To Hell in a Handcart. Richard Littlejohn

Trevor’s arm, spun him round and took another good look.

      ‘OK,’ he said.

      ‘Mickey?’ said the desk sergeant.

      ‘Nothing, sarge. Let’s get this geezer booked in, D&D. Complaint from the landlord of the Dun Cow.’

      Roberta put Trevor back in his cell and left the custody area. She walked along the corridor, past the canteen, up the stairs and into the juvenile bureau. She switched on an anglepoise lamp and walked over to a filing cabinet. It was unlocked. Under G, she found it. Gibbs, Trevor, possession of an offensive weapon, to wit, one knife. First offence. Caution administered and recorded. Arresting officer, PC107 French.

      Fuck it.

      ‘Found what you were looking for?’

      Mickey French startled her.

      ‘Er, yeah.’

      ‘And what are you going to do about it?’

      ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘I’ve been talking to Eric Marsden.’

      ‘And?’

      ‘Fromby’s trying to fit him up on an assault on the prisoner.’

      ‘I reckon he did beat him.’

      ‘Eric denies it. Says he got the injuries in the fight outside the chip shop. Sounds about right. I nicked Gibbs the last time. He’s a nasty little fucker. You going to charge him?’

      ‘Mr Formby says that if we charge Gibbs, he’ll make a formal complaint against Marsden.’

      ‘If this caution comes to light, you’ve got no option but to charge him.’

      ‘What should I do?’

      “That’s up to you, girl.’

      Roberta thought that this was no time to raise the issue of inappropriate sexist language. Actually, she rather liked Mickey. He wasn’t as much of a bastard as the older Plods.

      ‘Fromby knows about the previous. He wants me to lose it. And the knife,’ she blurted out in panic.

      ‘What, this one?’ said Mickey, waving a plastic bag above his head containing the knife Marsden had confiscated from Trevor Gibbs.

      ‘Where did you get that from?’

      ‘Never you mind. What are you going to do with the previous?’

      ‘The way I see it is that everybody wins here. Fromby gets what he wants, Marsden’s off the hook. Everybody’s happy,’ she replied, nervously.

      ‘And what if I don’t give a fuck and turn you in?’

      Roberta froze.

      Mickey raised his other hand. It contained a small cassette recorder. It was still running.

      Shit.

      ‘Give me that,’ he said, motioning his hand towards the folder Roberta held under her arm. ‘You’re a lucky girl.’

      ‘Lucky?’

      ‘There’s two copies still in here. Usually we keep one and send the other to central records at the Yard. This hasn’t gone off yet. I must have forgotten.’

      ‘So what happens now?’

      ‘You’re a silly fucking cow. Old Eric Marsden may be a cunt but he’s only got a year left to his pension.’

      Roberta was in no position to take exception to the use of the vaginal expletive or to protest about being called a silly fucking cow. She knew she was a silly fucking cow. At least on this occasion.

      ‘So?’

      ‘So why wreck anyone’s career here. Eric Marsden’s or yours?’

      ‘What about the sergeant?’

      ‘He is the original wise monkey. He sees nothing, hears nothing, says nothing. He doesn’t want to know. No charge, no paperwork. He’s sweet. Fromby’s hardly going to say anything. The boy certainly won’t object to being released. Eric will stay shtoom and he’ll put the frighteners on the skinhead who picked him out. He’ll tell the sergeant that Gibbs is being released pending further inquiries. That’ll be the end of it.’

      ‘And you? What’s in it for you?’

      ‘I don’t want Eric going down the shitter and I reckon you’ve got a big future.’

      Nice tits, too, he thought.

      ‘What are you going to do with all this – the knife, the file, the tape recording?’ she asked.

      Mickey stroked the stubble on his chin and shrugged his shoulders. ‘I haven’t thought about it. Nothing, maybe. Who knows?’

       Eight

      Ilie Popescu knew the men from Moscow would come looking for him. His father, Marin, had set him up in the car-smuggling business and sent him to Hamburg, where he stole Mercedes, BMWs, Audis and Porsches to order and shipped them to the former Soviet Union. The hard cash he sent back to the Tigani helped finance his father’s other line of business, an organized begging racket across Western Europe.

      At twenty-one, Ilie was an accomplished car thief. It was easy money. In the first six months, Ilie successfully stole and despatched cars worth almost $3 million on the black market. The deal was always cash on delivery.

      On a roll, emboldened by an unblemished track record, Ilie met his Russian contact and explained that in future he would need half the money up front. He had overheads, he explained. There were police officers and port security guards to be paid off.

      The message was relayed to the men in Moscow, who were unhappy about the new terms and conditions. But they trusted Marin Popescu, with whom they had done business for several years since the fall of Communism. They would extend that trust to his son.

      A week later, Ilie received $500,000 in advance of his next consignment, in unmarked, used notes in a leather attaché case, passed to him by his contact in a bar off the Reeperbahn. In return he was handed a list containing the marque and specification of the vehicles he was to supply, some of them destined for clients in the Middle East.

      The deliveries were to be completed within one month. Ilie would receive the balance when the cars arrived in Moscow.

      That gave him plenty of time to party. He was a good-looking boy, lean, about 5ft 9ins, with short, jet-black hair, chocolate-brown eyes and a winning, slightly menacing, smile. In Hamburg, he had developed a taste for expensive clothes, nightclubbing, whores, cocaine and gambling.

      Cocaine and gambling don’t mix. There’s calculated risk and then there’s recklessness. Ilie came down on the recklessness side of the equation. In one week in the casinos, Ilie blew the thick end of $350,000 on the tables, $350,000 the Russians had given him as a down payment.

      So what? Ilie told himself. It doesn’t concern them. They’ll get their cars and I’ll get the balance.

      The cocaine convinced Ilie he was invincible. It also made him sloppy.

      His modus operandi had always been to target vehicles belonging to Hamburg’s high-rollers and wealthy industrialists, importers and exporters. He stole them individually from parking lots and garages, paying off chauffeurs and car park attendants for information and silence.

      Single car thefts attracted little attention from the authorities. The owners were irritated, but insured for full replacement value. Why should they worry?

      Within a fortnight, Ilie had frittered the whole $500,000. He hadn’t stolen a single car for over two weeks, his Russian contact was becoming concerned. Don’t panic, Ilie reassured him. Have I ever let you down?