Kitabı oxu: «The Rule of Fear»
Copyright
HarperCollinsPublishers
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London SE1 9GF
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Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2016
Copyright © Luke Delaney 2016
Luke Delaney asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Cover design by Dominic Forbes © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016
Cover photograph © Paul Thomas Gooney/Arcangel Images (main scene);
Shutterstock.com (back jacket and texture)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This is entirely a work of fiction. Any references to real people, living or dead, real events, businesses, organizations and localities are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. All names, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780007585724
Ebook Edition © JUNE 2016 ISBN: 9780007585748
Version 2017-03-28
Dedication
I dedicate this book to all the police officers, the length and breadth of the country, regardless of rank, who work tirelessly under difficult and often dangerous circumstances so the rest of us can live our lives much as we please. Imagine a country without a strong and reliable police service and think how much that would damage the quality of all our lives – no matter how wealthy or powerful we may be.
Having done the job for many years, I know how testing – how physically and mentally hard – it can be, not just on the individual, but on their families and friends. It often demands complete commitment to the cause to the exclusion of everything else. It’s simply what’s required to get the job done, but it makes it a very demanding job indeed. We should all be very grateful there are still thousands of police officers serving their communities with such dedication and diligence, despite increasingly poor working conditions and pay. Without them there would be no society as we know it.
Some people will misunderstand this book and maybe even see it as an attack on the police, but I can assure you it is anything but. It is a warning – the character of Jack King representing an entire police service within one man. If we do not treasure and care for the things we value most, then it’s only ever a matter of time before we lose them. Not everything can be pulled back from the brink. It is a very dangerous thing indeed to give people great power, as each officer has, yet through such poor pay place them perilously close to poverty. Desperate people will sooner or later take desperate actions.
Remember the old saying – a society ultimately gets the police it deserves.
So, to every cop out there looking after all of us, I say thank you and dedicate this book to you.
LD
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Acknowledgements
Keep Reading …
About the Author
Also by Luke Delaney
About the Publisher
1
Chief Superintendent Brian Gerrard looked down at the open file on his desk and nodded approvingly before looking up and smiling at the expressionless PC Jack King who sat in front of him.
‘An excellent end of probation report,’ Gerrard beamed, his shining blue eyes magnified by his spectacles as he sat straight-backed in his chair, trying to stretch his five-foot-eight body as far as he could. ‘Wouldn’t you agree, Inspector?’ he asked Inspector Joanne Johnston who was prowling around the office like a caged leopard.
‘Very impressive,’ Johnston agreed.
King forced a smile onto his handsome face and continued to wish the meeting would be over and he could be free from the two senior officers he barely knew. He’d passed them in the corridor from time to time, respectfully said hello in deference to their rank, but this was the first time either had actually spoken properly to him. He didn’t mind about that. He just wanted the meeting to be over so he could get back out on the streets. Like Johnston before him, he was on the Metropolitan Police’s accelerated promotion scheme and knew his working life would soon be dominated by endless meetings and coordinating. Whatever time he had left on the front line was already precious to him. If it hadn’t been for his parents, he may have even considered giving up his accelerated promotion to stay in the action indefinitely. Already he understood that the police was one organization that could only be truly understood by standing at the bottom looking up – not peering down at it from a glass tower.
His appearance was the opposite of Gerrard’s, who looked grey and weak, albeit slim and tidy; whereas King was almost six foot tall and muscular, his short brown hair framing deep brown eyes, high cheekbones and a square jaw, and his skin a deep olive, the colour of someone who laboured hard outside. Johnston was undeniably attractive, but she looked like a lawyer in a police uniform. As he listened to their congratulations he imagined them avoiding as much real police work as they could – spending most of their time on courses and safe attachments, keeping themselves out of harm’s way while also protecting their squeaky clean records, ensuring there would be no skeletons in their closets that could bar them from the dizzy heights of becoming Assistant Commissioners or perhaps even more. Whereas he had won the respect of his peers through hard work and a willingness to get his hands dirty – overcoming their natural mistrust of anyone on accelerated promotion.
‘Thank you,’ he answered through his forced smile. ‘I really enjoyed the work.’
‘Well that’s all behind you now,’ Gerrard spluttered a little. ‘Onwards and upwards for you, Jack. First you’ll need to complete your sergeants’ course and then you’ll have to go back to Bramshill for additional training. Then of course you’ll serve the minimum amount of time possible as a sergeant before becoming an inspector and then, so long as you pass the exams and keep away from anything controversial … who knows what heights you could reach? The key is not having any skeletons in your cupboard, if you understand what I’m saying.’
‘Doesn’t sound like I’m going to get much of a chance to do any real police work,’ he teased them.
‘As you travel through the ranks,’ Gerrard smiled, ‘you’ll realize that making policy and providing a general umbrella of supervision is the true backbone of the service. Anyone can charge around in a police car arresting people, but adhering to government targets of crime reduction and managing the borough budget is an entirely different matter. In many ways now is the time for you to put away such childish things and accept the responsibilities that come with having been selected for accelerated promotion.’
‘Of course,’ King smiled through gritted teeth. ‘I understand.’
‘Good,’ Gerrard beamed.
‘Excellent,’ Johnston added through her assassin’s smile.
‘Well if that’s everything, sir,’ King stated more than asked, rising from his chair, ‘I should be getting back to my duties.’
‘Of course,’ Gerrard agreed. ‘Of course.’
‘But I would like to say that I’m very much looking forward to returning to the borough as a sergeant,’ King added, before immediately regretting it.
‘Return?’ Gerrard asked, the smile dead on his face.
‘Here?’ Johnston added. ‘To Newham?’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ King confirmed.
‘Well, that’s your choice entirely,’ Gerrard took over, ‘but there are easier boroughs in which to complete the rank of sergeant. Ones in which you could say you’re less likely to be … tarnished with anything unsavoury or unpleasant that for example the media could exploit later on in your career when you’re of a suitably high rank. These are the sorts of things that a potential future Commissioner already has to start thinking about. You take my point?’
‘Of course,’ King nodded and tried to look serious, ‘but I like it here. Newham will do me fine.’
‘Well,’ Gerrard recovered his smile, ‘maybe after a few weeks at Bramshill you’ll change your mind.’
‘Maybe,’ King lied and pointed at the door. ‘Is it all right if I …?’ he let his words trail away.
‘Keen to make the most of your last few hours as a constable, eh?’ Gerrard asked, pretending that he could understand what that might mean to someone like King.
‘Yes, sir,’ he answered, heading for the door as quickly as he could, turning the handle, only seconds from freedom before Gerrard stopped him.
‘And remember, Jack,’ he told him, ‘the likes of you and I and Inspector Johnston here have been selected to rule over this organization of ours. We carry on our shoulders the heavy burden of responsibility.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ King answered before escaping through the door, blowing through puffed-out cheeks with relief as he closed it behind him. ‘Thank fuck that’s over,’ he whispered under his breath and headed towards the station yard to hitch a lift back to his beat in an area of Newham he doubted either Gerrard or Johnston had ever seen.
Two hours later
King walked along Central Park Road in East Ham cursing the body armour and traditional-style helmet that made the intense heat of a London summer almost unbearable. He listened to every call that came out over his personal radio, determined to end his constable career with yet another decent arrest and maintain his reputation as a thief-taker, something that had surprised his peers and seniors alike, unaccustomed as they were to seeing anyone on accelerated promotion showing any street skills. But he felt born to be a street cop – his law degree nothing more than something he’d obtained to please his parents. Although they still expressed their deep displeasure at his chosen career, the accelerated promotion programme he’d been offered as a graduate had mollified them. He’d accepted the deal to keep the peace, but doubted he’d stick to it. Maybe he’d even join the CID proper – not just on an attachment as a future senior officer passing through, but as a trained and qualified detective. It would kill off his chances of ever being anything more than a detective inspector or at best a detective chief inspector, but at least he wouldn’t be permanently trapped behind a desk.
Finally a call came out over his personal radio that interested him and that he could get to on foot within the acceptable response time: suspected domestic disturbance at 15 Gillett Avenue – sounds of a disturbance in the background.
‘I’ll take that, 914 over,’ he said into his radio.
‘You sure, 914?’ the female voice from Control came back to him. ‘It’ll be your last shout as a constable. Sure you want to end on a domestic?’
‘Why not?’ he answered, knowing that domestic disputes were always good for an arrest. ‘I’m just round the corner. ETA two minutes.’
‘OK, 914,’ the female voice told him. ‘I’ll sort some back-up out and send them to your location.’
‘Fine,’ he agreed and picked up his pace, determined not to let a mobile unit beat him to the shout and any possible arrests. But as he turned into Gillett Avenue and began to walk past the rows of neat terraced houses, a feeling quite unlike anything he had experienced before began to wrap itself around him – an unpleasant feeling of something terrible happening close by. The street was deathly quiet, only the sound of the leaves in the small trees moving in the faintest of breezes disturbing the stillness. The birds had stopped singing.
When he reached number 15 his sense of dread only increased as he found the house in complete silence with none of the usual reassuring sounds of screaming and shouting coming from inside – the small house looked somehow foreboding and threatening.
He slowly reached for his radio, pressing the transmit but ton a second before speaking. ‘914 to Control.’
‘Go ahead, 914.’
‘Any informant details for the domestic at 15 Gillett Avenue?’
‘Negative. Caller was using a mobile number – declined to leave a name.’
‘Can you call them back?’ he asked. ‘It’s all quiet here.’ But before Control answered, the front door began to slowly open, the darkness from inside seemingly spilling into the light outside as an unseen malevolence chased the warmth of the sun from the street. He slowly took two steps forward – unnerved enough to carefully draw his telescopic truncheon, extending it to its full length with a flick of his wrist as the door continued to open inch by inch, but still he could see no one.
‘Police,’ he called out to reassure himself as much as anything. ‘Show yourself.’ But his command was met only with a deathly silence, as if the street had been sucked into a vacuum in time and space. He took another step forward, squinting into the darkness of the house as a faint shape began to form – small and flowing white, moving towards the light like an ethereal being. His pounding heart sent torrents of blood rushing past his ears, creating an internal deafness as his vision tunnelled towards the shape that became increasingly human as it approached him. A young girl, no more than ten, slim and pale, dressed in what appeared to be a long white nightdress with long straight blonde, almost white, hair, staggered into the light – red blood spreading through her clothing as she walked towards him trembling, arms stiff by her side before falling forward into his arms. He caught her safely and lowered her to the ground, his mind still struggling to comprehend what he was seeing.
The girl’s eyes blinked fast and hard as she used the last of her strength to whisper into his ear. ‘They’re inside.’ Her eyes rolled back inside her head as she went limp in his embrace, dead or passed out, he couldn’t tell.
‘Jesus Christ,’ he pleaded quietly as the adrenalin began to flow through his body, snapping him from the nightmare and allowing his training and experience to force his mind and body to act. But as he reached for his radio to call for an ambulance, a man came screaming from the house – his clothes and hands covered in blood, a kitchen knife held aloft above his head as he ran full pace straight towards King.
Without thinking, his instinct to save the girl made him turn his back on their screaming assailant – his own body becoming a human shield as he felt the first punch land on his shoulder. Only he knew it was more than just that – it was the knife being buried deep into his body. There was then a far more intense, violent pain as the knife was ripped from the muscle before he felt another punch, this time lower in his back, close to its centre, before once again the pain of the knife as it was torn from his body.
He screamed in pain and anger, the primeval response to fight for his life superseding all other emotions as he instinctively knew he had to react or die. He spun fast, brought the truncheon down hard on the madman’s kneecap, but it had no effect. It was as if the man hadn’t even felt it as again he plunged the knife towards him, only this time King was able to deflect it away as he pushed himself powerfully from the ground, launching his shoulder into the madman’s midriff, driving him backwards until they both lost their balance and clattered to the ground. The man took the brunt of the fall as the knife fell from his grip and skidded away across the pathway.
King didn’t hesitate in seizing the initiative, ignoring the pain and nausea sweeping through his body as he raised his metal truncheon and smashed it down over his attacker’s head, splitting his skin to the bone as blood instantly poured from the wound, but in his wildness the man didn’t even try to protect himself. Instead he clawed and grasped at King’s face until his hands found his throat and wrapped around it, constricting his breathing. Over and over again King brought the truncheon down on the man’s head and across his face until finally the man became human again and released his grip of King’s throat to use his hands to protect himself. But still King rained down the blows, all thoughts of reasonable force banished to another time until the man underneath him was nothing more than a moaning bloody pulp.
Near exhaustion, he rolled his attacker onto his belly and stretched his arms out to the nearby metal railing and handcuffed him to it. The fight for survival over, he instantly felt close to passing out, drawing in long deep breaths to steady himself, but he knew he had only minutes, if that, before his injuries overcame him and when that time came he would welcome it – a blissful escape from the pain and sickness into darkness, but not yet. He had to check the girl. He had to check the house.
He staggered to his feet, but could only manage a crouching walk as he crossed the short distance to the motionless girl, although it seemed a mammoth trek to him. He kneeled next to her and first touched the base of his own back where all he could feel was a warm oily liquid. When he looked at his hand it was soaked in the darkest red blood he could ever remember seeing. He shook the image away and pushed the fingers of his other hand firmly into the side of the girl’s neck, feeling for a pulse from her carotid artery. After a few seconds he found it – weak, but there – enough to spur him into tearing the bottom section of her dress clear and using it to press hard on the only wound he could find – a deep knife stab in her abdomen. He placed the little girl’s own hands across the desperate bandage to provide some weight and breathed a sigh of relief as the bleeding seemed to slow, although he knew that her only chance of survival was to get her to an A&E unit as fast as possible. Suddenly he remembered his radio – pressing the transmit button, he steeled himself to speak.
‘Officer needs urgent assistance and an ambulance on the hurry up at 15 Gillett Avenue.’ He waited for the response from Control.
‘All units, officer needs urgent assistance at 15 Gillett Avenue. Repeat, officer needs urgent assistance at 15 Gillett Avenue.’ The female voice was then instantly followed by a cacophony of voices and call signs accepting the call to urgent assistance before Control spoke again. ‘914, are you injured at all?’
He managed the smallest of ironic laughs as he looked at his bloodstained hand before answering. ‘Yes,’ he spoke into the radio. ‘Two, maybe more stab wounds.’
‘Where have you been stabbed?’ Control demanded.
‘In the back,’ he stuttered, his strength failing, giving him the urgency to press on. ‘I have to check the house.’
‘Wait till we get back-up to you, 914,’ Control insisted. ‘Stay out the house until we can get you some assistance.’
‘I can’t,’ he told them. ‘She said “They’re inside”. I have to know.’
‘Wait for back-up, 914. Stay clear of the house.’ But King wasn’t listening any more as he dragged himself to his feet and stumbled towards the doorway and the darkness beyond.
He steadied himself against the frame, allowing his eyes to adjust to the dimness, trying to blink the increasing amounts of sweat away before staggering inside, moving from room to room, quickly scanning each, but finding nothing. Somehow he knew the horror still waited for him – somewhere, until he finally, almost crawling now, made his way back to the front door and the foot of the staircase that looked like a mountain. As he reached out to grasp the bannisters he saw the bloody handprints for the first time. They reminded him of the sort of prints young children made with paint, but the marks on the wall opposite had no such childish innocence as a long trail of smeared blood led his eyes back to the summit of the carpeted cliff.
The way ahead warped, constricting and elongating as his injuries threatened to overwhelm him, forcing him to his knees as his eyes tried desperately to close and surrender his body to blissful unconsciousness, but from some depths of humanity, a spirit to help his fellow man drove him on. It forced him to breathe in deeper than he’d ever done before and steady himself against all the pain, shock and blood loss as he literally began to crawl up the stairs one by one – each effort making him grimace and call out, begging for the strength to conquer the next step until somehow he found himself at the peak – on a hallway floor covered in thick, plush carpet where he collapsed, fighting to stay in the world.
If he stopped now he knew he’d at best pass out, so he pushed himself from the floor and sat with his back supported by the wall as he panted uncontrollably, fighting the nausea, his face ashen white, his lips turning grey as the blood flowed steadily from his body. He should have stopped and tried to shore up the wounds in his back, but he wasn’t thinking straight any more, trapped as he was in a spiralling nightmare where nothing looked real or made any sense. Summoning his last remaining strength, he got to his feet, hunched and buckled, but at least he was walking.
The first door he came to was only slightly open, with the terrible telltale bloody fingerprints smeared on its panels and frame. He took one deep breath, sending searing, burning pain through his back, but with it came a moment of clarity as he carefully pushed the door open and stepped inside. The air rushed from his body when he looked at the bed and saw the body of a girl no more than twelve years old lying face up on the bed, her unseeing eyes staring at the ceiling, arms crossed across her chest as if someone had posed her – tried to make her violent death appear peaceful. Only a parent would take such care after death. He thought of the man he’d beaten almost to the point of killing him. He was convinced that the life of the girl on the bed had been taken by her own father.
Although he already knew it was pointless, he staggered to the motionless figure and tried to find a pulse in her throat, but it was as still as a dead songbird. His eyes scanned her body, but could find no obvious sign of a wound other than reddening around her neck that would soon turn to widespread bruising. She’d been strangled. He swallowed deeply before stroking her brow and walking falteringly from the room, the blood from his hands mixing with the smears already on the walls as he tried to steady himself during the short walk to the next bedroom where the bloody handprints were heavier than anywhere else. He eased the door open and stepped inside. The approaching sirens wailed as if in mourning in the streets outside, but he couldn’t hear them.
The woman who he assumed was the mother of the family lay on a double bed soaked in blood, as were the tangled sheets twisted around her tortured and mangled body. He stepped closer and could see she’d been stabbed more times than he could count – in her chest, neck and face, her hands and arms too covered in slashes and stabs as she’d tried to save herself. He remembered the bloodstains on the door of the other room and realized she must have been killed first – the father, the madman, killing her to stop her trying to save the children. King looked into her face – her eyes still wide open in horror, her mouth frozen in a twisted scream as she’d realized she could neither save herself or her children.
‘Jesus Christ,’ he managed to say before giving in to his swelling nausea and vomiting on the floor. His stomach continued to retch even after its contents had been violently expelled, the dizziness pulling him to the floor where he rested for a few seconds before he tried to flee the room, half walking, half crawling, when the sight of something froze him in his tracks: a foot on the floor protruding from the other side of the bed.
Again he used the wall for support, sliding along it until the boy’s body came into view – lying on its side and, like his mother, heavily soiled by his own blood. Best he could tell the boy was fourteen or fifteen. King closed his eyes for a second and imagined the boy bursting into the room and seeing his own father slaying his mother – his bond with her so strong that he sacrificed his own young life to try and defend her from the wild animal his father had become, but it had all been in vain. The unarmed boy had had no chance. King opened his eyes, unable to comprehend what state of mind the man he’d beaten could have been in to butcher his own son and simply leave him dead on the floor of the bedroom as he went in search of his sisters. He fled from the room backwards – his eyes never leaving the boy on the floor by the side of his parents’ bed.
Back in the hallway he struggled past the family bathroom – breathing heavily with relief as he realized it held no more horrors. But there was still one room he’d yet to visit and now it beckoned him, and although in his subconscious he was aware of approaching sirens and the sound of urgent radio chatter, the only thing that existed in his world was the door to the room. So he staggered forward, his youth and strength keeping him on his feet, though even they were rapidly failing now.
He knew he had only seconds before he surrendered to the blackness, falling more than walking to reach the door and push it open, the lack of any blood marks giving him hope that his living nightmare would end in an empty room of normality, but as he fell inside he realized the cruelty of life and death had saved the worst till last – the eerie peacefulness somehow making what he saw even more harrowing than what had gone before.
The pale young girl, no more than six, a perfect, younger copy of the girl who’d fallen into his arms outside, lay still and staring on her bed, flanked by two empty, perfectly made beds either side. The beds of her sisters – one already dead and the other barely alive. The father’s first victim. He’d taken the time to close her eyes and straighten her clothes before going in search of the rest of the family – no doubt planning equally clean and peaceful deaths for her siblings. But the mother was always going to feel his rage, and when the son fought back everything had changed.
Without warning King’s legs buckled and he fell to his hands and knees, but even they could no longer take his weight as he collapsed onto his side, knocking the last of his breath from him as his eyes flickered and closed. At last the darkness came and took the nightmare away.
2
Nine months later
King sat in front of his computer inputting yet another crime report into the Met’s CRIS system, feeling as bored and frustrated as he’d felt for the last few weeks. At first he’d been happy just to be back at work instead of climbing the walls in the hospital and then in the small flat he shared with his partner, Sara Taylor, a fellow police officer also based in Newham Borough. But now being stuck in an office was more than he could bear and he was longing for the streets. He was still treated as something of a hero after what had happened, but he knew that reputations didn’t last long in the police and if he didn’t make it back to the streets soon his peers would start to consider him as little more than a civvy – police slang for a civilian employee – who was no longer capable of the task of being an officer. He had to get back in the action, even if it meant lying about his true physical and mental state – even if it meant not telling anyone about the nightmares that plagued most of his sleeping hours.
The phone on the opposite desk rang loudly and made him jump. He hoped no one had noticed as he watched the civvy speak curtly into the phone before quickly hanging up and looking across the computer screens in his direction.
‘Apparently the Chief Superintendent will see you now, Jack,’ she told him, smiling. He smiled back and practically leapt from his chair. This could be the call he’d been waiting for – the green light to return to the streets.
As he hurried through the main CID office he almost bumped into Detective Sergeant Frank Marino coming from the other direction. Frank grabbed hold of his arm to steady them both.
‘What’s the big hurry?’ Marino asked with a smile.
‘Sorry, Frank,’ King apologized. ‘I just got a shout to go see Gerrard. I might be getting the OK to return to full duties.’
The smile slipped from Marino’s face. ‘Full duties? You sure you’re ready for that? What happened to you was …’ he struggled to find the words.
‘I’m fine,’ King tried to reassure him. ‘Back and shoulder’s still a little stiff and sore, but nothing I can’t handle.’
‘It’s not the physical stuff I’m concerned about,’ Marino told him. There was a silence for a few seconds. ‘That was a tough situation you had to cope with. Fortunately the sort of thing not many of us will ever experience. It can leave scars no one else can see.’
‘I’m fine,’ King answered again and tried to smile, but couldn’t.
They watched each other for what seemed a long time until Marino interrupted their silent conversation. ‘Tough trial too. Wanker of a defence barrister grilling you for more than two days looking for holes.’
‘Yeah, well, he was wasting his time,’ King answered – the bitterness still thick in his voice.
‘Yes he was,’ Marino agreed. ‘I’ve never seen a cop as young as you handle something like that as well as you did.’
King nodded, looking a little embarrassed before replying. ‘Thanks. I just did what I had to do.’
Marino watched him for a few seconds. ‘You’re a good cop, Jack, you know. You had a lot of good results before … Real good arrests. Not easy to gain the respect and trust of other cops when you’re on accelerated promotion – but you have. If you want to go the way of the CID I can make it happen. A couple more months flying the Crime Desk then we can get you on a plain-clothed squad and look to get you into a trainee detective slot as soon as we can. It’s a good option, Jack.’
King took a deep breath before answering. ‘I appreciate the offer, Frank – but I need the streets. Walking around out there in uniform makes me feel … makes me feel good. I missed it, you know. I need it.’
Marino gently let go of his arm. ‘OK then. Good luck, but if you’re not ready, or if you change your mind once you’re back out there – you’re welcome back here any time.’
‘Thanks,’ he replied. ‘Anyway, mustn’t keep Superintendent Gerrard waiting.’
‘No. Of course not,’ Marino agreed and watched King head off across the office.
King walked so fast through the station that several times he almost broke into a jog, nodding quick hellos to people he knew and some he didn’t until he’d climbed to the top floor of the station and reached Gerrard’s door. He took a deep breath and knocked, resting his hand on the handle in anticipation of a swift reply. He wasn’t disappointed as almost immediately he heard Gerrard’s voice calling him inside.
As soon as he entered he was greeted by the usual sight of Gerrard sitting straight-backed behind his desk as Inspector Joanne Johnston stood to the side. Jack knew it would be Gerrard doing the talking, but was in little doubt who was really in charge. Johnston had a fearsome reputation as being a ruthless self-promoter destined for the top – prepared to stab anyone in the back who got in her way, including Gerrard. Her appearance was, as ever, immaculate; her uniform tailored at her own expense to best show off her athletic, thirty-three-year-old body, her brown hair cut into a short pixie style to best frame her pretty face. Looks that had already lulled more than a few male colleagues to drop their guard only to be crushed. A reputation that had already earned her the nickname of the ‘Poisonous Pixie’ at Bramshill Staff College.
‘Ah, Jack,’ Gerrard smiled. ‘Please take a seat.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ King replied, sitting in one of the two chairs that faced Gerrard.
Gerrard looked down at the obligatory file that lay open on his desk and then back to King, looking as serious as King could remember seeing him. ‘Inspector Johnston and I were just having a chat with HR about yourself – going over your latest medical reports, psychological reports, that sort of thing – something we need to do before considering anyone for full duties. Fortunately it’s not like the old days when we’d have just patched you up and slung you back out on the streets. Times have changed. Things have moved on – for the better.’
King didn’t agree. Being patched up and slung out sounded perfect to him. Talking to psychiatrists hadn’t taken away his nightmares, but perhaps the streets could. ‘I understand,’ he managed to reply.
‘However,’ Gerrard smiled again, ‘having taken everything into consideration, we have decided to allow you to return to full duties.’
King felt his heart soar with excited relief, but his stomach knotted with anxiety. He told himself it was nothing – that it was to be expected after everything that had happened. Gerrard must have seen something in his face.
‘Are you all right, Jack?’ he asked.
He recovered quickly. ‘Sorry, yes, I’m fine. Just excited.’
‘Good,’ Gerrard beamed again. ‘Now, having completed your sergeants’ course while recovering on light duties, you’ll no doubt be looking for more of a leadership role.’
It hadn’t been something King had thought about – other people to look after as well as himself – but it wasn’t enough of a fly in the ointment to put him off returning to the streets. ‘Ideally,’ he lied.
‘Excellent,’ Gerrard told him, ‘because there’s something that’s come up that could be perfect.’
‘I’m listening,’ King encouraged him.
‘We’ve been having a lot of trouble on the Grove Wood Estate this past year or so and, try as they like, the Safer Neighbourhoods Team down there can’t seem to get to grips with it. So we,’ Gerrard glanced at Johnston, ‘have decided to try something new.’
‘Such as?’ King asked impatiently.
‘We’ve decided to dedicate three constables to the estate on a permanent basis, or at least until they’re no longer required. All have exceptional records and are known for their, shall we say, no-nonsense approach to policing. Your job, should you want it, would be to supervise the team and make sure they understand their parameters. We don’t expect you to be walking the beat day after day yourself; after all, you should now be working towards achieving the next rank as you are still very much part of the accelerated promotion scheme.’
‘I’d want to be out and about on the estate,’ King blurted out.
‘Then I take it you accept the position?’ Gerrard asked.
‘Of course,’ King insisted. ‘Sounds like fun.’
‘I’m sure it will be,’ Gerrard tried to play along, ‘but don’t lose sight of your ultimate career objectives. I see this as something to keep you out of harm’s way – until you move forward to the next rank.’
‘I don’t need to be kept out of harm’s way,’ he argued, suspicious of Gerrard’s intentions – fearful he and Johnston somehow doubted he was ready to return to the world outside.
‘Of course you don’t,’ Gerrard quickly agreed. ‘That’s not what I meant. What I mean is we need to keep you away from anything that could hinder your future prospects, such as unfounded complaints from the public, for example. They can drag behind your career like an anchor on a speed boat.’
‘I’ll be careful,’ he promised, ‘but I’ve only been in the job a couple of years. I’m not quite ready for being stuck in an office behind a desk.’
Gerrard cleared his voice and managed to remain smiling. ‘Well then, good. Good. Get out there and get it out of your system.’
‘Thank you, sir. I will,’ he assured them.
Gerrard grew serious again and appeared to look to Johnston for moral support before speaking, moving uncomfortably in his chair as Johnston looked on through her green eyes that shone with intelligence and ambition.
‘Terrible thing that happened to you,’ Gerrard finally spoke. ‘Terrible thing that you had to see.’ King just shrugged, dying inside at the thought of having to discuss it with two people he neither respected nor liked. ‘The young girl – the girl you saved – eventually spoke to the Murder Investigation Team. She confirmed it was her father who’d tried to kill her – who’d killed the rest of his family. The investigating officers discovered he suspected the mother of having an affair and feared she was going to leave him and take the children with her, so he decided better to kill them all. Turns out she wasn’t even seeing anyone else. He just imagined it.’
‘I know,’ King managed to say. ‘The investigation team told me before the trial.’
‘Yes,’ Gerrard said, sounding more melancholy than King had ever heard him. ‘I suppose they did. But after such a traumatic experience I was wondering how you felt – how you really felt? Never mind what you told the psychiatrist.’
‘I’m fine, sir. I just need to get back to work. Proper work.’
‘Very well,’ Gerrard smiled, seemingly satisfied. ‘As I’ve said, you’ll be taking care of the day-to-day running of the Unit and will report to Inspector Johnston here who’ll be overseeing things as a whole.’
‘Fine,’ King agreed, already rising from his chair, happy he’d heard everything he needed to before Johnston stopped him.
‘You’ve been working on the Crime Desk, I understand?’ Johnston finally spoke – her voice accentless and pleasantly toned. Designed to trap the unwary.
‘Yes,’ King confirmed, easing back into his chair.
‘Then are you aware there appears to be a serial offender preying on young children on the estate and surrounding areas?’ Johnston asked.
‘I am,’ King answered.
‘Not as serious as it could be, thank God, although we take all offences against children, particularly sexual offences, very seriously indeed.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ King went along with her, wondering where she was heading.
‘It’s time he was stopped,’ she insisted, ‘before he does something even worse.’
‘I understand,’ King assured.
‘Good,’ she smiled slightly – showing the tips of her straight white teeth as she turned to Gerrard to let him know she’d finished.
‘You start tomorrow,’ Gerrard told him. ‘We’ve sorted out an office over at Canning Town for you. It’s not much, but it’ll do. Your new team will meet you there in the morning and you can all get acquainted. I’m sure you’ll already know one or two of them.’
‘Probably,’ King shrugged and headed for the door.
‘Inspector Johnston will email you a list of the team members before tomorrow,’ he continued. ‘Give you a chance to look them over.’
‘Make sure you keep me fully informed,’ Johnston told him, with a trace of a warning in her voice.
‘Of course,’ he assured him, guessing that Johnston wouldn’t be slow in taking the credit for anything positive they achieved.
‘And be careful,’ Gerrard warned him as he headed through the door. ‘I hear the locals occasionally take potshots from the tower blocks at passing police officers with unwanted television sets.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ King smiled as he pushed himself from his seat and headed for the door.
The next morning, shortly after ten, King entered the small office on the second floor of Canning Town Police Station that used to belong to the now reassigned Crime Prevention Officer. His three charges were already there noisily sorting out their new desks and trying to find places to stash the huge amount of kit that every uniformed officer now possessed: body armour, utility belts, riot helmets, normal helmets, flat caps, CS gas, extendable truncheons, fixed truncheons, light jackets, heavy jackets and a seemingly endless number of other items. He knew all three of them by name and sight, although they’d never worked closely. None of them were distracted from their mission to sort out the office when he entered, choosing to acknowledge his presence in a more casual manner.
‘You must be mad to want to be in charge of this shit posting,’ PC Davey Brown accused him in his strong Glaswegian accent – his hair still cropped exactly as it had been in his days as a Royal Marine before a shoulder injury had forced him to retire when he was only twenty-one. He had a tough, unpleasant-looking face, other than his striking green eyes, all enhanced by a muscular body that made him appear shorter than his five-foot-ten inches. Since joining the Met four years previously, he’d established a reputation amongst his peers and the lowlife of Newham that was to be feared. ‘I heard you actually volunteered for this shit,’ he continued, stuffing his newly acquired drawers with kit.
‘Maybe,’ King played it cautiously, heading deeper into the office.
‘Just like you did,’ PC Renita Mahajan laughed at Brown who pulled a face of disgust.
‘Did I fuck,’ he insisted. ‘First rule of being a police officer – never volunteer for fucking anything.’
‘Well I volunteered,’ she proudly admitted, her bright smile adding to her attractiveness before she pushed her shiny, short black hair out of her face and returned to emptying the previous incumbent’s hordes of paperwork from her desk’s drawers and throwing them into a confidential waste bag. At only five-foot-five and the tender age of twenty-three, she made up for her shortcomings by remaining strong and athletic, fearless and tenacious. She had only three years’ service with the Met, but she was already confident and capable way beyond her years. ‘Better than driving around in a patrol car all day with some old fart who doesn’t want to get involved any more, delivering messages and taking crime reports.’
‘You’ll be wishing you were back in that patrol car soon enough when you’re walking around the Grove Wood Estate in the middle of the night on your own, hen,’ Brown smiled evilly.
‘Ignore these two,’ Danny Williams, the final member of the team, advised King. ‘They think they’re Laurel and Hardy.’
‘Who?’ Brown spat the question. Williams ignored him as he tried to close the tall metal locker he’d filled with equipment with no success, ramming it with his sizeable shoulder in frustration, before giving up and turning to King and straightening to his full six-foot-two, his lithe, athletic body augmented by his mahogany skin. He kept his Afro hair cropped so nothing would distract from his undeniably handsome face, although at only twenty-four some boyish features still remained.
‘We all volunteered,’ Williams ended the argument, ‘and so did a shitload more people, but we got picked because we’re the best.’
‘Aye,’ Brown interrupted. ‘Six months of this shit and I’ll have earned enough brownie points to fuck off to the TSG. Borough policing’s strictly for mugs. Territorial Support Group’s the real show.’
‘It’s the CID next for me,’ Williams explained.
‘And you?’ King asked Renita, who continued tidying her desk for a few seconds while she thought.
‘I don’t know,’ she shrugged. ‘Promotion maybe. What about you?’
‘I haven’t thought that far ahead,’ he admitted before Brown answered for him.
‘Have you not heard?’ Brown grinned. ‘Sergeant King here’s on accelerated promotion. Oh, he’s strictly just passing through on his way to the top.’
‘You’re on accelerated promotion?’ Renita asked, suspicious.
‘That’s the rumour.’ King knew he’d need to quickly earn their respect. ‘If that’s the way I want to go.’
‘If?’ Brown almost shouted. ‘Listen, pal – take some advice. Never look a gift horse in the mouth. Fucking accelerated promotion – easy life, eh.’
‘We’re not pals yet,’ King warned him. ‘Let’s start with Sarge and see how we get on, eh?’
Brown eyed him silently for a few seconds before answering. ‘Aye. Fair enough.’
Williams calmed the tension. ‘So what’s the score – what’s the brief with this estate policing unit?’
‘What you been told?’
‘Only what Inspector Johnston told me,’ Williams explained. ‘Police the Grove Wood Estate and sort it out. I was hoping you could be a little more specific.’
King moved deeper into the office and dumped his heavy kitbag onto the only desk that hadn’t been taken. ‘Fair enough,’ he began. ‘The estate’s in a shit state. Local criminals and yobs seem to run the place. Reported crime’s through the roof, so God only knows how much unreported crime’s going on.’
‘Powers-that-be won’t like that,’ Renita added.
‘Safer Neighbourhoods Team tried to get on top of it, but failed,’ King continued.
‘SNT,’ Brown scoffed. ‘They couldn’t get on top of a whore.’
King ignored him. ‘Our job, to put it bluntly, is to kick some arse – within the confines of the law, naturally.’
‘I like the sound of that,’ Williams joined in.
‘Can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.’ Brown once more grinned his evil grin.
‘I said within the confines of the law,’ King reminded him.
‘Aye,’ Brown argued, ‘but the local slags know the law better than most barristers. We want results, we’re going to have to bend things a little. Know what I mean?’
‘No one minds things getting a little bent,’ King agreed. ‘But it better be for the right reason and the right person. I don’t want anyone overstepping the mark. Very low-grade stuff and only when there’s no question of them being guilty. No stitch-ups – even on the local faces. We’re better than that. Someone tosses a stolen phone when they see you coming and your evidence says you found it in their pocket when you searched them – hey, so be it. No one’s going to get too worried about it, but no more than that. Everyone understand?’ Everyone nodded in agreement, except for Brown who just shrugged. ‘Good,’ King left it.
‘As I’m sure you all know by now, there are several fairly notorious drug dealers in the estate and at least one prolific handler,’ he explained.
‘I’ll soon take care of them,’ Brown crowed before King cut him down.
‘No you won’t,’ he ordered. ‘None of you will. Our job is to take out all the little shits who’ve been making life hell for everyone on the estate. Later on maybe we can move on to bigger fish, but right now we sort out these little bastards who are beginning to feel untouchable. The CID can deal with major crime. Our brief is to get the streets back.’
‘The bloody CID?’ Brown asked in his own unique way.
‘Yes,’ King answered – the fact he was losing patience plain to hear in his voice. Brown just shook his head. ‘Now, I spent half of yesterday in with the Intelligence Unit getting the info on who’s who on the Grove Wood and I’ve identified the people we should be looking at.’ He pulled a folder and some Blu-tack from his kitbag and spilled the photographs from inside over his desk. As he spoke he stuck mugshots of the people he discussed to the closest whiteboard.
‘Let’s start with the local burglars, shall we?’ he began. ‘Tommy Morrison, seventeen-year-old residential burglar.’ The mugshot showed a skinny youth with bad skin and unkempt brown hair. ‘He specializes in daytime burglaries of homes on the estate.’
‘So much for not shitting on your own doorstep,’ Williams said.
‘Morrison doesn’t care about rules and sayings,’ King told them. ‘He only has one rule – steal it if you can. He doesn’t care from who.’
‘Why don’t the locals just give him a good kicking and teach him a lesson?’ Renita asked.
‘Because they’re all as bad as each other,’ Brown explained. ‘All fucking thieving from each other – all fucking each other over.’
‘Probably,’ King agreed, ‘but the fact remains this kid is a one-man crime wave, so let’s bring an end to it.’ He stuck another photograph of a similarly unpleasant-looking youth to the board. ‘Justin Harris. Another residential burglar and sometime partner-in-crime of the before-mentioned Morrison and just as prolific.’ Yet another photograph was stuck to the board, this time of a black youth in his late teens. ‘Everton Watson,’ King explained. ‘The last of our residential burglars, only he strictly works solo and is notoriously slippery.’
‘I’ve dealt with that slag,’ Renita told them. ‘Nicked him for screwing a car. Looks like he’s moved up to bigger and better things.’
‘He has,’ King agreed, ‘and now he needs to be stopped. But speaking of screwing cars,’ he continued, sticking two more photographs on the board, ‘we shouldn’t forget these two – Craig Rowsell and Harrison Clarke – a salt-and-pepper team specializing in theft from motor vehicles. Where you find one you’ll usually find the other. Prolific isn’t the word for these two. Next time you feel broken glass from a smashed car window under your feet, you can be sure it’s probably down to these two clowns. They’ll think nothing of breaking into a car just to see if there’s anything worth nicking. They’re looking for satnavs people have been stupid enough to leave inside or mobiles, but they’ll take absolutely anything: loose change, adaptors, chargers, pens, CDs, even lighters in the past. If they had a motto it’d be “steal first – think later” and they are causing havoc to the borough motor vehicle crime figures.’
‘Well now,’ Brown added sarcastically, ‘we can’t have that, can we.’
‘No we can’t,’ King reprimanded him. ‘And then there’s those who are slightly further up the food chain. As I’ve said, they’re not our immediate problem, but you should be aware of who they are.’
The first mugshot was of an overweight man about thirty-four years old, with oily olive skin and hair pulled back in a ponytail. He was smiling in the photo, revealing his heavily stained teeth. ‘This is Arman Baroyan,’ King told them. ‘By all accounts he’s a proper Fagin – the main dealer in stolen goods on the estate, but judging by his lack of arrests he’s no fool.’
Next he slapped a photo of a man in his mid-twenties to the rogues’ gallery – tall and skinny with a poor pox-marked complexion, his head shaved, dead blue eyes staring from his skull-like face. ‘Micky Astill’s our main local heroin and crack dealer, selling out of his secured flat in The Meadows. He never seems to get turned over by any bigger or more violent dealers, so assume he’s getting protection from somewhere.’
‘Probably the Campbells,’ Renita offered, referring to the area’s most notorious crime family.
‘Probably,’ King agreed, ‘but the Campbells neither live on the estate nor commit the sorts of crimes we’re interested in.’
‘More’s the pity,’ Brown snarled.
‘And last but not least,’ King ignored him, sticking his final photo to the board, ‘Susie Ubana – our primary local cannabis dealer.’ He tapped the photograph of the attractive black woman in her early thirties. ‘If it’s cannabis you want she’s your girl. She deals from her heavily fortified maisonette in Millander Walk. Drug Squad have hit it before, but by the time they got through the metal grates any drugs had been long flushed or so well hidden they couldn’t find them.’
‘If we’re not going to hit them, why we talking about them?’ Brown demanded to know.
‘Because they’re a good source of arrests,’ King told him. ‘You see any local toe-rags coming from any of these addresses there’s a strong chance they’ll be carrying drugs or stolen goods. Never look a gift horse in the mouth – wasn’t that what you said?’
‘Aye, well,’ Brown struggled for an answer.
King pressed on. ‘And remember – in amongst the scum there’ll be a lot of decent folk just trying to live their lives quietly. Treat them with respect when you’re dealing with them and we might just win their support and confidence. We’re there to police by consent – not just force. Everyone understand?’
Renita and Williams nodded, whereas Brown just shrugged.
‘Now, most of the people we’re interested in don’t even get out of their beds till midday, lazy bastards, so there’s no point us wandering around the estate at seven in the morning. We’ll work two shifts between ten am and six pm and six pm till two in the morning – two of us per shift. You don’t have to walk around holding hands, although sometimes we’ll need to stick together. Any questions?’
‘Aye,’ Brown asked. ‘When do we get started?’
‘Right now,’ King told him, clipping on his utility belt and pulling his body armour from his bag. ‘The Grove Wood Estate’s crawling with criminality. It’s time to restore the rule of law.’
The small meeting began to break up before King stopped them. ‘One more thing, before I forget.’ The others stopped what they were doing and turned back to look at him. ‘Apart from the before-mentioned rogues’ gallery, the Grove Wood has an additional and very unwelcome problem.’
‘Such as?’ Renita asked.
‘Some animal messing with the local kids,’ King explained.
‘The fucking kiddie fiddler?’ Brown jumped in. ‘CID still not caught the bastard?’
‘Yes, the kiddie fiddler and, no, the CID still haven’t caught him,’ King answered. ‘But this one’s already up to half-a-dozen attacks to date and doesn’t look like stopping until he’s stopped. I spoke with DS Marino about it and he’s convinced whoever’s doing it is already escalating. Only a matter of time before he commits a serious sexual assault on a child. We have to stop him before that happens.’
‘That’s a lot of attacks in a relatively small area,’ Renita questioned. ‘How come he keeps getting away with it?’
‘CID have had the Crime Squad down there a few times,’ King explained, ‘but he never attacks out in the open, so observation posts haven’t worked. They tried to put plain-clothed units on the ground, but you know what it’s like on the Grove Wood – strangers stand out a mile and Old Bill even more so. As soon as the Crime Squad moved onto the estate the local slags put the alarm up – warning whoever we’re looking for, even if they didn’t mean to.’
‘Forensics?’ Williams asked.
‘No forensics,’ King answered. ‘He’s real careful. Uses his hands and hands only. Never leaves any body fluids behind for DNA.’
‘And identification?’ Williams tried again.
King just shook his head. ‘We have little or no chance of that. He uses the oldest disguise in the book: a baseball cap, hoodie – hood up and sunglasses. Add to that the fact that the children are usually very young and traumatized – there’s little chance of a positive identification. No. This one we’re probably going to have to catch in the act.’
‘Great,’ Brown shrugged and pulled a face of disgust.
King ignored him. ‘OK, people. That’s the job, so let’s get on with it. Starting right now.’
King walked through the estate feeling better than he had in a long time. He caught a reflection of himself in the stainless steel doors of one of the many old lifts that ferried the inhabitants skywards to their homes. It had been a long time since he’d seen himself in full uniform. There’d been no need for body armour and a belt full of equipment answering a phone on the Crime Desk. He took a second to admire his appearance – a crisp white open-neck short-sleeved shirt under the armour. Black trousers and shiny shoes with rubber soles so he could move silently. He’d also chosen to wear his peaked cap instead of the traditional helmet and had told the others to do the same. He wanted them all to look the part – to look different from other cops on foot. He wanted the locals to know they were dealing with something unlike anything they’d dealt with before. He took a deep breath and straightened his cap to perfection and let the feeling of power surge through his body. Strange how powerful a uniform could make a person feel – like wearing an impregnable shield. A jolt of pain through his shoulder reminded him it was anything but.
His radio suddenly gave off two electronic-sounding peeps – letting him know someone was trying to contact him on one of its private channels. He checked and saw that it was Renita. He pressed the transmit button and spoke to her, knowing that only she would be able to hear him.
‘Go ahead, Renita.’
‘You still on the Grove Wood?’ she asked.
‘Yeah. In Manor Mead. Something going on?’
‘I got Craig Rowsell under obs in Tabard Street checking out the parked cars,’ she told him. ‘I’ve already got enough to nick him for vehicle interference.’
‘No,’ King insisted. ‘If he’s that interested it’s only a matter of time before he screws one. Give him a bit of rope. I’ll make my way to you. Where are you now?’
Pulsuz fraqment bitdi.
