Authors: Robert Muchamore
It was the middle of the day, but James flipped the light switch on and off to make sure the electricity was connected as Bruce walked between rooms, opening windows.
‘There’s a kettle and a fridge in here,’ Bruce yelled. ‘Maybe we can get some tea and milk in or something.’
‘If you like,’ James shrugged. ‘I guess it’ll take a while going through the tapes, but I don’t fancy spending any longer than I have to in this dump.’
‘It’ll be OK once it’s aired and it’s a bloody sight quieter than the Zoo.’
‘I’m not stopping you from moving in,’ James grinned. ‘At least I won’t have to put up with your snoring.’
‘Yeah, I’m so obnoxious,’ Bruce sneered. ‘What about the other night when you kept dropping your guts? My eyes were watering.’
‘It was that dodgy cheese bap Chloe got at the motorway services.’
As James said this, he unzipped the sports bag and looked at the surveillance equipment. The biggest item was a twin-tape surveillance recorder with
Property of East Midlands Health Trust
etched on top. There were also blank tapes, a bunch of tangled-up leads, a power drill for making holes and a selection of miniature cameras.
‘What a bunch of crap,’ Bruce said.
James shrugged. ‘There’s nothing here that would set the campus technical department drooling, but it’s enough to get the job done.’
‘Guess you’re right,’ Bruce said, as he pulled some of the wires out. ‘You work out the best place to put the cameras and I’ll start untangling this lot.’
Seventeen days later
Joe Pledger and his wife had just arrived back from an Easter break at their Portuguese villa, complete with leathery tans and carrier bags of booze. Their lap pool looked unusually dark when Joe peered out through the conservatory and his heart leapt as he noticed that a section of his back fence had been knocked down.
Groggy from the flight and underdressed in short sleeves and holiday shorts, Joe slid the French door and stumbled out to the patio. The water in his pool had a brownish tint, but the shocker was the outline of a man at the bottom. The sight would have sent many souls running back to the house in shock, but Joe had been in the funeral game his whole life and his only concern was for his wife.
‘Don’t come out here,’ he yelled, as he dashed back into the house and grabbed the phone.
Inspector Hunt from the murder squad was on the scene within ten minutes, beaten only by a female constable who’d been walking her beat half a kilometre away. Hunt was knackered and about to go off-shift, but there was no chance of that now.
The ginger-haired detective crouched on the tiles at the poolside and saw that the victim had two twenty-kilo discs strapped to his chest.
‘Looks like he was alive when he was thrown in,’ Hunt said, as he looked at the nervous policewoman.
Unless they suspect that the perpetrator is still in the area, regular cops are trained to stand back and protect a crime scene until detectives arrive. The young constable had her arms behind her back and her face looking up at the sunrise.
‘Not seen one of these before?’ Hunt asked.
‘No, sir,’ the constable said apologetically. ‘I’ve only been on the force three months.’
‘Do me a favour,’ Hunt said, as he leaned further over the pool. ‘Go into the house and ask the owner if he has a long pole, or a rake that he uses to clean leaves off the water.’
While the constable stayed inside consoling his wife, Joe ambled down the garden to unlock his shed.
‘Used to hang the pole on them hooks by the poolside,’ Joe explained, as he opened the shed and retrieved a long pole with a crook on the end. ‘Trouble was my grandkids were too fond of whacking each other with it.’
Hunt gave a friendly nod as he took the pole from the elderly man. Joe stepped back, but kept his eyes fixed on the pool as the policeman guided the pole through the murky water. Joe was tired after the flight home and his wife was in a state, but he wasn’t unhappy: retirement had proved underwhelming and a dead body in the pool was a hell of a story for the golf club.
After scraping across the floor of the pool, Hunt tucked the hook under the dead man’s arm and gave him a gentle pull so that he could see his face. The motion was enough to disturb gases in the decomposing body and a string of large bubbles rose up and broke the surface of the water.
‘Maybe you should go back inside,’ Hunt said.
‘I dealt with bodies for forty-five years, man and boy,’ Joe smiled. ‘This ain’t nothing much.’
Rapid identification of the body could make a difference if the crime was recent. But the face was horribly bloated and the eyes bulged.
‘He’s been down there a while,’ Joe said knowledgably. ‘Ten or twelve days at a guess.’
‘I reckon you’re right,’ Hunt said, as he pulled the pole out of the water. ‘His girlfriend reported him missing early last week.’
‘So you know who he is?’ Joe asked.
‘Fairly certain,’ Hunt nodded. ‘I’ve only seen a passport photo and that body’s in a state, but it all seems to fit together.’
*
The two mission controllers and three agents had agreed to meet up in a grotty hotel suite at a motor lodge on the edge of town. James and Bruce were the last to arrive.
‘Had to wait ages for our bus,’ James explained. Then he looked at Chloe, who was propped on the end of a double bed. ‘How did it go with the ethics committee last night?’
‘Two-hour conference call,’ she groaned. ‘They’ve given us another seven days, but all the murders are making them jittery.’
Michael looked up at James. ‘Did you hear they pulled another Runt out of a swimming pool this morning?’
James shook his head. ‘Anyone we know?’
‘Aaron Reid,’ Michael said.
‘The guy who wrote the list?’ Bruce gasped.
‘The very same,’ Michael nodded. ‘He wrote seven names, plus his own on that list for Major Dee. He’s the third one to turn up dead and nobody knows where the others are.’
‘Either dead or in hiding,’ Maureen said.
‘Any news on the cars that got burned out near the Green Pepper on Saturday?’ Bruce asked.
‘Runts out for revenge most likely,’ Chloe said. ‘You and James both seemed pretty sure that it wasn’t Sasha’s men.’
‘Breaking car windows isn’t exactly his style, is it?’ Bruce said. ‘Major Dee might have tried starting a war, but the Mad Dogs aren’t biting.’
‘Sasha’s sitting back while Dee does his Runt murder spree,’ James explained. ‘He’s hoping that Dee will slip up while he concentrates on the more serious business of making money.’
Bruce nodded. ‘But he’s livid about what happened to the football club, so I’d bet my left nut that he’s got a plan.’
‘I get the impression that the ethics committee are looking for closure on this mission,’ Chloe said. ‘Some of us have been working this job for more than three months. We’ve learned a lot about the structure of the gangs and passed tons of information on to the police, but they’re worried about the violence and uncomfortable with the amount of criminal activity you three are getting involved with. If we don’t get a breakthrough soon they’re going to pull the plug.’
‘Wasn’t there some plan to have a rummage inside Sasha’s house?’ Michael asked.
‘We’re on it,’ James nodded. ‘Now that the Mad Dogs’ clubhouse is burned out, anyone who gets injured during a game is sent over the road and Sasha’s missus takes a look at it – she used to be a nurse. We haven’t sorted the details, but we’re going training tomorrow night and if one of us fakes an injury, the other one can go over with him and take a peek in Sasha’s office.’
‘It’s a big house,’ Bruce added. ‘So if we get caught, it’s easy to say that we were looking for the bathroom and went through the wrong door.’
‘That all sounds fair enough,’ Chloe said. ‘But Sasha’s a dangerous man, so I want to be close by in case something goes wrong.’
‘And how’s the surveillance on the hard front going?’ Maureen asked.
‘It’s OK,’ Bruce said. ‘It’s boring going through the tapes every day, but we’re getting good information on who’s coming and going and what makes them open the front door. Sasha seems chuffed.’
‘Good,’ Chloe said. ‘Have you got any indication about when Sasha’s going to make his move?’
James shook his head. ‘He’s obviously waiting on information from one of his informants.’
‘Well I hope he hurries up,’ Chloe said. ‘I’d say we’ve got another week; two if we’re lucky.’
James didn’t realise how important Mad Dogs FC had been to Sasha Thompson until it was destroyed. The clubhouse and changing rooms could be replaced, but frightened players couldn’t. Sasha had told the media that the assault on his club was unprovoked and nothing to do with a rumoured gang war between himself and a Jamaican rival, but nobody was buying it.
Sasha had always looked after his players, especially the first-teamers who were amongst the most pampered in non-league football. Everything was laid on for them: transport, clean kit, meals after games, professional coaching and even fifty quid in their pockets if they won a match.
A few remained loyal and turned up for training after the attack, some disappeared quietly; while braver souls risked Sasha’s ire by asking to have their player registrations transferred to rival clubs. Either way, there weren’t enough registered players to produce a side and the local branch of the Football Association suspended the Mad Dogs first team from its league after they failed to put out a team for three consecutive matches.
The death of the youth teams was even more spectacular. With rumours of more attacks, no parent would send their kid out in a Mad Dogs kit, and twenty teams – from table-topping under-seventeens to giggly under-nine girls – vanished overnight.
All that remained were the two Sunday sides: veteran players and gangsters, reinforced by the most loyal talent from the first team and the senior youth squads.
There were eight grass and two all-weather pitches in the park where the Mad Dogs trained. Tuesday-night training usually attracted fifty adults and up to a hundred kids, but tonight’s meeting had an air of desperation. Fewer than two dozen men gathered around the burned-out clubhouse, and several of those were Sasha’s goons dressed in suits rather than football kit.
Drizzle spiralled in the floodlit air, whilst the van that had once ferried the first team between matches was parked on the edge of the pitch with its rear doors open so that people could toss in their coats and dry kit for after training.
‘Thanks for coming, son,’ Sasha said, hugging Bruce with genuine affection as he stepped up to the wooden bench. ‘I really appreciate you sticking by us.’
‘No worries boss,’ Bruce said, as he pulled a notepad from the pocket of his tracksuit bottoms and passed it over. ‘We came straight from the flat. That’s a list of everyone arriving and leaving at the hard front up till five this afternoon.’
‘Good man,’ Sasha said, then turned to James. James lacked Bruce’s talent with a football, so he only got a pat on the shoulder and a thank you.
‘Incoming,’ Savvas shouted from a few metres away, as he spotted a man walking across one of the unlit pitches.
Although it seemed unlikely that the Slasher Boys would launch another attack with the Mad Dogs on high alert, everyone was aware of the war and Sasha had armed lookouts just in case.
‘Hold still,’ Savvas shouted ferociously as the man came nearer.
The man stopped walking and raised his hands in the air. ‘It’s me, Chris Jones.’
‘Chrissie,’ Sasha purred fondly as he waved the man forward.
James didn’t know who it was and asked Wheels, who’d turned out dressed for football in order to win back some of the credibility he’d lost with Sasha.
‘He’s a local councillor,’ Wheels explained in a whisper. ‘He coached Mad Dogs under-fourteens and both his boys play – or at least
played
– for the club.’
‘What can I do for you, councillor?’ Sasha asked, as he embraced the balding man warmly. ‘Any chance of seeing your boy Marcus in a Mad Dogs shirt? We could use his height at the back.’
The councillor smiled awkwardly. ‘I’ll come straight to the point, Sasha. Everyone has been talking: the council, some of the players’ parents and the old first-team boys. We’ve got some of the best pitches in the country in this park. Mad Dogs was probably the biggest club in the area from under-sevens right up to county league.’
‘Don’t worry, we’ll get it back,’ Sasha grinned. ‘Insurance is trying to wrangle out of paying for the clubhouse, but I’ve got my lawyer on it. Once the publicity dies down, the players will start coming back.’
‘Maybe,’ the councillor said uncertainly, ‘but the council owns these pitches and we want to see them used. We don’t want players drifting back in a few years’ time when our kids have grown up; we want to see football on these pitches next week.’
Sasha sounded put out. ‘Then tell ’em to put their kit on and come here to play.’
The councillor cleared his throat and tried not to sound nervous. ‘Sasha, you’ve done a
magnificent
job supporting youth football in this community, but your erm … your reputation has become a millstone. With a new chairman and committee, Mad Dogs FC could be back on its feet within—’
Sasha grabbed the councillor by his lapels and butted him in the face.
‘You bloody what?’ Sasha shouted, as the councillor stumbled back with blood spewing out of his nose.
‘Be reasonable,’ the councillor begged, shielding his face as Sasha closed him down and punched him in the face.
‘This is
my
club,’ Sasha screamed. ‘I’ve lived across the street my whole life. Before I started Mad Dogs the grass was a foot high and you couldn’t walk two steps without hitting a Coke can or sinking into a pile of dog shit.’
Sasha was much larger than his opponent and his next blow hit the retreating councillor in the stomach, making him crumple forward into the mud.
‘Think you’re smart with your council seat and your phone calls behind my back?’ Sasha shouted. ‘Well, let’s see where it gets you.’
As James and the rest of the Mad Dogs looked on, Sasha raised his football boot out of the mud and stamped hard. Further blows rained down on the councillor’s head and torso until he was balled up in the mud, with a gaping wound in the back of his head.