Chapter 11
1027 Words
11
By the time Jack and Wendy were back in the office, Steve Wing had already pulled out all the information he could find on Freddie Galloway’s history with the police. Culverhouse knew most of it, but he still listened intently as Steve updated the team on what he had.
‘There’s no immediate family or next of kin that we know about. His parents are long gone, and he was an only child.’
‘What about a wife or girlfriend?’ Wendy asked.
Steve shuffled awkwardly as Culverhouse let out a small laugh before speaking. ‘Let’s just say he was a confirmed bachelor.’
‘He was gay?’
‘You’d be a braver person than me to want to tell him that. Freddie Galloway was old school. He did things his own way. He never married or had a girlfriend that anyone knew about. You’d be surprised how many of those old-time gangsters had their own special... predilictions.’
Steve cleared his throat and began talking again. ‘Basically, he was a career criminal who somehow always managed to squirm out of our hands. He’s been arrested, questioned, even charged on one occasion for harassment and intimidation of a witness, but it was thrown out of court when the victim decided to retract their claim. Because he was being intimidated, I presume. He’s got a rap sheet as long as my arm. All of it either unproven, or not followed up because of retracted statements or lost evidence. Looks as if he knew how to play the system perfectly.’
‘Yet the silly fucker couldn’t outwit some bloke with a jerry can,’ Culverhouse quipped.
‘I imagine he will have made a lot of enemies. Particularly after the Trenton-Lowe job.’
The three older male officers shared a knowing look, having all been serving police officers at the time of the robbery, before Culverhouse explained for the benefit of Wendy, Debbie and Ryan.
‘Trenton-Lowe was a roofing supplier about thirty miles away. Mainly tiles. This was probably a good ten or so years ago now.’
‘Eleven,’ Frank corrected. ‘I’d just had my gallstone op.’
‘Lovely. Cheers, Frank. Good to know we can all set our clocks by your failing body. So, eleven years ago, they were starting to build the new pikey camp on the outskirts of town.’
‘Do you mean travellers’ site, Detective Chief Inspector?’ Ryan asked.
Culverhouse stared at her for a moment. ‘Whatever you bloody well want to call it, eleven years ago they were starting to build it, alright? Any more interruptions?’ The team remained silent. ‘Right. Now, they’re all permanent brick structures up there, so they needed a lot of roofing materials. These guys do everything in cash, and the bloke who ran Trenton-Lowe did them a deal for a massive number of roof tiles and other stuff. We’re talking about tiles, membranes and gear for nearly a hundred buildings. Almost half a million quid. In cash.
‘Now, the bloke who owned Trenton-Lowe wasn’t going to say no to that, and he was greedy enough that he didn’t fancy accounting for all the tax on it either. So he stuck it in a safe for the time being and hired a security guard to watch the premises overnight. Somehow, word gets to Freddie Galloway that this cash is sitting there in this safe. Whether it was an employee at the warehouse or what, we don’t know. But one night Freddie and his chums waltzed in, coshed the security guard and went for the safe. But someone tipped off the local police. Before they could get anything they’d scarpered, but not before one of Freddie’s men shot a police officer in the head. Somehow he survived, but never worked again.’
‘Jesus Christ. And he wasn’t sent down for this?’ Ryan asked.
‘Nope. Slippery as an eel. Couldn’t prove he was involved, even though word on the street is he was in there with them. The guy who pulled the trigger, John Lucas, was caught. The officer he shot recognised him. Lucas must’ve thought he’d killed him and got rid of the witness, but he survived. When he was arrested, he blabbed everything he knew, which wasn’t much. He claimed Freddie Galloway was the brains behind the operation. Shortly after they arrested Galloway, Lucas retracted his statement. Mentioned something about not wanting his mum to get hurt. He wouldn’t say any more than that. General consensus is that Galloway made some sort of threat towards Lucas’s family, causing him to retract what he’d said.’
‘Wow. Sounds like a nice guy.’
‘Yeah, he probably wasn’t the only one who wanted him dead, either. See, the story from John Lucas and Benjamin Newell — the two blokes who went down for it — was that the safe was never opened. They both told identical stories. But when the Trenton-Lowe bosses opened the safe with the police there, the money was gone.’
‘So who took it?’ Ryan asked.
‘No idea. No-one knows. Theory is it was either taken by Galloway after the others escaped and before the police turned up, or that it wasn’t even in the safe and had been emptied out by Galloway’s inside man before the robbery even took place.’
‘Christ. I’m starting to see why someone would want to pop him off myself.’
‘I was there that day in court. Lots of officers were, even though it wasn’t our patch. When a fellow officer takes a bullet in the line of duty, you feel obliged to stand together.’ Culverhouse paused for a moment. The rest of the team knew he was also referring to the death of Luke Baxter, an officer on their team who’d been killed two years earlier. ‘Lucas seemed angry more than anything. Not at the police, but at Galloway. Even though he’d retracted his statement, you could still see it in him. He despised Galloway. When the judge asked him if he had any last words Lucas wanted him to take into account, he said “I hope Freddie Galloway rots in hell”. The judge asked him what he meant and he stayed silent. Eighteen years, I think his sentence was. Word from those on his side of the fence is that when he was inside he made all sorts of comments about getting vengeance for what Galloway did to him.’
Wendy raised her hand as she stared at her computer screen.
‘Erm, this John Lucas. How old would you say he is now?’
‘Dunno. Must be in his fifties. Why?’ Culverhouse asked.
‘Does he look like this?’ Wendy showed him the picture on her computer screen, which she’d found on the Police National Computer.
‘Yeah. That’s the bastard. Recognise him anywhere.’
‘In that case, we might have a lead. John Lucas was released from Belmarsh yesterday morning.’
- Writer
