"Don't move!" Doyle snapped.
The three people in the hallway looked up in amazement. At the sight of the two men aiming guns at them, the woman let out a small cry and then drew breath to scream.
"Don't! We're with the police!" Doyle ordered, and held up his hands.
Eyes wide with fright, the woman held on to one of the two men, who wrapped an arm around her protectively.
"Who are you?" Bodie asked, slowly, coming down the stairs.
"I'm Frank Tailor," one of the suited men replied, albeit nervously, "I'm… I'm an estate agent. This is Mr and Mrs Goodling… they've… they've come to view the house…"
Doyle jogged down the stairs and opened the front door.
"Re-arrange the viewing," he suggested, ushering out the terrified couple, "you – stay here."
He turned on the nervous estate agent as he slammed the front door, and flashed his ID card.
"I'm Doyle, he's Bodie," he said, by way of introduction, "and we're interested in the house."
"To buy or to let?" Frank Tailor replied, almost automatically.
"If we decide we want it, we'll impound it," Bodie smiled his dark smile, "now, the previous owner… Kenny Price."
Tailor paused, confusion written all over his face. Doyle prodcued his warrant card and waved it at him again, slower this time. Understanding finally dawned on Tailor.
"Tell us about Price," he ordered.
"Ugh," Tailor waved a hand dismissively, "a real knock on the value of this place. People so much as get a sniff that a drug dealer lived here and all of a sudden it's 'well it's lovely but it's not what we're looking for' and they're off like a shot. I mean, it was, what, five, six years ago…?"
"Four," Doyle interrupted, "now; who put this place on the market?"
"The mortgage company, of course," Tailor replied, a little primly, "it's kind of hard to keep up on the repayments when you're in jail and all your assets have been frozen. The mortgage company repossessed and put the place up for sale. Talk about destroying the equity… drug dealer indeed, in a nice street like this…"
"What about the furniture?" Doyle cut in, already tired of listening to the estate agent's ramblings.
"Who knows?" Tailor replied, flippantly, "probably taken away by bailiffs. Surely you guys would know more about that sort of thing than me?"
"We're into things slightly more important than debt collection," Bodie replied, darkly, fixing the young man with a glower, "are you telling me a place like this has been on the market for four years?"
"On and off," Tailor admitted, "it's had a couple of owners over the years. The longest one lasted six months."
"What happened?" Doyle asked, curiously, leaning against the wall.
"All sorts of things," Tailor replied, "Rumours grew up around the area that the place is cursed. We can't get a local buyer and the kids keep breaking in for dares – place gets vandalised so often…"
"We're going to want the names and forwarding addresses of all the previous owners," Bodie interrupted, "one of our lads will be over to your office to collect it within the hour so you'd better have it ready for them. Go!"
With slight jump, Tailor opened the front door and was gone. Bodie and Doyle watched him go, before they left the house and got back into the car. Doyle picked the radio up and called Control.
"Yeah," he said, upon hearing the acknowledgement, "we need a couple of agents to collect some information from an estate agent… you'd better send Hogan and Webster, it's right up their street… thanks Control; 4-5 out."
He dropped the radio, and glanced across at Bodie, who was grinning and tapping the steering wheel.
"What now?" Doyle asked.
"Time for you to go and get shouted at?" Bodie suggested.
"Time for me to go and get shouted at," Doyle confirmed.
Surprisingly, Cowley had better things to do than shout at Doyle for omitting to mention he'd been involved in the four-year-old drugs bust.
"Another cop's turned up dead," he announced, as Bodie and Doyle sauntered into his office, "Andrew Davis. Ring any bells?"
Bodie was shaking his head, however; Doyle's face seemed to have drained of all colour. Cowley was giving him a hard stare.
"Well, Doyle?"
Doyle drew in a deep, steadying breath.
"He was my partner," he replied, at last, in a neutral tone, "we were the two who went undercover for nearly a year to bust open Price and Blake's operation. We were there when they got busted – Andy took a bullet in the arm – shattered the bone above the elbow. They had to amputate. He was medically discharged just afterwards… went to live in Kent, didn't he?"
"His wife found him less than an hour ago," Cowley replied, "he was beaten and hung from a tree in his own back garden."
Doyle raised a hand to his face and covered his eyes briefly, before scrubbing back his hair.
"Do you want us to go down and check it out?" he asked, eventually.
"It's a bit late for that," Cowley snapped, "now – I want the names of everyone else involved in this bust and I want them now!"
"It'll be in the file," Doyle shot back, with a flash of malice, "I can't bloody remember everyone who was involved! The case took up half the damned squad for six months, over four years ago!"
Cowley picked up a file and threw it at them. Bodie caught it deftly and opened it. There was a list of names printed on the top sheet.
"Lucky for you Betty already amassed the names," Cowley said, "what you need to do is go through that list. Find out who is alive, where they are, and decide who the priority targets will be. You, Doyle, are already marked as a priority target. By rights I should be putting you in protective custody."
"Now wait just a minute…" Doyle began.
"Leave him to me, sir," Bodie grinned, cutting in quickly, "I'll look after him."
"I'm sure you will," Cowley replied, dryly, "now go on; get out. I want that list back within the hour!"
**CI5**
Alanis Hogan leaned back in her chair, watching as the estate agent, Frank Tailor, chattered inanely to her partner, Tony Webster, as he gathered the files the two CI5 agents had been sent to collect. Hogan was a tall woman with dark hair and a strong, wiry build. Despite the heat she wore black jeans and a grey tee-shirt. Her gun was nestled in a holster in the small of her back, hidden by the loose folds of her shirt. Tony Webster was also tall and dark haired; the two of them could have been brother and sister. However, where Hogan was pale and wiry, Webster was well-tanned and muscular, a top athlete who enjoyed running and wrestling, amongst many other sports. Eventually, Tailor ceased his babbling long enough for Hogan and Webster to make good their escape with the files on the previous owners of the property so recently investigated by Bodie and Doyle.
"Thank heavens for that," Webster commented, as they got into Hogan's black Porsche, "I thought he was never going to shut up."
"Tell me about it," Hogan agreed, revving up the engine, "Crikey. I could murder a pint."
"That's what I like about you, Hogan – you're so lady-like."
"Tell that to my fist," Hogan replied, waving her hand at him, "ah, forget it. This bloody heat's killing me."
Webster flipped absently through one of the files.
"Why do you suppose Cowley wants this info?" he asked, absently, "doesn't look like much."
"Jax reckons it's something to do with the dead cops," Hogan replied, expertly steering the car through traffic as she referred to another CI5 agent, "something about a house some bloke used to live in… apparently they nicked this bloke – drug runner or something. I don't know – don't particularly care."
"You're just pissed off because Cowley pulled us off that bullion raid," Webster responded, dropping the file back onto his lap, "don't worry, little sister – we'll be back on their trail soon."
Hogan growled something under her breath.
"You're probably right, big brother," she replied, with her customary response to Webster's nick-name for her, "I am a little peeved. That case could have made our careers with CI5… still; maybe if we get in on this bust we can start making a name for ourselves."
"Yeah," Webster agreed, "what say we ditch these files and go grab ourselves some alky-hole?"
"Sounds like a plan," Hogan grinned.
The idle chatter continued as Hogan wove the Porsche through traffic back towards the CI5 headquarters. Neither of them noticed, some distance behind them, a motorbike following them discreetly.
**CI5**
Doyle's head was reeling with the shock and confusion of what Cowley had told them. Still, he forced himself to concentrate on the list he'd been given. They had taken over one of the smaller offices; Bodie had immediately closed the curtains against the bright, hot summer sun, and in the dingy light that seeped through the material, he sat in a chair between Doyle and the window, watching his partner guardedly. Doyle ignored the scrutiny, studying the list.
"To my knowledge, six of these guys are dead," he said, at last, capping his pen and dropping it on the desk, "not including those recently deceased. There are seventeen names here, not including young Graham Morris. This was before his time."
"So what are we left with?" Bodie asked, leaning back in his chair.
"Nine dead," Doyle replied, grimly, "Morris senior of natural causes; two murdered by our mysterious killer; four killed in the line of duty over the past four years; one killed in a car accident and one suicide."
"Are you sure it was suicide?" Bodie queried.
"Positive. It was a big enquiry, result was clear, no suspicion of foul play," Doyle replied, checking his notes, "now, the remaining eight… there's myself, of course… and the seven others. Two were scarcely involved – they were the desk sergeants who did most of the paperwork after the arrests. I doubt they're high priority, but they should be warned to maybe take the family on holiday for a couple of weeks…?"
"Agreed," Bodie nodded, knowing they could not spare the manpower to guard all of the targets, "Next?"
"All five of them were arresting officers," Doyle shrugged, "all of them will be targets… and all of them are still in active service."
"Where are they?" Bodie wanted to know.
Doyle squinted at the list, rubbing tiredly at his eyes. The room was hot and stuffy and the background whirring of the desk fan did little to cool the muggy air.
"Let's see…" he murmured, "Daniel Moore's a Detective Inspector who transferred out to Birmingham. Harry Shore's transferred to Nottingham, and Michael Gibbs is a Sergeant in Liverpool. Our hit man would have to go a long way to get those guys… although the other two are more interesting. Steven Walker, a Detective Inspector, works out of the same depot as Graham Morris…"
"And the other?" Bodie prompted, as Doyle trailed off.
Doyle glanced up.
"CI5's very own Anthony Webster."
**CI5**