Authors: John Macrae
"I don't think it's that impractical, love. There's obviously a call for something like that." She stared across at me. "Let's face it, we couldn't go to the law over Varley and his copper scam. Those Scots gangsters gave us more justice than we’d ever have got from the police or any of the courts."
I stopped her.
"Justice? The guy got killed, for heaven's sake, Sis. He's dead. He didn't deserve that, surely?"
Barbara swilled her glass. "It was his own his own fault. He got what he deserved. If he hadn't conned and cheated and swindled he'd still be alive today. Wouldn't he?" She nodded, emphatically. "Anyway, I'm going to finish this drink, feed the baby, then I'm off to bed. I feel better than I've done for weeks and it's all thanks to you, and that money. Thanks, love. You’ve saved our lives."
And she raised her glass to me, Eric following her lead.
"So here's to you,
big
brother, and here's to whoever sorted Varley out. He won’t be doing that again in a hurry, will he?” She slurped her drink. “They’ve done us all a big favour. And here’s to good honest revenge and a little bit of justice. Thank you, whoever you are."
Somewhere, deep down, a series of freefloating thoughts crystallised into a clear idea.
Maybe I could make a difference.
People obviously felt that revenge – if it’s justified – was fair. A kind of court of last resort.
As I listened to the gentle crashing of the surf in my bedroom, I realised that I liked the idea.
Brixton
If I could dish out revenge for the British government, why could I dish it out for ordinary people in need of a little help?
Ideas about revenge meant that I spent the next few weeks thinking hard about that conversation with Barbara and Wet Eric. I remembered, too, the words of the man in the pub talking about Spicer all those months ago, and the growl of agreement he got from the crowded bar; "Someone should do something about him," and the barmaid's indignation at the child-molesting paedophile. But what
really
bugged them all was the fact that he had been getting away with it.
Clearly people felt as deeply about it as I did -- the unfairness and injustice of a really nasty crime going unpunished. Obviously there was some deep unconscious need out there for justice to be seen to be done, if only as a gesture of collective rage against the impotence of the law. From nowhere the phrase 'natural justice' banged in my head as I pounded the park on my early morning runs, Telemann's trumpets blasting my eardrums. Good wake up stuff.
I worked out a lot on those runs, my footsteps beating the thoughts into my days. I don't just run to keep fit; I run to think as well. The Varley story soon faded from the papers, but there were plenty of others just as bad, and worse, to take its place.
Gradually my thoughts took form as I began to take an increasing interest in the crime reports in the papers, and even ringed some of the more horrific or bizarre cases. I became aware of the sub-strata of sick and diseased criminal acts that seem to be a constant theme of modern - particularly city - life. Barbara was right. Things were getting worse. You could read about it every day.
Almost without conscious thought, the realisation of what I had to do began to dawn on me; more important, I felt a sense of suppressed excitement at what I
wanted
to do. The Jewish 'eye-for-an-eye' would be a cliché - but it summed up some of my growing feelings. I began positively to look for examples of injustice, for cases where the policemen themselves expressed loathing of the criminals involved and fury at their own impotence. I didn't have to hunt very far. The papers were full of stories, from paedophiles buggering little kids to rapes of pensioners; from mindless psychopathic assault to thought-out thuggery, as the wild dogs of society seemed to run amok, usually well encouraged by their probation officers and social workers. There was even one case of some disgusting nonces who had raped a three month old baby. I mean…
I opened a clip file and began to repractise skills I'd learned years ago in basic Corps Training. I collected and collated information and opened a card index of events. As the weeks went by it became my main amusement. I spent evening after evening at the computer, cutting and filing by the yellow puddle of light from my battered anglepoise, a bottle of wine at my elbow and all my favourite music on the stereo. It was a totally absorbing task. I suppose I turned into a bit of a nerd. But at least I'd found a decent hobby that was keeping me off the streets, I thought wryly. ‘Every man should have a hobby’, my old mum had said, a long time ago. My Dad had added, ‘Or a shed.’
As my interest grew in the sleazier horrors of the big city, I started a map on the back of a kitchen poster and plotted the worst excesses. That’s when I realised that this stuff was too dangerous to leave on a computer for anyone to find. I bought a new laptop and burned most of my files. I could plot what I wanted on my map. The pattern and trends of evil began to emerge: and I wasn't surprised so much by the depravity as by its extent.
First, and easily the worst class by any standards of humanity, were the child abusers. But even here there was a distinction, and one that I observed and annotated scrupulously, between the sick and the guilty, the helpless and the wicked. Many of the sex offenders were clearly as nutty as fruit cakes and although the impact of their actions was dreadful -- and sometimes fatal to their victims - equally clearly they should just be put away.
But there was another, darker group. There's a world of difference between an idiot sub-normal who exposes himself to schoolgirls and then bungles an attempt to rape one by swinging a stick in a dripping park, and two polytechnic lab technicians who cold-bloodedly lure a young boy home, then torture him until he breaks down, giving himself to them, preferring the humiliation and degradation to the pain and the fear.
You'd lock the sub-normal idiot up, wouldn't you? He really doesn't know any better. Far better he's tucked away in some nice cosy institute, full of people with IQs of 60 on a good day, where they can hammer out their own brand of crude institutional society, away from their embarrassed families and 'nice' people, with only underpaid and antagonistic psychiatric nurses to hold the ring and watch their charges' excesses with bored dislike. Better there than roaming the community, going nutty and knifing total strangers on tube stations, or themselves becoming soft victims for the street wolves.
But the other two goons? What do you do with supposedly educated
men,
whose idea of a good time is to spend an evening sitting giggling over a video, breathing in the screams of their last victim, like perfume? Two sadistic queers excited by the memory of the anguish of their last big night out and then indirectly boasting about it on the Internet? What would you do? Well, I know what I would do, and I'll bet ninety nine percent of the human race, gay
and
straight, would agree with me.
There was another trend that my press cuttings revealed: maybe not as evil as the child-abusers, but faster
growing:
the bad muggers. Like some strain of jackal, a breed of lawless carnivore seemed to be proliferating in the inner recesses of our big cities, especially London. Like their wild counterparts, these human wolfpacks preyed on the herbivores of society, never on the healthy or robust; always on the weak, old and defenceless members of the herd. The more I read, the nastier they seemed.
I think that's what finally made me decide to act. Oh, yes, I thought about Spicer, and Varley and what I'd done. But it seemed right, now, after what Barbara had said. Dammit, even the police were saying it. Someone had to do something, for the weak, for the people who couldn't fight for themselves. It was the wild packs of feral kids that were the worst.
A few days later, as I was pounding along towards Hyde Park, I asked myself whether it really was up to me to fix it. Daft question. Who else? Not the police. Not the government. And certainly not some bunch of do-gooding, left wing social workers. No, it had to be me – or someone like me. I didn’t see any rush of Guardian readers or concerned liberal school teachers begging to sort out the bad guys. In fact they were the ones doing the most complaining. Even though they had probably done more to cause the problems than the little shits who were causing the damage in the first place. It struck me that the nastiest groups of urban low life seemed to attract the most horrified fascination from the bleeding hearts of the ‘socially aware’ and the media. Well, I was just as socially aware as the next bastard and I was going to do something concrete for society, not just wail about its iniquities, or call for more expensively salaried ‘outreach workers’. Hell: they should be proud of my civic conscience….
Of all the groups that needed sorting out, it was the gangs of muggers and rapists picking on the elderly who were really asking for it. They were particularly vicious and cowardly, and they were often untouchable by the police, who seemed to be powerless in the face of increasing press indignation. I pounded on morning after morning, mulling over the thought.
If ever there was an area where I could make a dramatic impact, it was here. Beating up and raping a seventy two year old granny was just too easy, and too nasty to be allowed to stand. Someone really
should
do something about people like that. It was obvious. The problem was that was nobody
was
doing anything about it.
With bleak satisfaction, I made some plans. The cowardly hunters were to become the hunted. The leopard was going to drop out of the tree to stalk the jackals for a change, and I'll bet the much preyed-upon herds of cattle would heartily approve.
This was going to be fun.
London
My new found enthusiasm for the crusade for righteousness, truth and justice was somewhat dampened next morning then Mallalieu buzzed me. "You'd better come in right away," squawked the intercom in the Ops Room.
With an unfeigned sigh, I handed a half-checked list of operational returns to one of the support staff. "You'd better finish checking those," shrugged on my jacket and walked through. With a start I saw Harry Plummer sitting alongside Mallalieu at the Chief of Staff's desk. They both stared up at me.
"Well, come in, come in," said Mallalieu irritably. "Don't stand there gawping in the door." Recovering myself, I walked in and took a chair. Harry Plummer eyed me with, I thought, something more than dispassionate interest. But maybe I was imagining things.
"Well?" I queried.
Mallalieu jerked his head at the policeman. "Harry's got a nasty theory. We've got to check it out. Tell him, Harry."
Plummer took a thin buff file cover from his case. "I can't show you this officially, because this is a formal Met inquiry.
Criminal.
Do you remember that businessman who was killed last month? John Varley? Ex-MP. Lived in Kent."
The room went perfectly quiet as everything stopped still like a time freeze. I heard the blood thumping in my ears and felt my throat constrict. They both looked at me. "Vaguely," I said, clearing my throat after a false start. "Why?" I could feel my heart thudding in my chest.
Plummer looked down at the file. "Well, before he died, Varley managed to give a pretty full statement. It's an odd sort of report. It rambles a lot, as you might expect from a man with his injuries. And he was drugged up, so it’s not really
evidential.
... It's just that his description of his attacker makes us think he might have been a professional."
"Oh, yes?" I said
, as non-
committally
as I
could. My brain had started working again and now I felt hot. I could hear the sound of the traffic outside and in contrast to the stillness and shock of a moment ago, time seemed to have speeded up. "What sort of professional?"
Plummer stopped and looked at Mallalieu as if for guidance. "Well, it was all so ... well, like a professional hit, if you see what I mean. And there's other
evidence, too. He described some of the equipment his attacker used."
I was puzzled. Varley hadn't seen my tools. "What sort of equipment?"
"His rucksack for example. Varley described it quite clearly." He consulted the Met report on his knee. "'The man was wearing a very small, narrow dark green rucksack with brighter green nylon tapes rolled up against the side pockets and black zips ... ' Hm." He paused, reading on. "There's an interruption here. He was probably going in and out of consciousness."
"But I don't get the significance of the rucksack, Harry."
"Don't you? No, well, it's just that ... ah, here we are ..., 'and it had a small yellow panel on the back with
212
on it'."
He looked up and I felt the sweat gather under my armpits. DS Harry Plummer had just accurately described my own ex-SAS rucksack, sitting in my lock-up garage. "I still don't get the point."
"Harry's just described the SAS special entry back pack," Mallalieu said. "Very small," he emphasised, "With a yellow number panel on the back. We wondered if you remember the type, the one with the bright green utility straps?"
"Oh, yes - vaguely. Didn't the CRW boys use those for CME?"
"CME?" queried Harry.
"Yes, ‘Covert Methods of Entry’, " said Mallalieu. "Harry's been doing the rounds of all the specialised units, trying to find out more. The CO down at Hereford identified it immediately. It's the standard SAS CME intruder pack."
Harry nodded slowly.
“Only certain people do that course. After all," Mallalieu smiled thinly, "The Army doesn't want to train a strain of potential supercriminals, do they..?"
"Just murderers?" riposted Plummer. He didn't look amused. Mallalieu pulled a face.
"OK, OK, I've got the point," I interrupted. "But what do you want me to do? What's it to do with us?" Mallalieu looked at Harry Plummer, then back to me. He seemed embarrassed.
"Well ... it's just that Harry wonders how many ex-SAS or CME trained people we have working for us. We thought you would know most accurately."
"Now, hang on a minute, Colonel. Those packs could be used by anyone. You can probably buy them at Silverman's surplus store down the City Road."
“Not so," Harry Plummer cut it. "According to MOD, it was a limited one-off order of 500 packs placed by the Army Operational Requirements staff. OR2. They were unique and made to a special specification. There are," and he consulted a list on his knee. "As of last week, there were two hundred in the Army Stores Depot at Andover, new and unissued, all accounted for. There are one hundred and eighty in the SAS stores at Stirling lines, at Hereford, forty seven on issue to the CRW teams - that's a total of four hundred and twenty seven; plus thirty four on issue to the training establishment at the Manor and at some unpronounceable place in Wales."
He looked up. "That's every single one physically checked, too. That gives us grand total of four hundred and sixty one. So we're looking for what happened to the other thirty nine."
"That's a tall order, isn't it? Thirty nine missing, eh?" I relaxed. Harry was chasing a needle in a haystack. Thirty nine packs could be anywhere.
"Not really. It's the
yellow
212
panel that
gives us the clue. According to Hereford's records, that was on issue to the training section of Counter Revolutionary Wing exactly - er- five years ago. The QM recognised the squadron identification system immediately," he added, somewhat unnecessarily, I thought. I was beginning to feel warm again.
"Where does that leave us?" I stressed the 'us'.
"Well, it means that the pack that Varley saw was taken by someone with access to the SAS Training Teams' CRW store between five and six years ago. It was reported missing at the end of that financial year, along with thirteen others."
Mallalieu grunted. "It's always the way with attractive Army stores, Harry. Did anyone get billed for it?"
Plummer shook his head. "No, only three people paid for lost packs from the CRW team that year. But none of those were 'yellow 212'."
"How can you be so sure?"
Harry eyed me coolly. "Because we've already checked with the three people in question. None of them had 'yellow 212." He consulted his list. "We've got 'green 127' and 'red 090'. The other guy really did lose his pack, but it was a red section one, too; he thinks it was '111', although he's not sure. Doesn't matter though, I can back check that."
"So what does all this lead to?"
“It leads to the fact that whoever killed Mr John Varley was probably an ex-SAS man or had some kind of access to that organisation’s specialist stores at some time five years ago," said Harry Plummer grimly.
"Now steady on,..." I began, but Harry over-rode me.
"And that person is a very dangerous individual who must be found. So we're checking all the likely employers of such people to see if we can identify our man. And when we've checked the bigger organisations, we'll check all the individuals. There aren't that many," he added. "After all, it's a pretty specialised field."
Mallalieu was nodding now. "Right. Absolutely right."
He turned to me. "Now, cast your mind back. Have any of our people had that kind of access?"
Acutely conscious of Harry Plummer's keen eyes peering at me over his file, I tried to think straight. Obviously they both knew that I had had access; but who else? "Well," I began, "Anyone could have nicked the pack and then sold it or given it away. But access
?
There's Tony Bell, and Alex, although he's dead now. I don't know if James Davidson did that part of the course as well. He's dead, too," I added for Harry's benefit. "I don't remember him particularly." They were both looking at me. "And me, of course ... there were about fifteen of us going through that year. But surely Hereford will have lists?"
"Oh, they did," said Harry. He consulted the file again. "I reckon that there are about twenty eight people who really had access to that pack." He closed his file decisively. "Do you know," he started in a conversational tone, "that nine of those twenty eight are dead already?"
I was shocked. "As many as that?"
"Yes, and now I've talked to you, that
means
I
've only
got two more left to talk too." He stood up, smiled and stretched. "And one of those is five feet five and nearly bald already. And he doesn't have piercing blue eyes. So I think he's unlikely as Mr Varley's attacker." He looked at me.
Mallalieu stood up, too. "Well, is there anything else we should do, or can do? I mean...” he tailed off.
Harry shook his head. "No, I'll press on; provided you check your likely pack-men on the strength here. You must have a few." He was eyeing me closely, I felt. Was he staring at
my
eyes, I wondered?
I forced a smile. "One or two, Harry. We're that kind of outfit. Has it occurred to you that the pack could have been stolen; or given away, even?"
"Yes," he said. There was a note in his voice that worried me. With an air of finality he shoved the file into his briefcase. "Anything's possible. Well, I'll be off; thanks for your help, Colonel."
Mallalieu shook his hand and let him to the door. I followed.
"Will you catch him, do you think?" said Mallalieu.
"Oh yes, Colonel, we'll catch him all right." He looked at me, then back to Mallalieu. "These people always give themselves away in the end. It's the desire for publicity and recognition that'll make him careless or overconfident. You see, deep down, he really wants people to know it's him." He smiled. "Don't worry. I'll bet my pension he's caught or dead within a couple of years." Harry Plummer's pension was a standing joke.
I took him down the stairs and saw him off. At the first floor door, he paused. "I always feel a bit sorry for that bloke Varley, you know.”
“Why’s that, Harry? You must have seen a few murders in your time.”
“I have. But Varley was stabbed with a poker in the guts. Nasty. Painful way to die. And he was probably only topped because of a cigarette lighter. Funny, isn’t it?”
“A cigarette lighter?” What the hell was he talking about? A lighter?
“That’s right. As he was dying, Varley told the investigating officer who took his statement that he’d pulled a lighter on his attacker. One of those ones that looks like a gun. A pistol. From America. He thought it might frighten them off. That’s why he was stabbed. Or so he said.” He shook his head. “Replica guns, eh? More trouble than the real ones, if you ask me.”
To say I was stunned was the understatement of the year. A vision of that dreadful evening flashed into my mind. I remembered him fumbling with that blue-black pistol from the desk. But a lighter? I’d stabbed Varley and killed him – for a
bloody
cigarette
lighter
?
Harry was still talking. “…we've got to find this bloke, you know. Can you check your people?"
I found it difficult to think, let alone speak. A lighter? “Of course. I'll do my best to check our people out, Harry.” I heard myself saying. “But let’s face it, it’s a pretty thin theory, isn’t it? There must be dozens of professional hit men in London these days. And Manchester: and Glasgow. The place is crawling with Russians and Serbians and Christ knows what today. And that pack thing’s a bit tenuous. We might be clutching at straws. That pack could have been passed on, or stolen. You know it could. Probably sold at some dodgy boot fair, I shouldn’t wonder. There must be lots in circulation."
"Yes." He eyed me speculatively yet again. "Yes,. Still. It’s a bit of a coincidence - an SAS pack in an SAS-type raid, isn't it? “ He shrugged. “Well, I'll be off then." His solid form descended the stair well and was dark against the bright
daylight refl
e
cting off
the gleaming floor. From the landing I watched him disappear into the street, then walked slowly back upstairs.
I was going to have to be very careful, even if it meant risking Harry Plummer's much-prized pension.
Despite the police checking, I wasn't too deterred from my plans to get at some of the mugger gangs. The Firm's records revealed that of the four Bull Pen operators, all had been linked with the SAS - which, as Mallalieu wearily pointed out on Plummer's next visit, - they wouldn't have been recruited if they hadn't. With myself, there were over seven ex-Regiment employees, none of whom could be proved to have direct contact with pack 212. There were a lot of other ex-SAS men for the police to check, and after a week or two, the enquiries seemed to peter out.
Nevertheless, I resolved to be cautious, and went looking for yobboes and muggers in Brixton.
That should be easy enough.