The sixth member of the team was in his motorcycle leathers.
Detective Constable Jo Coniston was the newest member of the surveillance unit, two months into the job following many weeks of extensive training. She sat at the table in the briefing room, mug of black coffee in hand, a tiny smirk of satisfaction playing on her lips.
She was ecstatically happy.
She had been a police officer for just over four years, all that time spent as a uniformed bobby on the beat. It had been a tough, exciting time at the sharpest end of policing imaginable, working the cauldron that was Moss Side, Manchester. The posting had opened Jo’s eyes to a world she had only ever imagined existed in horror nightmares. A world in which a shooting occurred almost daily, where drugs, violence and intimidation ruled a frightened community and where the police could only hope to keep a lid on things — on a good day.
She had been first on the scene of four murders, two of which had been innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire of a drive-by shooting. She had administered first aid at six other shootings and stabbings and had made one arrest for murder during which the suspect assaulted her remorselessly with a hammer in his attempt to escape. But she held on tight until assistance came. She received a Chief Constable’s Commendation for that effort, plus four days in hospital suffering from concussion and a broken wrist.
Four solid years of it made her crave for a change of scene. When she got wind that the Surveillance Branch were looking for female applicants, she put in a report and, following a tough initial test, she was accepted as a member.
Jo sat quietly at the table, listening to the quiet banter of her teammates, content in her choice of career move. A couple of years following villains around the country would do her very nicely, thank you, she thought. Then she would apply for a job on CID after she had taken her Sergeant’s promotion examination. Professionally, the next few years were pretty much mapped out in her mind. It had been a good decision to join the police and she was forever thankful that her mother had dragged her to a careers convention where her imagination had been fired up by a detective on the police stand. His lurid tales of life as a cop had totally won her over.
In personal terms, though, she was not as clear. A slight frown came on her face as she thought about her most recently ditched boyfriend. Then she shrugged it off and the smile returned to her pretty face. She looked up from her brew as the team leader, Sergeant Al Major breezed into the room, a set of brown files under his arm and a big smile on his face.
‘Hi, people,’ he said as brightly as his personality. ‘Everyone well?’
The small talk had ceased on Major’s arrival. The team focused on him and the job in hand.
‘You may be surprised to learn,’ Major announced, ‘that today we are back on the trail of our old friend and foe, Andy Turner.’
A groan chorused from the team.
‘I know, I know,’ Major said, holding his hands up in defeat, ‘but one day we’re gonna get this bastard bang-to-rights, if you young-uns will pardon the rather traditional turn of phrase.’ Major began to pass out the folders, one to each team member. Jo took hers eagerly and opened it. Yes! she thought. She had been itching to get involved in an operation which targeted Andy Turner, a man who boasted that the law would never touch him as long as he lived.
As ever, Al Major’s briefing was precise and detailed. It took half an hour, gave some of the past history of their target, Andy Turner, and brought the team up to date with the latest intelligence available on him.
Turner was only a young man, twenty-five years old, yet he had established himself in certain parts of Manchester and Lancashire as a ruthless operator, very wild and unpredictable in his approach; a man with no conscience whatsoever. He was no master criminal in that he was not discreet with his actions or lifestyle, nor was he particularly wary of the law. Cops did not frighten him. Courts did not even make him think twice. He had tried to mow down one policeman who tried to arrest him a few years earlier, had gone on the run and been arrested in Spain when he tried the same with a Spanish cop. On his subsequent extradition he had been jailed for two years and let it be known at his trial that he would gladly kill any cop who got in his way. On his release from prison, the Crown Court judge who had sentenced him had been killed in a hit-and-run car accident. It was never proved, though it was strongly suspected, that Turner had murdered him.
He had laid low for some time following this and intelligence reports had him dotted around Europe, particularly in Spain and Portugal, establishing contacts and dealing drugs and guns. He disappeared from that scene after a German drug dealer was found dead with two bullets in his brain. Again, Turner was suspected, but there was no actual evidence to link him to the crime.
And now he was back on home turf, beginning to expand a drug-dealing network in north Manchester and into Lancashire.
His methods were brutal, but such was his cold-blooded reputation, that no one would ever challenge or testify against him and very few would risk informing on him to the cops.
The police wanted to nail him — badly.
He was very surveillance-conscious though. All previous operations had been binned, but now they were going for him again with the intention of building up a conspiracy case against him.
‘OK, guys ’n’ gals,’ Al Major said as his briefing drew to a close, ‘that’s about the long and short of it. Let me reiterate: this man is very, very dangerous. He could well be carrying a firearm. At the very least he’ll have a flick-knife on him and if something goes wrong and you’re unfortunate enough to come face to face to face with him and he makes you as a cop, he’ll have a go at you. Be wary,’ he finished.
Jo Coniston went into the admin office and picked up a set of keys for the battered Nissan she and her partner would be using that evening.
‘Hey — got there before me,’ a voice exclaimed behind her. It was her partner, Dale O’Brien, another newish member of the Surveillance Branch. Jo liked him well enough, but she did not really believe he had what it took to be a good surveillance officer. He seemed to have very little patience, did not enjoy ‘sitting’ on things, always wanted to be on the move, delving and probing. Jo gave him another couple of months before he decided to transfer into something more appropriate, such as pro-active CID work.
‘Yeah,’ she said, teasing him by dangling them, then whisking the keys out of the flexing grasp of his long fingers. ‘I’ll drive — at least for the first few hours.’ She almost said, ‘The first half of the tour of duty,’ but checked herself because these days a normal tour of duty was not eight, ten or even twelve hours. Fourteen was the usual length and there was no way she wanted to drive for seven solid hours.
O’Brien shrugged happily. ‘OK.’ He spun out of the office, nearly colliding with Al Major, who was on his way in. ‘Oops, sorry, Sarge,’ he said, twisting away and curling out through the door.
Major watched him go with a paternal shake of the head. Then he looked at Jo.
She coughed and made to leave behind her partner. Major’s hand shot across in front of her. His fingers gripped the doorjamb tightly, preventing her from leaving. His face, usually bright and open, darkened like a hurricane. His mouth tightened.
Jo’s heart rate upped dramatically at the same time as her stomach sank. She had wanted to avoid this.
‘Let me out, please,’ she said quietly, her voice quavering.
‘Bitch,’ he hissed. He checked over his shoulder. No one was close by. ‘You shouldn’t have done it.’
‘I don’t want to talk about it anymore, Alan, please.’