‘It’d make my life a lot easier if they bought decent quality bags,’ Clark explained. ‘You’ve gotta support ’em from underneath or that’ll happen every time.’
Clark showed Ryan the knack, taking three bags off the pile, cradling them in his arms and then waddling to the truck. Ryan’s arms were shorter, so he could only manage two, and he wished he had something more than a T-shirt to wear as sharp ends of plastic strips dug into his arms.
As he walked back and forth to the truck, Ryan tried to understand what he was looking at. None of the bags were knotted, so whenever Clark faced the other way, he’d peek inside for some kind of clue.
But it was all just plastic insulation. Ryan guessed the insulated wire was being imported in bulk, but that some reels had drugs rather than wire encased within the plastic. The scorch marks on the floor and the smell must have been made when the plastic had melted off to release the drugs and metal inside.
Ryan’s arm was bleeding by the time the sacks along one wall had diminished by a half. He noticed a powdery handprint around the top of one bag, and after a furtive glance to make sure Clark was still lugging a load up to the truck, he tore out the section of the bag with the handprint and tucked it into his pocket.
That was as exciting as it got, as Ryan made more than fifty trips, dealing with stench, cuts and his grazed ankle. When they’d moved a couple of hundred bags, Clark clambered in the back of the truck and started stacking the bags they’d thrown inside.
Beneath the last bags were large cardboard reels on which the wire had been coiled. Two reels fitted into a bin liner, but mostly they had just been stacked against the wall. There were two kinds of reel, one with a red label marked Sonata X Loudspeaker Cable, and a second with a blue label marked Sonata Supreme Audiophile Cable. Both products claimed to have been made in China.
Ryan was starting to realise that he had a few things to remember, such as his location, the names on the reels, the number plate of the removal van and one or two things Clark had said.
Clark was never more than twenty metres away, so Ryan couldn’t risk snapping a picture. But his phone had a voice-activated recorder app, so he set it running and made some verbal notes.
It was past nine in the morning when Ryan and Clark each took a final armful of bags, lobbing them into the truck’s crammed rear in a haze of triumph and exhaustion. Ryan’s shirt and jeans were glued on with sweat and his arms speckled with small cuts as he found a standpipe on the outside of the shed and splashed himself with cool, slightly discoloured water.
Clark did an inspection of the former milking shed, and came out shaking his head. ‘That’s as clean as I can make it,’ he told Ryan. ‘But scorching the bloody floor like that, all for a few hundred quid’s worth of metal . . .’
They stopped at a snack van in a lay-by and bought sausage and egg baps and weak tea in polystyrene cups. Then Clark drove on to a waste processing plant. The air around it had an evil-smelling haze, and clouds of seagulls fluttered around the back of rubbish trucks as they dumped loads at the base of a huge mound.
Clark’s cargo was strictly off the books, so he drove in through an exit meant for staff parking, and handed two hundred in cash to the man who unlocked the gate.
‘It’s not good coming here at this time of day,’ the tip worker complained. ‘There’s too many eyes.’
Clark shrugged as if to say, what can you do, before driving through the gate.
While dustcarts could tip their load, Clark and Ryan had to open up the rear of the removal van and throw out all the reels and bags of plastic insulation. Each time the mound got to fifty or so bags, a bulldozer would sweep across and push the whole lot into the main debris pile.
Ryan was conscious that one of his best pairs of trainers was squelching in juices spilled from a thousand rubbish bags, and just to make things absolutely perfect, Clark roared with laughter as a huge splat of seagull shit hit the back of his head.
‘You’re a good lad,’ Clark told Ryan, when he dropped him back off at Chatham Station. ‘I’ll tell Craig you’re worth whatever they’re paying you.’
Ryan realised that nobody had offered to pay him anything as he waited for the train home. It was past rush hour when he settled into a seat, short of a night’s sleep and stinking of burnt plastic, BO and refuse.
He pushed a blackened hand down his jeans and pulled out a smartphone down to 9% battery.
‘I can’t fit all the strands together,’ he told James. ‘But I think we’re close to working out how Hagar’s crew brings drugs into the country.’
41. CREWDSON
The allotments were at their quietest on weekday mornings. Fay and Ning sat in front of the shed in folding chairs, catching the sun and occasionally disturbed by the high-speed trains shooting past at the allotment’s far end.
‘We could go see a movie,’ Ning suggested.
‘I need to buy sun cream,’ Fay said. ‘My skin’s really fair. I’m gonna turn into a lobster.’
‘You don’t wanna see a movie?’
‘Warren’s gone to bed. We can all meet up and do something tonight,’ Fay suggested.
Warren was a nice guy, but Fay falling for him meant Ning risked getting pushed out of the picture. As she wondered about finding a way to make Fay and Warren break up, Ning picked up a text from James, saying that he’d just heard from Ryan.
Fay had her eyes closed and Ning was tapping out a reply when she noticed two young men striding their way. Sun coming from behind made it hard to see details, but Ning was instantly suspicious because allotments were a pastime for the middle-aged and elderly.
‘We’ve got company,’ Ning said, as she gave Fay’s knee a squeeze.
As Fay sat up straight, Ning realised it was Eli’s deputy, Shawn. Ning made sure she had her backpack within reach. The situation was super awkward, because Ning knew Eli and Hagar had made up, but she couldn’t tell Fay without breaking cover.
‘Afternoon, ladies,’ Shawn said, as he came within a couple of metres.
Fay squinted and held a hand over her brow. ‘How’d you find us?’ she asked.
Shawn laughed. ‘I like to know all about the people I do business with,’ he explained. ‘I had you trailed after our first meet-up.’
‘I don’t know why you’re here,’ Fay said dismissively. ‘You didn’t want Hagar’s shit, so I got rid of it.’
Shawn laughed. ‘And in such spectacular fashion.’
‘So what are you here for?’
Shawn laughed and spread his arms out wide. ‘Hagar’s put a bounty on you two ladies,’ he explained. ‘Although I expect my boss will waive the reward, as a gesture of goodwill.’
As Shawn and his buddy stopped walking, Ning saw three more guys closing from behind. She double-tapped her earlobe to activate her com, and sent James the text she’d been typing with the addition of SHAWN HERE NOW HOSTILE!!!
‘And what if I don’t want to come with you?’ Fay spat, as she glanced around nervously.
‘That’s why I brought my friends,’ Shawn said. ‘This can be civilised, or you can come kicking and screaming. But you’ll come.’
Fay and Ning glanced at one another. While nothing got said, it was clear neither of them wanted to go down without a fight.
Fay moved first, sending her plastic chair sideways as she sprang up. Ning dug her right hand in the dirt beside her chair and flicked a big clod up towards Shawn and his pal.
A natural runner, Fay sprang like a gazelle, deftly avoiding the lunging arm of Shawn’s accomplice and vaulting a strawberry patch on the next allotment. Ning was slower, but strong. As Shawn shielded his face from the flying earth, she went on the attack, grabbing her lightweight chair and using it as a battering ram. Shawn doubled up as the plastic leg hit him in the groin.
While Fay disappeared towards the al
lotment’s main gates, Ning charged in the other direction. A suntanned old-timer told Ning not to step in his broccoli and demanded to know what the devil was going on as she stumbled over his plot.
Ning was pissed off when she looked back. Shawn was still down, but the three guys who’d approached from behind were all on her case, presumably deterred from going after Fay by her sheer speed.
One of Ning’s pursuers moved way faster than the others and closed relentlessly. Realising she’d be caught in seconds, Ning stopped running, grabbed a stick out of the ground and snapped it to make a sharp point. She spread out wide, and waited.
‘See what you get,’ Ning taunted.
But it wasn’t just the sprinter’s legs that were fast. As Ning swung with the stick, he ducked, then thrust forwards from a low position. He almost head-butted Ning in the chest, but she managed to turn. As she set off again, she felt the man’s hand on her backpack and only broke free by letting it drop off her arm.
James’ voice sounded on the com in Ning’s ear. ‘Talk to me. What’s happening?’
Ning didn’t get to answer because she’d cut across another plot and her trainer landed awkwardly in a furrow. She stumbled forward, keeping upright for a couple of steps but losing it when she crashed into a bamboo frame used for growing runner beans.
As Ning’s body ploughed into freshly dug earth, the sprinter landed on top of her. She caught him with a nice elbow on the nose, but he had enormous shoulders and massive biceps that forced the air out of her lungs.
Ning continued to struggle as Shawn stumbled across the loose ground, then pointed a handgun at her head from less than a metre.
‘Keep still, missy,’ he shouted, clearly unhappy about getting a chair leg in the balls. ‘Break her arm.’
‘Ning, are you all right?’ James asked, over the com. ‘I’ve got your locator. I’m getting on my bike and I’m calling for backup.’
‘Break her damned arm,’ Shawn repeated, as blood from the guy on top of her’s nose dripped on to Ning’s T-shirt.
She’d fought her way out of all kinds of situations, but the guy was twice her weight and it was all muscle. Ning grunted and bucked as he squeezed her wrist, but he got her arm up behind her back and began pulling tight.
‘No,’ Ning sobbed. Then a scream, ‘Somebody help me!’
‘This’ll teach you to hit me in the balls,’ Shawn shouted, placing his boot on the back of Ning’s head as her arm made a sickening crunch.
*
‘James?’ Ryan yelled, taking off his garbage-soaked trainers before walking into the kitchen of their flat.
James hadn’t had time to send a message, but half-eaten marmalade toast and a laptop open at the kitchen table gave Ryan the impression that he’d left in a hurry. Ryan was torn: part of him wanted to get in bed and crash for a few hours, but he was also excited about all the stuff he’d found out in Chatham and he wanted to do some investigating.
Whichever he chose, Ryan needed to shower first. He stripped in front of the washing machine, lobbed everything including his trainers inside and put them on a hot wash with a big squirt of Dettol.
His body had lines of light and dark, where clothing had protected him from dirt. The shower water ran slate grey as chunks of soot and dirt dropped out of his hair. The cool blast perked him up and he enjoyed feeling clean as he sat on the edge of his bed, rubbing antiseptic down his pock-marked arms. He put plasters over several cuts and replaced the dressing on his grazed ankle.
People forget rapidly, so CHERUB agents are trained to get everything in writing as soon as it’s safe to do so. Ryan opened up a standard form on his laptop, typing a few paragraphs explaining what had happened overnight, then replaying the audio notes on his phone and making sure he hadn’t forgotten anything.
Once he’d saved the note and e-mailed a copy to mission control on campus, Ryan opened up the special equipment box in James’ bedroom and found a drug testing kit. Using tweezers, he picked white specks off the plastic bag with the handprint and dropped them into a pale green solution.
After swirling the test tube and letting it settle for half a minute, Ryan dipped a strip of test paper into the solution. Pale green indicated some level of cocaine, but the paper turned to the colour of spinach, indicating that his tiny sample was close to one hundred per cent pure.
Satisfied that he was on to the source of high purity cocaine he’d been sent on the mission to find, Ryan opened a web browser and did a Google search for Sonata Loudspeaker Cable. The search came back with the company’s US website and he skimmed through the home page, reading that Sonata produced reference quality loudspeaker cable at highly competitive prices.
Ryan had never previously realised that cabling could make a hi-fi system sound better, and baulked when he saw that Sonata’s top line Carbon X cable sold for a hundred dollars per yard.
Ryan’s next click took him to a page listing Sonata’s overseas suppliers. The UK distributor was a company called AV Master, based in Rochester. Ryan hadn’t heard of Rochester until that morning, when his train stopped there five minutes before meeting Clark at Chatham.
For the next step, Ryan had to log into a secure browser. He yawned as he entered a long password, and swiped his left thumb on the laptop’s fingerprint pad. Now he was in the CHERUB system, through which he could access databases run by British Intelligence, as well as other government agencies such as driver and vehicle registrations, company data and Revenue and Customs tax records.
Some of the databases took ages to respond, but within fifteen minutes Ryan had printed off a list of the directors of AV Master, along with ownership details for the removal truck. Apparently the removals firm had sold the truck at auction several years earlier and the vehicle seemed to have been purchased under a false name.
Ryan only had a low-level security clearance, so he couldn’t access any records held by private companies such as banks, internet providers and mobile phone companies. He was tired and decided to take a nap and leave the background investigation to James. He was closing browser tabs when he noticed a familiar face on screen.
He was a director of the cable import company, AV Master, and Ryan knew it was important, but spent half a minute racking his brain before working out where he knew him from. The picture was at least a decade out of date and he had different hair, but Ryan finally twigged that it was the man who’d made his laminated membership pass the first time he’d visited The Hangout.
Ryan confirmed Barry’s identity with a visit to The Hangout website. His full name was Barry Crewdson, manager of The Hangout centre in Kentish Town and deputy director of The Hangout London. Up to this point, Ryan had thought The Hangout was a community centre that had been infiltrated by drug dealers. But this started to change as he began studying the website and looking at government records for its senior staff and directors.
According to the website, the organisation had been founded in 1988 by Marie Crewdson, who’d been made Lady Crewdson by the Queen in 2004. The Hangout was a charity, with a network of thirty after-school clubs in England and Wales and centres for orphaned children in Iran and Pakistan. Lady Crewdson was chairperson of The Hangout and the other senior staff were mostly members of the Crewdson family.
The fact that the Crewdson family ran The Hangout was no secret. Ryan quickly found newspaper interviews with various Crewdsons, mainly focused on child poverty and the work their community centres did with underprivileged kids.
In the pictures accompanying the articles, the Crewdsons were a sprawling, cheerful family who wore corduroy trousers and cable knit sweaters. They all seemed to have loads of kids, they all worked tirelessly for charity and every newspaper picture seemed to include a Labrador or a floppy sheepdog.
Having found the link between Barry and the company that was importing the drug-filled cables, Ryan started looking into gover
nment records and Google results for other members of the Crewdson family.
Lady Crewdson herself seemed pretty clean, though Ryan decided it was dodgy that the land registry showed that this saintly charity worker had paid six and a half million for a villa overlooking Regents Park. Besides AV Master, Barry Crewdson owned shares in a trans-European trucking company and a luggage importer. His brother and two sisters owned more companies, including a chain of scrap metal dealerships, betting shops, casinos, jewellery shops and a half a dozen property companies.
It all fitted together nicely. The Crewdsons were the last people you’d suspect. A wholesome sprawling family, who’d somehow come to make tens of millions of pounds while owning a network of companies that were ideally suited to transporting drugs and laundering drug money.
Ryan’s lingering doubts got quashed when he got past reading upbeat pieces in the national press and unearthed shadier dealings on local blogs and the websites of local newspapers. A Hangout centre in north Wales had been branded a hive of drug dealing by a local councillor. A quantity of cocaine had been seized at a centre in Manchester. A Hangout mentor in East Sussex had been released on police bail following a drug squad investigation and Lady Crewdson herself had threatened to sue a journalist who’d claimed that a new Hangout centre in Cardiff had been funded by donations from a local drug baron.
The more Ryan tapped his mouse and clicked his keyboard, the dodgier the Crewdson family looked. He burst out laughing when he found that the former bowling club that had been Hagar’s grow house was owned by Pegasus Properties, which was in turn owned by a Jersey-based company that had paid three hundred thousand pounds in dividends to Lady Crewdson’s three granddaughters.
Ryan realised he’d hit on something huge, but after an hour online he got sick of waiting for James to get home, so he e-mailed all of his discoveries to mission control on campus and crashed out on his bed, hoping to catch up on some sleep.