Trust No One. Alex Walters

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СКАЧАТЬ this job, she had no choice but to trust him, even if her first instinct was to play her cards close to her chest.

      Welsby was different. Old school, a couple of years off retirement. His attitudes were, by the standards of the Agency, essentially prehistoric, but much of that was an act. He said what people expected to hear from an overweight, florid-faced old flatfoot. But there were no flies on Keith Welsby, and not just because most of his suits looked as old as he did. He was difficult to fathom. His attitude to her was avuncular and patronizing, littered with half-jokes about the shortcomings of women officers. But then he’d throw in a remark that suggested real respect for her ability. After a while, as she found herself striving to justify his good opinion, she’d concluded that this was just Welsby’s distinctive approach to staff motivation.

      They arranged themselves around the narrow table, Salter leaning forwards, apparently in charge. Welsby was stretched back, a little way from the table, his body language indicating that, despite his senior rank, this was not his show. Fair enough. She and Salter were the same job grade, but the convention was that the ‘buddy’ acted as supervisor for undercover officers. This would normally be a supervisory meeting, an opportunity for her to bounce issues or concerns off Salter and for Salter to check how she was doing.

      ‘How are things, sis?’

      She gazed at him for a moment. ‘Fine, Hugh. So what’s this all about?

      ‘Morton, of course.’

      Welsby leaned forwards in his chair. He was chewing gum, a substitute for his usual cigarettes. ‘You knew him well, Marie?’

      She took a breath and shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t say well. He was part of Kerridge’s team. I know them all, more or less.’

      ‘You suggested him as an informant?’

      ‘I got to know him a bit. He’s . . .’ She stopped. ‘He was the most approachable of Kerridge’s bunch, so I used him as a route in. Worked pretty well, I thought.’ It was worth reminding them that she’d got closer to Kerridge’s circle than Salter or anyone else had managed. ‘He seemed disenchanted with Kerridge. With the whole lifestyle, I thought. That’s why I reckoned he might make a good target for us.’

      You know all this, she thought. It’s all on file. There was a long and bureaucratic process to get an intelligence source authorized, and everyone covered their backsides.

      ‘You got it spot on,’ Welsby said. ‘Smart piece of work. We got a lot out of him. We’d have got more. We’d have brought down Boyle. Maybe even Kerridge eventually.’

      She noted the past tense. ‘You think this has ballsed up the Boyle case?’

      ‘For the moment,’ Welsby said. ‘Can’t see the CPS progressing with it unless we pull something else out of the shit.’

      ‘Why we’re here,’ Salter said. ‘We’ve been digging around in the excrement. See what we can find.’

      She felt, at least at first, a surge of relief. Her second response was anger – that, for them, Morton’s killing was simply an operational inconvenience.

      ‘I’m privileged to be part of the excrement, then,’ she said, keeping her voice steady. ‘How did this happen, anyway? Surely Morton’s security was top-level?’ Given the hints Salter had dropped, she wasn’t sure she wanted the full story. But Jake had given his life trying to help them nail Boyle and Kerridge. Whatever she might think or feel, she had an obligation to get involved.

      Salter glanced at Welsby. ‘Someone messed up,’ he said. ‘We don’t know who or how – yet.’

      ‘Someone exposed him?’

      ‘Must have done. Either by accident or on purpose.’

      ‘No one would be that careless, surely.’

      Welsby shifted back in his chair. ‘Easy to be careless, lass. One slip . . .’ His voice was toneless. Marie looked across at him, wondering whether some response was expected of her.

      ‘In any case,’ Salter said, ‘the alternative is worse.’

      It occurred to her for the first time that there was a tension between the two men, things they weren’t saying. Someone had exposed Jake, and no one knew who. If someone was leaking intelligence, they were all potentially compromised. And no one was more vulnerable than she was.

      ‘So what happened?’ she said.

      ‘He had a visit,’ Welsby said quietly. His mouth moved rhythmically around the gum. ‘Middle of the night.’

      ‘Jesus.’ Marie pushed herself up from the table and strode over to the window, trying to repress the turmoil of emotion. More guilt. Loss. Fear. Above all, fear. She stood for a moment, staring at the half-empty car park, the blur of cars on the motorway, trying to find words that wouldn’t leave her exposed. ‘This was our one bloody chance,’ she said finally. ‘Our one chance to nail those bastards.’

      ‘It’s not over yet,’ Salter said. ‘Morton gave us a lot. Copies of paperwork, documents. Helped us get surveillance devices in there . . .’

      She didn’t want to be reminded how courageous Morton must have been in those last weeks. She still didn’t know what had really motivated him. She’d known he wanted to cut his ties with Kerridge, but there seemed to be something stronger driving him.

      They normally kept Chinese walls between informants and undercover operatives to minimize the risk of leakage, so she’d heard only secondhand reports. At first, they told her, he’d been like every other intelligence source, warily feeding out titbits, constantly suspicious, scared of his own shadow at each meeting with his handler. But once he’d learned the ropes, found out who to trust, his attitude had changed. He seemed to have a mission to bring down the world he’d been part of. With no prompting, he’d offered himself as a prosecution witness in any case that they might bring, and had reinforced the offer by producing file after file of incriminating material.

      She knew from Salter that Morton’s behaviour had worried them at first. They thought he’d either lost the plot, or was playing some complicated double bluff. But after a while they’d concluded that he was serious. It could go on for only so long, but it gave them time to dig some real dirt. A month later, they arrested Pete Boyle, with Morton scheduled to be the key prosecution witness. Another day or two and they’d have taken him into witness protection. Another day or two. Just a question of getting the fucking paperwork in order.

      She turned back from the window. ‘These visitors. What did they do?’

      Salter hesitated. ‘They killed him. Eventually.’

      ‘Christ.’

      ‘What they did wasn’t nice,’ Salter said. ‘Punishment. Pour encourager les autres.’

      ‘As we used to say down the nick,’ Welsby said. ‘And we reckon they were trying to find out how much he’d told us.’ He sat, chewing silently for a moment. ‘And whether he knew anything he hadn’t told us yet.’

      Marie sat down and took a sip of her coffee. Cold and bitter. Appropriate enough. ‘You think he did?’

      ‘He’d more or less told us so,’ Welsby said. ‘Stuff he wouldn’t hand over СКАЧАТЬ