They actually did the coin toss, and it turned out to be Costain whose job it was to cajole and intimidate the West Ham hierarchy. Quill listened to him doing it, impressed but also a bit freaked out. There was something in the man’s voice that sounded as if it was his first day on the job now, too eager to impress. He felt that Losley had already taken a piece out of one of his team by making Costain behave like that. The football club turned out only to have a mailing list of people who’d bought soil over the internet. Getting that sent over was no problem, and indeed it arrived by immediate email. But they were selling a lot of soil right now, because they were in the process of moving to their new home, and every fan wanted a piece of the old Boleyn Ground at Upton Park, and those in charge couldn’t see any reason why the police would want them to cease trading. All Costain could say was, ‘it’s an operational matter.’
When Quill waved to him to give the phone over to him and have a superior officer yell at them, Costain held up a hand and went into overdrive. ‘You know what you get when you Google “West Ham” now? Serial killer, serial killer, serial killer. . oh, look, there’s also some news about your FA Cup run, there on the third page. Only saving grace is, you’re helping to catch this killer by cooperating so fully. Yeah, I will speak to your chairman, that’d be nice.’ When he eventually put down the phone, job done, Quill slapped him on the back.
Costain nodded solemnly. ‘Yeah,’ he said.
That afternoon, Quill led his small team into Gipsy Hill, causing a raised eyebrow from the station reception officer on shift when she saw Costain and Sefton. Everyone would now be gossiping, Quill knew, about the huge pay-off from what had originally looked like a weird and intimidating spin-off. And everyone would be wondering why they themselves hadn’t been considered good enough or straight enough to go after the real juice behind the Toshack organization. Seeing the four of them march in right now, including the UCs, half of the operational team would assume they were here to nick someone, and the other half that just showing them those two UCs was some sort of demonstration of trust.
Plus, of course, Quill’s lot hadn’t slept and they all looked like tramps.
Nods and smiles of appreciation greeted Quill when he entered the Ops Room, but he could feel the dutiful nature of it, the fear and irony at the edge of it. Goodfellow was busy to overflowing with paperwork and personnel, but it was all post-raid stuff eclipsed now by his serial killer. Quill felt glad to be back in his real world. Except here came Harry, with his dad beside him. Quill looked over his shoulder and saw the other three checking out this new vision. Well, at least nobody else in the nick seemed to be carting dead relatives around with them.
Harry held out his wrists. ‘It’s a fair cop, Jimmy.’
‘Don’t kow-tow to him,’ said his dad. ‘You little shit, you’re worth ten of him.’
Quill wished desperately that he could talk to Harry alone. That they could go for a pint again, be proper mates again. ‘Harry,’ he said, ‘come on now-’
‘What,’ said Harry, suddenly serious, ‘you’re not really here for me, are you?’
‘Don’t be fucking scared of him! What sort of a friend is he, to lord it over you?! He’s just a pretend copper, an actor playing a part!’
Quill clapped his hands together to get the room’s attention. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘you lot, listen. I came over from my Siberian exile to say that Operation Toto has found conclusive proof of what I always suspected: there isn’t and never has been a security leak in Operation Goodfellow. More than that I can’t tell you, only that. . I never bloody believed it, okay? I never sat there looking down at you lot, thinking any single one of you, Harry here included, were anything but the best bloody coppers in the world, all right? And to be put at this distance from you like that. .’ He found he had a catch in his throat, and let it stop him. To his amazement, Harry came over and put a hand on his shoulder, which made his dad scowl. And the applause slowly started up again from the whole room. Only this time it was genuine.
Quill raised a hand in acknowledgement, then clapped an arm around Harry’s shoulder, and hauled him away from his dad. ‘And, erm, also we popped over ’cos we’re after the keys to the evidence room. And any chance of a cup of sugar?’ Behind him, he saw Sefton putting his hand right through Harry’s dad, and getting a glare in return.
‘Jimmy, mate,’ said Harry, ‘I’ll open it up for you myself.’ Quill followed him through the door, looking over his shoulder to where the other three were all backing out of the room quickly, embarrassed by and not used to dealing with the appreciation of their comrades. He was glad they’d got to see that, though.
Ross had hoped that the door of the evidence room would be heaved open to reveal a glittering mass of objects: like the contents of that locked study in the Toshack house that she’d had such expectations of, but that had contained no juice at all when the UCs had searched it. She’d hoped that this look back into Goodfellow would be more fruitful than Quill’s examination of the operation’s files. But at first glance that was not to be. The shelves contained rows of tagged evidence, and a pile of Toshack’s favourite cardboard boxes at the back, but nothing at all leaped out. Their Sight counted for nothing here. She’d delivered some brave words about Losley, but it was now slowly sinking in that her revenge was still going to count for nothing. More than that, something worse had taken Toshack’s place, and she hadn’t prepared herself for it, hadn’t focused herself in the right way. The death of her father was now sidelined. It felt horribly selfish to make the pursuit of Losley all about her own teenage injuries. But what else could give her the stimulus she needed to get through this?
‘So we look through it all again,’ announced Quill. ‘We untag, process, seal and record.’
‘I’ll give you a hand if you like,’ said Harry. ‘Be good for me to catch up.’
So they worked their way through all the stuff.
‘Why,’ said Sefton, ‘did this bloke keep eighty-three stationery boxes with nothing in them?’ He glanced over to where Harry was busy opening boxes, Quill being forced to look over his shoulder continually, because Harry wouldn’t be able to see what they were looking for. Harry’s dad kept berating him, both of them getting increasingly worked up.
‘There was nothing like this when my dad was in charge of the gang,’ remarked Ross. She was starting to feel the effects of fatigue, seeing things out of the corner of her eye which scared her awake again, but which weren’t real, just memories, the symptoms of sleep trying to force its way into her.
‘He kept his local branch of Staples busy,’ said Sefton. ‘That’d be good for his epitaph.’
‘Though it does fail,’ observed Ross, ‘to tell the whole story.’
‘Listen to you, with the copper jokes.’
‘Why is he looking over your shoulder?’ Harry’s father prodded. ‘Look at him, he’d much rather have just his new friends here. He doesn’t trust you. You’re not quite the thing, are you? Not any more.’
‘You may have wondered why I’m looking over your shoulder,’ said Quill to Harry. ‘It’s ’cos I’m looking for a particular piece of evidence, and you wouldn’t recognize what you were looking at.’
‘What is it, exactly?’
‘Can’t tell you. Due to the usual operational bollocks. But — tell you what — you find anything unusual,’ he looked meaningfully towards Harry’s dad, ‘and it’ll be pay dirt. Then I’ll use it to try and get you recruited for Toto. And how often do you get to use that sentence?’