The Rebel: The new crime thriller that will have you gripped in 2018. Jaime Raven

11

      Laura

      The air of enthusiasm that had prevailed at the start of the day quickly evaporated. In its place there grew a stifling sense of foreboding.

      The thoughts of everyone on the task force were dominated by the anonymous text message and its chilling warning.

      As hard as I tried I just couldn’t get it out of my mind. The job we did was often a test of sanity, but I felt that we were now being tested to the limit.

      At lunchtime word came back from the experts in the cyber-crime unit that they were unable to trace the source of the message, which was what we’d expected.

      Anyone can send an anonymous text or email through apps that can be downloaded from the Internet or websites that offer it as a service.

      DCS Drummond also reported back on a brief conversation he’d had with the Commissioner.

      ‘His view is that we shouldn’t take it too seriously,’ Drummond said. ‘It isn’t the first time that officers in the Met have received threats of this kind and he’s sure that it won’t be the last. His advice is to be extra vigilant and at the same time raise the issue with those we interview as part of the investigation into Roy Slack’s mob.’

      It was true that police officers were often threatened. Early on during the investigation into Harry Fuller, a man called my mobile and left a voice message threatening to rape me if I didn’t stop pursuing the gang boss. It gave me a shock, and I was dismayed to discover he’d used a burner phone so he couldn’t be traced.

      But his threat just did not ring true so I didn’t lose any sleep over it.

      However, this latest threat was different and far more unusual. It had been sent to a whole team of detectives and to my knowledge that had never happened before. It also referred to our families, and that made it all the more alarming. Was it really possible that Aidan and my own mother were in danger? Did I need to warn them? Or was it best not to scare them since we still couldn’t be sure this wasn’t just a prank?

      Amongst the detectives, Dave Prentiss appeared to be the most affected by it, presumably because he had only just become a father.

      When a group of us gathered in the canteen for a sandwich lunch, he told us he’d been searching Google for stories about serious attacks on the police and what he’d found out had clearly worried him.

      ‘I didn’t realise there had been so many, especially in the States,’ he said.

      He mentioned the case of a former soldier who shot five cops dead in Dallas in 2016. The same year gunmen in Mexico’s western state of Michoacán shot down a police helicopter, killing the pilot and three officers. And as recently as February 2017, a plot was uncovered to assassinate eight officers with the Pecos Valley Drug Task Force in the US state of New Mexico.

      ‘This is scary stuff,’ Prentiss said. ‘It’s as though nutters everywhere have declared open season on us.’

      It might have been an exaggeration, but Prentiss did have a point. There had never been a time when coppers had felt so vulnerable. That was why the debate as to whether all officers in the UK should carry weapons was heating up again.

      I had always been opposed to it, along with the majority of my colleagues in the Met, but in view of this new threat I began to wonder if I’d feel safer with a gun strapped to my waistband.

      The afternoon was spent getting our act together and deciding who would do what in the weeks ahead. But it was difficult to focus because of the threat.

      My thoughts kept turning to Aidan and my mother and I succumbed to the urge to text them both to make sure they were all right. Aidan replied with, ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ But I didn’t respond for fear of making him suspicious.

      Get a grip, I told myself. Aidan and Mum are OK. They’re safe. So stop worrying about them and get on with the job.

      We needed to familiarise ourselves with the various files on the system relating to Roy Slack’s firm.

      While we’d been tied up with the Harry Fuller case most of the information had been updated. Surveillance reports and financial records had been added, along with more photos and notes on members of Slack’s inner circle.

      Needless to say no new evidence linking Slack to any criminal activities had emerged. But then he hadn’t been subjected to the kind of scrutiny and pressure that we were about to apply.

      I spent the best part of an hour studying everything we had on Slack, and making copious notes along the way.

      Included in the paperwork was the interview that was conducted just under a week ago following the disappearance of firearms officer Hugh Wallis who shot and killed Slack’s employee Terry Malone.

      Slack, accompanied by one of his high-flying lawyers, presented the officers with a cast-iron alibi for the period when Wallis vanished. He insisted he had not asked his people to seek out the identity of the firearms officer after the shooting and claimed Malone had been employed as a bouncer with the security company he ran.

      He was asked why Malone had a shotgun and drugs in his house, to which he replied, ‘You should ask him that question. Oh, but you can’t, can you, because you murdered the poor bugger and at the same time killed his unborn baby.’

      What had happened that night was indeed unfortunate and it was questionable as to whether Wallis had made the right call. But the inquiry into the incident had given him the benefit of the doubt.

      However, the manner of Malone’s death might well have prompted someone to seek revenge against Wallis. And since Malone had no living relatives, suspicion had fallen on Slack.

      But if he had arranged for Wallis to be kidnapped and killed, then I was sure we would never be able to prove it.

      The story was always the same with Roy Slack. He managed to avoid any link between himself and the dirty deeds carried out on his behalf.

      I had never interviewed or questioned the man myself but those who had had generally formed similar opinions of him. He was smart, they said, and paranoid. And he treated all police officers with utter contempt.

      The profile we’d been building also included descriptions provided by underworld figures who had dared to tell us what they knew about him.

      Certain words cropped up repeatedly. They were: cruel, brutal, heartless, tyrannical and vicious.

      Reading back through all the stuff we had on the guy, I found myself hoping to God that he wasn’t the person who had sent the text. Because if it was him then I feared that there was a good chance it wasn’t just an empty threat.

       12

      Slack

      Everything was in hand for Rosa Lopez’s arrival. The plane was due to touch down at Heathrow just after four o’clock and Danny was going to pick her up.

      He would then drive her to the hotel she’d been booked into before taking her to the pub where Slack would meet her. There she’d be given a detailed briefing and the equipment that she’d requested via Carlos Cruz, which included weapons.

      Before then Slack had some business to attend to in Dulwich. It was something he’d been putting off for a week because he’d had other things to deal with. But now seemed like a good time to get it done, since he had to go out anyway in order to rendezvous with The Slayer.

      Before leaving the building he had lunch in the pub’s restaurant with some of the lads. After a few wines and beers with their steaks, they were more willing to express their fears about what was happening.

      ‘Most of my days are now spent making sure the plods are not watching or listening to me,’ Frank Piper said. ‘I know