“Let him go DS Hobson,” said the Chief
Superintendent.
“Sir - what? Let him go! He’s a
terrorist sir. We can’t just let -…”
“We’re letting him go, Detective
Sergeant Hobson, as indeed we’re letting all of them go on the orders of the
Home Secretary himself. These boot prints you can probably see on the seat of
my trousers are in actual fact from the Right Honourable gentleman’s personal
size nines. Wait a few minutes for the custody sergeant to sign the
others out and then take Batman here and get rid. With his property, including
the gas guns and the bags of herbs. Make sure he signs for it and he leaves and
gets back into his little Noddy van with the rest of the freaks and goes away
forever. And make sure you forget about him. Forget the night’s operations,
Sergeant; and pretend we spent the whole evening watching the nightclubs and
takeaways for drugs and other unpermitted naughtiness.”
“Sir, this gear’s evidence. How can you
call it property when it’s all weapons? Top of the line crossbows, detonators
and shaped charges are evidence. Machetes in Brixton aren’t used for ice
sculpture, sir, and these… -“ Hobson jabbed the broken-nailed finger of a plain
clothes surveillance specialist at a bundle of pointed wooden slats bound with
wire to a pair of mallets “-do you suppose his mates were planning to build a
really low picket fence somewhere in South London?”
“It’s not evidence because no crime has
been committed. And you’ve asked me your three questions which means as far as
this particular fairy tale’s concerned you’ve had your lot. Fifteen minutes,
and out he goes.”
The ex-prisoner reached for his
BlackBerry in the evidence box and tapped at it for a while; ignoring Hobson.
After five minutes he looked up and smiled.
“You have a family I see, DS Hobson,” he
remarked in a Northern accent.
“Yes. Two daughters. How did you -…”
“Ten and seven; Hayley and Anna, and I
see both are doing well at school.”
“Don’t touch them, you bastard! If I
even suspect you mean them harm you’ll never know I’m there till you hit the
deck. Just you bloody leave them alone.”
“Can we please both sit down again now?
Of course I’ll leave them alone; it’s you that’s going to hurt them. I know
you. I know the type.”
“What the fuck do you mean by that? I
love those girls. I’d kill for them without a moment’s thought and do the time
happy they’re still alive.”
“Then you have the precious opportunity
tonight to avoid screwing up their lives forever. Problem is, I know your type.
Looking at you tonight is just like seeing myself in the mirror - and I urge
you to forget that not everybody walking around in London
“What’s your point?”
“You can do one of two things tonight.
You can forget about me and my friends and go back to picking at the alibis and
statements of ordinary villains till you find a crack and you collar them. On a
lighter note, you’ll still be able to sleep at night and also know you’ll
probably be available to kiss your sleeping children when you come home from
all that unpaid overtime. Think about it DS Hobson; you can just let us go and
still be able to go home after pulling a night shift without utter dread
filling your heart. That’s Plan A.”
“What’s Plan B?”
The stranger sighed. “You follow our van
using the tracker you probably installed tonight. And then one of two mutually
exclusive things will happen.”
Hobson didn’t confirm or deny. “What’s
that, then?”
“If my friends were lucky tonight and survived
in decent numbers, a couple of the other teams – (you didn’t really think you’d
nicked us all, did you?) - will roadblock you before we’re five miles
outside the M25. Then they’ll show you video footage of your children going to
school and where you all holiday in summer and photos of your wife’s work and
her mother’s house in Southend and you’ll let yourself believe you’re backing
off because you can’t fight some kinds of organized crime.”
“And if your friends were unlucky?”
“Then they’ll be understaffed and in
need of recruits and they’ll probably let you follow us all the way back
to South Wales .”
“What’s in South Wales ?”
“Valleys. Mountains. Forests. Abandoned
coalmines full of interesting equipment. Ministry of Defence land. A thickly
wooded RAF compound containing a village that sits in the middle of five
circles of state-of-the-art fortifications. Go there, and that’ll ruin your
family’s life.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because then you’ll no longer be able
to convince yourself that we’re terrorists or a cult or the Russian Mafia.
You’ll beg us to move your entire family to Llan Erewon and never, ever sleep
soundly outside the wire again.
It’s up to you, DC Hobson; it’s your
choice entirely.”
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