The property had extensive land, both in front and behind, with about an acre of dense woodland and a small manmade lake. They knew there were dogs at the front of the house, but didn’t know if they would be loose or chained. There was a red Ferrari parked outside a double garage and, behind it, the Mitsubishi.
Langton was standing in a corridor, lighting a cigarette when Anna walked towards him.
‘Only place you can smoke in here without the alarms going off,’ he grumbled.
‘We’re ordering some food for everyone,’ she said. ‘You want anything?’
He shook his head, and took a deep drag on the cigarette; then rested his head against the windowpane. ‘We’ve got the authority to deploy firearms officers. As soon as the armed response guys get here, we go in. I’ve waited long enough.’
She put her hand on the small of his back, but said nothing. She then returned to the waiting teams of officers, and gave a silent prayer that Camorra would be at the house.
Chapter Twenty-One
Leatherhead police station had never seen so much action. Boxes of pizza and beakers of coffee were handed round. Langton’s team had taken over a large room on the first floor, used as an incident room when necessary. They now had a map of the area, plus a detailed layout of the property from a prominent estate agency, which had sold it about two years ago, for over three million pounds, to someone called Emmerick Orso. The previous owners, a Mr and Mrs Powell, had remained on the estate, retaining as their home what would once have been the staff cottage. The estate agency had recently been approached by Mr Orso, with the particulars of the property, to query the boundary line that crossed the lake. They had not as yet contacted Mr and Mrs Powell to discuss it, but were intending to do so.
Everyone was poised, adrenalin pumping, waiting for Langton’s decision on how to orchestrate the raid. Langton joined them, and did actually have a slice of pepperoni pizza, but he was strangely distant and didn’t interact with anyone. Eventually, he called Mike Lewis over and asked him to get the key team together. He needed a talk, and fast. In a small anteroom off the main incident room, allocated for Langton’s personal use, his team gathered.
Langton sat on the edge of a table. ‘I’ve put a hold on the armed response team.’ He said it very quietly.
Anna glanced at Mike: he seemed as surprised as she was.
Langton continued. ‘From the copter’s aerial take, we have maybe four adults; the heat sensors said there could also be another two that might be children. Orso’s married with one child, according to the electoral register. He’s got a legitimate import/export company, shipping in artefacts from Africa, and a string of properties, including a warehouse close to Heathrow. He has no police record and he doesn’t fit the profile of our prime suspect, Camorra, but we do know that Camorra, at one time, used the Christian name Emmerick. That’s about all we know until we start pushing some more buttons.’
‘You saying we got the wrong bloke?’ Frank slurped his coffee.
‘Something doesn’t fit. What we have here doesn’t match with that hellhole in Peckham. This guy, Orso: his kid goes to the local school, he’s lived here for two years.’
‘Was he the bloke the little kid saw?’ This was Harry.
‘The estate agent described Orso as tall, elegant, well-educated and very charming, which doesn’t sound like that bloke, or Camorra. Camorra’s a crazy voodoo freak, surrounded with sickos and heavies, whereas we’ve got a respectable business guy in Orso. We’ve so far got nothing on him, or the bloke at the off-licence.’
Anna sipped her coffee. They had already been to the off-licence and interviewed the staff, who knew the bloke only as a semi-regular customer. They did not know his name, just that he lived close by. He always bought good wines and spirits, and paid in cash. They had also checked, and the house did not have milk or newspapers delivered. They had not yet had time to question other local shops, like the butcher’s; nor had they spoken to any neighbours.
Langton lit a cigarette, then put it out when he noticed the fire alarm sensor was above his head; he swore.
‘My gut feeling is that this Emmerick has to be properly checked out. Up until now, we’ve been going along the lines that Camorra is the big cheese but, the more you think about it, the more it doesn’t gel. We’re saying that he’s getting literally hundreds of thousands of pounds, from illegal immigrants to drug-trafficking, but we have found no trace of how he’s been moving the money or where it is stashed: that would need very sophisticated accounting brains! I am not saying that Camorra isn’t wily, because he is; but he’s also crazy. My gut feeling is, he could not have engineered this trafficking solo. So, now we are switching tactics: not going in wham-bam-thank-you. We want to get more information. Yes?’
Brandon said that he was sorry to interrupt, but wasn’t the key objective time? The longer they left it, the more chance Camorra had to skip the country, if he hadn’t already. Harry agreed.
Langton shook his head. ‘You think I haven’t thought about that? If he is in the house, then we will pick him up. If he leaves, we’ll pick him up. I think he could have gone to ground at Orso’s, if he is the main man. We have hanging loose the last days of Joseph Sickert: did he go to the house in Peckham, with Gail’s two children, and did something happen there that made him take the kids to Orso’s place?’
‘But what about the bastards we’ve been after?’ Brandon asked, chucking his empty coffee beaker into a bin.
Langton was getting tired of their interruptions. ‘We do a full-scale surveillance of the property day and night: we find out exactly how many people are in there and what they are doing. We get phone intercepts set up; we get every possible toy to find out what is going down inside. Anyone moves out, we tail them. In the meantime, we check out the warehouse and we check out Emmerick Orso. I want to know what this guy eats for breakfast.’
They broke up and joined the rest of the waiting officers. Langton would oversee the surveillance operation. His team was to return home, get a case packed, and book into local hotels, so they would be on site. In the meantime, the wheels were set in motion. The four officers already staking out the house reported that there had been no movement so far, other than someone putting some rubbish out at eleven o’clock. The house, apart from the security lights, was in darkness.
Anna packed a small overnight bag and was returning to her car, when she received a call from Grace. The DNA of the dead child found in Regent’s Canal matched the DNA of Joseph Sickert: they were the same blood group. The dead child also had the sickle cell trait.
From her hotel room, Anna relayed the information to Langton who, at eleven-fifteen, was still at the Leatherhead station. She also said that she would contact Alison first thing in the morning, to try and get further details from Keith. She had called earlier and been told that he was not showing any severely adverse reactions to the afternoon, but had been withdrawn and quiet. Alison said she would try to talk to him if he was still making progress, rather than regressing.
Anna asked that Alison specifically try to find out what the bad man did, and to now talk to the boy about Joseph Sickert. Someone took him to the zoo and to the Chessington theme park, and they needed to know who that was.
There were a few hours’ delay, as Langton had to get clearance to allow Brandon and Harry to go into Orso’s warehouse. He wanted a covert operation and photographs which, without prior authority, would be a breach of the Human Rights Act. He also organized for an actual customs officer to accompany them.