Murdered by the Mob (Detective Inspector Rafferty Book 1) by Sean Campbell

Author:Sean Campbell [Campbell, Sean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Partners in Crime
Published: 2023-02-18T00:00:00+00:00

44

Guerrilla Gang Warfare

The size of the investigation was set to ramp up immensely.

Now that two protected persons, both former members of the Bakowski Syndicate no less, were missing or dead, the “limited” budget had to be expanded to cover a multi-agency taskforce. Gold, silver, and bronze commanders would need to be appointed. Everything the force did was hierarchical, almost military. No doubt Ayala would covet the gold commander job, putting himself in charge of overall strategy. He’d sit at the front of the Strategic Coordinating Group meetings, lording it over all and sundry. Then silver commanders would be appointed for each discipline – firearms, public order and the like. Finally, bronze commanders, at the bottom of the pyramid, would actually carry out that strategy.

It was going to be huge. The National Crime Agency couldn’t afford for this to go public. If the press found out that “protected persons” weren’t really that protected, they’d plaster it all over the front pages and then there’d be no King’s Evidence for a generation. Gangsters wouldn’t turn against their former shef if they thought they’d wind up dead anyway.

Even the fabled super-injunction – the strongest legal prohibition available in the UK – wouldn’t help. It’d leak and foreign newspapers would love to take a pot-shot at British policing. With the media involved, these two deaths could massively enhance the power of criminal overlords. It was basic Hobbesian logic: might is right.

The best part was that all the evidence that had glitched or been “lost” before had miraculously been found. UKPPS had promised to make sure it was all delivered to the team by the end of the next working day. The chain of custody was fucked – they would never be able to explain the break in custody to a court without sounding insane – but at least it could be used for investigative purposes. Thank God the UK didn’t use the “fruit of the poison tree” logic that their American cousins did. In the USA, all that ill-gotten evidence, and everything that flowed from it, would be completely inadmissible.

Before that could all kick off, Rafferty had to talk to the one man who would know what to do.

Unfortunately, Morton wasn’t available.

So she’d have to suck it up and talk to Xander herself.

The last time she’d been to his flat was almost four years ago, but walking up Lamb Conduit Street in Bloomsbury, memories came flooding back. Images of Camden Pale Ale and homemade pies in The Perseverance Pub, of wandering down to Bea’s bakery for a morning coffee and a slice of cake, and the many images of the inside of his flat just up from the People’s Supermarket. She buzzed at ground level and he immediately let her in. By the time she’d climbed up the stairs, he was waiting for her in his front doorway.

‘Ash,’ he said. ‘I’ve asked Kieran to join us.’

Twice the size of her own, Xander’s flat was so sparsely decorated that it felt bigger still.

He’d repainted. The dark walls and wood panelling were gone as was the lingering smell of cigar smoke.

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