The Rebel: The new crime thriller that will have you gripped in 2018. Jaime Raven

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       1

      Laura

       Two months later

      The man in the dock had already been convicted and this afternoon he was going to be sentenced.

      That was why I’d come along on what was supposed to be a rare day off. I wanted to see the bastard’s face when the judge told him how many years he’d have to spend behind bars.

      My colleagues and I were hoping for a long, long stretch. If he got less than twenty we’d be disappointed. With any luck he’d die in prison, and since he was in his mid-fifties there was every chance he would.

      The man’s name was Harry Fuller, and at his trial, which had ended a month ago, he’d been found guilty of a range of offences from extortion and money laundering to drug trafficking and people smuggling. These were committed during the five years he’d spent as head of one of London’s most notorious crime gangs.

      He had also been linked to at least six murders, but we hadn’t come up with the evidence to charge him with those.

      It was still a great result, though. We’d managed to succeed where others before us had failed. Harry Fuller had at last been well and truly nailed.

      I was watching the proceedings from the packed public gallery and switching my gaze between the judge and Fuller. The judge had indicated that he was going to make a statement before passing sentence, and he was now consulting his notes before getting on with it.

      As usual I was in awe of my surroundings: London’s Central Criminal Court, more commonly known as the Old Bailey. I’d been here many times and it never failed to impress me. So many lives had been changed in this place and so many wrongs had been put right. For a copper like me it was nothing less than a shrine to the law and to the legal system.

      I noticed that Fuller had spotted me and even across the courtroom I could see the devilish glint in his eyes.

      I held his gaze, forcing myself not to waver. But it was hard not to be unnerved by the expression on his face. It reminded me of the old cliché that if looks could kill I’d be dead.

      In appearance Fuller was the archetypal gangster, big and beefy with a bullet-shaped head and broken nose. But there was more to him than muscle and menace. He was also a shrewd businessman, and it was estimated that his firm had been turning over fifty million pounds a year.

      Without him at the helm, the firm was already coming apart at the seams, and that was great because it had been one of our primary objectives.

      It was DS Martin Weeks and I who had made the collar that day at Fuller’s office in Stratford. I was the one who’d done the talking, and I would never forget Fuller’s reaction when I’d showed him my warrant card and said, ‘DI Laura Jefferson. I’m with Scotland Yard’s organised crime task force and I’m here to tell you that you’re nicked.’

      He’d raised his brow at me and the hint of a smile had played at the corners of his mouth.

      ‘Well, what do you know?’ he’d said, his voice dripping with contempt. ‘I wondered if and when you lot would get around to me. But it’s only fair to warn you that I won’t be so easy to take down as those others you’ve collared.’

      And he’d been right. But we’d got there in the end through an immense amount of effort and some good luck. Everyone had put in a ton of extra hours to ensure that we had a watertight case against the man.

      ‘Here comes the moment of truth.’

      The voice belonged to the woman who was sitting directly behind me and it snapped me back to the present.

      I turned my attention to the judge who had finished checking his notes and was ready to speak. The court bailiff asked everyone to be quiet, which prompted about half a dozen people to loudly clear their throats.

      The judge, who was in his early seventies, remained completely unfazed. He simply paused until a deafening silence descended on the courtroom.

      Then he read out his statement in a voice that was slow and measured.

      ‘I want to take this opportunity to commend those police officers who were responsible for bringing this case to trial,’ he said. ‘Organised crime is a shameful scar on this great city – indeed on the whole country. Men like the defendant have always acted with impunity, flaunting the law as they built their vast criminal empires. It’s true to say that the situation has progressed from a serious problem into a large-scale crisis.

      ‘That was why I was so pleased when Scotland Yard set up a special task force eighteen months ago to deal with it. And, as we learned during this trial, their successes so far have been nothing short of spectacular.

      ‘Harry Fuller is the latest gangster whose reign has thankfully been brought to an ignominious end. And I’m sure he won’t be the last thanks to the efforts of the task force.’

      The judge paused to acknowledge my boss, Detective Chief Superintendent George Drummond, who was sitting in the well of the court with the prosecution team.

      ‘I would like to put on record my thanks to all of those officers involved,’ he said. ‘And I want them to know that they have the support of every law-abiding person in this country. We appreciate that this work they’re doing places them in considerable danger, and we can only hope and pray that no harm comes to them in the course of their investigations.’

      The judge then turned to Harry Fuller and said, ‘I’ve already warned you to expect a custodial sentence, Mr Fuller. It’s clear that your crimes are such that I can show no mercy. For far too long you’ve acted as though you are above the law. But nobody is above the law, no matter how much power they wield or money they have.’

      The judge paused again, twice as long this time, and then he told Fuller that he was going to spend at least thirty years in prison.

      ‘Fucking brilliant,’ I blurted out and everyone heard me, including Fuller, who shot me a look that told me he was as shocked as I was.

      I curled a smile for his benefit, and he reacted by closing his eyes and blowing out his cheeks.

      It was a far better result than any of us could have hoped for, and I was delighted because another vile gangster had been snared. But for the task force there would be no resting on its laurels.

      Fuller was a terrific catch, but he wasn’t in the same league as the СКАЧАТЬ