Silly cow. Stop it!
The photographs had helped, just a little. At least she knew what Ellie looked like, could see the ways in which her little girl’s face had changed and how it had stayed the same. But so many other things left her distraught.
She could no longer remember what her daughter smelled like.
Thorne asked himself, as he had done many times before, if there ever came a time when men stopped sizing one another up like dogs fighting over a bitch. It was usually for no more than a moment, but it almost always happened when men first met. As well as taking in the superficial stuff – the clothes, the haircut, the approximate values of the watch and shoes – it often came down to the handshake, firm or otherwise, and those few awkward seconds of eye contact, and the simple, stupid,
childish
question of whether you could take them if it ever came down to a good, old-fashioned punch-up.
He had decided that the urge to compete in that way probably stopped at the same time a man stopped sizing up the
women
he met and wondering altogether different but equally stupid things.
It was ridiculous, Thorne accepted that, but it was also as natural as breathing and harmless enough for the most part. For those who knew where to draw the line, anyway. At that morning’s briefing, he had looked at the new woman on the team for a little longer than was strictly necessary. Now he sized up the two
SOCA
agents who greeted him when he stepped out of the lift on the fourth floor, and as they led him along a corridor to a meeting room that smelled of new carpets and wax polish.
‘There’s coffee on the way,’ one of them said.
‘Biscuits?’
‘I’ll see what we can do . . .’
The three of them sat around a large blond-wood conference table. There was a jug of water and half a dozen glasses, notebooks in front of every chair. The taller of the two
SOCA
men, who had introduced himself as Nick Mullenger, began to spread an assortment of photographs, charts and blown-up map fragments across the table. He was in his early thirties, with thick, dark hair and acne scars, and a voice that sounded perfect for cheaply made radio adverts. His colleague had not bothered with the pleasantry of a Christian name, so Thorne could only guess that he was either short of time or simply trying to appear more enigmatic than he seemed. Silcox was shorter than Thorne but in the same ballpark, age-wise. He wore a suit and tie, as did Mullenger, but filled his out a little better than his colleague. He had less hair than Mullenger and rather less to say for himself and when he did speak, it was barely above a whisper, as though there were something badly wrong with his throat. It might have been a heavy cold or it might have been cancer, so Thorne did not bother asking.
‘Right, Spain,’ Mullenger said. He spoke cheerfully, as though they were a family who had finally settled on a holiday destination after a long discussion.
‘It was always our best guess,’ Thorne said. ‘Even if it seemed a bit obvious.’
‘There’s a good reason for that.’
‘Drugs?’
‘Definitely,’ Silcox said.
Mullenger pointed to a spot on one of the maps. ‘The south coast of Spain.’ He moved his finger slightly. ‘The north coast of Africa . . .’
Thorne nodded and remembered what Gary Brand had said about being talked down to. But Mullenger seemed pleasant enough, so Thorne bit his tongue and wondered what else the
SOCA
man might deem it necessary to point out.
Notebook. Pencil. Water jug.
‘Morocco’s only forty miles away,’ Mullenger said. He turned his palms up as though no further explanation were necessary, then proceeded to give one anyway. ‘Started out with a few hippies bringing hash across on fishing boats and now it’s a multi-million-dollar industry.’
‘Billion,’ Silcox said.
‘Once upon a time, old-fashioned villains like your Mr Langford fought shy of the drugs trade, but that was before they saw how much money could be made. Now, almost every ounce of cannabis and cocaine that arrives in the UK has to come through Spain, so it’s the perfect place to base a drugs empire. They use the marinas as cover and the authorities haven’t got the manpower or the inclination to search all the yachts.’ He sat back in his chair. ‘It’s a drug-smuggler’s paradise.’
‘It’s not just about the beaches and the sangria,’ Silcox said.
Thorne pulled one of the pictures of Langford towards him. ‘Don’t suppose that hurts, though.’
Mullenger laughed, said, ‘No, indeed.’
‘So, Langford’s got a decent business going out there, you reckon?’
‘Almost certainly,’ Mullenger said. ‘And it’s not really a surprise that he’s been reacting the way he has, now he knows these enquiries are being made. So
violently
, I mean.’
‘It’s how he does things,’ Thorne said.
‘How they
all
do things.’
Silcox tapped a pencil on the table. ‘Wild West over there,’ he said.
Mullenger nodded, reaching for a list of facts and figures. ‘You’ve got the Brits, the Irish, the Russians, the Albanians, whatever, all fighting for a bigger slice of the action, so it’s pretty much become a war zone. They set up a special unit in the late nineties to try to get to grips with it, and for a while things calmed down a bit.’
‘“Marbella Vice”,’ Thorne said. ‘I remember. I knew a few people who tried to swing a transfer over there.’
‘Right, and for a year or two there was an unwritten agreement among the residents to tone things down, so as not to attract any more attention. They spent their time settling scores elsewhere. But once the Colombians started laundering drug money there, it all kicked off again, big time, and now there are shoot-outs on the streets every other week.’
‘
Costa del Plomo
,’ Silcox said.
Thorne looked to Mullenger for an explanation.
‘That’s the new nickname for the place,’ Mullenger said. ‘Spanish for “lead”.’ He made a gun with his fingers. ‘Because of—’
‘I get it,’ Thorne said.
Mullenger had the good grace to look embarrassed, but Thorne caught the trace of a smirk from Silcox. Thorne stared across the table and Silcox stared back, his doughy features a picture of innocence.
‘We’ve been working with the local police in southern Spain for the last few years,’ Mullenger said. ‘Trying to disrupt a few of the criminal networks and round up as many fugitives as we can. It’s tricky, though, because some of the people who are supposed to be on our side aren’t really on our side, if you know what I mean.’
‘Corruption in high places?’
Silcox was still staring. ‘High places, low places.’
‘Last year, three local mayors and a couple of high-ranking officers in the Guardia Civil were prosecuted for laundering drug money.’ Mullenger shrugged and picked up another piece of paper. ‘We’re making some progress, but just to give you an idea of the scale of what’s going on over there . . .’ He glanced down and read from the sheet. ‘Last year,
Operacion Captura
led to the arrest of forty-one people and the seizure of four hundred million euros’ worth of funds, as well as over twenty yachts and private planes, forty-two cars and two hundred and fifty houses.’
‘Pretty impressive,’ Thorne said.
Silcox smiled. ‘Us or them?’
‘And that’s in Marbella alone.’ Mullenger laid down his list. ‘So . . .’
There was a knock on the door and a man brought in the coffee: a Thermos jug and three cups on a tray. Mullenger did the honours while Thorne stood and walked to the window. He was still feeling fractious and fidgety, and decided that both he and the double-act assigned to brief him would be a lot happier were he to be nodding off aboard one of the pleasure boats he could see moving up and down the river two storeys below.
‘We managed to get you your biscuits,’ Mullenger said.
Thorne went back to the table and took his coffee. ‘I was expecting chocolate ones at least,’ he said. He bit into a digestive and pointed to one of the headed notepads. ‘Obviously spent too much on your fancy logo.’
Mullenger forced a nasal laugh and said something about cost-cutting that was less funny than he thought it was. Thorne ate his biscuit and pretended to listen.
Thinking:
Thunder-Thunder-Thunder-Thundercats Ho!
Mullenger pointed to a spot on a larger-scale map. ‘I don’t think the location where these photographs were taken is likely to be where Langford actually operates. It’s a smallish town, not too many visitors.’ He nodded to himself. ‘But I shouldn’t think he’s too far away.’
‘His business is likely to be based around a marina somewhere,’ Silcox said. ‘But a lot of the big players tend to live up in the hills or on one of the golf resorts. There’s still plenty of building work going on all along that coast.’
‘He’s probably into some of that as well,’ Thorne said. ‘It’s how he made his money over here.’
‘Always pays to diversify,’ Silcox said.
Mullenger refilled Thorne’s cup and talked about the best way to proceed, if and when Thorne made the journey to Spain himself. He seemed confident that the man who used to be called Alan Langford would be known to Spanish-based
SOCA
operatives and local drugenforcement officers. Thorne’s job, working with them, would simply be to establish that the criminal in question was indeed Langford, and then to find something for which he could be arrested and brought back to the UK for trial.
‘Piece of piss, then,’ Thorne said.
‘We’ll hook you up with one of our agents in Malaga or Marbella,’ Mullenger said. ‘Probably easier for him to brief you when you get there.’
Thorne agreed, knowing that his contact might turn out to be a copper, a customs officer or even, God forbid, a taxman. In an attempt to create a British
FBI
,
SOCA
had been formed as an amalgamation of the National Criminal Intelligence Service and the National Crime Squad, but had also taken staff from HM Revenue and Customs and UK Immigration. Thorne knew that the agency had officers embedded within many police forces and that the arrangement was reciprocal. He also knew that their powers were wider-ranging than those of their counterparts; and that, unlike regular coppers such as himself, they were exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.
They didn’t have to tell anybody anything.
‘We’ve got some shit-hot agents over there,’ Mullenger said. ‘You’ll be working with good people.’
Thorne smiled. To be fair, this
was
an agency, so those who worked for it were, strictly speaking, agents. But Thorne saw how much Mullenger relished saying the word; imagined that it made him feel like a proper G-Man. Thorne worked regularly with people who had the same affectations. One DS on a parallel team to his own had once visited Quantico and had somehow managed to acquire an official
FBI
lanyard from which he proudly suspended his Met Police swipe card and ID. On the lanyard it said:
Fidelity, Bravery and Integrity.
It should simply have said:
Knob
.
‘I don’t want to spoil a beautiful friendship,’ Thorne said. ‘But what are the chances that this corruption you were talking about might involve some of these “shit-hot agents” of yours?’
Silcox and Mullenger looked at each other.
‘I know,’ Thorne said. ‘You go that extra yard with the biscuits and then I go and bring the mood right down.’ He smiled, but he was thinking about the speed with which the killings of Monahan and Cook had been sanctioned and executed; about an exchange of information. Those jungle drums. ‘Only, if I was Langford, or somebody
like
Langford, they’d be the first people I’d be looking to sweeten, you know?’
Mullenger gathered together his photos and maps. ‘It’s a fair question. ‘
‘Bad apples in every barrel,’ his partner said.
‘Absolutely. Who’s to know?’
‘You can drive yourself mad worrying about that stuff,’ Silcox said. His voice was louder than it had been all afternoon. ‘I should worry about things you can do something about, like how many pairs of shorts to pack.’
A few minutes later they walked him briskly back to the lift and said perfunctory goodbyes. There were handshakes, one firm and one less so; and, as the lift doors closed, Thorne took a final look at the pair of them.
It did not feel quite as childish as it had forty-five minutes before.
If it came to it, Thorne knew he could take Mullenger with one arm tied behind his back. But he was less sure about Silcox. The shorter, older man had the kind of eyes you worried about and would almost certainly fight dirty.
Outside, he switched on his phone and saw that there had been another text from Anna Carpenter:
we still need to talk about donna!
He looked at his watch. It was hardly worth going back to the office now.
And Vauxhall was only two stops from Victoria.
With more than half an hour until going-home time, Anna was delighted to answer the intercom to what sounded like a potential client. If Frank stuck to his usual routine and took the man across the road to discuss business over a drink, then there was every chance he would let Anna leave early. As it was, the man at the front door had no interest in waiting on the street and insisted on talking to Frank in the office, so somewhat disconsolately, Anna buzzed him up.
Having hurriedly cleared the worst of the clutter from his desk, Frank opened the door and showed his visitor to a chair. He immediately apologised for the mess, which he put down to working too hard on cases to have time for cleaning, and for Anna’s bike, which was propped against a radiator.
The man seemed unconcerned and keen to get on with it.
Frank handed over a folder filled with laminated testimonials – many of which he had written himself – and told the man a little about the business as he flicked through it. Only then did he introduce Anna, as his associate. The man looked at Anna for the first time and nodded a hello.
Anna smiled and said, ‘Nice to meet you.’
‘I gather that you specialise in matrimonial work,’ the man said, turning his attention back to Frank.