Barry, seated at his desk, slipped on his reading glasses, quickly skimmed several sheets of paper in front of him, then removed his spectacles and addressed the room. “I mentioned that there was some intelligence about Peter and Ronnie bringing in amphetamine from Holland and it was believed they were using imported cars from Germany to carry the stuff. I told you that they had been flagged up by number three crime squad as targets. Well I managed to track down the DI who was in charge of the team doing surveillance on Peter and Ronnie. He’s called Tom Stone, who’s now retired and living in Devon. As soon as I mentioned the pair’s names I couldn’t shut him up. He’d every reason to as well, because the operation he ran went belly-up.” He put on his glasses again and referred to his notes. A few seconds later he took them off again. “They took the job from drug squad when intelligence indicated they were bringing in the stuff direct from Holland. They started following Peter and Ronnie around in March of nineteen-eighty-six. It wasn’t anything earth-shattering at first. All they had was evidence from a couple of users that Ronnie was the one who was knocking out the gear. And they had nothing on Peter, other than a whisper that it was his money being put up. The fact that he was using the imported car business to bring in the gear came from a significant source six months into the surveillance. In fact, that intelligence highlighted where the collection point was in Holland and some of the distribution outlets in Sheffield and Leeds. Tom says that the job was running really smoothly, and that they were putting together the evidence, slowly but surely, and then nine months into it things started happening which made the team suspicious that Ronnie and Peter were on to them, especially Ronnie, who was the one doing the running around. It was nothing concrete, but occasionally during the surveillance he’d suddenly deviate, double-back, or just put his foot down and lose them in a side street. Then they had regular sightings of two detectives at Peter’s club.” Barry paused and looked around the office. “Yes, you’ve guessed it, Alan Darbyshire and Jeffery Howson. There was nothing to say they were tipping off Peter or Ronnie, but their visits to Peter’s club were too frequent for the Crime Squad’s liking and so they decided to introduce an undercover officer.” He paused again and narrowed his eyes. With mouth set tight, he continued, “And that’s where it went belly-up. He momentarily stroked the line of his jaw with the edge of his reading glasses. “Just to digress a little, when I became aware that Guy Armstrong was sniffing around at the beginning of this enquiry, Sue, my partner, told me that she used to work with him, when he was a reporter with The Chronicle, and when he went on to work for The Daily Mail, that he was involved in a road accident in which a cop was killed. Well this is where it gets very interesting. That cop was the undercover Crime Squad Detective. Tom Stone said he has no idea how Guy Armstrong got involved or if he actually knew the UC man or not. He only became aware of the reporter after the fatal crash late one night on the road between Wakefield and Barnwell. The UC man had already established himself with Ronnie and had just gained enough trust to set up a sting deal. He had ordered a couple of kilos of amphetamine and was arranging a delivery. The detective had gone to Peter’s club the night of the accident to put down a deposit for the gear. The next thing was that at around midnight on tenth July nineteen-eighty-eight, Tom Stone got a phone call about the accident. Apparently, the UC man was a passenger in Guy Armstrong’s car, and was dead, and Armstrong had been taken to hospital seriously injured. Guy had been drinking he was two-and-a-half times over the drink-drive limit and his car had left the road on a bend near Millhouse Dam and had hit a dry stone wall. When they interviewed Guy in hospital, a couple of days later, he insisted they had been run off the road.” Barry paused and stared around the room. He had a captivated audience. “Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Especially with recent events. The bottom line, however, was that they could find no evidence to substantiate his story and so he was charged with causing death by careless driving. He offered the same story at court but he was found guilty and given an eighteen month prison sentence suspended for two years. Because of Guy’s job as a reporter, and because of the sensitive nature of everything, especially with Crime Squad being involved, they decided not to speak to him. And so they never knew what connection Guy had with the undercover detective, or if in fact he ever knew he was working undercover. The guess was that he was just following his nose for the story and the UC man was a source for him to tap into.” Barry shook his head. “We shall never know.” He glanced down at his notes again. “Anyway, there was an internal enquiry, and it was decided to hush the whole thing up and to shelve the ongoing operation against Peter Blake-Hall and Ronnie Fisher. But there is one interesting snippet arising out of this.” He smirked. “I mentioned earlier that Crime Squad got significant information which changed the course of their investigation. Well that source was none other than Daniel Weaver. He apparently wrote to them from his prison cell.”
* * * * *
After learning from a neighbour that Kerri-Ann Bairstow hadn’t been seen at her own flat for the past fortnight, Hunter and Grace spent the morning driving around several of the council estates in Barnwell, banging on doors. Every time, they’d missed her by days — she had crashed down for a couple of nights before moving on. Finally, after two-and-half-hours of what seemed like a cat-and-mouse chase, they got lucky. At one address the female occupant told them that Kerri-Ann had left the previous evening and that she was in a bit of a mess — drinking heavily and not eating properly. In a drunken stupor, two nights ago, Kerri-Ann had rambled on about someone wanting to kill her, and the friend was really worried about her. She gave the detectives another address to try.
The bungalow at Oak Drive was registered to a pensioner. The front curtains were closed, but as Hunter neared the door he could hear signs of life inside — well, the TV was on, and he took that as a sign of occupancy.
Grace slipped around the back as Hunter banged on the front door.
He saw the curtains of the room window to the left twitch. A few seconds later, he heard raised voices coming from the rear before his partner shouted, “She’s round here Hunter.”
He found Grace grappling with Kerri-Ann Bairstow, trying to pin her against the wall. The girl was doing her best to squirm out of her black leather jacket in an attempt to get free.
Hunter grabbed hold of her arm and made sure she was going nowhere. Kerri-Ann’s bleary blue eyes burned with a mixture of fear and hate.
“Get off me, you bitch,” she screamed.
Her breath reeked of stale booze.
Hunter tightened his grip. “Kerri-Ann, calm down.”
After a couple more failed attempts to break free, she stopped struggling. “I ain’t done nothing. What’re you fucking ’arassing me for?”
“We’re not harassing you Kerri-Ann. All we want is a chat,” said Grace. “Now I’m going to let go of you. If you kick-off again, or try to do a runner, then you will be arrested.”
Grace and Hunter both released their grip. Kerri-Ann shook herself.
“I’m going to make a complaint. You can’t do this when I ain’t done nothink.”
“Fine Kerri-Ann, absolutely fine,” said Grace, “Come on. We’ll take you to the police station, and introduce you to a nice inspector, if that’s what you want.”
She scanned the two detectives’ faces. “Pair of fucking smart-arses.” She exaggerated the re-arranging of her jacket. “Anyway, what do you two want again?”
“How do you know it’s you we want to speak to? It might be Mr Thompson, who lives here,” said Grace.
Hunter stayed quiet. On their last meeting, it had been Grace who had broken down Kerri-Ann’s defences and persuaded her to be a witness in a recent murder trial. He was there in case she kicked-off again, or tried to escape.