“So, what makes you think he could have been doing it?” Ray pressed.
“Well, I mean, anyone could really.”
“That’s hardly a reason.”
“No, maybe so.” He sighed as he tried to work out how to explain himself. “I bet you ain’t ever been in a situation where everything feels hopeless. Like your whole life is stuck in a rut and you’ll do anything to make it work.”
“I’ve been in a war,” Ray said grimly. “Had many days like that.”
“Your orders would have been always working to make it better, though, to push through to the end, am I right?” Ray nodded a silent response to Robert’s question. “See, that’s the thing. When you work in a place like this, you keep doing the same thing every day until someone says you’re not doing it no more. And things aren’t going to get better. They’re always going to be the same and some lads, they see that and they start plotting their way out, don’t they? And if someone comes along and offers them a few bob to turn a blind eye, or put something where it shouldn’t be, well, why shouldn’t they? Because the people they’re robbing from, they don’t care about them. Not really. We’re all replaceable.”
“There’s never an excuse to turn to crime,” Ray objected.
“Easy to say when you’re who you are,” Robert sighed. “But my world and yours don’t look the same, officer. If you can’t get why sometimes people feel they need to take an easy route, you’re going to spend a long time chasing criminals rather than stopping them. Now, I can’t help you more than that. I have to be working, gentlemen.”
Robert turned, signalling he had nothing more to add. Ray stared sternly at him for a moment, hands thrust in pockets, not happy with what had been said to him, then turned and walked on, Joseph falling into step alongside him.
“I don’t think he meant anything personal,” Joseph said.
“I’m sure he didn’t.”
“He was wrong.”
“Hmm.”
Garry Wise saw them coming and smiled as they did, sitting himself onto a crate that he had been preparing to load onto a barge using a hand crane.
“Officers,” he beamed as they approached.
“Got a couple of moments?” Ray asked, his voice flat and emotionless.
“On the record or off?”
“Off.”
“Then I’m playing your tune. What do you want to know?”
They asked once more about any links between Gerald and criminal activities down on the dock. Garry dodged the question, instead turning the tables and trying to find out what they knew about crime in the area. Who they thought the main players were. An old trick that both were wise to. Garry wanted to put together enough of a picture that would allow him to tell a story that let his involvement fall through the cracks. Eventually, he had apparently heard enough and he began to explain what he knew.
“I did hear things,” he confessed. “About Gerald, you know. He liked to be the centre of attention, show the girls a good time, and of course if you do that, you need a bit of wedge. More than they pay here, that’s for sure. So yeah, I had heard he did bits and bobs for people.”
“How did you hear?” Ray sounded cautious, as if he didn’t want to be fed a line.
“Ears to the ground, grapevine, call it what you will.”
“Seems to go against the grain from what we’ve been told before.” Ray sounded as if he didn’t buy a single word of what he’d just been told.
“Perhaps certain people hear things that other people don’t want to. For whatever reason, you know.”
“Fine. What did you hear?”
“Gerald let the odd thing fall off the back of a wagon, but there’d been a couple of issues. Couple of pick-ups gone awry. Sort of thing that upsets people if you don’t find a way to compensate them.”
“This all sounds like the sort of thing that you should have been telling us first time around. Why now?”
“Off the record, isn’t it? Last time you were taking notes.”
“So, you’re protecting yourself?”
Garry said nothing this time. He paused as he glanced at the two of them. “Want me to carry on?” he asked, his tone suggested he wanted to end their conversation.
Ray nodded.
“So, he’s had some issues, got a few things wrong. It happens. Problem was, he didn’t have the money to pay them back. At least, that’s how the story went. You wouldn’t know it of course, if you sat and talked to him. Nothing got under his skin. Cool as they come.”
“Who did he owe money to?”
Garry sucked his teeth for a moment. “You promise me this is all off the record, yeah? You never heard this from me?”
“Promise.”
“Tommy Jay,” Garry finally gave them the name they needed and a name they both knew well. Tommy Jay had a reputation as one of the area’s up-and-coming criminals. A man who had watched the Krays legend grow and set it out as a blueprint for his own ascendancy. He had nowhere near the reach or power of the Krays, far from it, but a couple of years ago he hadn’t even been a name on anyone’s lips. His rise concerned many and it came as little surprise to find out he had some kind of racket going on around the docks.
“Tommy Jay? You’re certain that Gerald Trainer had dealings with him?” Ray asked.
“Certain? No. Nothing to do with me. But that’s what I heard.” Garry did his best to continue his attempts to absolve himself of any direct connection to the case. There certainly wouldn’t be a statement coming from him.
“Thanks, Mr Wise,” Ray said, and Joseph nodded, muttering the same, before once more they were on the move throughout the docks.
