The Home Office Consolidated Circular to the Police on Crime and Kindred Matters (Home Office Circular 35/1986, Paragraph 1.92). a. No member of a police force, and no public informant, should counsel, incite or procure the commission of a crime. b. Where an informant gives the police information about the intention of others to commit a crime in which they intend that he shall play a part, his participation should be allowed to continue only where i. he does not actively engage in planning and committing the crime;
2. he is intended to play only a minor role; and 3. his participation is essential to enable the police to frustrate the principal criminals and to arrest them (albeit for lesser of fences such as attempt or conspiracy to commit the crime, or carrying offensive weapons) before injury is done to any person or serious damage to property.
The informant should always be instructed that he must on no account act as agent provocateur, whether by suggesting to others that they should commit of fences or encouraging them to do so.
The man had been tied to the chair for so long that he'd lost all feeling in his hands and feet. His captors had used thick strips of insulation tape to bind him to the wooden chair and slapped another piece across his mouth, even though he was in a basement and there was no one within earshot who cared whether he lived or died.
The three men who'd brought him to the villa hadn't said a word as they'd dragged him out of the back of the Mercedes and hustled him across the flagstones into the pink-walled villa. He'd lost a shoe somewhere and his big toe poked through a hole in his blue woollen sock.
The tape across his mouth pulsed in and out with each ragged breath as he looked around the room where he was being kept prisoner. No windows. A single door that had been bolted when the three men left.
Bare walls, stone with a thick covering of yellowing plaster. A concrete floor. A single fluorescent strip light above his head. One wall had been shelved with slabs of rough local timber and there was a scattering of tinned goods at eye level Heinz baked beans, Batchelor's peas, bottles of HP sauce and boxes of Kellogg's cornflakes and PG Tips. The cravings of an Englishman abroad.
The man fought to steady his breathing. Panic wasn't going to get him anywhere. He had to stay calm. He had to think.
In front of him a Sony digital video camera stood on a tripod, its single lens staring at him full on. The man stared back. He had a bad feeling about the camera. A very bad feeling.
He strained to hear where the three men were, but no sound penetrated the depths of the basement. He hadn't heard them leave the villa or the Mercedes being driven away, but that meant nothing. The soundproofing of the basement worked both ways.
The man tested his bonds. The tape was grey and metallic looking, the type used by plumbers, and while it was only an inch wide, it had been wound around his limbs so many times that they might as well have been made of steel. He tried to rock the chair backwards and forwards, but it was big and heavy and he could barely move it.
He swallowed. His throat felt raw and every breath was painful, but at least the pain proved that he was alive.
He racked his brains, trying to think where he'd gone wrong. He must have made a mistake somewhere along the line, and if he could just work out what it was, maybe he'd be able to put it right. Had someone recognised him, had he said something to give himself away, some stupid slip that he hadn't noticed but which they'd picked up on? He replayed all the recent conversations he'd had but nothing came to mind. He was too professional to make mistakes. Too careful. Too scared.
He knew two of the men who'd brought him down to the basement. One was Scottish, the other Brazilian. He'd known them both for almost two years. He'd drunk with them, who red with them, on occasions almost felt that they were friends. However, when they'd picked him up on the pavement outside the hotel their eyes had been hard and their faces set like stone, and he'd known even before they'd grabbed him that he was in trouble.
The third man, the one who'd driven, was a stranger. Hispanic, jet-black hair that had been swept back, and high cheekbones pockmarked with old acne scars. The driver had kept turning around and grinning at him, but like the other two hadn't said a word during the drive to the villa.
Initially the man had tried to bluff it out, to make a joke of it, then he'd faked anger, saying that they had no right to treat him that way, then he'd threatened them. They'd said nothing. The Scotsman had jabbed the barrel of a large automatic into the man's ribs and kept his finger tight on the trigger. Eventually the man had fallen silent and just sat between his captors, his hands in his lap.
He heard footsteps on the stone steps that led down to the basement and he tensed. The door opened. He recognised the man who stood in the doorway. He was a shade over six feet tall with chestnut-brown hair that was unfashionably long, pale green eyes and a sprinkling of freckles over a nose that had been broken at least twice. Dennis Donovan.
"Don't get up, Andy," said Donovan, and laughed harshly.
The Brazilian appeared at Donovan's shoulder and grinned, showing yellowish, smoker's teeth.
Donovan and the Brazilian walked into the basement and closed the door.
Donovan was wearing a red short-sleeved polo shirt and khaki chinos, a Rolex submariner on his left wrist. In his hand was a long kitchen knife. The Brazilian was holding a large plastic bag.
The man said nothing. There was nothing he could say. Donovan had used his real name, which meant that Donovan knew everything.
"You've been a naughty boy, Andy," said Donovan, stretching out the man's name as if relishing the sound of it.
"A very naughty boy." From the back pocket of his chinos he took a black ski mask and slipped it on his head. He walked past the man, so close that he could smell Donovan's aftershave, and bent over the video camera. He pressed a button and then cursed.
"Fucking new technology," he said.
"Ever tried programming a video recorder, Andy? Bloody nightmare. You need a PhD in astrophysics just to set the timer. Ah, there we go."
Donovan straightened up. A small red light glowed at the top of the video recorder as the glass lens glared balefully at the man in the chair.
Donovan nodded at the Brazilian, who had also put on a black ski mask.
Donovan tossed the knife to him in a gentle arc and the Brazilian caught it deftly with his free hand.
The Brazilian advanced towards the man in the chair, flicking the knife from side to side, humming quietly. The man struggled, even though he knew there was no point in struggling. His conscious brain knew that his life was forfeit, but his animal instincts refused to accept the inevitable and he strained against his bonds and tried to scream through the tape gag as the Brazilian went to work with the knife.
Peter Latham stabbed at the lift button and glared at the floor indicator as if he could speed up its progress by sheer willpower. He shrugged his shoulders inside his grey suit jacket and adjusted his blue and yellow striped tie. It had been a long time since Latham had worn plainclothes during the day and he was surprised at how much he missed his uniform.
The briefcase he carried was the same one he carried into work every day at New Scotland Yard, a present from his wife of going on twenty-five years. Black leather, scuffed at the edges, the gilt weathered on the two combination locks, the handle virtually moulded to the shape of his hand, it was something of a lucky talisman and he planned to keep it until the day he retired.
The lift doors opened and Latham stepped inside. He pressed the button for the fifth floor but the doors remained resolutely open. The hotel was advertised as four-star, but the carpets were stained and threadbare and there was a tired look to the place, like a faded actress who'd long given up on her agent ringing with an offer of work.
It was in an area that Latham rarely frequented, just east of the City, London's sprawling financial district, and he'd travelled by black cab instead of using his regular driver. Strictly speaking, as an Assistant Commissioner with the Metropolitan Police, Latham was higher in rank than the man he was coming to see, but the man was an old friend and the manner and urgency of the request for the meeting was such that Latham was prepared to put rank aside.
The doors closed and there was a sharp jolt as the lift started its upward journey. Latham could hear gears grinding somewhere above his head and he resolved to take the stairs on the way down.
The room was at the end of a long corridor punctuated with cheap watercolours of seascapes in fake antique frames. Latham knocked and the door was opened by a man in his early fifties, a few inches shorter than Latham's six feet and several stone heavier.
"Peter, thanks for coming," said the man, offering his hand.
They shook. Both men had strong, firm grips. A handshake between equals.
"We're getting a bit old for cloak and dagger, aren't we, Ray?" said Latham. Raymond Mackie pulled an apologetic face and stepped aside to allow Latham into the room. Two single beds, a pine-laminated dressing table and wardrobe, and a small circular table with two grey armchairs.
There was a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label, two glasses and an ice bucket on the table. Mackie waddled over to it, poured two large measures and handed one to Latham. They clinked glasses and drank.
Mackie's official title was Head of Drugs Operations, HODO, generally referred to as Ho Dough, although because of Mackie's expansive waistline, this was frequently corrupted behind his back to the Doughboy.
A combined television and video recorder stood on the dressing table.
Mackie saw Latham looking at the television and he picked up a video cassette.
"This arrived at Custom House yesterday," he said.
"I hope you haven't brought me all this way to watch a blue movie," said Latham. He dropped down into one of the armchairs and put his briefcase on the floor.
"I warn you, it's not pretty," said Mackie, slotting the cassette into the recorder and pressing the 'play' button. He shuffled over to a sofa and eased himself down on to it as if he feared it might break, then took a long slug of his whisky as the screen flickered into life.
Latham steepled his fingers under his chin. It took several seconds before he realised that what he was seeing wasn't a movie, but the brutal torture of a fellow human being.
"Sweet Jesus," he whispered.
"Andy Middleton," said Mackie.
"One of our best undercover agents."
On the screen, the man in the ski mask was slicing deep cuts across the chest of the bound man, who was rocking back and forth in agony.
"He went missing on Anguilla two weeks ago. This came via Miami."
Latham tried not to look at the man being tortured and instead forced himself to look for details that might help identify the assailant or the location. The torturer had no watch or jewellery, and was wearing surgical gloves. There was no way of knowing if he was black or white, or even if he was male or female, though Latham doubted that a woman would be capable of such savagery. The walls were bare except for a few shelves to the left. A fluorescent light fitting. Concrete floor.
It could have been anywhere.
"Middleton was trying to get close to Dennis Donovan," said Mackie.
"Donovan's been active in the Caribbean for the past six months, meeting with Colombians and a Dutch shipper by the name of Akveld.
Middleton's in was through one of Akveld's associates. He's gone missing, too."
A second masked figure stepped into the frame holding a plastic bag. He stood for a second or two looking directly at the camera.
"We think this is Donovan," said Mackie.
"Same build. There's no way of knowing for sure, though."
The man walked behind Middleton and pulled the plastic bag down over his head, twisting it around his neck. The undercover Customs agent shuddered in the chair, his eyes wide and staring. It was more than a minute before his head slumped down against his chest, but the man behind him kept the bag tight around his neck for a further minute to make sure that he was dead.
The recording ended and Mackie switched off the television.
"Middleton is the third agent we've lost in the Caribbean. Like Middleton, the bodies of the first two haven't been found. They were hoping to bring Donovan down as part of Operation Liberator, but it didn't work out that way."
Latham nodded. Operation Liberator had been trumpeted as a major victory in the war against drugs almost three thousand drugs traffickers arrested, twenty tons of cocaine and almost thirty tons of marijuana seized along with thirty million dollars of assets confiscated as part of a massive operation conducted by the United States Drug Enforcement Administration and British Customs. Latham knew that most of the arrests were low-level dealers and traffickers, however, men and women who would have been replaced before they'd even been strip-searched. And thirty million dollars was a drop in the ocean of a business estimated to be worth more than five hundred billion dollars a year.
"Were they killed on tape?" asked Latham.
Mackie shook his head.
"So why this time? What was special about Middleton?"
"It's a warning," said Mackie, sitting down in the armchair opposite Latham and refilling their glasses.
"He's telling us what he'll do to anyone we send against him."
Latham sipped his whisky.
"It's unusual, isn't it, killing a Customs officer?"
"Not in the league Donovan's in. If it was just a case of a couple of kilos, maybe, but the last consignment of Donovan's that went belly up had a street value of thirty million dollars. If the DEA catch him with the goods, he'll go down for life without parole."
"Even so, he could just give them a kicking and send them packing, couldn't he?"
"I guess we've become a thorn in his side and this is his way of saying enough is enough."
"And is it? From your perspective?"
Mackie looked at the Assistant Commissioner with unblinking grey eyes.
"I knew all three of them, Peter. I worked with Andy way back when.
Checking cars at Dover, believe it or not. I'm not going to send any more men into the lion's den."
"So he's won?"
"Not exactly." Mackie fell silent and stared at a painting of a vase of flowers above one of the beds.
"Spit it out, Ray," said Latham eventually.
"We've had an idea," said Mackie, still studying the painting.
"Well, I guessed that much."
"The problem is, no matter how good our agents are, and Andy Middleton was one of the best, an operator like Donovan can still spot them. They don't have his background, his instincts. No matter how good they are, they're still playing a role. One slip, one wrong move, and their cover's blown."
Latham nodded but didn't say anything.
Mackie put his glass on the table and stood up, his knees cracking like snapping twigs. He walked around the room, his left shoe squeaking each time it touched the floor.
"We put our guys through the most intense training imaginable, same as you do with your SO10 people. We teach them about surveillance and counter-surveillance, we teach them how to act, how to think like a criminal. And up against low-level operators they pass muster. You see, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, then the bad guys assume that it's probably a duck. But probably isn't good enough for a man like Donovan. First, he only does business with people he's known personally for a long time. He treats all strangers with suspicion.
And he has an instinct for undercover agents. It's as if he can smell them. Apart from the three who've died, I've had half a dozen bail out of their own accord, convinced that Donovan was on to them."
"I get the picture, Ray. I even get the duck analogy. But what do you want from me? From the Met?"
Mackie took a deep breath and turned to look at the Assistant Commissioner.
"Virgins," he said, quietly.
"We need virgins."
Jamie Fullerton gritted his teeth as he pounded along the pavement on the last leg of his two-mile run. He was barely sweating and knew that he had the stamina to run for at least another hour, but he had nothing to prove. If it had been the weekend he might have pushed himself harder, but it was Monday, the start of a new week. The start of a new life. He looked left and right and dashed across the King's Road, heading for his basement flat in Oakley Street. London wasn't the most convenient place in the world for an early-morning run, but Fullerton couldn't abide the clinical efficiency and mechanical contraptions of a health club. Fitness was a way of life to him; it had nothing to do with spending an hour on an exercise bike reading the FT and listening to the latest Simply Red CD.
He increased the pace as he turned into Oakley Street and sprinted the last hundred yards, then stood stretching as he held on to the black railings at the top of the stairs that led down to his flat. A blonde in a smart pale green suit carrying a Louis Vuitton briefcase flashed him a dazzlingly white smile and he grinned back.
"Looking good," she said, then she was gone, heading for South Kensington Tube station.
Fullerton had seen her three times during the past week and had the feeling that she was deliberately timing her journey to coincide with his return from his run. He'd noticed the wedding ring on her finger the first time he'd seen her, but her smiles were getting wider and there was a definite swing to her hips as she walked away. She was pretty enough, but she was in her early thirties, probably a decade his senior, and Fullerton had long since passed through the stage of being attracted to older women.
He went down the metal steps to his front door and let himself in. The flat had a minimum of furniture: two simple grey sofas facing each other either side of a coal-effect gas fire, a low coffee table made from some dark veneer that hadn't been within a mile of a genuine tree, and a sideboard which was bare except for an inoffensive African wood carving that he would have thrown out if it hadn't been high up on the list of the landlord's inventory that he'd had to sign when he'd taken on the lease.
Fullerton stripped off his tracksuit top and tossed it on to the sofa by the window before dropping on to the beige carpet and doing his daily one hundred and twenty sit-ups. He was sweating by the time he finished, but his breathing was still regular and though his abdominal muscles ached he knew that he was nowhere near his limit.
He walked through to the bathroom, which was as utilitarian as the sitting room, and showered before going into the bedroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. On the back of the bedroom door a dark blue uniform with silver buttons hung on a wooden hanger. He picked up the hanger and grinned at the uniform.
"A fucking cop," he chuckled to himself.
"Who'd've believed it?"
He tossed the uniform on to the bed. The helmet with its gleaming silver emblem of the Metropolitan Police was on the dressing table and Fullerton picked it up. He placed it on his head and adjusted the chin strip. It was heavy but it sat firmly on his head. He turned to look at his reflection in the mirrored door of the wardrobe. He stopped grinning and snapped to attention, then slowly saluted.
"Evening all," he said. He flexed his biceps, then stepped into a bodybuilder's pose. His towel slid to the floor and he grinned at his naked reflection.
He jumped as his doorbell rang, and his face flushed involuntarily as he realised how ridiculous he looked, naked except for a policeman's helmet.
He put the helmet on the bed next to the uniform, wrapped the towel around his waist and rushed down the hallway to the front door. He opened it, expecting to see the postman, but instead was faced with a man in his thirties wearing a dark blue blazer and grey slacks, like a holiday rep preparing to greet a planeload of holiday makers.
"James Fullerton?" asked the man, his face a blank mask as if he didn't care either way whether or not he was.
"Yes?" said Fullerton hesitantly.
"There's been a change of venue," said the man.
"And you are?"
"The man who's been sent to take you to the new venue," he said without a trace of humour. He was holding a set of car keys in his right hand.
His shoes were as highly polished as the pair that Fullerton kept in the bottom of his wardrobe. Policeman's shoes.
"Look, I'm supposed to be at Hendon at eight thirty," said Fullerton.
"The police college."
"I know what Hendon is, sir," said the man in the blazer.
"You're to come with me instead."
"Do you have a letter or something?"
"No," said the man coldly.
"No letter."
Fullerton looked at the man. The man returned his look with total impassivity as he clasped his hands together over his groin and waited patiently. It was clear that he wasn't going to divulge any further information.
"Right," said Fullerton.
"Let me get dressed." He started to close the door.
"The uniform won't be necessary, sir." Fullerton stopped closing the door.
"Excuse me?"
"The uniform. It won't be necessary." Fullerton frowned.
"What do I wear, then?" The man in the blazer leaned forward as if about to whisper conspiratorially.
"Frankly, sir," he said, "I couldn't give a fuck." Fullerton closed the door and stood in the hallway with his head in the hands wondering what the hell was going on. His application to join the Metropolitan Police had been accepted three months earlier, and the letter telling him when to report to Hendon had arrived shortly afterwards. The sudden change of plan could only be bad news.
Cliff "Bunny' Warren poured a slug of milk over his Shredded Wheat, dumped on two heaped spoonfuls of brown sugar and carried the bowl over to the Formica table in the corner of his kitchen. He wrapped his dressing gown around himself, propped up a textbook against the wall and read as he ate. Reforming Social Services. The content of the book was as dry as the cereal straight from the packet, but Warren knew that it was required reading. He was already behind in his Open University reading and had a stack of videos next to the television that he still had to watch.
The doorbell rang, three sharp blasts as if whoever was ringing was in a hurry. Warren put down his spoon and walked slowly down the hallway.
He put the chain on the door before opening it. The part of Harlesden he lived in was home to an assortment of drug addicts and petty thieves who wouldn't think twice about kicking down a door, beating him senseless and taking what few possessions he had. His upstairs neighbour, a widower in his seventies, had been broken into six times in the past two years.
A white man in a dark blue blazer smiled through the gap.
"Clifford Warren?"
"Who wants to know?"
"I've a car waiting for you, sir."
Warren's brow furrowed as he opened the door further. Parked in the street a few doors away was a brand new Vauxhall Vectra that was already attracting the attention of two West Indian teenagers.
"You don't want to leave it there," warned Warren.
"Not if you want to see your radio again."
The man took a quick look over his shoulder.
"Thanks for the tip, sir," he said.
"I'll wait with the vehicle."
"Does every new recruit get this treatment?" asked Warren.
"You're a bit of a special case, I'm told, sir," said the man, adjusting his red and blue tie.
"I've been told to tell you that the uniform won't be necessary."
"Am I in some sort of trouble?" asked Warren, suddenly concerned.
The man shrugged.
"Not that I'm aware of, sir, but then they don't tell me much, me being a driver and all." He looked at his watch.
"Best not to be late, sir."
Warren nodded.
"Okay, okay," he said and closed the door as the man went back to guard his car.
He walked slowly into his bedroom and took off his dressing gown. His police uniform was hanging from the key that locked the wardrobe door.
He reached out and stroked the blue serge. Warren had thought long and hard before applying to join the Metropolitan Police. He'd had a few minor convictions when he was a teenager, mainly joy riding and stealing from cars, and he'd been up front about his past during the many interviews they'd put him through. However, in the wake of a slump in recruitment, the Met had been forced to drop its requirement that applicants had a completely trouble-free past. They were especially keen on Warren as he was West Indian, and were currently bending over backwards to increase their intake of ethnic minorities.
It was racism, albeit acting in reverse, and Warren figured that he might as well take advantage of it. However, the presence of the man in the blazer waiting in the car outside suggested that his entry into the ranks of the Metropolitan Police wasn't going to go as smoothly as he'd hoped.
Christina Leigh lit her first cigarette of the morning, inhaled deeply, then spent a good thirty seconds coughing as she walked slowly towards the kitchen, wrapping her robe around her.
"Tomorrow I'm giving up," she promised herself for the thousandth time.
She switched on the kettle and heaped two spoonfuls of Nescafe Gold Blend into a white mug. As she took a second pull on her Silk Cut she frowned at the clock above the ten-year-old refrigerator.
"Eight o'clock?" she muttered.
"How the hell can it be eight o'clock already?" She hurried back into the bedroom and took her blue uniform out of the wardrobe and laid it carefully on the bed. Her regulation shoes sat on her dressing table, gleaming under the fluorescent strip light above her mirror, and her hat hung on a hook on the back of the door. She picked up the hat and sat it carefully on her head, then adjusted the angle. Try as she might, it didn't look right and she wondered whether day one at Hendon would involve teaching recruits how to wear the bloody things. At least she didn't have to wear the same silly pointed helmets as the men. The doorbell rang and she jumped.
She rushed to the door of her flat and flung it open. A grey-haired man in his early fifties smiled down at her. He was wearing a dark blue blazer and grey trousers and must have been almost seven feet tall, because Tina had to crane her neck to look at his face.
"Whatever you're selling, I really don't have the time," she said. She took a quick pull on her cigarette.
"Or the money. And how did you get in? The front door's supposed to be locked."
"Didn't anyone tell you that smoking in uniform is grounds for dismissal?" said the man in a soft Northumbrian accent.
"What?" said Tina, but as soon as the word had left her mouth she realised that she was still wearing the police hat. She grabbed it and held it behind her back.
"I'm not a cop," she said.
"Not yet. A police officer, I mean. I'm not actually a police officer." She leaned over and stabbed the cigarette into an ashtray on the hall table.
"What do you want?"
The man smiled at her, the skin at the side of his eyes creasing into deep crow's feet.
"Christina Leigh?"
"Yes?" said Tina hesitantly.
"Your chariot awaits."
"My what?"
"Your car."
"I don't have a bleedin' car. I barely have enough for a bus ticket."
"I'm here to drive you, Miss Leigh."
"To Hendon?"
"To an alternative venue."
"I'm supposed to report to Hendon half past eight." She took a quick look at the watch on her wrist.
"And I'm running late."
"Your itinerary has been changed, Miss Leigh, and I'm here to drive you. You won't be needing the uniform, either. Plainclothes."
"Plainclothes?"
"The sort of thing you'd wear to the shops." He smiled.
"I wouldn't recommend anything outrageous."
Tina narrowed her eyes.
"Am I in trouble?" she asked, suddenly serious.
The man shrugged.
"They treat me like a mushroom, miss. Keep me in the dark and ' "I know, I know," Tina interrupted.
"It's just that I had the course work, I've read all the stuff, and I was up all night polishing those bloody shoes. Now you're telling me it's off."
"Just a change in your itinerary, miss. That's all. If you were in any sort of trouble, I doubt that they'd send me."
Tina pounced.
"They?"
"The powers that be, miss. The people who pay my wages."
"And they would be who?"
"I guess the taxpayer at the end of the day." He looked at his watch.
"We'd best be going, miss."
Tina stared at the man for a few seconds, then nodded slowly.
"Okay. Give me a minute." She smiled mischievously.
"Make-up?"
"A touch of mascara wouldn't hurt, miss," said the man, straight faced.
"Perhaps a hint of lipstick. Nothing too pink. I'll be waiting in the car."
Tina bit down on her lower lip, suppressing the urge to laugh out loud.
She waited until she'd closed the door before chuckling to herself.
By the time she was opening the wardrobe door she'd stopped laughing.
The arrival of the grey-haired stranger on her doorstep could only be bad news. The day she'd learned that the Metropolitan Police had accepted her as a probationary constable had been one of the happiest in her life. Now she had a horrible feeling that her dreams of a new life were all going to come crashing down around her.
The driver said not one word during the forty-minute drive from Chelsea to the Isle of Dogs. Jamie Fullerton knew that there was no point in asking any of the dozen or so questions that were buzzing around his brain like angry wasps. He'd find out soon enough, of that much he was sure. He stared out of the window of the Vectra and took long, slow breaths, trying to calm his thumping heart.
When he saw the towering edifice of Canary Wharf in the distance, Fullerton frowned. So far as he knew, none of the Metropolitan Police bureaucracy was based out in the city it was a financial centre, pure and simple. Big American banks and Japanese broking houses and what was left of the British financial services sector.
The Vectra slowed in front of a nondescript glass and steel block, then turned into an underground car park, bucking over a yellow and black striped hump in the tarmac. The driver showed a laminated ID card to a uniformed security guard and whistled softly through his teeth as the barrier was slowly raised. They parked close to a lift, and Fullerton waited for the driver to walk around and open the door for him. It was a silly, pointless victory, but the man's sullen insolence had annoyed Fullerton.
The driver slammed Fullerton's door shut and walked stiffly over to the lift. To the right of the grey metal door was a keypad and he tapped out a four-digit code. A digital read-out showed that the lift was coming down from the tenth floor.
The driver studiously ignored Fullerton until the lift reached the car park and the door rattled open.
"Tenth floor, sir," said the driver, almost spitting out the honorific.
"You'll be met." He turned and headed back to the car.
Fullerton walked into the lift and stabbed at the button for the tenth floor.
"You drive carefully, yeah?" Fullerton shouted as the door clattered shut. It was another pointless victory, but Fullerton had a feeling that he was going to have to take his victories where he could.
He watched as the floor indicator lights flicked slowly to ten. The lift whispered to a halt and the door opened. There was nobody waiting for him. Fullerton hesitated, then stepped out of the lift and stood in the grey-carpeted lobby, looking left and right. At one end of the corridor was a pair of frosted glass doors. Fullerton frowned. The lift door closed behind him. He adjusted the cuffs of his white shirt and shrugged the shoulders of his dark blue silk and wool Lanvin suit.
Fullerton had decided that if his uniform had been declared surplus to requirements, he might as well go into battle dressed stylishly. Plus it had been another way of annoying the tight-lipped driver the suit probably cost as much as the man earned in a month.
Fullerton took a deep breath and headed towards the glass doors. He had just raised his right hand to push his way through when a blurry figure on the other side beat him to it and pulled the door open.
Fullerton flinched and almost took a step back, but he recovered quickly when he saw that the man holding the door open was wearing the uniform and peaked cap of a senior officer of the Metropolitan Police.
"Didn't mean to startle you, Fullerton," said the man.
"I wasn't startled, sir," said Fullerton, recognising the man from his frequent television appearances. Assistant Commissioner Peter Latham.
The articulate face of British policing university educated, quick witted and about the only senior police officer able to hold his own against the aggressive interrogators of Newsnight. Latham was the officer most likely to be wheeled out to defend the policies and actions of the Metropolitan Police, while the Commissioner stayed in his spacious wood-panelled office on the eighth floor of New Scotland Yard, drinking Earl Grey tea from a delicate porcelain cup and planning his retirement, only two years and a knighthood away.
"This way," said Latham, letting the door swing back. Fullerton caught it and followed the Assistant Commissioner through a lobby area and down a white-walled corridor bare of any decoration to a teak veneer door where four screw holes marked where a plaque had once been.
Latham pushed the door open. The office was about the size of a badminton court, with floor-to-ceiling windows at one end. Like the corridor outside, the walls were completely bare, except for a large clock with big roman numerals and a red second hand. There were brighter patches of clean paint where paintings or pictures had once hung, and screw holes where things had been removed. The only furnishings were a cheap pine desk and two plastic chairs. Latham sat down on one of the chairs so that his back was to the window. There were no blinds or curtains, and through the glass Fullerton could see hundreds of office workers slaving away like worker ants in the tower opposite.
Latham took off his peaked cap and placed it carefully on the table in front of him. His hair seemed unnaturally black, though the grey areas around his temples suggested he wasn't dyeing it. He motioned for Fullerton to sit down. Fullerton did so, adjusting the creases of his trousers.
"You know who I am, Fullerton?" said the Assistant Commissioner.
Fullerton nodded.
"Sir," he said.
"No need for introductions, then," said the senior police officer. He tapped the fingers of his right hand on the desktop.
The fingernails were immaculately groomed, Fullerton noticed, the nails neatly clipped, the cuticles trimmed back.
"Tell me why you wanted to join the force, Fullerton."
Fullerton's brow creased into a frown. His application to join the Metropolitan Police had been accepted after more than twenty hours of interviews, a battery of psychological and physical tests, and a thorough background check. He'd been asked his reasons for wanting to join more than a dozen times and he doubted that Latham expected to hear anything new or original. So why ask the question, unless he was being set up for something? Fullerton's initial reaction was to go on the offensive, to ask the Assistant Commissioner why he was being asked the question at such a late stage and by such a senior officer, but he knew that there'd be nothing to be gained. He forced himself to smile.
"It's the career I've always wanted, sir," he said.
"A chance to do something for the community. To help. To make a difference."
Latham studied Fullerton with unsmiling brown eyes, his face giving nothing away. Fullerton found the face impossible to read. He widened his smile a little and sat back in his chair, trying to look as relaxed as possible.
"I'm not totally altruistic, obviously," said Fullerton, lifting his hands and showing his palms, doing everything he could to show the body language of someone who was open and honest, with nothing to hide.
"I don't want an office job, I don't want to sell people life insurance they don't want or spend my life with a phone stuck to my ear. I want to be out and about, dealing with people, solving problems."
Still no reaction from Latham. No understanding nods, no smiles of acceptance. Just a blank stare that seemed to look right through Fullerton.
"Frankly, sir, I'm not sure what else I can say. Everyone knows what a police officer does. And it's a job that I want to do."
Fullerton smiled and nodded, but there was no reciprocal gesture from Latham. His neatly manicured fingers continued to drum softly on the desktop.
"How did you feel when you weren't accepted on to the accelerated promotion scheme?"
"A little disappointed, but I figured that if I joined as an ordinary entrant, my talents would soon be realised. It might take me a year or so longer to reach the top, but I'll still get there." Fullerton deliberately tried to sound as optimistic as possible, but he was already beginning to accept that something had gone wrong and that Latham had no intention of allowing him to join the Metropolitan Police. Why the clandestine meeting, though, why hadn't they just written to him with the bad news? None of this was making any sense at all, and until it did, Fullerton had no choice but to go along for the ride.
"Those talents being?"
Fullerton was starting to tire of Latham's game-playing. He leaned forward and looked Latham in the eyes, meeting his cold stare and not flinching from it.
"The talents that were recognised by the interview board, for one," he said.
"The talents that got me in the top five per cent of my university year. At Oxford." He used the name like a lance, prodding it at Latham, knowing that the Assistant Commissioner had only managed a second-class degree from Leeds.
For the first time Latham allowed a smile to flicker across his face.
He stopped tapping his fingers and gently smoothed the peak of his cap.
"What about your other talents?" said Latham quietly, his voice hardly more than a whisper.
"Lying? Cheating? Blackmail?"
The three words hit Fullerton like short, sharp punches to his solar plexus. He sat back in his chair, stunned.
"What?" he gasped.
Latham stared at Fullerton for several seconds before he spoke again.
"Did you think we wouldn't find out about your drug use, Fullerton? Do you think we're stupid? Was that your intention, to join the Met and show us all how much smarter you are? To rub our noses in our own stupidity?"
Fullerton put his hands on his knees, forcing himself to keep them from clenching.
"I don't know what it is you think that I've done, sir, but I can assure you…" He tailed off, lost for words.
"You can assure me of what?" asked Latham.
"Someone has been lying to you, sir."
"Oh, I'm quite sure of that, Fullerton," said Latham.
"Whatever they've told you, it's lies. Someone is trying to set me up."
"Why would anyone do that?" asked Latham.
Fullerton shook his head. His mind whirled. What the hell had happened? What did Latham know? And what did he want?
"Are you denying that you are a regular user of cocaine?" asked Latham.
"Emphatically," said Fullerton.
"And that you smoke cannabis?"
"I don't even smoke cigarettes, sir. Look, I gave a urine sample as part of the medical, didn't I? Presumably that was tested for drugs use."
"Indeed it was."
"And?"
"And the sample you gave was as pure as the driven snow."
"So there you are. That proves something, doesn't it?"
Latham smiled thinly.
"All it proves is how smart you are, Fullerton. Or how smart you'd like to think you are."
Fulleiton leaned forward again, trying to seize back the initiative.
"My background was checked, sir. No criminal record, not even a speeding ticket."
"Are you denying that you take drugs on a regular basis?"
"Yes."
"And that you were caught dealing cannabis while at university?"
Fullerton's eyes widened and his mouth went dry.
"Caught with three ounces of cannabis resin in the toilets at an end-of-term concert?" Latham continued, his eyes boring into Fullerton's.
Fullerton fought to stop his hands from shaking.
"If that had been the case, sir, I'd have been sent down."
"Unless your tutor also happened to be a customer. Unless you threatened to expose him if he didn't pull strings to get the matter swept under the metaphorical carpet. Might also explain how you managed to graduate with a first."
"I got my degree on merit," said Fullerton, quickly. Too quickly, he realised.
"There's no proof of any of this," he said.
"It's all hearsay."
"Hearsay's all we need," said Latham.
"This isn't a court, there's no jury to convince."
"Is that what this is all about? A conviction for possession that wouldn't even merit a caution?"
"Do you think I'd be here if that was all that was involved, Fullerton?
Don't you think I'd have better things to do than interview someone who thinks it's clever to get high now and again?"
Fullerton swallowed. His nose was itching and he badly wanted to scratch it, but he knew that if he took his hands off his knees they'd start trembling.
"I'm not interested in slapping the wrist of a recreational drug-user, Fullerton, but I am very interested in knowing if you're serious about wanting to be a police officer. A real police officer."
"Yes, sir. I am."
Latham looked at Fullerton, his mouth a tight line. He nodded slowly.
"Very well. From this moment on I want absolute truth from you. Do you understand?"
Fullerton licked his lips. His mouth was bone dry.
"Agreed, sir."
"Thank you," said Latham.
"Exactly what drugs do you use?"
"Cocaine, sir. Occasionally. Cannabis. Ecstasy on occasions."
"Heroin?"
"In the past, sir. Only inhaling. Never injecting."