Bad Blood by Mark Sennen Page B

too cautious, too rule-bound – but he’d always admired his suits.
    Hardin was Hardin. Bursting out of his shirt, almost knocking over the pot of coffee when it arrived, and then grabbing a couple of biscuits with one hand while typing on his laptop with the other.
    â€˜OK,
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.’ Hardin turned to his laptop and clicked again. He reached out and adjusted the angle of the screen, and for a moment Riley feared he was going to swing the computer towards them and show one of his dreary PowerPoint presentations. Instead he leant back in his chair and ran his tongue over his lips before continuing.
    â€˜So, Darius had his final meeting with our undercover officer earlier, nom de plume Mr Martin Kemp. Mr Kemp is returning to his force and Darius,’ Hardin nodded over at Riley, ‘is off on holiday in a couple of days. Now we’re just waiting on the intel. As soon as Kemp gets the word he’ll let us know. I’m pleased to say
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is finally drawing to a close and there will be no happy ending for Mr Kenny Fallon. Not this time.’
    Riley switched off as Hardin began to map out the final stages of the operation. He knew the details back to front, had worked on them with Kemp and Hardin. As the DSupt elaborated on the endgame Riley hoped his words wouldn’t come back to haunt them, since Hardin had been placed in charge of
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precisely because of the failure of previous investigations. Usually an operation focusing on somebody such as Fallon would have been dealt with by SOCIT – the Serious and Organised Crime Investigations Team – however, rumours had been spreading of one or two bad apples within the police, someone even going so far as to distribute flyers around city car parks which accused the team of corruption. The allegations were without any evidence or reason, but the brass over at force HQ in Exeter had panicked and decreed the next major operation dealing with organised crime would be run independently of SOCIT and by someone with an unimpeachable record. Enter DSupt Conrad Hardin, mates with Simon Fox – the Chief Constable, friends in the local military and bogey golfer who could cheerfully lose to the worst. With Mr Clipboard, checkbox, do-it-by-the-book Hardin in charge, what could possibly go wrong?
    Riley blinked as he heard Hardin mutter his ‘bloody good policing’ catchphrase and peer over at him for an answer. He had no idea what he was talking about but he managed a ‘yes, sir’, and Hardin continued.
    â€˜If our intelligence is correct, the cargo vessel we are interested in may even now be loading in Rotterdam. At some point in the next few days the vessel will be passing approximately ten miles south of Plymouth, where it will drop a package overboard. Once the vessel is well clear, Gavin Redmond will head out in one of those f-off yachts of his and pick up the goods.’
    When Riley had first come onto
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and heard of the arrangement he’d had to concede it was clever. The pickup boat never had to go more than a few miles offshore and never anywhere near the ship which dropped the drugs. All it required was knowledge of the tidal streams and a short-range tracking device. Plus a little faith from the crew on the cargo vessel that the millions of pounds worth of drugs they were heaving overboard were going to end up in the right hands. All Customs and Excise’s fancy plotting equipment – which mapped out the closest point of approach of suspect vessels and watched for small boats making regular trips across channel – proved useless against such a tactic.
    The ploy might have gone unnoticed if Fallon hadn’t made the mistake of using Tamar Yachts and Redmond as a way of washing money too. Tamar owned a subsidiary charter company in Nassau, out in the Bahamas. A swish website showed a number of top-end crewed yachts costing tens of thousands of dollars a week to hire and every month a payment