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‘A couple of cops need to change their underwear, maybe.’ There was a slight chuckle at this.
‘The other firm?’
‘They legged it pronto, no sightings, but your man was careless.’ The voice was low, and almost a whisper.
‘How so?’ Droopy’s voice sharpened.
‘Somehow there was a drone up, and it caught his firing position. A couple of cops tracked it down with a dog. I’m not a hundred per cent sure, but there’s talk of some evidence being found up by the loch. They’re putting divers in there now. Will they find anything?’
Droopy was silent for a full ten seconds, and looked at his reflection in the rear-view mirror. As always, his face was totally expressionless, his hooded eyelids and sagging cheeks giving nothing away as to whathe was feeling. It was wholly possible that the sniper had thrown the rifle in the loch, as he wouldn’t want to be lugging it about after a double hit. Would it matter if the cops recovered it? He doubted it very much, but it would be careless, and for the money paid, that really wasn’t good enough.
‘Are you there?’ said the voice.
‘Aye. Don’t worry about it.’
‘Theory is that the gunman camped by the loch, but surely, he wouldn’t have been that obvious. What if he’d been seen?’
Droopy paused again, churning this information over. ‘Keep me informed of any developments.’ He hung up, and removed the SIM from the phone before slotting in another fresh one. He quickly composed a message.
Objective achieved. Transferring fee to contractor now.
The response came back almost immediately.
Acknowledged. Final objective?
Droopy tapped the keys on the phone again and replied.In hand and imminent.
The reply was immediate.Good. ASAP pls, there’s too much riding on this.
He navigated to the new banking app on the phone and opened it, logging in with his thumbprint. He smiled at the brand-new account in the name ‘H MacFarlane’, sat there with just one deposit in it of tens of thousands of pounds. Money laundering rules were so draconian now that moving money was tricky, but ID theft made it far easier if you knew what you were doing. Everyone knew about burner phones but Droopy was equally hot on ‘burner bank accounts’, particularly the newer app-based accounts. All you needed were scans of ID documents, and an account could be set up in minutes. Just use the account for one job, and then abandon it. Any suspicious activity reported to the NCA would almost certainly come to nothing, and even if it did, so what? They’d just find a new account set up and a couple of transactions to numbered accounts, or other burner accounts. TheNational Crime Agency was so swamped with suspicious activity reports that it would probably just be ignored. No bags of cash any more. No risk of the cops taking the lot with the cash seizure laws. Just a series of computer code instantly sending money from one account to another. Anonymous and untraceable.
Droopy pulled out the final SIM card and threw it with the others in the cup holder. He’d ditch them all separately, best not to get caught with them if he was stopped by the cops, not that that was likely. Droopy never got stopped, mostly because he never did anything that would result in cops noticing him, and secondly because his hangdog face was just so unassuming that he didn’t look like what, or who, he really was. He engaged the gears and moved off, happy at the nice percentage of the sniper’s fee that would now swell his already healthy finances, and all for making a few phone calls and knowing the right people. He turned up the music, and Matt Monro began to seep gently out of the speakers as he moved off, a smile stretching across his heavy face. Soon this whole situation would be wrapped up for good.
34
DCC LOUISE CAMPBELLwas sitting in her office, her gut heavy with anxiety as she took in the report that DCS Miles Wakefield had sent her about the previous day’s drama, which didn’t make good reading. The phone call from the Chief Constable just now hadn’t helped at all. Despite his calm manner, she could sense the tension in his voice. He wanted DI Fraser and his team assisting, no arguments. And he was on his way back from holiday early, which couldn’t be a good thing.
The level of scrutiny was going to be forensic in its detail, and the Police Investigations Review Commission were already stomping all over it, with investigators still at the scene and early interviews of those present underway. She knew without a shadow of a doubt that she was going to be questioned about her decision-making processes, so she needed to get her story tight, and ensure that she had recorded everything.
Hardie and his solicitor both executed by a sniper who had vanished almost into thin air. What was also disturbing was how and why Fraser and his team had all arrived on scene very quickly, despite her insistence that they remained uninvolved. She’d read with incredulity about the technical surveillance freelancer who was actually monitoring the whole thing by a drone, which was frankly astonishing, even though he had captured the first-rate evidence of the attempted breakout.
She really wanted to carpet Fraser for this, but she knew that tactically she had to tread carefully, particularly as they had warnedher so vehemently about Hardie’s intentions. They had been proved right, and also Fraser was close to the Chief. Much too close as far as she could see, but this was made worse as Wakefield’s interim report made clear that it was Craigie who had not only managed to trace the sniper’s firing point, but also his laying-up point from the night before and where he had stashed his getaway bike. The fact that the dive team had pulled out rifle components from the loch and PolSA had found a cigarette butt likely to have been smoked by the sniper would only make her job more difficult. It certainly seemed like they were competent officers, and the Chief would no doubt be singing their praises when he returned from his holiday, whereas she was going to be on the defensive from the first moment.
It had been a mistake to be so closely aligned with the decision-making process, which in retrospect she hadn’t needed to do. She could have handed this straight back to Miles Wakefield to manage, overseen by one of the ACCs who could have liaised with the Crown Office. It was a tactical error, and she really needed to think about limiting the personal damage to her, and perhaps shifting some of the attention towards Ross Fraser and his team. She had seen teams like this in the Met for so many years and knew how to handle them. Small squads of specialist cops who get a few good results, and then are left without any proper, strategic oversight and often a toxic, overly macho environment. Nothing she had seen from that oaf, DI Ross Fraser, or DS Max Craigie had persuaded her that they were any different, and how the Chief could justify having them outside her control, now that she was lead for professional standards, was still a mystery to her. Also, ‘Barney’, or whatever he was called, was seemingly vital to the team, which was troubling bearing in mind his financial difficulties. She had no idea why he was being utilised when they had a perfectly good technical team available. She made a note in her daybook to check on the man’s vetting status, and vowed to raise it further when the Chief returned.
She clucked her tongue as she sat back in the chair, her fingerssteepled as they often were when she was in deep thought. She recalled the meetings with Finn Townsend at the Crown Office. She had probably said too much in her dealings with him, particularly over the boozy lunch they’d shared. He really needed to know that their conversations about their future mutual relationship were kept between themselves. If Macdonald knew exactly what they had discussed, it probably wouldn’t be very well received. She opened her laptop and composed a brief email.
LC-Campbell, Louise
To:
Subject: David Hardie – Debrief and immunity exploratory exercise
Dear Finn,
You’ll no doubt have seen the news re Hardie. Maybe we should meet to consider any ramifications?
How about lunch?
