Jack glanced at his small radiator bedecked with Paw Patrol baby-grows. As he tried to get down to work in his office-cum-laundry-cum-store cupboard, Maggie FaceTimed. He opened the call on his laptop to see Maggie standing outside Hammersmith police station.
‘Lyle’s an intense young man, isn’t he!’ Maggie had decided to open with a joke in case Jack was worried about her being interviewed. In truth, he’d forgotten she was due at Hammersmith today. ‘I told him that it was me who let Tania into our personal lives by trying to do her dad a favour. I never expected her to show up at our home, pissed and stoned, and you had every right to be angry with her. And with me.’
Maggie’s words were occasionally drowned out by the noise of the wind blowing across the microphone on her mobile, but he got the gist of what she was saying. She hadn’t bothered to deny Jack’s anger at Tania — the neighbours and the taxi driver had all given statements saying as much — but she’d vehemently supported his right to be angry.
‘He told me that Tania had finger bruises on her wrists and upper arms. I don’t know what he thought I might say to that — maybe he imagined I’d break down and tell him you’re an abusive husband. I said that you would only have responded physically in defence of yourself and our daughter, and that you would have used the minimum force needed to keep Tania from hurting anyone, including herself.’ Maggie smiled. ‘I told him that Tania was lucky that you were the one who opened the door to her, because I would not have been so understanding about having our home invaded by a volatile, drunk teenager. I’m so sorry for all of this, Jack. I know Mr Wetlock was an unobservant, absent father, but he’ll blame himself for that for the rest of his life.’
Maggie seemed particularly saddened by the situation after reliving it with DC Lyle so Jack, once again, refrained from telling her the truth about her esteemed mentor. ‘God, I hope this isn’t what he’s remembered for, Jack.’ Maggie ended the call, saying that she had to get back to work as she was picking up another one of Wetlock’s shifts whilst he was on compassionate leave.
Jack’s mind was now distracted by the two vastly different versions of Wetlock he’d been given, one by Maggie and one by Julia. One Google search later, and Jack was reading about the great man for himself.
Wetlock was 62 years of age and had started his medical career as a GP in Hammersmith before returning to medical school to study his specialism. He divorced from a woman called Katherine Mercer fifteen years ago, and Tania Katherine Wetlock was born two years before that. Jack could find nothing more about Wetlock’s private life. Everything else was in reference to his meteoric rise through the ranks. When Jack searched for the name of Katherine Mercer, he found nothing to tell him whether she was even dead or alive.
Jack looked at an image on his screen of the young Dr Elliot Wetlock graduating from medical school. He looked like a man who knew exactly where he wanted to be in life and knew how to get there.
A text message then appeared in the top right-hand corner of Jack’s screen. It was from Ridley.
Meet me at Staines station. Drug Squad found the kingpin.
Chapter 33
Jack and Ridley stood together in the darkened room. To their left, Anik stood with Josh, Mal, Moley, Mike Tulley, Edgar Matthews and Steve — his new team.
The blackout blinds were drawn and the seven screens showed the view from seven body-cameras. Seven officers, all dressed in black, carrying what looked like AR15 semi-automatic rifles crouched in a circle, each filming the others. There was no sound as six of the officers intently listened to the one in charge. On a specific instruction, each officer placed one hand on the back of the person to their left and ripped away a black velcro flap of material to reveal the word POLICIJA.
The seven officers moved quickly along the bare brick exterior wall of a block of flats. A gloved hand input a numbered sequence onto the main door’s keypad, and they crept inside. They immediately ran to the concrete spiral staircase and, without pausing, they slammed their backs against the wall, pointing their guns at the higher floors as they crept upwards. Once they’d passed the door marked 1 AUKŠTE, the officer at the rear turned for a moment to make certain that no one came through the first-floor door and ambushed them from behind.
He did the same again as they moved passed the second floor. At the third floor door, the team kept low as they snuck through and into the corridor. They crouched for a second, quickly scanning left and right before setting off again. Outside flat number 23, they split and crouched in two groups of three on either side of the door. The seventh officer took up his position directly opposite their target flat. Guns were raised to the shoulder and the door was silently opened with a copied key card.
A slender young woman with a small protruding baby-belly, sat on the sofa watching TV with her feet up on a footstool. Although no sound came from the screens, the speed with which she jumped up showed that she was being shouted at to comply. Two officers aimed their guns at her and she dropped to her knees and placed her trembling hands on her head. She laced her fingers, bowed her head, and sobbed.
Seconds later, a door from within the flat opened and a shirtless man stepped out. He was a handsome man in his sixties, with black stubble and thick, iron-grey hair. He seemed calm but was tight-lipped with anger. He shouted through the line of guns at the officers beyond as he inched forwards, pointing at the terrified woman on the ground. It was only when one of the officers lifted her to her feet and sat her back on the sofa, that their target appeared to relax. He then turned his back to the guns, knelt down and allowed his hands to be cuffed behind his back.
Steve Lewis high-fived his ‘A-Team’ before moving to Ridley and Jack. ‘That’s Michael Mahoney. Not sure who she is, ’cos his mistress is in protective custody after we found her in his three-acre Spanish hideaway last week. She’s pregnant, too, and wouldn’t give this scumbag up because he promised to leave his wife and marry her.’ Steve smirked. ‘I bet she talks when she sees his pregnant Lithuanian mistress.’
The lights flicked on, and Jack could feel the sting around his retinas as his pupils shrunk away from the sudden, fluorescent brightness.
‘Come into my office, guys, and I’ll get you bang up to speed,’ he said cockily.
Jack noted not only Steve’s disrespect for Ridley but also the fact that he was supposed to have been keeping them up to speed on a daily basis.
Steve’s office was as neat as a new pin and his shiny new coffee machine made every type of caffeinated beverage you could wish for. It was style over substance, Jack thought: Just like Steve.
‘When we brought in...’ Steve tutted at his own memory lapse. ‘I’ll get the name for you... his three-acre-Spanish-hideaway mistress, she gave us the Lithuanian steer. Their police force was already watching flights between Vilnius Airport and London, not knowing they could be observing anything as big as what we’ve got going on. We quickly identified flight patterns — Vilnius to London, sure, but also Vilnius to Leeds Bradford. Mahoney took a flight from Leeds to Vilnius the day after Avril Jenkins was murdered. He’s being extradited tomorrow. Then he’s ours. We’ll break him.’ Steve set his extravagant coffee machine going. ‘We may have just brought in the head honcho of an international drugs ring, and the man who ordered your double murder.’