the end of the evening, there was probably no one on the hotel staff who did not know that their new guest, Herr Müller, was a lavish tipper.

The hotel wasn’t the sort of place Harper enjoyed – all chandeliers, ornate plasterwork and gilt and cherubs by the bucket-load – but it suited the legend he had adopted. He wanted somewhere that would overawe the IRA men, putting them on the back foot from the start.

Harper unpacked his Czech toiletries in his suite. He opened them one by one and emptied out part of each one, squeezing out half the toothpaste and squirting some of the shaving foam down the toilet. He opened the Czech magazines in a few places, cracked the spine of the hard-back book and riffled through and thumbed some of its pages, and then put it next to his bed. His legend was that he was an East European arms dealer who never travelled to Britain, and if the IRA men searched his room and found a washbag full of toiletries from Boots or a receipt for a Marks and Spencer prawn sandwich, his cover would be blown and his life in immediate danger.

That evening, he dressed in an Armani suit paid for with one of his new credit cards and ate in the hotel’s Michelin-starred restaurant before strolling across the square to the casino. As he entered, he slipped a
€
100 note into the doorman’s gloved hand.

‘My name’s Müller,’ he said. ‘I’ll be staying in Monte Carlo for the next week or so. Look after me and my guests well, won’t you?’ He played a little roulette, gave more lavish tips to the croupier and the waiters, and as he walked out into the square to the hotel, he smiled to himself as he heard the doorman call after him, ‘Good night Herr Müller, sir.’

‘
E
xplain this to me again,’ said Jimmy Sharpe. ‘It seems hellish complicated.’

Sharpe and Shepherd were sitting in a rented Mondeo parked outside the Coach and Horses, Aidan Flynn’s watering hole of choice, a short walk from his four-bedroom council house on the Seacroft council estate to the east of Leeds. It was one of the country’s largest council estates, with a reputation for crime, violence and drugs.

‘We pick him up and get him to tell us where he gets his drugs from. Best way to do that is let him think he’s got a problem and we’re here to help him.’

‘Why don’t we do it the easy way?’ asked Sharpe. ‘Beat the crap out of him until he agrees to get his son to take the fall. The drugs belonged to his son, the son tells that to the cops and your boy walks.’

‘Yeah, well the simplest way doesn’t always produce results,’ said Shepherd. ‘For one, even if the Flynn boy does cough, it doesn’t help Liam. Liam was holding the drugs, there’s no getting away from that. I need to give the cops a bigger fish. And for two, Flynn is a scumbag but even scumbag dads will do whatever they have to do to protect their kids. He won’t want his son going down, so no matter how much pressure we put him under, at some point he’ll go to the cops and tell them what’s happened. It won’t take them long to realise that it was me and then I’m screwed.’

‘What the hell was your boy doing holding drugs anyway?’ asked Sharpe.

‘He thought it was cannabis, not that that’s an excuse. I’m sure if he’d known it was cocaine he’d have said no. But that’s not the point.’

‘How old is he? Still sixteen, right?’

‘Just turned seventeen. He’s been going to parties where there’s been drink and drugs.’

‘And girls, I hope.’

‘Cheers, Razor.’

‘Come on, Spider. How old were you when you had your first pint? Fifteen? Sixteen?’

‘Fifteen,’ said Shepherd.

‘Yeah, well we’re made of sterner stuff in Glasgow. I was thirteen when I had my first drink. Cider. And I puked my guts up afterwards. And I’d been smoking for a year before that.’

‘Didn’t know you were a smoker.’

‘I gave up years ago. But I stuck with the drinking. And it’s never done me any harm.’

‘Cannabis and cider aren’t the same thing.’

‘Well, I’m no fan of drugs, but you have to face the facts – health-wise alcohol does a lot more damage than cannabis any day of the week. I’m not saying that cannabis is a good thing and I know it can lead to harder drugs, but no one ever smoked two joints and went looking for a fight. In fact there’s a lot to be said to giving cannabis to any scrote that wanted it. It’d keep them quiet.’

‘Razor …’

‘Okay, I’m being facetious. But with cannabis users not even getting a caution these days, it seems a bit unfair sending people to prison for holding half an ounce.’

‘Yeah, well unfortunately it wasn’t cannabis in Liam’s case. So stick with my plan, yeah?’

Sharpe threw him a sarcastic salute. ‘
Jawohl, mein Herr
,’ he said, in a parody of a German accent. ‘I vill obey your orders.’

‘I’m starting to regret asking you along.’

‘Yeah, like you were spoilt for choice,’ said Sharpe. He looked around at the shabby council houses, rusting cars and potholed streets. ‘Here’s what I don’t get. Your lad’s at a posh boarding school and his mate’s living in this place?’

‘They met at a rave or whatever they call them these days. A party.’

‘The school let him out to party?’

‘They were sneaking out. Flynn’s son had a car; he’s a year older. Turns out he was selling drugs to the kids at the school.’

‘Do you think your boy knew that?’

‘He says not.’

‘Here we go,’ said Sharpe, pointing out of the window. ‘Is that him?’

Shepherd looked over at the pub doorway. A big man was standing there, swaying slightly as he lit a cigarette. He was wearing a long black leather coat with the collar turned up. As the lighter flared it illuminated the man’s goatee and hooked nose, then the flame went out. ‘That’s him all right,’ he said. Flynn was a big man, well over six feet with wide shoulders and hands the size of small shovels.

‘Big bugger,’ said Sharpe. He unfolded a printout that he’d taken from the police national computer. There was a picture of Flynn taken three years earlier when he’d been arrested and charged with assault. His arrest record had started when he was a teenager, mainly assault and petty theft, and had continued throughout his adult life.

‘You know what they say,’ said Shepherd. ‘The bigger they are, the harder they—’

‘… hit,’ Sharpe finished for him.

‘I was going to say fall,’ said Shepherd. ‘Anyway, we’re only going to talk to him.’

Flynn began to walk unsteadily down the street, the lit cigarette in his right hand. Shepherd switched on the engine, pulled a slow U-turn and came up behind him. Flynn looked around. Sharpe wound down his window and flashed his warrant card. ‘Get in, Aidan,’ he growled.

‘Who the fuck are you?’ asked Flynn, squinting down at Sharpe.

‘The fucking tooth fairy,’ said Sharpe. ‘Get in the back.’

‘Are you arresting me?’

‘Do I look like I’m fucking arresting you?’ He put away his warrant card. ‘If you make me get out of this warm comfortable car I’ll not be best pleased. Now get in the back.’

Flynn climbed into the car.

‘And put your seat belt on,’ said Shepherd. He kept facing forward; he didn’t want Flynn getting a look at anything other than the back of his head.

Flynn muttered and did as he was told as Shepherd put the car in gear and drove off.

‘Does someone want to tell me what’s going on?’ asked Flynn.

‘Aidan Flynn, right?’ asked Sharpe.

‘You fucking tell me.’

Sharpe twisted around in his seat. ‘Show me some ID.’

Flynn looked as if he was going to argue but Sharpe’s baleful stare took the wind out of his sails and he sighed and took out his wallet. He fished out a driving licence and gave it to Sharpe. Sharpe looked at both sides and handed it back. ‘Your name came up in an investigation in Glasgow.’

‘I don’t do fuck all in Glasgow,’ said Flynn, putting his licence away.

‘Will you shut the fuck up and listen,’ said Sharpe. ‘We’ve had a group of Romanians under surveillance for the past three months. Nasty bastards, Aidan. Real nasty. They’ve been ripping off drug dealers, stealing their cash and drugs and not caring too much about the damage they do along the way. Mainly knives, but they’re tooled up and not afraid of pulling the trigger. They’ve hit at least six times but the nature of the victims means they’re not queuing up to fill out a police report. What we have got is two neds in intensive care and another one in the morgue. Now to cut a long story short, your name came up during a surveillance operation.’

‘You’re barking up the wrong tree, I’ve never been to Scotland,’ said Flynn.

Sharpe sighed and looked over at Shepherd. ‘If he had another brain cell or two he might be dangerous,’ he growled. ‘I’m starting to think we’re wasting our time.’

‘We could always just throw him to the wolves,’ said Shepherd. ‘No skin off our nose.’

‘Look, what the fuck is going on?’ asked Flynn.

‘What’s going on, my stupid little friend, is that the Romanians have started doing their thing south of the border. And your name has been mentioned.’

‘I don’t have enough drugs to be worth robbing,’ said Flynn. ‘I’m not big time.’

‘No, but you have a supplier. What we heard was that they were going to tail you to your supplier when you go to make a buy. It’s your supplier they’re after.’

Flynn frowned. ‘I buy from a Turkish gang,’ he said. ‘They can take care of themselves.’

‘Yeah? You think? Well I can show you two guys in Glasgow Royal Infirmary who thought they could take care of themselves, too. No mate, we’re here to stop a bloodbath.’

‘So you’re just giving me a tip-off, yeah?’ Flynn grinned. ‘Well I appreciate that, officers. Good to see the boys in blue helping the community. Now if you could drop me around the corner from my house, that would be great.’

‘These Turks, who are they?’ asked Shepherd.

‘Don’t worry about that, I’ll tip them the wink,’ said Flynn.

‘Like fuck you will,’ said Sharpe. ‘We don’t want them tipped off. We’re going to be putting them under surveillance. Then when the Romanians move in, we grab them.’

‘The Turks won’t be happy about being used as bait,’ said Flynn.

‘Which is why we won’t be telling them,’ said Sharpe. ‘Look, we’ve done you the courtesy of letting you know what’s happening. You tell us where the Turks are and we’ll do the rest.’

Flynn scratched his chin. ‘How I do know you’re not setting me up?’

‘For what?’ said Sharpe. ‘If we wanted to bust you we’d just go around to your house.’

‘No drugs in my house,’ snarled Flynn.

‘Really? What about cash? You know these days if you can’t prove that any cash you have isn’t the proceeds of crime, we can take it off you. Shall I get a warrant and get some feet on the ground?’

Flynn held up his hands. ‘Okay, okay, I was just asking a question. No need to bite my head off. They run a kebab shop in Church Street. The minicab office above the shop is also theirs. They sometimes use the cabs to deliver the gear.’

‘Is that what you do?’

‘Sometimes. Sometimes I send one of the lads around to get kebabs and some gear. Great kebabs.’

‘Good to know, next time I want food poisoning,’ said Sharpe. ‘How do you arrange a delivery? Do you call?’

Flynn nodded. ‘Sure.’

‘I’ll need that number,’ said Sharpe.

‘You gonna tap their phone?’

‘Best you don’t know,’ said Sharpe. ‘Just consider yourself lucky. If the Romanians had turned up while you were there you could have been the one in the ICU.’

Flynn took out his mobile and read out a number. Sharpe tapped it into his own phone. Shepherd pulled in at the side of the road. ‘You won’t be hearing from us again,’ he said to Flynn. ‘Just keep your head down and find another supplier and you’ll be fine.’

Flynn climbed out of the car and Shepherd drove off. ‘That went better than I thought it would,’ he said. ‘I was worried we might have to get a bit physical.’

‘Nah, he’s stupid but he thinks all cops are even more stupid. He reckons he’s come off best in that deal.’ He held up his phone. ‘Now what? You tell your pals to turn the Turks over and your boy is free and clear?’

‘Let’s see how big they are, first,’ said Shepherd. ‘Flynn is small time. The Turks might not be much bigger. Are you okay to hang around for a day or two?’