Unlawfully at large, p.1
Unlawfully At Large, page 1
part #2 of DCI Tyler Series
UNLAWFULLY AT LARGE
A DCI TYLER THRILLER
MARK ROMAIN
Copyright © 2020 MARK ROMAIN
All rights reserved
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Edited by Yvonne Goldsworthy
Cover design by Woot Han
I’d like to say a special thank you to my brilliant little team of test readers, Clare, David, and Darren, for all the great feedback you provided while I was writing this story.
This book is dedicated to my mother, Sheila Rose Romain, who sadly passed away on 7th January 2020.
Rest in peace, mum. We love and miss you very much.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
JACK’S BACK
THE HUNT FOR CHEN
Glossary of terms used in the Jack Tyler books
Author’s note
About the author
Turf War
Chapter 1
Chapter 1
Tuesday 4th January 2000
Detective Chief Inspector Jack Tyler of the Area Major Investigation Pool sat at his desk at Arbour Square in East London and stared blankly at the computer screen in front of him.
It was a cold, wet Tuesday morning in early January, and the sky outside his window was a depressing battleship grey, which pretty much matched his mood.
Heavy sleet was falling and a fierce wind was making the old building’s windows rattle. Despite the arctic temperatures that prevailed outside, the cast iron radiator inside his office was belting out so much heat that he was beginning to feel drowsy.
The little portable radio on his window sill was playing quietly in the background, and he had just listened to Bill Withers singing Lovely Day, which was somewhat ironic because it was anything but.
The hourly news bulletin came on, and the lead story was a regurgitated piece about the TV soap star who had strangled his supermodel girlfriend at their Chelsea flat during the early hours of New Year’s Day after a cocaine-fuelled night out on the town. Having killed her, he had promptly gone on the run.
“Craig Masters, who plays loveable rogue Steve Michaels on the popular soap, Docklands, was last seen driving his Bentley over Lambeth Bridge during the early hours of New Year’s Day,” the announcer was saying in his clipped monotone. “His current whereabouts remain unknown but police are following a number of leads. A spokesperson for the award-winning programme said…”
Tyler leaned over and switched the radio off. An AMIP Team from West London had taken the job, and it was their problem, not his. He leaned back in his chair and stretched expansively. This was his first day back at work since Christmas Eve when he’d broken up for the yuletide festivities, and he was finding it really hard to motivate himself and get back into the swing of things.
It had been such a wonderful break, and so desperately needed after the gruelling caseload he’d been carrying these past few months. Since wrapping up the high-profile Whitechapel murders case in early November, the team had taken three other jobs in quick succession, a householder who had been killed and then set on fire following a dispute with his builder, a domestic, and a gangland shooting.
In dire need of some time off, Jack had driven up to the Norfolk coastline to join his parents at their country retreat in Wells-Next-The-Sea straight after work on Christmas Eve.
Over the next three days, he had eaten and drunk far too much, enjoyed a couple of wonderfully lazy afternoons curled up on the couch watching festive films on TV, and played charades and board games with the assembled family during the evenings. His elder brother, Henry, had also been there, along with his gorgeous Italian wife, Sophia, who Jack secretly thought bore an uncanny resemblance to the ‘60s actress Claudia Cardinale. She certainly had the same come-to-bed-eyes.
To the surprise of everyone in the Tyler clan, Jack had – in a moment of spontaneity the day before – invited Kelly Flowers to accompany him on the trip. With their relationship still in its infancy, Kelly had been more than a little apprehensive about meeting his family, but she needn’t have worried. Everyone had taken to her immediately, so much so that when the visit came to an end on the twenty-seventh, his parents had gushed over Kelly in a way that they never had with his ex-wife, Jenny.
“Mark my words,” Jack’s father had whispered in his ear as they’d embraced prior to Jack setting off on the long drive back to Essex, “this one’s a keeper.”
The words had resonated strongly with Jack, who suspected that his wise old dad might well be right.
Instead of partying in the New Year, as had become the annual custom since his messy divorce five years ago, Jack had arranged a romantic getaway for the pair of them in a cosy four-star hotel in the heart of the New Forest. It was a picturesque, ivy fronted Edwardian building, surrounded on all sides by pretty meadows and sprawling forests. Their luxury room had contained a working fireplace and a fancy jacuzzi, and for the next three days they had only ventured out to take invigorating afternoon walks and to enjoy their evening meals in the hotel’s Michelin rated restaurant. But, as the saying went, all good things must come to an end, and now it was time for him to get back to the grind.
As much as Jack genuinely loved his job, he was finding today’s humdrum return to normality so incredibly boring that he was seriously considering popping into a local travel agent at lunchtime. He had tonnes of leave left, and a week’s skiing in the Alps later this month or early next would certainly hit the spot. He wondered if Kelly skied; he would have to ask her later.
Jack took a sip of tepid coffee and grimaced.
Pushing the mug aside, he stifled a yawn and tried to force himself to concentrate on the task at hand. He was halfway through reading a lengthy forensic report that was so incredibly dull it was literally sapping his will to live.
With a laboured sigh, he started reading a new paragraph that was just as full of technical gobbledygook as the preceding one. Only half understanding some of the scientific phraseology, he found himself struggling to pronounce a particularly tongue-twisting word that seemed to contain almost every letter of the alphabet.
What possible justification could there be for having a word that long? he asked himself huffily.
Conscious that he had a telephone conference booked with the scientist who had written it straight after lunch, Tyler decided to skim over that section and return to it later if necessary.
The telephone suddenly rang, startling him. He scooped it up halfway through the second ring, grateful for the distraction. “DCI Tyler,” he said, massaging his eyes.
It was DCI Andy Quinlan.
“Morning, Jack,” Andy said, sounding as though he bore the weight of the world on his slender shoulders. “This is just a courtesy call, really, but I thought you’d want to know. I’ve just discovered that the drug squad’s producing our old friend, Claude Winston, from The Ville today. Apparently, they’ve got him for a three-day-laydown.”
The Ville, or HMP Pentonville to give it its full name, was the North London prison in which Claude Winston, a Bethnal Green-based pimp and drug smuggler with a nasty habit of shooting police officers, was being held on remand while awaiting trial for two counts of attempted murder, possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life and possession of two kilos of cocaine with intent to supply. He was there because Jack and his partner, DI Tony Dillon, had arrested him while investigating the Whitechapel murders late last year.
At the time, Jack had been so snowed under hunting down the serial killer the media had tackily dubbed The New Ripper that his boss, DCS George Holland, had insisted he hand Winston’s case over to Andy Quinlan’s team.
Tyler sat bolt upright in his chair, unsettled by the news. “Now why would they do that?” he asked in a voice thick with suspicion. “And how the fuck have the jammy buggers managed to get him for three whole days?”
When Her Majesties Prison Service granted the police permission to produce a prisoner for interview purposes, it was under the strict proviso that the inmate was returned later that same day. When investigat
A nasty thought occurred to Tyler.
“You don’t think they’re looking to do a deal with him behind our backs, do you?” he asked. The words tasted even worse than his cold coffee had.
At the time of his arrest, Tyler knew that the drug squad had only considered Winston to be a fringe player. However, since his incarceration, intelligence reports generated by both NCIS – the National Crime Intelligence Service – and the guys at MIB – the Met Intelligence Bureau –suggested that Winston had forged links to the Turkish and Albanian organised crime cartels that dominated London’s prosperous opium trade.
Knowing how these things worked, Tyler wouldn’t be surprised if it transpired that some conniving bastard at the drug squad was trying to persuade Winston to trade information about the cartels in exchange for a more lenient sentence.
“I’ve been asking myself that same question since I found out,” Quinlan said gloomily. “But Winston would have to have some pretty spectacular information to sell if he wanted a text worth the paper it’s written on, bearing in mind what he’s been charged with.”
When a prisoner became a Confidential Human Intelligence Source – a CHIS – and provided information that assisted the police in preventing or solving serious offences, they were automatically entitled to receive a letter – commonly referred to in the trade as a text – from the Crown. This was traditionally served on the presiding judge in the privacy of their chambers by a CHIS handler at the start of the trial.
Apart from the judge, the handler, the ACPO – Association of Chief Police Officers – level officer approving the deal, and a high-ranking lawyer from the Crown Prosecution Service, no one else would ever know it had happened.
Jack sighed miserably. “Well, you’ve just brightened up my day no end,” he said, running a hand through his short brown hair. “Do you know where they’re taking him?”
“He’s going to KF, or so I’m told.” KF was the phonetic code for Forest Gate police station in Romford Road, East London.
“Have you spoken to George Holland yet?”
“Not yet,” Quinlan said. “I thought you’d want to be the first to know.”
“Bloody marvellous. Dillon’s not going to be a happy bunny when I tell him.”
◆◆◆
Claude Winston sat in the back of the grubby people carrier, quietly watching the world pass by through tinted windows that were streaked with rain. He was being driven along Romford Road towards the Stratford one-way system, and they were moving at what felt like a snail’s pace. Traffic had been so bad this morning that the eight-mile journey from Islington had already taken them well over an hour. Still, he wasn’t complaining; it was better than sitting in a cell and staring at four walls.
The people carrier slowed to a stop as it tagged onto the end of a long line of vehicles being held at a red traffic signal. The driver cursed the traffic, and then the weather. He complained that his throat felt like he’d swallowed sandpaper and announced that he could murder a cuppa, which triggered an argument over whose turn it was to get the drinks in.
Ignoring the banter from the three detective who were escorting him, Winston glanced out of the side window at the sodden pedestrians who were scurrying hither and thither along the crowded pavement like a bunch of drowning rats. Some were huddled over with their collars pulled up high; others were hiding underneath umbrellas that did little to shield them from the sideways driven rain. All of them were getting in each other’s way and most of them looked as miserable as sin.
He watched dispassionately as a limping vagrant of Eastern European appearance hobbled from doorway to doorway on a pair of crutches that were too short for him. The dishevelled man was soaked through, and as he came to a wobbly halt underneath a large canopy suspended above the entrance to an Ironmonger’s, the proprietor came rushing out and shooed him away.
Winston grinned mirthlessly. Another example of the milk of human kindness, he thought bitterly. And they have the nerve to call me ruthless!
As the lights started to change, an elderly Indian woman with a bright red Bindi on her forehead dashed across the road directly in front of their vehicle. He’d once asked an Indian punter what the dot signified, only to be told that it was a reset button for the husband to press if his wife ever displeased him. The drunken Indian had then teetered off, still chortling to himself over his joke, without giving Winston his answer.
The woman wore a thick green coat over her sari, but all she had on her feet was a pair of wafer-thin sandals. He shook his head in amazement – someone ought to tell the silly cow to put on some Wellingtons next time she goes out in the rain.
Holding her umbrella high, so as not to decapitate anyone coming the other way, the woman shimmied through a succession of puddles, trying to avoid the deepest ones with varying levels of success. As she reached the safety of the pavement, a fierce gust of wind caused her umbrella to collapse in on itself, and while she was trying to straighten it out, a lumbering HGV drove through a puddle the size of a small lake and drenched her from the waist down.
Winston chuckled to himself. Classic, he thought. Maybe she needs her reset button pressing.
It was a huge relief to be away from the claustrophobic confines of the prison, with its endless concrete corridors, all separated by locked metal doors or steel bars. Spending Christmas and New Year inside had been one of the most depressing experiences of his entire life, and he had no intention of repeating it.
Shifting in his seat to ease the numbness in his buttocks, Winston let out a restless sigh and stretched his one free arm above his head.
“Keeping you awake, are we?” the sombre looking detective he was handcuffed to asked in his deep baritone voice. It was the only time the man had bothered to address Winston all journey.
Winston responded with a surly grunt.
Winston’s escorts, all big lumps with broken noses and barrel chests, had obviously been handpicked for the job because of their formidable size as opposed to their social skills, but with his reputation for violence, that was only to be expected.
Detective Sergeant Declan Bale, the man in charge of relocating Winston from HMP Pentonville to Forest Gate police station, was sitting in the front talking to the driver about football. He glanced over his shoulder and noticed that Winston was getting a bit fidgety. “We’re nearly there now, pal,” he said placatingly.
Bale was a fair-haired Welshman with the flat nose and cauliflower ears of a former rugby player and the beer belly of a man who enjoyed a good drink. Straight after introducing himself, he had made a point of informing Winston that he and his colleagues were merely delivery men and that they wouldn’t be having anything more to do with him once they’d dropped him off at the police station. In fact, the burly detective from the Welsh valleys had only spoken to Winston on one other occasion, just after they drove out of the prison gates, and that had been to enquire whether he had been raised as a Rastafarian or had converted in later life, and if it was true that Rastas grew long dreadlocks to denote the covenant that they had made with their God.
Winston had considered these questions so unbelievably stupid that he hadn’t even bothered to reply. Yes, he was of Jamaican descent, and yes, he sported shoulder-length dreadlocks, but that didn’t automatically make him a Rasta. As it happened, the way he wore his hair had nothing to do with religion – he just liked having dreads; they were his pride and joy.
Winston had retreated within himself almost immediately after that, and he had spent the remainder of the tedious journey lost in melancholy. Two short months had passed since those arseholes from the murder squad had put him behind bars but, to him, it felt more like two years. Winston had made two bail applications since being locked up – the first at the Magistrate’s Court the day after he’d been charged, and the second at the Old Bailey, two weeks later.
Neither had been successful.
