‘So what do you reckon the score will be this weekend Mcgeorge?’
‘I’ve got no idea Ian, I don’t really follow football. I normally go shopping on a Saturday afternoon if I’m not working’
‘But I thought you liked football, don’t you follow the dirty filthy Manchester United scum?’
‘No…that was ages ago, and it was only because my boyfriend was so into them I had no choice but to watch them. He used to work during the week and during the weekend it seemed to be about organising ourselves around when they were playing as opposed to him actually doing something special with me’
‘You mean like shopping….’DI Carragher let that hang in the air and looked at McGeorge with one eyebrow raised
‘No…NOT like shopping, just stuff really. Maybe going out for lunch somewhere, spending the day in the country, anything but bloody football’
‘Well what do you expect, going out with a dirty filthy Man U scum fan?’
‘Will you stop calling them that…it’s ridiculous, its not as if they killed anybody, or did anything wrong is it, stop being so bloody childish’
‘Me…childish’ Ian paused as McGeorge gave him her usual look ‘oh okay fair point. But seriously, men are different from women personally I don’t understand the whole shopping thing. I go once a year in January for the sales, get a load of stuff and that’s the torture over with for another year. I also take the wife and spend a bit of money on her. I get tense, frustrated, nervous, twitchy…’
‘What because you are actually spending some money for a change’
‘No not because of that. It’s the crowds I don’t like. It’s too manic. We always have to go around Covent Garden and it’s just crazy. Everywhere is packed. I sit there in women’s shops like a lost puppy looking around for something familiar and welcoming like a pub…or even better a bookmakers’
‘Surely you can do a few hours, and the wife must appreciate it’
‘Yeah she does a bit, and in the evening I get a decent dinner and get to watch Match of the Day so there are always benefits. Anyway enough chat, come on, let’s get into interview room 2 and have a little discussion with Bacchus or whatever that idiot is called.’
‘Ian, don’t be stupid, call him by his proper name, Mr Richard Bird’
‘So what does Bacchus actually mean anyway then??’
McGeorge responded in a hushed tone as they opened the door to interview room 2 ‘I looked it up and apparently it’s another name for Dionysus who was the mythological Greek god of wine and intoxication’
Ian looked at Mcgeorge and smiled, he turned to the expectant Mr Bird and his lawyer and said ‘Greek god of wine my arse, he’s a fucking dickhead!!’
Mr Bird’s lawyer looked at Ian and simply made a note on his pad. Mr Bird, or Bacchus, looked down at his feet, embarrassed and McGeorge just moved professionally on as if that hadn’t just happened and they settled down to begin the interview.
Ian studied Mr Bird’s lawyer. He looks a right self righteous twat, thought Ian probably goes home and admires himself in the mirror…whilst wearing a pink taffeta ball-gown, sipping a pink gin whilst roundly whipping his rent boy.
McGeorge nudged Ian. He had drifted off into irrelevancy and idiocy again. Interviews bored him. Ian’s favourite Greek God which he must have worshipped to at least twice a week was looking pensive. He was still wearing the clothes he had on two days ago when he was arrested. He had that smell of a criminal, ‘eau de guilty’ the five o’clock shadow, the tired eyes, where sleep had deserted him as he knew he was fucked. He looked smaller. Ian had seen him when he was being processed. Once you took away the gold jewellery, the big watch, the cleanly shaven immaculately kept look his superiority withered and he looked more normal now, more like a two bit criminal.
Ian remembered being at university in Sheffield. It was the usual student life, no money, not enough booze, too many lectures, well actually one was considered too many, it was just they always seemed to be before 11 a.m. which was hugely disappointing, and he remembered being really pissed off in his first year when the university had the cheek to give him four hours of lectures in a single day. He wasn’t going to get anywhere near the pub before 5 p.m. How was he going to cope? So one drunken afternoon him and his mates saw a sign up which said
NOTICE
Police line up volunteers required
2 hours work
£10 plus refreshments
After initial discussions all round it was considered this was definitely a good idea as back then £10 got you seven pints in the students union, or if you were a bit of a light weight six pints and two packets of crisps. The line ups were easy. It was always the same. Six grinning students, dressed like tramps, barely shaven or washed, slightly pissed, idiotic look on their faces. Actually come to think of it, looking exactly like the criminals. But the dead give away was always the look on the criminals face. It was a slightly vacant, resigned look of, yes, I did it, and can we get this out of the way and just get me to court. The smell was never pleasant either, even worse than the students smell. Plus as well no matter where the accused was placed the rest of us would always surreptitiously move a couple of inches away from him. As soon as the victim came in they always looked directly at the accused and would whisper to the policemen……the whispering was always the sound of inevitability whereby the students were bussed back to the Students Union bar where we would triumphantly stroll into the bar and order a round, toasting our new found wealth, telling all and sundry who would listen about the exploits of the day before taking the piss out of the poor unfortunate who was going to be spending some time behind bars.
‘So Mr Bird, Mr Richard Bird, or should I call you Bacchus….’ Ian teased
The ball-gown wearing, pink gin sipping, house boy whipping, self righteous twat (allegedly), took off his glasses, stared at DI Carragher and stated very matter of fact, ‘Mr Bird will suffice thank you officer’
The interview lasted well over two hours. He had no chance of a reprieve. The guns, ammunition, cash and drugs had all been found at his flat. His fingerprints were all over them. He was about as guilty as a puppy sitting next to a pile of poo. His only hope was co-operation. The gun which had been in the possession of James Langan and was now in an evidence bag upstairs had indeed been sold to him by Mr Bird. They had been shipped in from Amsterdam a number of years ago. Mr Bird had not done the shipping (of course!!) and those were the only guns he had to sell. It was a new line of work for him. This questioning had become difficult under pressure as he realised it was only a matter of time before the gun was linked to other murders. He was really struggling. His lawyer tried to calm things down and requested a five minute recess or alternatively to move onto another subject for a while. Ian thought about it and decided to find out a lot more about James Benjamin Langan.
‘So Mr Bird, how long have….sorry, had you known the deceased, Mr Langan?’
‘All my life really, we grew up together in Brixton.’
‘So how did you both end up on the wrong side of the law, and I suppose can you shed any light into why Mr James Benjamin Langan ended up on the wrong side of death’
‘What can I say, we grew up together. Our mothers were best friends. We lived on the estate just off Brixton Road, near where the big Tesco’s store is now. Our dads seemed to be having a competition as to who was the most useless…and abusive. Our mothers went through a lot when we were growing up, and when our dads left us when we were about six and eight, our mothers moved in together. We became like brothers. School was hard. James, or Jamie as we used to call him at school, was two years above me. He would always look out for me. Although at Primary school we were just as small as each other. Jamie got picked on a bit by the older boys but they regretted that once we got to Secondary school.’
‘Why was that?’
‘Well once Jamie turned twelve he shot up in size. By the time he was fourteen he was six foot tall, muscular, and very athletic. He was in all the team
s, football athletics basketball. Not the swimming team though…he never learnt to swim. However he then took it in turns to repatriate his pride and self worth on those who had tormented him as a child. I covered for him on numerous occasions, saying he was with me when really he had been kicking the shit out of another one off his list.’
‘So when did things go really bad then?’
‘Well there was this time he actually got caught. Ironically it wasn’t his fault. Those he had battered decided to get him back, however he took all four of them on. Obviously he couldn’t remain unhurt and the whole school had turned out to watch it. When he got sent to the head of the school he was banned from all sports for six months. He couldn’t believe it. He told the head to go fuck himself and walked out of school. He never returned. His mum didn’t find out for six months. She was mortified. Her little boy had turned into an angry young man. He had taken to stealing. Then he got in with one of the local gangs and started helping with drug runs, getting involved with fights with other gangs, that sort of thing. When his mother had found out he had left school he told her he had found himself a full time job. She let him off and was pleased with him as he was giving her £50 a week which came in really handy. He had vowed when we were younger to look after his mother, as she had brought him up right, but he had just got involved with the wrong people, he had needed a father in his life, and instead he got one of the hardest gangs in Brixton to look out for him.
‘So where is his mother now? We didn’t find any evidence of her being here?’
‘She left, after Jamie turned twenty three she went back to Jamaica. She found out what Jamie was actually doing when he was seventeen. But by then it was too late, and she was too used to the money. She would go to church every Sunday and pray for him but at the same time she would always pick up the money that he left for her on the kitchen table. By the time Jamie was twenty he was in charge of the gang. I had joined a year earlier and between the two of us we ran the place. It turns out Jamie’s ruthless streak helped, and he did have a business head on him after all. The money flowed in and he laundered it by buying cars, jewellery, electronic gadgets, then when he had too much he bought the strip club and then the nightclub plus a few other properties along the way. When his mother left he was gutted. But he never talked about it, he closed himself up. We became even closer, always looking out for each other. I did what I could for him….and lets be honest, I was well rewarded. I have made mistakes, and have got caught up in all this nonsense, I realise that now, which is why I am talking and would like a deal as I don’t want to go inside, not again. I also don’t want to end up like Jamie. He was only thirty six. I need a new start in life, to get away, can you help me? What do you think??’
‘We can get onto that. Can you tell us who would want to do this to Jamie? Who were his enemies?’
‘Well where do I start, the Noo Crew out of Brixton. They were his old gang before he got too big for them. Dumped all of them apart from me, when you are in a gang you are supposed to be a member for life. They are nothing now, just hanging out in the park near the church on Brixton high street, drinking cheap cider and smoking spiffs. They hate him, would kill him in a heartbeat if they had a chance. Mind you, they are that stoned and pissed all the time they would struggle to kill an ant. Then there is the Polish lot. God knows what their real names are they only go by single letters, when they are all together it’s like a fuckin’ episode of Countdown!! They operate out of a small café on the Edgware Road near Paddington. You will never see any customers in there apart from that lot, it’s only a small place, but I bet if you checked the books it’s the most profitable café in London. They launder all of their drug and protection money through there. They came over here six years ago. Started treading on Jamie’s turf he got them sorted out and they backed off but that was a couple of years ago when they were a lot weaker. I would definitely start with them. News is that their territory is expanding. I know they had the cheek to try and get someone inside Jamie’s club to sell drugs. We caught him and I think the only drugs he sees these days are the ones coming through his I.V. straight into his arm. Not a pretty sight. I think they go along with the name Bobo gang as they are from Bobolice in Poland. Just another Polish shit hole probably. They send money over there and I have heard they are building houses and basically trying to buy the whole town so they must be doing well. Start with them. They are psychopaths and definitely in search of revenge.’
Ian looked at PC McGeorge, she had made copious notes and they both acknowledged to each other that they had enough for now.
‘So any chance of getting my charges reduced now I have given you all of that? Is there any way I can get out of going to jail at all?’ Richard Bird looked scared, he knew he had no chance but was desperate.
‘I am afraid I can only give you two options son’
‘Okay I’ll take anything, what are the options?’
‘Would you like an east or west facing prison cell for the next twenty years?’
Ian stopped the tape, gathered his stuff together, nodded at the gay cross dressing lawyer (allegedly) and walked out of the room with PC McGeorge in tow.
As he shut the door behind him and walked towards the lift he looked at McGeorge with a smile on his face and said ‘Looks like we have a lead now. See what you can find out and we can take it from there’
‘Yes guv, okay will do. Let’s catch up tomorrow then.’
‘Nice one McGeorge see you later on’
Chapter 7 –‘So what’s the plan then?’