The Drop

some time now we have been attempting to infiltrate SOCA,’ he continued, ‘recently we succeeded in getting a man into HUMINT, the department responsible for Covert Human Intelligence.’
    ‘I know what it is. They turn and run sources,’ in other words they recruited rats, sometimes for money, sometimes for the promise of a place on the UK equivalent of the witness protection programme. It was just like DI Clifford had described it. Most often these guys turned against their bosses because they had been caught red-handed doing something that would get them twenty years on its own. Then they received a simple choice: go down for the rest of your natural life or grass up your boss. The only trouble with choosing to be a rat is the strong chance the boss’ll find out about it and shut you up forever before you get near a trial. ‘So if you have discovered there’s a rat, why don’t you have a name for me?’
    ‘It’s not that simple, as I am sure you will appreciate. Our man must move carefully. He can’t just tap into a computer file with the word ‘sources’ on it and look for a name he recognises. If he opens a file on Bobby Mahoney his accessing of it will immediately be logged and he will be exposed. His enquiries must be more circumspect.’
    ‘What if these circumspect enquiries take too long? What if our rat disappears into the programme next week and Bobby is arrested the next day?’
    We’d all be fucked, me included. That’s what.
    ‘I’m afraid that’s a risk you must live with, for now.’
    ‘Easy for you to say,’ I said.
    We had reached a glade and I noticed for the first time that, set back against the far garden wall was a little summer house. It had glass windows, an ornately carved door and a timber roof. It looked old, like it had been put up long before by a dutiful family man, so his wife and children could take afternoon tea here overlooking the lawn. It was hard to imagine a world as genteel as this could ever have existed.
    ‘Beautiful isn’t it?’ Amrein noticed I was looking at the summer house, ‘and so quaint, don’t you think, the product of a more innocent era. I think that is why I appreciate it so.’ We both stood in silence for a moment in front of this expensive little folly then he said, ‘thank you for coming down,’ as he offered me his hand and I shook it. ‘I will look forward to your next visit, which I feel certain will be more timely.’
    ‘It will be.’
    He turned to look me in the eye, ‘I do hope so,’ he said it placidly, with a hint of the implied regret he would feel over what he would be forced to do if it wasn’t. As threats go it was very low key but he used those four simple words masterfully. They left me in no doubt that another late drop would simply not be tolerated.
    The journey back gave me ample time to think about our new problem. As if Cartwright’s murder and the disappearance of our money, coupled with DI Clifford’s personal vendetta against us, wasn’t enough for one week, I now learned SOCA had got themselves a top grass in our firm. This could bring us all down. We kept on top of the law, following each new development as if we and the police were opposing superpowers in some new version of the Cold War. The Supergrass had been discredited by the abuses of the 80s, when grasses were often paid for duff info that was invariably chucked out on appeal. Lately though, they had come back into vogue, with the Met landing some high profile villains on the back of their testimony. The key was linking the word of the grass to other, more substantial evidence. That was how you got your conviction.
    If a hit man, say, is caught, found guilty and handed down a longer-than-life sentence for multiple murders the police still aren’t too happy, because he is basically just a hired hand. It doesn’t get them any closer to the man who gave the order for the hits. The bloke who pulls the trigger, well he could be anybody and there are always plenty of others willing to fill his shoes. The police know this, so they offer the hit man a deal to rat out his boss.
    One guy had a sixty-year sentence cut to four, so the story goes. If it all works out he gets a new ID and the Met get the crime boss they’ve been after for decades. The dubious morality of letting a hit man back on the streets looking for a job, when all he’s qualified to be is a hit man, is usually forgotten in all of the euphoria.
    If SOCA were after Bobby and they