It was Hugo Seymour who stunned him. They had the hide suitcase through the X-ray machine a dozen times. They measured for hidden compartments and found nothing. The same with the crocodile attaché case. It yielded a tube of Bisodol antacid tablets. Two of these were crushed and the powder chemically tested. The tests revealed antacid tablets. He was stripped, clothed in a paper one-piece, and his clothes X-rayed. Then, naked, he was X-rayed himself to see if he carried any packages internally. Nothing.
Around ten o’clock, fifteen minutes apart, each had to be released. Seymour was by then loudly threatening legal action. Butler was not fussed by that. They usually did. That was because they had no idea of the real powers of Customs and Excise.
‘You want them tailed, boss?’ asked his gloomy Number Two. Butler thought about it and shook his head.
‘It was probably a bum steer. If they are innocent patsies, we’ll be following them for nothing. If they are not so innocent, I doubt if the controlling brains behind the Bangkok run will contact them before they have spotted the tail. Leave it. Next time.’
The Canadian, the first to be released, took the airport coach into London and checked into a seedy hotel near Paddington. Mr Hugo Seymour took a taxi and went to a far more expensive hostelry.
Just after two p.m. four men in various London streets received phone calls. Each was standing, as arranged, in a public phone booth. Each was told to report to an address. One of them made a call himself, then left for the rendezvous.
At four p.m. Bill Butler was sitting alone in his car outside a block of serviced apartments, the sort that could be rented by the week, or even the day.
At five past four the unmarked Transit van he had been awaiting drove up behind him and ten members of his Knock team spilled out. There was no time for briefing. The gang could have a lookout posted, though after watching for thirty minutes he had seen no lace curtain shift. He simply nodded and led the way through the doors of the block. There was a front desk but no-one manning it. He left two disappointed men to watch the lift doors and led the other eight up the stairs. The flat was on the third.
The Knock does not stand on ceremony. The rammer took off the door lock with a single smash and they were in: young, eager, very fit, adrenalin high. But no guns.
The five men in the rented drawing room put up no fight. They sat there, looking sandbagged by the suddenness and unexpectedness of the incursion. Butler came in last, very much the man in charge, while his team delved into inside pockets for identification. He took the glowering American first.
Later voice tests would show it was he who had made the call denouncing the Canadian hippie decoy to the Customs hotline at Heathrow Airport. The grip by his side contained six kilograms of what would turn out to be pure Colombian cocaine.
‘Mr Salvatore Bono, I am arresting you on a charge of conspiring with others to import into this country a banned substance . . .’
When the formalities were over the man from Miami was cuffed and led away. Butler took the hippie next. As the surly Canadian was being taken out Butler called after his colleagues, ‘My car. I want to talk to that one.’
Mr Hugo Seymour had changed out of his silk suit and into tweed and slacks better adapted for an English day in late January. The second decoy. He, too, relieved of the block of fifty-pound notes totalling £10,000 that he had received for his role in the operation, went quietly. Butler turned to the remaining two.
The consignment was on the table between them, still in its carrying case, as it had come through Customs. The false bottom had been ripped out to reveal the cavity beneath, in which lay sylthane bags that, after verification, would reveal two kilograms of Thai White heroin. But the decals of Scooby Doo and Shaggy were plainly visible.
‘Mr John Higgins, I am arresting you on a charge of importing, and of conspiring with others to import, into this country . . .’
The dutiful citizen had to be escorted to the bathroom where he threw up. When he was gone Butler turned to the last man, the organizer of the Bangkok dope run. He sat staring bleakly out of the window at the London sky, a sight he knew would in future be minimal.
‘I’ve been after you for some time, chum.’
There was no reply.
‘A nice scam. Not one decoy but two. And trotting along behind, avoiding the fracas in the Green Channel, innocent Mr Higgins with his dumpy wife and charming little daughter.’
‘Get on with it,’ snapped the middle-aged man.
‘Very well. Mr Harry Palfrey, I am arresting you . . .’
Butler left his last two men to scour the rented flat for any trace of evidence that might have been thrown away in the seconds when the door came down, and descended to the street. He had a long night of work ahead of him, but it was work he would enjoy. His Number Two was at the wheel of his own car, so he slid into the back beside the silent Canadian.
As the car drew away from the kerb, he said, ‘Let’s get some things straight. When did you first learn that Seymour was your partner in this double bluff?’
‘Back there in the flat,’ said the hippie.
Butler looked thunderstruck.
‘What about the conversation in the middle of the night by the lavatory door?’
‘What conversation? What lavatory? I had never seen him before in my life.’
Butler laughed, which he seldom did.
‘Of course. Sorry about what they did to you at Heathrow, but you know the rules. I couldn’t blow your cover, even there. Anyway, thanks for the phone call. Nice one, Sean. Tonight the bee