Good Bait

He was still laughing as, arms pulled sharply back, the cuffs were snapped shut behind him.

Alerted by the phone call, Gordon Dooley made his getaway minutes before the police arrived; avoiding a roadblock by driving across two suburban gardens, scattering shrubs and rose bushes like some profligate guerrilla gardener, before accelerating over the centre of a roundabout and away, leaving two pursuing vehicles in his wake. One of the police helicopters picked him out, fifteen minutes later, his distinctive Porsche Caye

Time, just, to close the motorway at exit 4 and cha

No fool, Dooley slowed, stopped, stepped carefully from the car, hands raised, and began to walk towards a phalanx of armed officers. Following instructions, he lay face down in the centre of the road, arms stretched wide, legs apart.

Almost a full sweep.

Almost.

When the SOCA officers, supported by others from SO 19 and the Major Crime Investigation team of the local Surrey force, arrived at Anton Kosach’s residence, the bird, as the saying goes, had flown.

All that awaited Charlie Frost and his team, alone in that sprawl of a house and grounds, were Letitia and her son; Danya still in his bed, surrounded by stuffed animals and posters of animated superheroes, Letitia in a white towelling dressing gown, sitting at the breakfast bar in the kitchen with a cup of lemon and ginger tea.

When asked about her husband’s whereabouts, she shrugged. ‘How the fuck should I know? Maybe he went out for a pint of milk.’

It was all Frost, normally the most self-contained of men, could do to stop himself slapping her round the face.

56

The operation, as a whole, was deemed a success. Was paraded as such to the press, the media generally.

Five arrested in dawn raids across London and the South-East. Charges ranging from drug dealing to murder.

Criminal gangs behind a vast drug and money laundering network with illegal profits estimated at?100 million smashed in a series of carefully coordinated raids.

?100 million, it had a nice ring to it.

People remembered.

Burcher, the public face of policing on this occasion, stood before the cameras and talked of assiduously accumulated intelligence, meticulous pla

‘This operation has laid bare, once and for all, the link between drugs and violence which lies at the very heart of the Class A drug industry in this country.’

Drugs and violence. Reminders were provided of what had happened in Camden, at Stansted. Photographs, video. Viewers may find some of these images disturbing.

‘The unfortunate shooting by a police marksman of an armed member of the gang, who had previously shot and wounded a police officer and was seeking to evade arrest, has been referred, as a matter of course, to the Police Complaints Authority. The wounded officer is happily expected to make a full recovery.’

Karen left the official piss-up early, found Ramsden in the adjacent car park, leaning against somebody’s Toyota Land Cruiser, kids’ car seats in the back, enjoying a cigarette.

‘Not yours, I assume?’

‘Joking, right? Know what these fuckers cost?’

‘Fifty thousand?’

‘And the rest.’

A smile crossed Karen’s face.

‘What?’

‘Oh, nothing.’ She had been remembering, back when she was seven or eight, Bible class. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s goods.

‘So,’ Ramsden said, ‘celebrations over?’

‘Just getting started.’

‘Not inclined to join in?’

‘No. You?’

Ramsden scowled. ‘Chance to get bevvied up, shag someone else’s wife. Quick poke up against the wall. Who needs it?’

Not me, Karen thought.

‘Getting old, Mike,’ she said.

‘Too bloody right. Pension, five years off. Can’t bloody wait.’

‘Go on. They’ll have to drag you out, kicking and screaming.’

‘Don’t you believe it.’

He lit a fresh cigarette from the butt end of the other. Offered the pack to Karen, who shook her head. There was a silver flask in his inside pocket. Brandy. They passed it between them, ignoring the occasional bursts of music and laughter that sallied out from the main building.

It used to be that officers like Ramsden did their thirty years and, much like the soccer players of yesteryear, took over a newsagent’s or managed a pub. Now it was security, parading around an Arndale Centre somewhere, taking grief from kids for stopping them skateboarding up and down the aisles, and keeping a weather eye out for professional shoplifters who routinely got away with several thousands’ worth of goods a day. Either that or wearing a peaked cap and ersatz uniform behind some gated community stockade.

Poor Mike!

She looked at him with care as she passed the flask for the last time. The lines etched into his face were real, the shadows around his eyes.

‘Got to go,’ Karen said, stepping away. ‘Someone tomorrow needs a clear head. Early start.’

‘Drop you anywhere?’

‘No, it’s fine.’

Fine for some. Right now, Karen was all but wiped out. As early a night as was still possible and then bed.

Sod’s law, her mobile. Not a number she recognised.

Charlie Frost.

‘A few minutes of your time?’

Back at the celebration, Charlie Frost had looked hangdog, even in a life-changing Jackson Pollock tie. Forewarned, his principal target, Anton Kosach, had evaded capture, leaving the country via a private airfield close to the Sussex coast. He was believed to have joined his twin brothers, Parlo and Symon, in Sofia. Or another brother, Bogdah, in the Ukraine. Taras, the only one left in England, was helping with inquiries, as was his wife: both were expected to be released eventually without charge.

On the plus side, SOCA had taken away evidence enough from Kosach’s house — computers, portable hard drives, bank statements, address books, diaries — to see him behind bars for thirty years if he were ever foolish enough to set foot in the country again, or try and settle anywhere with whom the UK had a valid treaty of extradition. One way and another, Kosach, Frost had calculated, had been responsible for laundering as much as?1 million sterling a day.

The interior of Charlie Frost’s car smelt faintly of polish, a distant waft of pine. There was plastic still covering the rear seats. Not a crumpled crisp packet, a discarded tissue anywhere.

‘You remember I raised the possibility before,’ Frost said, ‘some co

Karen nodded.

‘Nothing yet I’d care to swear to, nothing I’d want repeated beyond the confines of this car, but we may have found a link. Money being filtered through one of Milescu’s companies, fetching up first in Luxembourg, then the United Arab Emirates, then Singapore. From there, as of now, we’re not too sure, but if it’s not into a numbered account, the details of which are tattooed somewhere safe inside Anton Kosach’s brain, I’d be surprised.’

He treated Karen to a rare, thin-lipped smile.

‘The thing is this. Details have come to me of a possible relationship between Paul Milescu and Detective Chief Superintendent Burcher. Now were this the case — and I am treading very carefully here, you realise, nothing has been proven — but were that so, then one would want to ask whether any information passed from Superintendent Burcher to Milescu about the operation recently undertaken could have found its way to Kosach in time for him to flee the country. And whether, in exchange for such information, any, em, favours were returned.’