One time, eighteen months ago, that capability had been put to the ultimate test. The two of them had been working on an assignment to infiltrate and gather evidence on a south London-based coke and cannabis smuggling gang led by a psychotic thug named Frank Rentners. Rentners, an ex-boxer who’d served time for manslaughter, had ambitions to tie up the dope and coke market in his patch of south-east London, and he ran a sophisticated and lucrative operation in which the drugs were brought in on lorries overland from Spain among consignments of fruit and veg. At the time of the assignment, it was estimated that Rentners and his crew were turning over close to a million a year in sales, and were expanding fast thanks to their policy of undercutting (quite literally in one case) the competition.
Once again, the two of them had posed as buyers from the provinces looking to set up an ongoing business relationship with Rentners to purchase quantities of his imported gear. An informant had introduced them to a small-time player called Jack Brewster who knew someone else within the gang. This is usually how it works in the criminal world: word of mouth. Somebody knows somebody who knows somebody else. It’s a good way of working because so many people get involved that by the time the bad guys are nicked they’re not sure who it was who actually grassed them up. That was the theory anyway.
Brewster, who’d had no idea that the people he was representing were police officers, had been promised a commission by Stegs and Vokes if he could get his contact within the gang to set up a meeting between them and Rentners. Feelers had been put out and eventually Rentners had agreed to see Stegs, Vokes and Brewster in a pub in Streatham for an initial chat. If all went well, then they’d take it to the next step: a test purchase.
So when they’d gone to the pub, there’d been no reason to suspect that things were going to go wrong. It was just a first meeting. He and Vokes weren’t even wearing wires, relying instead on the fact that officers from SO11, Scotland Yard’s intelligence-gathering unit, had put a tracking device under Rentners’ car, just in case they changed venues. Brewster, who’d met the two of them in a Burger King just down the road, had been laughing and chatting, and was keen to know when he could expect some money. Stegs remembered that he’d told him it wouldn’t be too long and that he had nothing to worry about because he, Stegs, was a man of his word. Brewster had seemed happy enough with that.
Rentners had been in the pub with three of his men. They all looked pretty much identicaclass="underline" shaven-headed, powerfully built, and togged out in three-quarter-length black leather jackets, black jeans and Timberlands. Like a doormen’s barbershop quartet — not that Stegs expected this lot to break out in song, not unless it was the Funeral March anyway. Rentners had been shorter than the rest, and older — probably about forty-five — but you could tell from the way he stood in the middle of the group, one elbow resting on the bar, that he was the leader. He had a black goatee beard modelled along the lines of one Satan might wear, and a similarly fiendish half-smile. All that was missing were the horns and forked tail.
He’d looked the three of them up and down slowly and silently, trying to maximize the menace, then said straight away that they were going somewhere else. No-one had argued, this sort of welcome being par for the course, and the seven of them had left the pub through the back entrance that led out to a tiny car park. Two Mercedes, both black, were parked next to each other. Brewster was ushered into one along with two of Rentners’ goons, while Stegs and Vokes were invited into the back seat of the other. Rentners sat in the front passenger seat while the fourth member of the group drove.
‘Where are we heading?’ asked Vokes, who on this particular occasion was acting as the senior of the two of them.
‘Just for a little drive,’ growled their host, with that same devilish little half-smile which was not designed to make the recipient feel any better. ‘Sit back and relax.’
And with that, he pressed a button and a tinted partition came down, making further communication impossible. The two SO10 men glanced at each other, but remained calm. In the end, Frank Rentners was a businessman and they were potential customers with some serious money to spend, so neither of them expected any real problems. They’d done this sort of thing plenty of times before.
They drove through the streets of south London for close to three-quarters of an hour, losing the other car in the process. The driver kept to the quieter roads, occasionally doubling back on himself until eventually they were into the suburbs. They passed through Orpington, crossed the M25 at Swanley, and continued in a south-easterly direction. There was still no sign of the other car, and Stegs wondered whether they were going to see Brewster again that day, and whether the SO11 men were also on their tail.
An hour and five minutes into the journey by Stegs’s watch, they suddenly pulled off the road they were travelling on and drove up a dirt track through woods until they came to a modern two-storey red-brick house set back on its own behind a small, neatly trimmed garden. The other Merc was already there, parked up on the driveway, along with a red Golf. They pulled up behind the Merc and the driver cut the engine.
Rentners got out along with the driver, and beckoned them to do the same. ‘Are you hungry?’ he asked, when they were standing on the driveway.
It was one o’clock in the afternoon and they both said they were, so Rentners, his smile a little more welcoming now, ushered them towards the house. Stegs noticed that he had his own key which he used to let them in, and he wondered briefly if this property was in Rentners’ name.
The interior was surprisingly sparse. There were no pictures or ornaments in the hallway, and the unfashionable black carpet looked cheap. Rentners led them through to a large dining room that looked out on to trees. A large table took up most of the room and it was laid for seven people. Two bottles of Ty Nant mineral water were in the middle of the table along with a bottle each of red and white wine. Even eighteen months on, Stegs Jenner remembered all these little details. He remembered everything about that day.
Brewster was already sitting down at the table along with the other two. He greeted them with a slightly confused smile, as if he too wasn’t a hundred per cent sure what was going on. Stegs and Vokes took seats opposite him.
‘Help yourselves to drinks,’ said Rentners, and disappeared out of the room.
Stegs helped himself to a glass of red. He wouldn’t have drunk on duty normally but it was Chateauneuf du Pape. Whatever else could be said of Rentners, he had good taste in wine. Vokes shot him a sideways glare and poured himself some water.
‘Well, this is very nice,’ said Stegs, not really meaning it at all. It wasn’t nice. It was weird. He’d been working with SO10 a long time, and no-one had ever fed him at a first meeting.
‘It is, isn’t it?’ said Brewster, an excruciatingly ingratiating smile on his face as he looked around. Stegs thought then that he really didn’t like Brewster. He had the furtive air of a child molester.