Villain Page 3

  ‘Well, they’re headquartered mainly in the East London–Essex area, legacy of the previous generation, but they’re not territorial in the traditional sense, and they don’t control a “manor” as such. Like I said, they’re multinational in nature and they run a sophisticated global operation with links to organised crime groups on just about every continent to facilitate their illicit activities.’

  ‘They sound like major players,’ Bailey acknowledged. She tilted her head pensively. ‘Molloy’s an Irish name, isn’t it?’

  Frank nodded. ‘That’s right. The Molloy family are of Irish origin, although they’ve been living here in London for several generations.’ He paused thoughtfully. ‘Molloy means “proud chieftain” in Gaelic apparently.’

  Bailey smiled. ‘Didn’t know you had an interest in etymology, Frank.’ She paused. ‘Talking of chieftains, remind me again who runs this outfit.’

  ‘A very pertinent question,’ he said. ‘These days, the Molloy crime empire is run by Rick Molloy. He’s Adrian’s younger brother. He’s a premier-league gangster, although he tells people he’s just an innocent property developer. Takes the business side of things very seriously apparently, which probably goes some way to explaining the success of their organisation. But although he may act like the proverbial businessman, he’s a ruthless thug and a villain at the end of the day, who maintains his position, and that of his organisation, just like any other gangster – by the calculated use of violence. The Molloys have been linked to at least twenty-one murders, and that’s just in the UK, and those are just the ones we know about.’

  ‘Sounds like a dangerous character,’ said Bailey. She paused. ‘You said this job needed a woman’s touch. Why? In fact, come to think of it, you haven’t told me what the job is yet.’

  Frank again glanced at Dale, who’d been sitting back listening with his leg resting on his knee. Dale uncrossed his legs and leaned forward to speak.

  ‘It’ll help first if you know a bit of background about the family themselves. The Molloy organisation was founded by Arthur Molloy back in the mid-eighties. He was an armed robber who used his ill-gotten gains to invest in the drugs trade and he did well enough out of that to be able to branch out into other criminal activities and make even more money.’

  Bailey watched him talk, getting a better impression of him as he did so. He exuded an undeniable aura of confidence and an authority in his subject, and she found he commanded her attention with ease.

  ‘But then, in 1994, Arthur was murdered in Spain, shot dead in the back garden of his luxury hacienda in Marbella. At this point, his wife, Nancy, took over the operation. She’s a formidable character in her own right, but more about her later.’

  A smile crinkled the corners of his eyes as he spoke to her, indicating to Bailey that he enjoyed being in the spotlight like this.

  ‘Eventually, because she was getting older, I guess, Nancy decided she wanted to step back a bit and put one of her sons in charge. After all, they were more than old enough by then. Adrian, being the eldest, was logically the one to step up and take charge, but he was too much of a playboy and a cokehead. He liked to trade off his dad’s reputation, but he lacked that inner steel and ice-cold intelligence that’s crucial for staying on top within the underworld. So Nancy skipped Adrian and put Rick in charge instead.

  ‘Rick’s a much cooler customer, and the smarter of the two by a long way. He’s got an extremely short record sheet and he’s never once been to prison. He’s very good at keeping his hands clean and he’s beaten almost every charge that’s been thrown at him. Witnesses tend to have a habit of dropping their testimony at the last minute, or in some cases, meeting with unfortunate accidents.’

  Dale paused for a moment, his face taking on a weighty expression. She sensed he was about to reveal something important.

  ‘It’s common knowledge that Adrian Molloy was a gangster,’ he said. ‘And we won’t be shedding too many tears now that he’s gone. One less villain for us to worry about. But what’s less well known… in fact, what has been kept top-secret, and remains so even now, is that he was a registered informant.’

  4

  Bailey raised her eyebrows in surprise.

  ‘Adrian was a snout?’ she murmured. A snout was police slang for an informant.

  ‘That’s the reason Dale’s here,’ said Frank.

  Dale nodded. ‘My job is working with confidential informants. I was Adrian’s handler.’

  Bailey regarded him with an added layer of respect. Working with informants was highly sensitive work. You definitely had to be a cut above the average plod to be entrusted with CIs. But it didn’t surprise her that Dale had graduated into this type of work. Even back at Hendon, it had been apparent that he’d possessed that special kind of drive, and as for that slight taint of arrogance he had, she’d witnessed the same thing in other individuals she’d encountered in elite units, and they’d been among some of the best police officers she’d met; it was a form of self-belief that was often crucial to success in the high-stakes world in which both he and she operated.

  ‘Did he get caught for something?’ she asked, seeking to establish how a member of one of the city’s top crime families had crossed to the side of the law.

  Dale shook his head. ‘Unusually, he was a walk-in.’

  Criminals most often turned informant after being caught as a way to get out of being charged for their offence or to lessen the sentence that they ultimately received. However, some of them volunteered their services for motives of their own, as appeared to be the case here.

  ‘And that’s why I wanted to give you a bit of background on the family,’ he said. ‘Because that’s who Adrian was stitching up. His own family. His own brother, to be precise.’

  Bailey shook her head in wonderment. But then perhaps she shouldn’t have been too surprised. After all, she herself was only too well acquainted with how illogical and dysfunctional families could be, but at least hers weren’t criminals.

  Dale continued. ‘He’d developed a real chip on his shoulder about Rick being put in control of the family. Adrian thought he was the one who should have been boss, being older, and he really resented the fact that he wasn’t. And this was his way of getting back at his younger brother.’

  ‘And that suited us very well,’ said Frank with a wry smirk. ‘We’ve been trying to crack the Molloys for years. I’ve got a huge file on them, which I’ll let you have a look at, and you’ll be able to see the scale of the things they get away with.’

  Dale nodded in agreement. ‘That’s why Adrian was graded as one of our highest-level informants. Because of the information he was able to provide. We’re not talking dinky little street corner busts here. We’re talking about transactions of a very significant nature, the kind of thing the Molloys specialise in.’

  ‘Like what?’ Bailey asked.

  ‘Well, for example, just before he got blown up, he told us the Molloys are planning to smuggle a load of ecstasy pills into an airstrip in Essex on the third of February. We passed that information to Essex police and Customs and they’re now in the process of putting together an operation to swoop on the drugs as soon as they arrive.’

  ‘But the drugs aren’t why you’re here,’ Frank intervened. ‘You’re here for something that I personally regard as much more serious.’

  Bailey felt a prickle of anticipation and leaned forward in her chair.

  Dale spoke up. ‘Adrian told me that Rick had secured a large quantity of firearms. Automatic and semi-automatic weapons. And that he was looking for a buyer. As you well know, this type of scenario presents the ideal opportunity for infiltration by an undercover police officer to catch him in a bust. As soon as I heard about it, I knew we had to act.’

  Frank nodded gravely. ‘The quantities are significant. A hundred and twenty CZ 805 BREN assault rifles, and a hundred and forty K100 pistols, along with seventy silencers and a hundred and thirty thousand rounds of assorted ammunition. That’s five
hundred bullets for each weapon. And did I mention, it’s all brand new. Totally clean. This is one major arsenal we’re talking about.’

  Bailey absorbed the details while Frank continued.

  ‘Although the UK has traditionally had low levels of gun crime, firearms offences have increased significantly in recent years and most of the victims are young – under thirty-five, and often they’re just teenagers. We’re seeing more firearms than ever on the streets of the UK, and that trend, worryingly, is growing. Seizures of guns by the likes of the National Crime Agency have gone up by more than three hundred per cent, but still the weapons are flooding in, and it’s people like Rick who are responsible.

  ‘Weapons like his ones, which are new and clean, are all the more appealing to criminals because they don’t have any associations with past crimes. He’s got a load of military-grade weaponry in his possession and it could inflict untold damage in the wrong hands. It won’t just be hard-core criminals who’ll be looking to buy these guns, it could also be terrorists.’

  Bailey nodded. ‘So you want me to pose as a buyer for these guns and set up Rick for a bust.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Dale. ‘After discussing it with me, Adrian agreed to vouch for an undercover police officer who would pose as a buyer for the guns. He went back to Rick, and hinted that he might have found a potential buyer, but at that point he didn’t give Rick a name or anything because we hadn’t yet found a police officer to play the role. Rick turned out to be keen though, wanted to know more, and wanted to hear from this potential buyer. So I went to Frank and we thought about possible undercover candidates to fill this role.’

  ‘And we came up with your name, Bailey,’ said Frank with a wan smile.

  Bailey frowned and shook her head. ‘But Adrian’s dead now. How can he vouch for me?’

  ‘Well, that’s the thing,’ Frank replied. ‘I was about to approach you for this job just before Christmas, but then Adrian got blown up and we thought the whole thing was off.’

  Dale spoke up. ‘But then we realised that this doesn’t change the fact that Rick has still got those guns and he’s still probably looking for a buyer.’

  ‘And we cannot just sit back and allow this quantity of firearms to hit the streets of the UK,’ said Frank. ‘We knew we had to stop him. So we’ve decided to try and go ahead with it all the same, before he finds another buyer. And that’s why I called you, on Christmas Day.’

  ‘As far as Rick’s concerned,’ Dale added, ‘this potential buyer that Adrian suggested is still out there somewhere wanting to buy a load of guns. It’s just a case of that person getting in contact with him.’

  ‘But how will Rick know that I’m the one Adrian suggested?’ asked Bailey.

  ‘Good question,’ said Dale. ‘Well, Rick provided Adrian with a special code word for this buyer to use in relation to this transaction. When you call Rick, if you use the code word, he’ll know that you’re the buyer that Adrian was going to vouch for and he’ll trust you. Hopefully.’

  ‘So Adrian gave you Rick’s personal telephone number as well?’

  ‘Yes, you’ll call him on that number,’ said Dale. ‘But you should know that Rick is paranoid about police surveillance. He doesn’t like talking business over the phone in case anyone’s listening in. Hence the use of a code word.’

  ‘What is this code word?’

  ‘“Furniture”.’

  ‘Furniture?’ Bailey asked, bemused.

  ‘You ask about buying the “furniture”. He’ll ask what sort. You say “Victorian oak dining set”. And he’ll know you’re the one.’

  ‘And that’s it?’ said Bailey.

  Dale nodded. ‘When you meet him to discuss the deal, he’ll expect you to be aware of the quantities and the types of guns involved because Adrian will supposedly have told you all about it. Your knowledge of that in itself will demonstrate that you’re the bona-fide buyer that Adrian was talking about. The only thing you’ll need to do is negotiate a price.’

  ‘It doesn’t mean he won’t be suspicious, of course,’ said Frank. ‘That’s just how he operates. And, of course, without Adrian there to corroborate you, he’ll be extra careful and want to know all about you and how you met Adrian and so on and so forth. But I reckon he’s really keen to shift these guns, and I think, with a bit of luck, you should be able to pull it off.’

  Bailey frowned. Something was niggling at her. ‘Adrian got blown up. Did it occur to you that maybe his own family blew him up because they found out he was a snout? And if that’s the case, then surely they’ll be expecting anyone who approaches them via Adrian to be a potential undercover cop? Everyone knows that the police use informants in just this way to infiltrate criminal groups.’

  ‘That’s a very good point,’ said Frank, ‘And it’s one that we’ve already thought about. It’s very simple really. Rick is extremely suspicious by nature. If you call him and use the code word he gave Adrian, and he thinks you’re a cop because Adrian was an informant, he’ll just hang up on you and that’ll be that. He won’t want to have anything to do with you and he certainly won’t want to meet up with you as that would be way too risky for him, not to mention a complete waste of his time. The operation will be over before it’s even started.’ He paused. ‘However… if he doesn’t hang up on you, then that means in all likelihood that he didn’t know that Adrian was an informant, which means he didn’t blow up Adrian, and it means that he won’t immediately suspect that you’re a cop.’

  ‘It sounds like a bit of a gamble,’ said Bailey.

  ‘It is,’ Frank agreed. ‘But it’s the only card we’ve got left to play, and we have to try and play it if we want to stop these guns from hitting the streets. It’s either that or let him sell them to someone who’ll use them to inflict real harm.’

  ‘Are you still up for it?’ asked Dale, looking concerned.

  Bailey nodded. ‘I’ll just have to think of a good cover story.’

  Her mind was already humming with potential options. It was the responsibility of the undercover police officer to think up their own cover story and she always relished the opportunity to put her imagination to use in this way.

  ‘I think my best bet is to pose as a mid-level player looking to move up the food chain,’ she said. ‘I’ll need an apartment, a car and the appropriate credentials.’

  The kind of street player she was aiming to emulate always had a number of schemes running at any given time. Stolen vehicles, fur coats, gold bullion. Potential burglaries. Drugs. Weapons. Buying and selling. Wheeling and dealing. She knew the type well.

  ‘You just have to think of a good reason why you’d need to acquire so many guns,’ said Frank.

  Bailey let her mind work on it for a few moments.

  ‘How about guns for right-wing contacts?’ she said. ‘There are plenty of fringe groups that have sprung up in recent years, what with the global shift to the right.’

  Frank and Dale looked at each other and nodded in approval.

  Bailey knew that with a little bit of research she could be vague enough to spin it into something plausible.

  ‘With a transaction of this importance,’ said Dale, ‘it’s likely that you’ll be dealing directly with Rick himself at all stages of the process. Like I said, he’s paranoid about police surveillance, so he generally prefers to meet up face-to-face when he wants to communicate anything important.

  ‘Those ecstasy pills I mentioned are pretty run-of-the-mill, and the Molloys will probably just send some lower-level subordinates to pick up the drugs, and those are the people the Essex police will end up arresting. But these guns are something else and we reckon they give us the opportunity to capture Rick himself. It’s all too easy for us to arrest the minor players. But to make a real impact, we need to catch the guys at the top, guys like Rick. He’s been operating with virtual impunity for so long, but hopefully we’ll get him this time. With your help.’

  ‘So who’s running this operation?’ said Baile
y.

  ‘With a large quantity of guns like this, the National Crime Agency would normally be the ones to run such an operation,’ Frank explained. ‘However, due to the particular circumstances and sensitive nature of this infiltration, I’ve convinced them to let us run it as a Metropolitan Police operation. However, I’ll be feeding back directly to them, and the NCA will be instrumental in the final bust. Having laid much of the groundwork already, in terms of his work with Adrian, Dale will be part and parcel of this operation, and you and he will be working together very closely throughout the course of the whole thing.’

  She shot Dale a thin smile. He smiled back and she felt a little twist of butterflies in her stomach.

  ‘Your identity will remain secret of course,’ Frank continued. ‘Only Dale and I will be aware of your true identity. We’ll keep this operation very tightly insulated in order to minimise any potential breach of security or accidental leaks. And we’ll set up the usual operational emergency security protocols, including a fake company you can call should anything go seriously amiss; your call will be patched through directly to me.’

  Getting her head around everything she’d just been told, Bailey looked up at Frank with a frown as she suddenly remembered something.

  ‘Frank, I thought the reason I was here was because this job required a feminine touch. Buying a large amount of guns isn’t the kind of thing you’d normally associate with a woman. Quite the opposite in fact.’

  ‘Remember I mentioned Nancy Molloy?’ said Dale.

  Bailey turned her attention to him. ‘You said she was a formidable character.’

  Dale nodded. ‘Although it’s Rick who officially runs things, the real power behind the throne is Nancy, the matriarch. According to Adrian, Rick defers to her completely. If he’s the CEO, then you can think of her as the Non-Executive Director.

  ‘As a matter of course, he runs all new business past her first, to let her sound it out. A lot of people fall at that first hurdle, some of them permanently, if you know what I’m saying. She’s one reason why we’ve never really managed to penetrate their organisation. She has an uncanny knack of being able to sniff out cops. It must be the criminal blood running through her veins – her father was an old-school blagger back in the sixties, so she’s got a criminal pedigree of her very own, and that includes an inbuilt aversion to the police.