Copyright

HarperCollinsPublishers

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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?’

‘South end of Tabard Street,’ she replied.

‘I’ll make my way to the north end,’ he explained. ‘You keep him under obs. If he screws one, show out and flush him towards me. I’ll stay out of sight until you give me the nod.’

‘Understood,’ she confirmed as he made his way quickly through the estate’s rat-runs to Tabard Street – staying out of view from anyone who might have shouted a warning to Rowsell of his impending approach. A few minutes later he’d hidden himself behind a recessed stairwell and let Renita know he was waiting to ambush their prey.

His radio hissed into life. ‘Sarge,’ Renita began. ‘Rowsell’s getting very interested in an old BMW 3 Series. He’s been back for a couple of looks. Standby.’ His radio went dead for a few seconds before coming alive again. ‘He’s picked up a small stone,’ she continued. ‘He’s moving towards the BMW. Standby. He’s done the window – repeat – he’s done the window. Shall I move in?’

‘No,’ King insisted. ‘Wait till he’s stolen from the car.’

‘OK,’ she agreed, ‘but whatever he’s after he’s taking his time. Standby – he’s out the vehicle now – looks like he’s had the stereo away.’

The stereo? King thought to himself. Any stereo old enough to be ripped in one unit from a car in this day and age could surely only be worth pennies. He wondered why the likes of Rowsell bothered. ‘Show out now,’ he commanded. ‘Get him running towards me.’

‘Already done it,’ Renita told him over the radio, her voice making it clear she was running as she spoke. ‘Stop there, Rowsell, you thieving little …’ She released her transmit button before King could hear any more.

He peeked around the stairwell in time to see Rowsell haring towards him, stupid enough to be still clutching the old stereo, about fifty metres away, but closing fast. He waited, hidden, muttering barely audible encouragement to the advancing thief. ‘Come on. Come on.’ Only when he was sure Rowsell would neither be able to swerve past him nor turn and run in the opposite direction did he burst from his hiding place, making the thief’s eyes widen with fear and nostrils flare as he realized he’d run straight into a trap.

King hit him hard with the palms of his outstretched arms, ploughing into Rowsell’s chest and momentarily lifting him from the floor, knocking the wind from him and making him drop the stereo. Quickly King spun him around and pushed him up against the wall, pulling his arms behind his back and expertly wrapping his quick-cuffs around Rowsell’s wrists, making him curse and complain.

‘Get the fuck off me,’ he demanded. ‘Ah, fuck. The cuffs are too tight, you wanker.’

King pushed him harder into the wall to let Rowsell know who was in charge. ‘Better watch your language, Craig, or I’ll be adding violent disorder to theft from motor vehicle. Understand?’

‘Who the fuck are you?’ Rowsell asked. ‘TSG?’ Clearly he was experienced enough to know the difference between a relatively gentle arrest at the hands of the local police and the more robust treatment he could expect from the Territorial Support Group.

‘Not TSG, my friend,’ King smiled. ‘Haven’t you heard? You’ve got your very own police force now. The Grove Wood Estate Policing Unit. Remember the name, you little prick, because things around here are about to change.’

By the time King arrived home to his two-bedroom flat in Chadwell Heath, East London, his partner was already there, preparing dinner in their tiny kitchen. She kissed him on the lips and fussed around him, making him smile at the special treatment he was receiving.

‘Sit down, sit down,’ she insisted. ‘I want to hear all about your first day back.’

He slumped in one of their only two kitchen chairs that lived under the small circular dining table, also used as a part-time desk, thankful to be sitting after spending the first day on his feet for more than nine months. ‘Nothing to tell,’ he lied. ‘Just a normal day at the office.’

‘I don’t think so,’ she reminded him. ‘Your first day back on the streets. Your first day as a sergeant on full duties. Your first day in charge of the Estate Policing Unit.’

‘OK,’ he relented, nodding his head. ‘It went well. Team seem solid, although Davey Brown wants to lock horns all the time.’

‘Oh, I know Davey Brown,’ she told him. ‘The ex-Marine, right?’ He just nodded. ‘You know his type. They want to be sergeants, but they don’t want to have to bother with the exams – think they’ve got a right to promotion just because they know what they’re doing on the streets. But I know you. You’ll soon have Davey Brown eating out of the palm of your hand.’

‘Maybe what we do on the streets for real should dictate who gets promoted and not just who can pass exams?’ he questioned.

‘That’s a little rich coming from someone on accelerated promotion,’ she reminded him. ‘Turkeys don’t generally vote for Christmas.’

‘Well, we had a decent arrest on our first day,’ he explained, letting her comment slip away. ‘Craig Rowsell for screwing a car on the estate. He nicked some ancient stereo from some clapped-out BMW. I mean, why would you bother nicking that? It wasn’t worth shit.’

‘Because he’s a thief,’ she reminded him. ‘What does he care? He’s not thinking about the logic of breaking a hundred-pound window to steal a ten-pound stereo. None of it’s his loss. As far as he’s concerned if he sees a ten-pence piece on the seat of a car why not smash the window to get it. At the end of the day he’ll be 10p up.’

King unconsciously rubbed the back of his injured shoulder. ‘I’ll never understand these people,’ he complained. ‘If you’re gonna be a thief, be a good one. Steal something that’s worth something.’

‘If you’re getting it for nothing, then everything’s worth something,’ she tried to explain, before noticing he was rubbing his back and grimacing slightly. ‘Giving you trouble?’ she asked.

‘Uh?’ he replied, momentarily confused before he realized what he was doing and self-consciously pulled his hand away. ‘I’m fine. Just a little sore, that’s all.’

‘Have you taken your pills?’

‘I took some earlier,’ he assured her. ‘Probably due some more about now,’ he added as he rose and headed to the cupboard where they kept all their medicines and first aid equipment and popped two four-hundred-milligram tablets of buprenorphine from their plastic and tinfoil homes and threw them into his mouth as he headed for the fridge and grabbed himself a beer. He used the bottle opener attached to the door to lift the lid and washed the pills down with a large swig.

‘I thought you were supposed to let them dissolve on your tongue before swallowing,’ Sara reminded him.

He swallowed hard to force the pills further into his stomach before answering. ‘I know, but they taste shocking. What difference can it make anyway?’

‘I don’t know, but maybe you should stick to the instructions.’

‘It’ll be fine,’ he tried to reassure her.

‘And those ones are opioids,’ she warned him. ‘Perhaps you should try to come off them and use something else.’

‘Fine,’ he shrugged. ‘I’ll ask my GP next time I see her.’

‘You mean the GP you never go and see?’

He looked her up and down with admiring eyes before taking another drink of beer and sitting on the chair in front of her. ‘Maybe all it needs is a good massage?’ he suggested.

‘Oh,’ she smiled, taking hold of his shoulder with both hands. ‘You reckon that’s all you need.’

He slipped his arms around her waist and pulled her a little closer, rolling his neck as her fingers dug deep and began to relax him. ‘That feels nice,’ he told her.

‘Only nice?’ she teased.

‘It feels good,’ he improved. ‘Really good.’ He felt tired parts of his body start to awaken as he pulled her a little closer and began to unbutton the white police blouse she still wore, pulling it open and kissing her soft, pale skin, making her gasp a little before she spread her legs and sat astride him, moving her mouth onto his as his hands moved upwards to cup her breasts through the lace of her white bra.

She whispered in his ear as she panted a little for breath. ‘Not here. Let’s go to the bedroom.’

‘Here’s fine,’ he argued, kissing her neck and covering her body in goose bumps, but she pulled away, smiling seductively, taking his hand and encouraging him to his feet.

‘The bedroom’s more comfortable,’ she told him, ‘for what I have in mind.’

‘And what would that be?’ he asked, his voice hoarse with desire.

‘Come with me and you’ll find out,’ she promised as she rose from his chair and he willingly followed her towards the bedroom.

3

King and Williams hid in a stairwell tower overlooking flats in Millander Walk – specifically the one belonging to the local handler, Arman Baroyan. Williams continued to explain the night’s events as King listened intently, considering their options – his eyes never leaving the flat opposite.

‘Two residential burglaries overnight – both on the estate, both very close together in time and location. They took so much stuff there’s no way they could have shifted it yet. I figure sooner or later they’ll bring it to Baroyan.’

‘What did they take?’ King asked.

‘Like I said – shedloads. TVs, Blu-ray players, a laptop, a disc drive, jewellery, clothes, booze – you name it.’

‘That’s too much to shift in the open in broad daylight,’ King argued.

‘Unless they’re stupid or desperate,’ Williams grinned.

‘I suppose we could get lucky,’ King admitted.

‘Or maybe they’ll bring it here bit by bit – in which case what do we do?’

‘If we catch them out in the open with any of the gear we’ll nick them before they even reach Baroyan’s. Remember what I told you all – we’re not after the handlers and dealers yet. Instead let’s use them as a source of arrests.’

Williams nodded in agreement. ‘Fine by me.’

A few seconds later a clearly empty-handed youth casually approached Baroyan’s flat, stopping and checking he wasn’t being watched before he prepared to knock on the door. Once satisfied he was unobserved, he reached through the solid-looking metal grid covering the door and pounded on the reinforced wood.

‘Allo,’ King whispered. ‘Who’s this then? D’you recognize him?’

‘I know this little slag,’ Williams told him. ‘That’s Stuart Weller. He works as a runner for Baroyan – ferrying messages backwards and forwards for him, arranging where to drop nicked gear.’

‘I guess Baroyan doesn’t trust phones then,’ King suggested.

‘Would you?’ Williams asked. King just nodded slowly as the door was answered by Baroyan, who briefly spoke to Weller before disappearing inside and closing the door. Weller quickly skulked away, still walking casually, as if it was just another normal day on the estate – and for him it was.

‘Come on,’ King told Williams, already running down the stairs two at a time. ‘We need to follow him. He could lead us straight to whoever screwed the flats, and the stolen gear.’

Williams was after him now. ‘How we gonna get close enough to follow him without showing out?’

‘He’ll take the rat-runs as much as he can,’ he explained, ‘and so will we.’

They tailed Weller for almost a quarter of a mile to the other side of the estate, always staying close to the building lines, looking for shadows to hide in, alcoves to conceal them, until finally they spied him climbing to the second floor of Abbey Mead – a long, low-rise block of flats with sweeping communal walkways made from dull grey bricks, where he stopped outside a flat. They hid behind a car in the building’s car park and waited, although it was already clear from the state of the front door that the flat was semi-derelict and probably being used as a squat. After a few seconds the door was opened by a white man in his mid-twenties who looked gaunt and neglected – the yellowness of his skin clear even from a distance.

‘D’you know him?’ King whispered.

‘Nah,’ Williams admitted, ‘but he looks like a scag or crack-head.’

The gaunt figure ushered the youth inside and closed the flimsy-looking door. ‘I’m liking this more and more,’ King told him, just as they saw an equally emaciated-looking white man appear from the stairwell carrying a thin plastic bag loaded with what looked like groceries and head towards the flat. He fumbled for a key in his trouser pocket before finally opening the door and disappearing inside.

‘These are definitely our boys,’ King insisted. ‘Have to be.’

‘I agree,’ Williams whispered, ‘but we haven’t got a warrant and we haven’t seen any stolen goods yet.’

‘We don’t need a warrant to search the flat if they’re already under arrest,’ King reminded him.

‘That’s all fine if the stolen stuff’s inside,’ Williams argued. ‘If that’s the case we can make up anything we like – make the facts fit the arrest – but if it’s not, people might ask what power we had to search it in the first place. Maybe we should get a warrant.’

‘It’d take too long,’ King dismissed it, ‘and there’s no guarantee they’d give us one anyway. Trust me – the stuff’s inside that flat and so are the burglars.’

‘OK,’ Williams reluctantly agreed. ‘We’ll do it your way.’

The single lock holding the door closed was wholly inadequate and unable to stand up to even one kick from Williams’ boot as he and King seemed to charge through the small space simultaneously, screaming ‘Police!’ at the tops of their voices as they ran into the sitting room with truncheons drawn, catching the two men and the youth by complete surprise as they sat on the only sofa in the flat – a filthy remnant salvaged from a skip somewhere and dragged to the squat that stank of hard drug use, human desperation and impending death. It was also now filled with the stench of human excrement as the drug users struggled to control their bowels with muscles wasted by years of abuse with serious narcotics. On the battered table in front of them lay the remains of their latest attempt to escape the awful pointlessness of their lives – a homemade glass crack-pipe stained with over-use and numerous pieces of old tinfoil riddled with the track marks of burnt heroin. The drug users’ eyes were wide open and vacant – as if they’d been hypnotized – whereas the local feral youth had the look of someone who realized they were just unlucky to have been caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

‘Nobody fucking move,’ King screamed at them, making one of the men begin to shake uncontrollably and grimace as he tried not to foul himself. ‘You’re all under arrest for the two burglaries that happened on the estate last night. I’ll assume you all know the caution off by heart so I won’t waste my time explaining it.’

‘I ain’t done no fucking burglary, man,’ Weller protested his innocence.

‘Shut the fuck up, Stuart,’ Williams told him, prompting him to exhale in exasperation and sink further into the reeking sofa.

‘Get up and turn around,’ King told the silent men who obeyed like lambs heading to the slaughterhouse as they secured them with quick-cuffs and sat them back down. ‘You just stay there,’ he told Weller, who knew there would be little point in running.

The suspects safely trussed, King and Williams began to look around the spartan flat, but it was immediately clear the drug-ravaged men hadn’t even bothered to hide their stolen booty and had merely piled it in the corner of the front room – TVs, laptops, booze, everything. Even the jewellery lay on the floor.

‘Fuck me,’ Williams tormented them. ‘You could have made an effort.’ But still they said nothing, occasionally looking to one another as if they were communicating telepathically – their plight about to get significantly worse as King pulled open the only fitted cupboard in the room and stared inside almost disbelievingly.

‘Danny,’ he called over his shoulder without looking away from the contents of the cupboard. ‘You’d better take a look at this.’ Williams could tell by his tone that he’d found something even more serious than the stolen goods and approached almost in trepidation until he too stared into the cupboard and let out a long whistle before turning back to the men.

‘You two are well and truly fucked,’ he told them as King pulled the two black balaclavas, baseball bats, knives and – almost most damning of all – a roll of thick black gaffer tape from the cupboard and laid it all out neatly on the floor for the men to see.

‘Things just got very serious, gentlemen,’ King told them. ‘This isn’t just burglary any more – this is aggravated burglary. You could get life imprisonment for this.’ Still they said nothing and King wondered whether they even cared. Their lives had been over the minute they started smoking crack and heroin. ‘All right,’ he told Danny, the excitement in his voice suddenly replaced with a resigned sadness. ‘Call up some transport for the prisoners, will you? And you’d better let CID know what’s coming their way. It’s all over for these boys. By the look of them, has been for a while.’

King was in the custody suite back at Canning Town Police Station, having just finished booking in the last of the three prisoners from the estate, when Marino appeared quietly on his shoulder.

‘That’s a top job you’ve brought in there,’ Marino told him as he began to examine the paperwork on the prisoners. ‘Two for aggravated burglary and one for handling. Very nice. But I don’t see a search warrant anywhere here.’

‘Didn’t need one,’ King answered with a stony face. ‘We had reasonable grounds under Section 17 to enter and arrest, which then gave us power to search the flat under Section 18.’

‘Reasonable grounds?’ Marino looked him in the eyes.

‘We followed Weller from a well-known handler’s address to the squat and while we had it under obs we saw one of these slags approach and enter carrying a flat-screen TV I recognized from the crime report.’

‘Uh huh,’ Marino smiled. ‘Good work. We’ll take it from here.’

‘I’d like to keep the job,’ King asked, but Marino shook his head.

‘Sorry, Jack,’ he explained. ‘Aggravated burglary is strictly a CID matter. They may be good for a few clear-ups elsewhere on the borough as well. Don’t worry – I’ll make sure you and your team get full credit for the arrests.’ King shrugged disappointedly. ‘You’ve done your job and you’ve done it well,’ Marino tried to encourage him. ‘You should be proud of it.’ Still King said nothing. ‘And I for one am certainly looking forward to seeing what else your team can bring in. Now finish up your arrest notes and drop them on my desk when they’re done.’

King again remained silent as he watched Marino walk away with the paperwork for the job that he felt should have been his. He quelled his rising resentment by reminding himself that one day in the not too distant future the likes of Marino wouldn’t be able to take anything off him unless he ordered them to. He decided to console himself by taking his team for a celebratory drink at the nearby pub favoured by the local police. He reckoned they deserved it.

King entered the Trafalgar pub. It was a stone’s throw from the police station and therefore guaranteed to be popular with the local uniformed officers so long as the drinks were reasonably priced and place was kept clean; whereas the local CID preferred to hide themselves away in more far-flung watering holes, out of sight of indiscreet eyes. The pub was already busy and noisy with the late shift, but he found his small team easily enough, standing apart at the far end of the bar. He eased his way through the crowd and made his way over to them where he was greeted with smiles all round.

‘I thought you’d bailed on us,’ Brown accused him.

‘Just had to finish up some paperwork,’ he explained.

‘Drink?’ Renita asked.

‘Of course,’ he told her. ‘Lager – a pint. Anything that’s not Australian.’

‘That’ll be the Heineken then.’ She pushed her way to the bar, getting served almost immediately despite the men who’d been waiting before her.

‘Shame about having to hand over the burglary prisoners,’ Brown reminded him.

King couldn’t be sure if he was just making conversation or setting something up. ‘Couldn’t be helped,’ he answered. ‘Aggravated burglary’s a CID matter.’

‘Still,’ Brown eyed him, ‘would have been nice to keep hold of a job like that – take it all the way to court.’

‘We could have dealt with it,’ Williams joined in. ‘The job was as good as done anyway. We had the prisoners, the property. What else was there left to do?’

‘Interviews,’ King pointed out, ‘forensics, paperwork, pump them about other burglaries they may have committed. If we’d taken it on we’d be tied up in the station for the next two or three days. Better to let the CID have it so we can get on with patrolling the estate.’

‘Or maybe the CID just didn’t trust you to put the job together properly.’ Brown smiled unpleasantly just as Renita turned back towards them handing King his drink.

‘Maybe,’ he told Brown as he took the drink. ‘Thanks.’

‘You’re welcome. Everything all right?’ she asked.

‘Everything’s fine,’ he assured her.

‘Aye,’ agreed the still smiling Brown. ‘Everything’s fine.’

‘Drink up then, Sarge,’ Williams encouraged him.

‘On the streets it’s Sarge,’ King explained. ‘In the pub it’s Jack.’

‘Fair enough,’ Williams nodded, happy to oblige, as were the others. ‘And here’s to a solid start.’ They all raised their glasses and took a drink before King spoke again.

‘It’s been OK,’ he pulled them back, ‘but it could have been better.’

‘You think,’ Renita asked. ‘How exactly?’

‘The burglars were good arrests – very good,’ he admitted, ‘but they weren’t locals. They weren’t faces. I doubt anyone on the estate even knew them. Probably glad to see the back of them. No one wants to see a couple of loose cannons running around with knives and baseball bats committing aggravated burglaries. Not even our delightful locals. As much as we can, we need to keep our efforts concentrated on the indigenous wildlife. Only that’ll bring the estate to heel.’

‘Aye, maybe,’ Brown partly agreed, ‘but it could have been even better if we took the gloves off a bit. It’s all very well and good sticking to the rules, but I don’t see the local slags playing by any rules. Maybe we should even the game up a little, know what I mean?’

‘No,’ King forbade it. ‘I told you – neatening things up is one thing. Anything other than that is not acceptable. We’re better than that. We keep our integrity.’

‘Whatever you say,’ Brown said in a sulk.

‘You’ve got a lot to say for yourself,’ Renita told Brown. ‘For someone who hasn’t had an arrest on the Unit yet.’

‘Yeah, that’s right,’ Williams joined in. ‘The only one who hasn’t.’ Everybody smiled but Brown.

‘Yeah well,’ he defended himself, ‘enjoy it while you can. Won’t be long before I’m top dog.’

‘Come on,’ King ended Brown’s humiliation. ‘Drink up. It’s my round.’

4

King felt something rocking him and dreamt he was on a small boat lost in a large sea until Sara’s voice broke through his tiredness and the remains of the alcohol and he realized he was in his own bed in his own flat with very much his own stinking hangover.

‘Time to get up,’ she told him unsympathetically loudly. ‘You’ll be late.’

He sat upright too quickly, the sudden movement of blood in his head making him feel like he was back on the boat. ‘Shit,’ he complained as he grabbed his head in both hands. ‘What time is it?’

‘Almost nine,’ she said without looking at him. ‘Good night, was it?’

He ignored her sarcasm, but could tell she was enjoying herself. ‘Why didn’t you wake me up?’

‘I’m not your keeper,’ she laughed.

‘Ahh, Christ,’ he complained as nausea crept up on him, making her laugh all the more.

‘And it’s a bit early to be celebrating your success, isn’t it?’ she warned him. ‘A few days on that toilet of an estate – a few arrests and you think the job is done. I don’t think so. You may be the talk of the borough right now, but you’ve got a long way to go before I for one will be convinced. Now I’m off to do some real police work. I’m on one of the response cars again. Some of us have to cover the whole borough – not just one estate. Being the superstar that everyone thinks you are, I’m sure you’re capable of getting your own breakfast.’ She kissed him on the forehead and swaggered out the bedroom, while all he could do was flop back onto the bed and let out a groan of misery.

King entered the Unit’s small office at Canning Town and found Renita and Brown already in full kit and ready to yet again take on the estate. Both somehow managed to look considerably better than he felt, despite having all left the Trafalgar at the same time. They passed knowing glances at each other and smiled at his misfortune, for the first time making him suspect they’d spiked at least one of his drinks. Still, he’d enjoyed the sensation of numbness and the sleep that was free of his usual nightmare.

‘Morning, Sarge,’ Renita grinned from ear to ear. ‘You look well.’

‘Very funny,’ he told her, pulling a face.

‘You wanna be more like me,’ Brown unhelpfully advised him. ‘Trained soldier, me. Take more than a few bevvies to bring me down.’

‘I’m fine,’ he lied. ‘Nothing a decent brew won’t sort out.’

‘I’ll get the kettle on,’ Renita came to his rescue, heading for the old kettle in the corner of the office they’d commandeered from nobody quite knew where. She was in the process of filling it with water from a tiny, dilapidated sink when a gentle knock on the doorframe of the office halted her. They all looked in the direction of the disturbance to see Inspector Joanne Johnston standing in the entrance to the office – her green cat-eyes darting between King, Renita and Brown, as if she was deciding which mouse to pounce on first.

‘Good morning, everybody,’ she said cheerfully, if a little drily. They murmured good mornings in return, but still Johnston didn’t enter. ‘Just thought I’d call by and congratulate everyone on the excellent start you’ve made. You’re quite the talk of the Senior Management Team. It won’t be long before everyone’s beating a trail to your door wanting to know how you did it.’

The team looked at one another before King answered for them. ‘Thank you, ma’am. But it’s only a start.’

‘Yes. Yes it is. I’m glad you understand that,’ Johnston agreed with her famous pixie smile. ‘But a good start all the same.’

‘Thank you,’ King said again, unable to think of anything else to say.

‘Good,’ Johnston replied, her clear, sparkling eyes boring deep into King’s. ‘I appreciate policing the Grove Wood can be very challenging and at times there may be a temptation to bend some of the rules to get the job done.’ She waited for a reaction, only continuing when none was forthcoming. ‘Just make sure bending doesn’t mean breaking.’ Again she waited for a reaction, but still the others just stared back at her until she gave up. ‘Keep up the good work.’

‘We’ll do our best,’ King told her with a look that let Johnston know he had nothing else to say.

‘Very well then,’ she smiled, looking satisfied with herself. ‘Before I forget – any progress with this sexual assaults on children business? The SMT wants him stopped before things become even more serious. Sexual assaults of this nature are not a Service priority, even on children, but serious sexual assaults are. So far he’s gone no further than exposing himself and touching them in intimate places. If he progresses to making them perform sexual acts on him, or worse, it’ll make the whole borough look bad.’

‘We’re on it,’ King assured her. ‘But it’s difficult.’

‘Spare me the excuses,’ she dismissed his plea. ‘I’ve had enough of those from the CID.’ She paused as she checked their faces for a reaction. ‘Just keep me informed.’ King nodded once as Johnston spun on her slightly higher than regulation heels and disappeared from the doorway. They stood in silence, as if they had been temporarily frozen for almost thirty seconds, before simultaneously breaking into stifled laughter, more with relief that Johnston had left than anything.

‘Some piece of work, that one,’ Brown said what they were all thinking. ‘Mind you I wouldn’t mind giving her—’

‘All right,’ King stopped him. ‘Just remember – you report to me. Not Johnston.’

‘I’m beginning to understand why they call her the Poisonous Pixie,’ Renita added, before looking more serious. ‘She’s sharp though. I wouldn’t be trying to take the piss with the pixie around. Remember – the more beautiful the snake the more poisonous it is.’

‘Enough fun and games,’ said King. ‘Let’s get out there. Like I said last night, the aggravated burglary arrests were good, but they weren’t locals, so let’s get on with harassing those who need to be harassed. I want everyone on the estate to know who’s running things now. Everyone.’

King walked along Millander Walk still nursing his hangover – trying to breathe in fresh air, but the air on the estate at the beginning of summer was anything but fresh. It was as if it had been permanently trapped by the surrounding buildings that never allowed a clean wind to blow away the stale smell of humanity piled too high on top of each other – the heat of the sun igniting the stench from the communal bins and rubbish chutes that were rarely cleaned. The odour of a thousand different meals escaped from seemingly every window and vented cooker hood, mixing with the smell of the dog excrement that sporadically littered the walkways and grassy play areas set aside for children, but which were only ever used by the local youth gangs and their cross-bull-terrier dogs who crapped where they pleased, undeterred by their owners who had no interest in cleaning the foul mess. King almost gagged on the stench until the sight of Susie Ubana standing outside her fortified maisonette distracted him from his sickness.

Her attractiveness and general appearance surprised him. He’d only ever seen her mugshot, which was from a few years ago and probably had been taken after she’d been in custody for hours, if not days. It was a stark contrast to the well-dressed, slim black woman in her early thirties he was looking at now. She stood casually smoking a cigarette, standing on the walkway looking over the wall at nothing in particular, staring in the direction of the grassed area and beyond, unbothered by his presence – whatever drugs she possessed being safely hidden away in her home. Her front door was open, but the metal grid across it remained securely locked. King knew Ubana wouldn’t be stupid enough to have the keys on her, which meant there was someone in the maisonette holding the keys for her.

King decided it was time he introduced himself to one of the estate’s better-known residents and walked the short distance to where she stood and leaned on the wall next to her, slipping off his flat cap and smoothing his hair.

‘Good morning,’ he told her with a smile. She neither looked at him nor said anything – smoking her cigarette as if he wasn’t there. ‘Thought it was about time I introduced myself,’ he persisted. ‘My name’s Sergeant King. Sergeant Jack King.’

‘I know who you are,’ she finally acknowledged him, but still wouldn’t look at him.

‘You do?’ King questioned.

‘News spreads fast in a place like this,’ she told him.

‘Like a prison, eh?’ he deliberately reminded her of her time behind bars.

‘That’s what this place is, isn’t it?’ she answered, surprising him a little. ‘We’re all trapped here.’ She gave a short ironic laugh. ‘That’s what this place does to you. It traps you. Maybe one day you’ll be trapped here too.’

‘I don’t see how,’ he argued. ‘Once my job’s done I’ll be moving on. Even now I arrive in the morning, do what I have to do then I go home to my nice flat and my nice girlfriend. All this,’ he explained, waving his hand across the entire estate, ‘means nothing to me. It’s just a mean to an end.’

‘Gets you up the next rung of the ladder?’ she smiled.

‘Exactly,’ he smiled back.

‘Well,’ she continued, ‘while you’re here people will just enjoy having a bit of law and order about the place.’

‘You telling me you’re happy we’re here?’

‘Of course,’ she answered, confused by his surprise. ‘Too many little bastards on this estate running wild. It ain’t good for living and it ain’t good for business.’

‘Even your business?’

‘Especially my business,’ she insisted. ‘The shit they pull brings you lot sniffing around and that makes the punters nervous.’

‘Is that how you see it,’ he asked, ‘as a business?’

‘Of course it’s a business,’ she laughed. ‘I just provide a quality product that people want. You don’t see me selling crack and heroin to fucked-up losers, do you?’

‘No I do not,’ he admitted.

‘I provide a leisure product that’s less harmful than alcohol,’ she explained. ‘Not my fault a bunch of public schoolboy politicians decide to keep it illegal. Won’t change nothing though. Where there’s a demand there’ll always be a supply.’

‘Law’s the law,’ he reminded her. ‘There are no good laws and bad laws as far as I’m concerned. Just laws and I’ll enforce them all.’

‘I know you will,’ she told him. ‘Your reputation precedes you.’

‘Good,’ King stiffened, pleased at what he was hearing.

‘Yeah, well, don’t get carried away with yourself,’ she warned him. ‘Coming down hard on the local tearaways and shit is fine, but some of the other people round here …’ She gave a knowing shrug. ‘I wouldn’t ruffle too many feathers, if I was you. You never know who knows what – who’s connected to who. You get my meaning?’

‘So long as nobody draws unnecessary attention to themselves,’ he smiled. She flicked her cigarette over the wall and onto the grass below and headed back to her maisonette. ‘I don’t suppose you’re carrying the keys to that metal grid on you?’ he asked still smiling.

‘No,’ she answered. ‘Do yourself and everyone else a favour and catch this animal who’s been messing with the kids round here. Feeling is, because it’s only our kids, Old Bill don’t care. You find him, you win everyone’s respect – almost.’ She turned away from him before shouting into the dimness of the concrete cave. ‘Nakiya.’ She saw the look of interest on his face. ‘My daughter.’

‘I see,’ he nodded.

‘And in case you’re wondering,’ she explained, ‘which I know you are – the keys are never on the outside – always on the inside. Even if I’m just out here for a smoke or a friendly chat with a passing cop.’

‘Of course,’ he replied as her teenage daughter appeared on the other side of the grid holding a single key.

‘Open it,’ her mother demanded, causing Nakiya to eye King suspiciously. ‘It’s fine,’ she told her. ‘He’s fine.’ Nakiya’s expression changed from one of suspicion to disinterest as she quickly unlocked the grid and swung it open. Ubana stepped inside quickly, the grid being slammed behind her and immediately locked. She turned round and looked through the bars as King leaned back on the wall with the sun pleasantly on his face.

‘Looks like you were right,’ he smiled.

‘Oh yeah,’ she asked. ‘About what?’

‘About this place being a prison,’ he told her.

Her eyes rolled as she unwittingly examined the bars in front of her. ‘Maybe,’ she replied, ‘but if you ever want to stand on this side of the bars, you’d better have a warrant. Know what I mean?’ She winked and closed the door before he could answer.

She was right about one thing, he thought to himself. Word really did travel fast on the estate.

A short time later King met up with Renita to patrol the estate together looking for trouble. As they headed down a huge vehicle ramp that led to dozens of underground garages, King spotted a large piece of plastic wall hanging a little looser than the other panels on the bottom section of a low-rise row of flats and maisonettes. He stepped towards it and pulled it even looser and peered inside the bowels of the building.

‘Someone’s pulled this loose deliberately,’ he told Renita. ‘Wonder where it leads to.’

‘Probably the basement area of the building,’ she guessed. ‘It’ll be where the water tanks and electrical stuff is all kept. Everything will be pumped into here before being fed out to the flats.’

‘So why would somebody want to break inside?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know,’ she shrugged. ‘Why don’t we see if we can find out?’

He pulled the loose panel to one side so she could more easily enter. ‘Ladies first,’ he grinned.

‘Well thank you,’ she joked. ‘You’re such a gentleman.’

She clambered through the small gap into the semi-darkness and watched as King did the same. They both un-holstered their Maglite torches from their utility belts, instantly illuminating their surroundings, and realized they were in some sort of corridor with dozens of pipes running above their heads and along the walls next to them. Underneath their feet was nothing but cold concrete lit by the occasional safety light glowing red.

‘Christ,’ Renita complained. ‘It’s like being in a bloody submarine.’

‘Not a side of the estate most people would ever see,’ he replied, squinting as he followed the beam of light from his torch. ‘Want to split up like they do in American horror movies?’ he teased her.

‘No I bloody don’t,’ she told him. ‘Place gives me the creeps.’

‘This way then,’ he encouraged her and headed off along the corridor, following the long cones of light that stretched out ahead of them as they walked deeper and deeper into the strange underground world until the thin corridor suddenly and unexpectedly opened out into a cavernous room where there was a little more light from the weak overhead strips and seemingly grey metal box after grey metal box attached to the surrounding walls.

‘Wow,’ Renita declared. ‘What d’you think’s in the boxes? There’s hundreds of them.’

‘Not sure,’ King answered, his torch sweeping every corner of the room. ‘Probably the electrical circuit boards for the block.’

‘Amazing,’ she admitted. ‘You wouldn’t want to be the one to try and find the blown fuse if electrics failed.’

‘No,’ King agreed as he drifted to a corner where something had caught his eyes in the torchlight. ‘I suppose not.’

‘You found something?’ Renita asked, slowly following him.

‘Over here,’ he told her as he passed his light over the arrangement of old sofa cushions, homemade stools and a crate that was clearly being used as a makeshift table, littered as it was with the remnants of drug use and alcohol consumption.

‘Christ,’ Renita surveyed the scene. ‘Lovely place to talk the night away with friends.’

King bent closer to better examine the items strewn across the table. ‘Don’t be too harsh on them,’ he told her. ‘Looks like cannabis and alco-pops – nothing too heavy. Probably just kids looking for somewhere to hang out of the rain and away from their parents.’

‘Speaking from experience?’ she asked.

‘I was a kid once,’ he answered.

‘Hard to believe,’ she replied, trying to sound serious.

‘Still,’ he ignored her, ‘can’t have them hanging around off their faces down here. Only a matter of time before they start a fire and burn the whole bloody block down.’

‘Idea?’ she prompted him.

‘Hope you brought a good book,’ he told her.

‘Ahh,’ she complained. ‘You’re not serious, are you? You want to wait down here until someone shows up? Could be hours. Could be days.’

‘We’re not going to wait down here for days,’ he began to explain.

‘Good, because this place still gives me the creeps.’

‘But let’s give it a while.’

‘Fine,’ she reluctantly agreed and followed him to the darkest corner of the basement room where they prepared to lie in wait for whatever came their way.

Susie Ubana sat in her kitchen waiting for someone to answer the number she’d called on her untraceable pay-as-you-go mobile phone. Eventually a man’s voice spoke cautiously.

‘Hello.’

‘It’s me,’ she replied.

There was slight pause before the man spoke again. ‘What do you want?’ he asked without any politeness or subtlety.

She drew deeply on her cigarette, exhaling as she spoke. ‘We may have a problem.’

‘Go on,’ he told her.

‘These new cops on the estate – the one in charge,’ she explained, ‘I think he’s planning on upsetting things around here.’

There was a long silence before the voice spoke again. ‘Can he be persuaded?’

‘Not like that,’ she assured him. ‘He’s young. Clean. Untainted. He still has … ideals.’

‘Do I need to do something right now?’ he asked.

She sighed before answering. ‘No. Let me keep an eye on him – for now.’

‘OK,’ the man agreed casually. ‘But keep me informed.’ The line went dead before she could answer.

‘Shit,’ she cursed under her breath before taking a long pull on her cigarette.

King and Renita waited silently in the dark shadows of the corner, their eyes well adjusted to the dim light. The sound of distant laughter made them look at each other as they visibly tensed, but as the noise grew louder and closer they realized it was more giggling than laughing – the sound of children. Soon they could hear their footsteps as well as their voices talking softly to one another as they filed into the opening and took what appeared to be their usual places on the stools and cushions; their conversation grew a little louder and coarser as they became increasingly confident they were alone.

‘Now,’ Renita whispered in his ear.

‘Not yet,’ he hissed back as he watched the five children aged between twelve and fourteen empty their pockets onto the table making a communal display of cigarette papers, lighters and broken cigarettes. The youngest-looking child pulled something too small to see from his trouser pocket and began to fiddle with it. King guessed what it was and what he was doing, but still he waited until he could be sure.

He didn’t have to wait long before the boy began to heat whatever it was he was holding over the small flame of a lighter, immediately filling the basement with the smell of softening cannabis resin, but still they waited until he crumbled the resin into the waiting tobacco on a paper bed that another boy rolled and ignited with his own lighter. King tapped Renita on the shoulder and stepped out into the space, clicking his torch on and half blinding the youngsters. They looked to one another in terror before trying to scramble to their feet, but King and Renita were already on top of them.

‘Police!’ King half shouted, before lowering his tone. ‘Everybody stay where you are.’

‘Fuck,’ one of the girls announced, dramatically clutching her chest. ‘It’s just the police. You nearly scared the hell out of us.’

‘Nobody do anything stupid,’ King warned them. ‘You,’ he spoke directly to the youth holding the joint. ‘Put that out and drop it on the table. Everybody else – let’s have any drugs, cigarettes or booze on the table too.’ He gave them a couple of minutes to search themselves, but they produced little to add to the collection that they’d already made.

‘Is that it?’ he asked once they were no longer fidgeting in their pockets.

‘That’s it, man,’ the one who’d brought the cannabis resin answered. ‘What d’you expect – a whole soap or something?’

‘Watch your mouth,’ Renita scolded him, ensuring the silence of the others too.

‘Right then,’ King shone his torch in their faces one by one. ‘Who do we have here?’

‘I recognize chatty boy here,’ Renita told him. ‘Darren Stokes, right? Been causing trouble round here for years. And that one,’ she pointed to a pretty girl with long, straight blonde hair, but the eyes of a battle-hardened street fighter, ‘that’s Crissy O’Sullivan. Don’t be fooled by the angelic face.’ Crissy gave them her best sarcastic smile before her face again turned to stone.

‘Who else?’ King asked, but no one answered. He tapped the nearest one on the shoulder with his torch. ‘You. Name?’

The small, unhealthily slim boy sighed before answering, his translucent skin shining in the light. ‘James.’

‘James what?’ King snapped at him.

‘James Mulheron,’ he admitted with another sigh as King moved to the next girl.

‘And you?’

She brushed her short brown hair from her young face. He could see the fear in her eyes and guessed she was new to the group. The weak link. ‘Kimberley Clarke,’ she almost whispered.

‘Your parents know you’re hanging around with these clowns?’ King asked. Kimberley just shrugged. ‘Thought not,’ he told her and turned his attention to the last of the group who, despite his boyish appearance and slight build, had a look of feral viciousness about him. King instinctively knew that if this was the boy’s first contact with the police it certainly wouldn’t be his last. He shone the torch directly into the boy’s face, making his eyes appear black and red – like a trapped rat’s. ‘And you?’

‘I don’t have to tell you anything,’ the boy snarled, summoning some fight from his urban, animal instinct.

‘Have it your way then,’ King warned him. ‘If you won’t tell me who you are we’ll have to arrest you – for your own good, you understand.’

‘Just fucking tell him,’ Mulheron demanded, but the boy stood firm – his face a mixture of fear, defiance and hatred.

‘And obviously if I have to arrest you then we’ll have to arrest all of you,’ King threatened, immediately turning the entire group on the isolated boy as they took turns to tell him to say his name – their fear of arrest making their young faces twisted and ugly until Mulheron could take no more.

‘His name’s Billy Easton,’ Mulheron told them. ‘It’s fucking Billy Easton.’

King saw the fire burning in Easton’s eyes. Betrayal on the estate to the police had clearly long been installed in the boy’s fabric as the greatest of sins – even if it was just a name to save them from arrest.

‘Billy Easton, eh?’ King nodded, tapping the boy on his shoulder with his torch. ‘I’ll be sure to keep an eye on you.’

The boy never flinched – his eyes intense flames of intent that momentarily unnerved King.

‘All right, you lot,’ King suddenly barked. ‘Leave all your shit here and fuck off.’ The children looked to one another, unsure – suspicious of King’s motives. ‘I said fuck off,’ he repeated, this time drawing a look of concern from Renita.

‘Sarge?’ she checked. ‘You sure?’

‘I’m sure,’ he told her. ‘Now go, all of you. Just go and tell all your friends this place is now out of bounds – understand?’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Mulheron agreed. ‘We’ll tell ’em.’

They hurriedly scrambled to their feet and scampered off towards the corridor – all except Easton, who took his time getting to his feet, his eyes never leaving King’s.

‘Got something to say, Billy?’ he asked, but the boy didn’t answer as he turned towards the corridor and strolled after his fleeing friends. ‘I’ll see you around, Billy,’ he tried to wrestle the initiative from the boy, but it was already too late.

Once the sound of their retreating feet had faded King examined the table, taking the remains of the resin and unsmoked joint before carefully placing them in a pouch on his utility belt.

‘Better not leave this behind.’ He spoke more to himself than anyone.

‘No,’ Renita agreed, sounding a little confused. ‘I guess not.’

‘Come on,’ he told her. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

A few minutes later they were back in the bright sunshine that overheated the microclimate of the estate and made everything shimmer and dance – the warmth giving King’s fading hangover new life.

‘We should find a drain,’ Renita told him.

‘A drain?’ he asked. ‘What the hell d’you want to find a drain for?’

‘You planning on booking that resin and joint in as property found when we get back to the station?’

‘No,’ he laughed. ‘Got enough paperwork to get through without wasting my time booking this in.’

‘Exactly,’ she explained. ‘So chuck it down the nearest drain.’

‘Not this time,’ he replied casually.

‘Oh,’ she said, sounding a little suspicious. ‘You’re not planning on getting stoned, are you?’

‘No,’ he laughed again. ‘I don’t even smoke cigarettes.’

‘So why d’you want to keep it?’

‘I’d just rather keep hold of it,’ he smiled. ‘You never know when it might come in handy – when we might need it to encourage someone to tell the truth.’

‘That’s a route fraught with danger,’ she warned him. ‘Every little toe-rag’s got a mobile they can record shit on these days.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ he reassured her – a call coming through on his radio saving him from any further questioning.

‘PS 42.’ The voice on the radio used his shoulder number as his call sign. ‘PS 42 receiving – Control over.’

‘Now what,’ he complained, before answering professionally. ‘Go ahead, Control.’

‘Can you take a domestic dispute,’ the male voice from Control Room back at Newham Police Station asked, ‘at number 24 Millander Walk? That’s your patch, I believe. Informant’s a Debbie Royston – says her boyfriend is drunk and won’t leave the house.’

He froze for a second. It was his first domestic since the incident. The familiar images from his nightmares rushed him – the girl in the white dress staggering towards him, the maroon blood spreading through the pristine material. The mother and son lying together in a scene of carnage, but always worst of all – the tiny figure of the girl no more than six years old, lying still and peaceful, her eyes wide open in death with barely a mark on her body. His radio blared again and brought him back to the present.

‘Can you deal, 42? Control over.’

‘Yes,’ King answered, his voice almost too weak to hear. ‘Yes,’ he repeated more strongly. ‘Show me as dealing. I’m with 274.’

‘Thanks,’ the voice acknowledged. ‘I’ll show yourself and 274 as assigned.’

‘You all right?’ Renita asked.

‘I’m fine,’ he lied as they began to walk to the location of the domestic.

‘Is this your first domestic since … you know?’

‘Yeah,’ he answered. ‘Can’t avoid domestics for the rest of my career. I’ll be fine.’

‘I can handle it on my own if you’d rather,’ she offered. ‘No one need know.’

‘No,’ he snapped at her slightly before gathering himself. ‘No. I want to deal. I have to.’

As they approached the scene of the reported domestic, King was relieved to hear the normal sounds associated with such an occurrence – a man and woman screaming at each other – dispelling his fear that he was about to walk into another silent trap of horror.

‘Sounds like things are in full swing,’ Renita joked before they had to dive head first into other people’s misery and anger.

‘Great,’ he replied through gritted teeth as they approached the front door and found it already open – the sounds of exchanged profanities spilling out onto the communal walkway. King knocked on the door once, called inside, ‘Police’, and then entered without waiting to be invited, quickly taking in his surroundings – looking for any immediate dangers, obvious or hidden. Other than the duelling couple he saw none, although he was surprised by the size and clever open-plan design of the kitchen and living area of the maisonette, noting that it was clean and ordered, with no shortage of decent mod-cons, least of all the oversized LED TV dominating the space. He was relieved the fight was taking place in the living area and not the kitchen where deadly weapons always lurked close to hand, denying the attacker time to think – time to take stock before they committed a serious armed assault or worse.

‘Someone call the police?’ he added to get everyone’s attention.

The man looked in his direction and grimaced before continuing to shout at the woman standing only inches in front of him. ‘Why did you have to go and call this fucking lot?’

‘Because you’re a drunken arsehole – that’s why,’ the woman King assumed to be Debbie Royston answered him.

‘All right,’ King said calmly as he moved towards them. ‘That’s enough. Who called us?’

‘Me,’ Royston answered, ‘and I want this fucking drunk out of my house.’

‘You Debbie Royston?’ he asked.

‘I ain’t going fucking anywhere,’ the man interrupted.

‘You,’ King pointed a finger into the man’s chest, ‘be quiet and don’t interrupt me again.’

‘Yeah, I’m Debbie Royston,’ she now answered, ‘and this is my house and I want him out of it.’

‘I’ll get to that,’ King assured her, ‘but right now we need to know if anyone else is in the house?’

‘My kids,’ she answered, still shouting everything she said. ‘Hiding upstairs scared half to fucking death because of this bastard.’

‘Shut up, you stupid slag,’ the man began again.

‘One more word,’ King warned him. ‘One more word.’ He took a breath before continuing, but suddenly paused as he felt a strong presence for the first time since entering the home. It was strangely powerful and alluring, but dangerous too. He turned his head towards the source of whatever it was that had been strong enough to distract him from the couple who’d already started screaming at each other again and saw a teenage girl, no more than sixteen or seventeen. Intelligence and sexuality blazed from her almond-shaped eyes that were so brown they appeared quite black. Her strikingly angular face was covered with flawless olive skin and framed by long deep brown curls. Her tight jeans and top showed off her curved hips and full, shapely breasts. Despite the complete lack of style or subtlety in her appearance, she was undeniably beautiful.

‘Who’s this?’ he asked the screaming woman, before realizing his virtual whisper was being drowned out. ‘I said, who’s this?’ he shouted loud enough to match them as he continued to stare at the girl standing halfway up the stairs. She looked straight into his eyes, a slight smile of seduction on her lips as she seemed to ignore everything in the house but him.

The couple momentarily stopped shouting and looked in the direction he was facing. ‘That’s my eldest,’ Royston told him. ‘Kelly.’ She looked to King and then back to Kelly before bellowing at the girl. ‘I thought I told you to stay upstairs and watch your brother and sister.’ Kelly casually shrugged and began to climb the stairs, looking back over her shoulder as she did so, her eyes never leaving his as she seemed to float from step to step with the grace of an old movie star.

‘How old is she?’ he asked Royston once the girl was out of sight.

‘Why d’you want to know?’ she asked, suspicious.

‘For my report,’ he told her, not even sure if he was lying or not.

‘She’s seventeen,’ Royston finally answered. ‘Be eighteen in a couple of months.’

‘And the other children in the house?’ he asked, recovering from the distraction of Kelly.

‘Jason’s thirteen and Sharmane’s eleven,’ she told him, before re-igniting the battle with her boyfriend. ‘Not that it’s got anything to do with the fact that I want him out of my house.’ She stabbed an index finger at the man’s chest.

‘I ain’t going nowhere,’ he shouted back as King and Renita got in between them, easing them further apart. ‘I paid for everything in here, so why the fuck should I go anywhere?’

‘’Cause it’s a council house and it’s registered in my name,’ she screamed back with an ugly smile.

‘All right,’ King spoke loudly enough to be heard and silence the bickering couple. ‘You,’ he talked to the man. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Chris O’Connell,’ he answered truthfully. King could smell the alcohol on his breath.

‘Is the house registered in your name?’ King continued.

‘No,’ O’Connell admitted.

‘No, it bloody isn’t,’ Royston refused to remain silent for long. ‘I told you – it’s in my name.’

‘So fucking what?’ O’Connell called to her over King’s shoulder.

‘Do you want this man to leave?’ King went through the procedural questions he needed to ask.

‘Course I want him to bloody leave,’ she confirmed loudly.

‘Then, Mr O’Connell,’ he told him, ‘you have to leave.’

‘I ain’t fucking going nowhere,’ O’Connell hissed.

‘I was hoping you were going to say that,’ King replied before moving faster than O’Connell could anticipate, spinning him around and pushing him up against the nearest wall as he twisted an arm up behind his back, making O’Connell call out in pain. ‘Chris O’Connell,’ King began, ‘I’m arresting you for causing a breach of the peace. You have the right to remain silent, blah, blah, blah,’ he continued as he pulled O’Connell’s other arm behind his back and locked quick-cuffs around his wrists.

‘Argh,’ O’Connell complained. ‘Get the fuck off me.’

‘Be quiet,’ Renita told him as she helped King restrain the struggling man.

‘Oi, what you doing to him?’ Royston tried to come to O’Connell’s aid.

‘What you wanted,’ King told her, breathing a little heavily as he battled with O’Connell, who’d been made strong by anger and alcohol. ‘We’re removing him from your house.’

‘Yeah, but,’ she argued, moving towards them, ‘there’s no need for all this.’

‘Back up,’ Renita warned her, ‘or you’ll be getting nicked too.’ Royston stopped in her tracks as Renita pinched her radio and called for a van to transport their prisoner. At the same time King looked over his shoulder to check any danger Royston could be to them, but he found himself looking past her to the figure that now stood in the shadows at the top of the stairs, looking down on him with the same smile of unknown intentions. For a moment it felt as if he and Kelly were the only people in the room before she gave a silent giggle and disappeared into the upstairs darkness.

‘You all right?’ Renita asked without being heard. ‘Sarge. You all right?’

‘Yeah,’ he answered as her words cut through the intoxicating effects of Kelly. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Good,’ she told him. ‘Van’s on the way.’

5

King had keys, but still he knocked on the front door then took a step back. He wrung the neck of a bottle of wine while he waited next to Sara, who was holding an elaborate bunch of flowers and a box of expensive chocolates.

They listened as heavy, military-sounding footsteps approached followed by the sound of at least two locks being freed. The door swung ceremonially open, revealing the tall, straight-backed figure of a man in his sixties standing unsmiling in the entrance, his hair cut short and neat, his clothes as clean and pressed as his uniform had been before he retired as a full colonel from the army.

‘Made it here at last then,’ he greeted them.

‘Dad,’ said King.

‘And how are you, Sara?’ his father asked, ignoring his son as he stepped aside to allow them to enter.

‘I’m fine thank you, Mr King,’ she answered through a nervous smile.

‘No need to stand on ceremonies,’ he told her. ‘I keep reminding you to call me Graham. Everyone else does these days.’

‘Sorry,’ she apologized. ‘I keep forgetting. I’m fine thank you, Graham.’

‘You’d better come and say hello to your mother,’ he told King. ‘Let her know you’re still alive. For some reason she still worries about you. Can’t think why.’

‘No,’ King rolled his eyes at Sara when he was sure his father couldn’t see. ‘Nor can I.’

The two couples began to eat their way through the meal that King’s mother, Emily, had taken hours preparing. King couldn’t help but think what a pointless exercise it had been – taking so much time to make something that would disappear in minutes and probably not be appreciated by anyone. He became increasingly aware of the growing pain in his shoulder and back as he watched his mother picking at her food as she’d done all her life – ensuring she remained slim for the Colonel. Her ash-blonde hair was pulled back into a permanent ponytail and she spoke with a heavily clipped accent – on the rare occasions her husband allowed her to get a word in edgeways. Even now, King felt he hardly knew her. He had been sent to boarding school at seven years old and then on to university and finally the police. This was their home, not his. As far as he was concerned, they’d never shared a home.

‘You still haven’t asked about Scott,’ Graham reprimanded him, with no attempt to conceal his annoyance at King’s apparent lack of interest in his own brother.

‘I was going to,’ he replied, ‘when Mum wasn’t around.’

‘What’s your mother’s presence got to do with anything?’ Graham demanded.

‘Well, I didn’t know if she wanted to talk about it,’ he explained. ‘She gets upset.’

‘Nonsense,’ Graham insisted. ‘Your mother’s fine. It’s not like he’s not going to make a full recovery. It’s not like he’s lost any limbs or been disfigured. Many have, you know. If you ask me he’s been bloody lucky.’

‘Funny idea of luck,’ King argued, ‘being shot.’

‘Could have stood on an IED,’ Sara added awkwardly before realizing she wasn’t helping – drawing stony looks from both King and his father.

‘He’s going to be fine,’ Emily tried to end it. ‘That’s all that matters.’

‘Quite,’ Graham huffed as they settled into silent eating until Sara tried once more to break the tension.

‘How long has Scott been back from Afghanistan now?’ she asked.

‘Six months or so,’ Graham answered.

‘Weren’t we supposed to have left there more than a year ago?’ she asked naïvely.

Graham cleared his throat to answer, but King spoke before he could. ‘Not everyone,’ he explained. ‘The army left some military advisors behind.’

‘Shot by the very people he was supposed to be helping train,’ Graham spat the words out like bile. ‘Let the whole lot of them go to hell in a handcart,’ he added.

‘Where is he now?’ Sara asked, making King move uncomfortably in his chair.

‘Still in hospital,’ Emily quickly told her, as if only she had the right to answer the question.

‘But he’s getting out very soon,’ Graham took over again, ‘as Jack would have known if he ever bothered to visit him.’

‘I did know he was being released soon,’ King surprised them.

‘You didn’t tell me,’ Sara smiled uncomfortably.

‘That’s because Scott doesn’t like me talking about him to other people,’ he explained.

‘He didn’t tell me you’d visited him,’ Graham said, suspicion thick in his voice.

‘What Scott and I do is no one else’s business.’

‘Christ,’ Graham laughed. ‘You’re not schoolboys any more keeping silly secrets. For God’s sake, it’s not bad enough Scott got himself shot in Afghanistan – you manage to get yourself stabbed in the police. What sort of an idiot almost gets himself killed walking the beat?’

‘It can be a difficult job, Mr King.’ Sara had forgotten his father’s instructions to call him by his Christian name. ‘Policing London is dangerous. You can never be sure what you’ll walk into round the next corner.’

‘Nonsense,’ Graham dismissed her. ‘Joining the army in this day and age was always going to present certain risks. Scott knew that and so did your mother and I, but almost getting yourself killed walking around East bloody London. I mean …’

‘Which is exactly why I didn’t join the army,’ King fought back. ‘What’s the point of doing a job where you’ve got a good chance of being blown up or shot? Sounds like a pretty stupid thing to want to do to me.’

‘Which is probably why you got injured in the first place,’ Graham accused him. ‘A touch of karma, I think. You spent so much time avoiding joining the army because you were afraid of being injured, you got injured anyway.’

‘I don’t think so,’ King replied, just about holding it together.

‘The police,’ Graham held his arms out dramatically. ‘There’s no future in it.’

‘He’s on accelerated promotion,’ Sara reminded him.

‘Accelerated promotion,’ Graham scoffed. ‘He’s a sergeant. Now if he’d joined the army he would have started at lieutenant – the equivalent rank of inspector. None of this playing around in the other ranks nonsense. It’s not too late, you know,’ he continued down a familiar track. ‘I could still pull some strings and get you into Sandhurst. You’re still young enough, just.’

‘It’s not for me,’ King insisted. ‘I’m not like you or Scott.’

‘And what exactly is wrong with being like me or Scott?’ he demanded.

‘Nothing,’ King looked for a way to escape the conversation.

‘Then at least think about it.’

‘No,’ he answered bluntly.

‘Why not?’ his father demanded.

‘Because the army’s for fools,’ he couldn’t stop himself from blurting out.

His father breathed in deeply, preparing to attack before his wife finally stepped in to bring matters to an end. ‘That’s enough, you two,’ she insisted with a smile, as if the argument had been nothing more than friendly jousting. ‘We’re just glad that both you and Scott have fully recovered. You gave us quite a scare.’

‘Indeed,’ her husband forced himself to agree – the redness in his face and his slight trembling betraying the anger he still harboured.

‘It wasn’t intentional,’ King told them, happy to continue with the fight until he felt Sara kick him under the table. ‘But at the end of the day Scott’s going to recover and that’s all that matters.’

‘Good,’ his mother finished it for this occasion at least. ‘Now eat your dinner. You’re getting too skinny.’

Kelly Royston walked to Susie Ubana’s maisonette and reached through the metal grid to knock on the front door. After a few seconds the door opened slightly and Ubana peered through the gap, relaxing when she saw it was only Kelly – someone she’d known for years, having watched her growing up on the estate. She opened the door fully, but kept the metal grid firmly closed. Their meeting looked like a prison visit in an American jail.

‘You gonna open this … barricade?’ Kelly asked.

‘No,’ Ubana answered bluntly. ‘D’you want something?’

Kelly sighed and opened her clenched fist, revealing a crumpled five-pound note and a handful of loose change. ‘I need an eighth of Lebanese red,’ she told her. ‘It’s all there,’ she assured Ubana as they both looked at the mess of cash in her palm. Kelly saw the look of distaste on Ubana’s face at her offering. ‘What d’you expect?’ she asked. ‘Brand new tenners out the cash machine?’

‘Chance would be a fine thing,’ Ubana answered, awkwardly holding out both her hands through the grid and cupping them as if she was holding water. Kelly tipped the banknote and coins into her hands and watched them retreat back beyond the grid. ‘Wait there,’ Ubana told her and disappeared inside.

Kelly leaned against the wall and looked out over the estate as the night grew ever darker, its silence punctuated by the occasional scream of a child, shout of a drunk or bark of a dog. Her mind wandered to the young cop who’d arrested her mother’s boyfriend earlier in the day. She knew she’d affected him in a way she could affect pretty much any man she chose to, but he was different. Very different. He was a policeman. The men and boys on the estate were largely desperate fools she could manipulate like putty, taking whatever she liked from them with just the promise of intimacy with her at some distant, unspecified point in the future. At seventeen she already knew that to them she promised the chance of escape to a better world where they could have something wonderful and beautiful. Even if it only lasted for a few minutes, it would be the best thing that would ever happen to most of them. But would the young policeman be so easily enthralled by the drug of her beauty?

After a couple of minutes Ubana returned and ended her daydreaming.

‘Here,’ she told Kelly, easing her clenched fist through the grid. Kelly pushed herself off the wall and took hold of Ubana’s fist as if they were shaking hands in a slightly strange way until she felt Ubana’s well-practised fingers push the small parcel wrapped in clingfilm into the palm of her hand. Quickly she slipped it down the front of her skintight jeans and nestled it in her public hair, but she didn’t then scamper away as Ubana had expected. ‘Don’t wait around here long,’ Ubana warned her. ‘Not with that on you. One of them new coppers might be hanging around.’

‘Think they’ll want to search me?’ Kelly smiled mischievously, but her charms were wasted on Ubana.

‘They’ll want to arrest you,’ Ubana told her grimly. ‘And me.’

‘I wouldn’t mind being searched by one of them,’ Kelly ignored her.

‘Oh yeah,’ Ubana looked her up and down. ‘And which one would that be?’

‘The one in charge,’ Kelly answered, moving from hip to hip.

‘That’ll be the sergeant then,’ Ubana said sarcastically.

‘Yeah. Him,’ Kelly agreed. ‘The one with the stripes. The good-looking one – well, good-looking for a cop.’

‘What you got in that young mind of yours?’ Ubana asked suspiciously.

‘Nothing,’ Kelly lied, blinking her wide almond-shaped eyes and for once looking younger than she was. ‘I was just saying …’

‘I’d get those crazy notions out your head if I was you, girl,’ Ubana cautioned her. ‘I’ve spoken to the man. He ain’t interested in the likes of you, unless he’s arresting you. He’s pure, you know. He’s here to bring the bad times to us. Sure, he’s starting with the local thugs and fools, but what d’you think he’s gonna do after they’re all gone? He’s gonna come after people like me and that will not be good. Where would you get your puff from then, Kelly?’ The girl just shrugged disinterestedly. ‘Yeah, exactly,’ Ubana told her. ‘I’ve seen his type before. Best thing for us is he gets his promotion or joins the CID or whatever it is he’s after and fucks off and leaves us alone, before he has a chance to do any real damage. He’s already been here too long.’

‘You shouldn’t be so afraid,’ Kelly dismissed her fears. ‘You just need to know how to control him.’

‘Really,’ Ubana replied patronizingly.

‘Really,’ Kelly continued. ‘There isn’t a man on the planet I couldn’t control.’

‘What do you know about men?’ Ubana asked. ‘You’re too young to know anything much. Too young to even know that.’

‘We’ll see,’ Kelly answered, walking backwards and smiling before elegantly spinning on her heels, never looking back as she strolled away. ‘We’ll see.’

King nursed their car through the light evening traffic as Sara sat in the passenger seat still talking relentlessly about the evening they’d just spent with his parents – continually shaking her head and groaning with frustration. He listened to her many complaints as his head throbbed from the stress of being in the company of his parents, while his back and shoulder ached as if the knife was still buried deep in his body. But he said nothing to her as she continued to list the crimes against his parents and even managed to smile and appear amused by her ranting.

‘Honestly,’ she told him, ‘I don’t know how you got through the night without a drink. Jesus, your dad. How did you put up with that growing up?’

‘I told you,’ he explained. ‘I was never at home or almost never. I went to boarding school.’

‘Yeah. I remember,’ she replied, rolling her eyes. ‘Nice parents – sending you away for your entire childhood.’

‘They’re not that bad,’ he half-heartedly tried to convince her. ‘Just a bit military, I suppose.’

‘Oh, God,’ she reminded him, ‘and all that crap about “it’s still not too late to go to Sandhurst”. Is he serious?’

‘Yes,’ he sighed. ‘I think he probably is.’

‘Christ,’ she complained. ‘You’d think he’d have had enough of his sons being in the army after what happened to Scott.’

‘Don’t drag Scott into this,’ he snapped at her.

‘I’m not,’ she said. ‘It’s just after what happened to him and everything, you would have thought the last thing your parents would want is for their other son to join the army too. It’s not like you haven’t already been through enough.’

‘He just doesn’t know what else to say,’ he told her. ‘Doesn’t know what else to do.’

‘Well, he could help Scott for one thing,’ she argued, ‘instead of having a go at you.’

‘As far as he’s concerned, Scott’s all fixed,’ he explained. ‘Dad only sees the physical wounds.’

‘He doesn’t know Scott has post traumatic stress?’

‘No,’ he answered, ‘and Scott doesn’t want him to know.’

‘Why?’ she questioned.

‘Do you really need to ask?’ He looked at her quizzically.

‘Fair point,’ she conceded and allowed a silence to settle in the car for a while before breaking it. ‘Do you ever think you might have it?’ she asked a little nervously.

‘Have what?’ he smiled.

‘PST,’ she told him.

‘No,’ he managed to laugh it off, praying that the tightening in his stomach and the deafening sound of blood rushing around inside his head weren’t somehow manifesting themselves in a form Sara could see. He’d convinced the psychiatrists he was fine, not that any of them had dug too deep, each seemingly in a rush to move on to the next patient – teenagers with eating disorders and suicidal housewives. Sometimes he even fooled himself he was fine, but never for long. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me other than a stiff back and a sore shoulder. I passed my psychs – remember?’

‘It wasn’t a test,’ she corrected him. ‘They were just trying to find out if you needed help.’

‘And they found out I didn’t,’ he reminded her.

‘So long as you were truthful with them.’

‘Course I was,’ he assured her.

‘I doubt it,’ she accused him. ‘I know what you blokes are like – especially cops. You’d admit to anything before you admitted to struggling emotionally. You’re such a bunch of macho losers.’

‘If I was struggling I’d tell you,’ he lied. ‘But I’m not, so that’s the end of it.’ He dug his fingers deep into his aching shoulder, trying to ease the pain.

‘I’m sorry,’ she apologized. ‘I wasn’t trying to—’

‘I know,’ he cut her off, making her turn away. ‘Look,’ he softened. ‘It’s just my parents. They have a knack of pissing me off. But I’m fine,’ he insisted. ‘I’m absolutely fine.’

They shuffled through the front door of their small flat together feeling deflated and tired. They both kicked off their shoes and Sara threw herself into the inexpensive but comfortable sofa, before immediately jumping up again.

‘I’m exhausted,’ she told him. ‘I need to go to bed. If I fall asleep on that sofa you’ll never get me out of it. You coming?’

‘In a minute,’ he answered. ‘I need some painkillers and a drink first.’

‘I bet you do,’ she said without smiling. ‘Don’t be too long.’

‘I won’t be,’ he assured her, although in truth he had no idea how long he’d be.

‘See you in a minute then.’ She headed towards their bedroom while he went to the kitchen, turning on the under-cabinet lighting that only dimly illuminated the room. He pulled a beer from the fridge and popped the top off the bottle, placing it carefully on the small kitchen table before crossing the room and beginning to search for painkillers. Even in the poor light he found the buprenorphine easily enough. He pressed two tablets from the tinfoil and headed back to the table where he slumped in a chair, quickly throwing the pills in his mouth and washing them down with a long drink. The racing thoughts about his parents, his brother and Sara slowed to a flickering procession of still pictures in his mind, until finally they were pushed aside by the memories of the day he’d accepted a seemingly innocuous call to deal with a domestic dispute.

He shook his head, trying to expel the images from his mind, but they remained strong and vivid – the young girl walking like a ghost from the house, the crimson spreading slow and steady through her pristine white dress, collapsing into his arms as her father, her would-be killer, burst through the door. He winced as he once again felt the knife bury deep into his back and shoulder – his memory fast-forwarding to the point where he was beating the father unconscious and then he was inside the house and moving up the stairs to the room where he found the twelve-year-old girl lying face-down on her bed. He saw himself in the room standing over her, but not touching her as he had in reality – just standing there looking down at her dead body before walking backwards out of the room.

And then he entered the other room – the scene of bloody slaughter – the mother lying stabbed over and over on the bed with her brave teenage son on the floor next to her, his failed attempts to save his mother costing him his own young life. Only now, in his conscious nightmare, there was even more blood than there had really been. So much more that it pooled around the soles of his shoes as he walked slowly into the room – his feet sinking into the blood-saturated carpet as thick maroon liquid still poured from every wound on the mother’s body, yet more pouring from her son’s mouth, ears, nose and eyes.

King fled from the room in a panic, stumbling into the hallway and somehow becoming lost and disorientated in the small house, leaving bloody fingerprints on the walls as he used them to try and steady himself before he finally fell through a door and into another bedroom – the bedroom where he’d found the youngest girl lying peacefully on her back, pale and lifeless. Only in the terror of his waking dream she wasn’t lying, but sitting on the bed, her dead eyes staring at him, now wide and crystal blue – not closed as her father – her killer had left them. He inched towards her, his hand rising slowly and reaching out to her as her pale lips parted, her tongue garishly red in contrast. Words formed in her mouth before finally escaping, although they took an age to reach him, as if he was watching a badly lip-synched film. But eventually he could hear what she was saying – her voice soft and broken, but more terrifying than the loudest screams. Why didn’t you save me? Why didn’t you save me?

‘Fuck!’ He jumped to his feet, grabbing his shoulder as he instantly became aware of the pain in his body. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he pleaded as he shook the last remnants of the day-terror away. He drained the rest of his beer in one and took several deep breaths to steady himself, his pulse rate slowing as he recognized his surroundings and realized the girl wasn’t real – not any more.

He headed for the fridge, pulling the door open before immediately closing it and resting his head on the cold metal. ‘There was nothing I could do,’ he whispered to the ghost of the little girl. ‘You were gone before I got there. There was nothing I could do. Fuck,’ he said a little louder and yanked the fridge open, taking another beer from inside. ‘You were gone before I got there.’

6

King and Brown were tucked away in a large shed-like building used to store some of the estate’s many giant communal bins, keeping watch on the comings and goings from Micky Astill’s flat in a particularly bleak part of the estate known as The Meadows, despite the fact it contained not a single blade of grass.

‘Fucking stinks in here,’ Brown complained in his sour Glaswegian accent, his face screwed up against the stench from the over-full bins. ‘How much longer we gonna waste our time in this hole?’

‘You wanna be a rat-catcher, you have to be prepared to go into the sewer,’ King told him.

‘What?’ Brown pretended not to understand. ‘Don’t see why we don’t just get a warrant and do the door.’

‘Firstly,’ King explained, ‘by the time we got through the grids anything and everything would have been flushed. Secondly, what’s the point? We take out Astill, it’s only a matter of days before another dealer replaces him. Where there’s a demand there’ll always be someone to provide the supply and there’s plenty of demand on this estate.’

‘Fucking crack-heads and heroin addicts,’ Brown grumbled. ‘Let them kill themselves on it if that’s what they want. Why should we care?’

‘Because they steal to buy their shit with,’ King reminded him, ‘and that is our problem.’

‘Well,’ Brown still argued, ‘at least if we put his fucking door in he’ll get the message we’re after him. Put the pressure on him, eh?’

‘No,’ King insisted. ‘We leave him alone for now – pick off his customers on slow days to keep our arrest figures ticking over. If we can turn the odd informant, all the better.’

‘Informants,’ Brown scoffed at the idea. ‘Nothing but trouble. Dangerous bastards. If they’re happy to sell out their own friends and family then what d’you think they’d do to you given half a chance?’

‘Quiet,’ King suddenly told him, holding up his hand for emphasis. ‘Looks like we’ve got a customer.’

Brown peeked through a spyhole in the rotting wood. ‘Aye,’ he admitted. ‘We do indeed.’

‘You know him?’ King whispered.

‘Aye,’ Brown smiled as he looked at the tall, skinny figure loping towards the flat. Even from a distance his drug-induced acne and sickly, deathly pallor was clear to see, his hair badly shaven by his own hand to save money that could be better spent on hard drugs. ‘That there’s Dougie O’Neil. Well-known lowlife, thief and scaggy crack-head of this parish. Dougie doesn’t care what drugs he’s pumping into his system, just so long as they’re class A.’

They watched O’Neil gently knock on the door before turning and checking the walkways below and above, as well as the forecourt littered with cars – always alive to danger, constantly alert, like an antelope on the Serengeti; prey to all and predator to none, except when he was engaged in acts of petty theft. O’Neil understood his lowly role in life to the point where he’d even had ‘Born to lose’ tattooed on the side of his neck. After what seemed a long time, the door finally opened, although, as per the usual modus operandi for house-bound dealers, the metal grids riveted to the walls across the doors and windows remained secure and unopened. They could clearly make out Micky Astill standing in the doorframe looking like a clone of O’Neil – his body and skin ravaged by years of getting high on his own supply.

They watched as a short conversation took place before O’Neil handed something as surreptitiously as he could to Astill who disappeared back inside, closing the door behind him.

‘Paranoid fucker,’ Brown whispered.

‘Yeah,’ King agreed. ‘Heroin and crack’ll do that to you.’

‘Aye,’ Brown nodded as they continued to watch O’Neil waiting outside the flat, on edge the whole time – needing his fix – fearful he’d either be arrested or mugged before he got the chance to get as high as a kite and, for a time at least, escape the utter meaningless of his life.

Eventually the door opened, causing O’Neil to stand close to the grid, bobbing up and down like an excited puppy waiting to be thrown its favourite toy. Astill quickly put his hand through the grid and waited a split second for O’Neil to hold his own hand under it. Momentarily the two hands appeared to touch, causing Astill to immediately close his door and O’Neil to scamper away towards the stairwell.

‘He can’t see us once he’s in the stairwell,’ King said, watching O’Neil as he disappeared behind the brick wall. ‘Now,’ he told Brown and they both slipped silently from their hiding place and moved quickly across the car park to wait for Born to lose to appear from the bottom of the stairs. A few seconds later, O’Neil duly obliged, walking right into their arms as he stepped from the entrance.

Without warning Brown grabbed him one-handed around the throat and squeezed hard on his trachea to stop him from swallowing any drugs he had in his mouth, while King pulled his arms behind his back and forced him to bend slightly forward.

‘Spit it out,’ Brown demanded. ‘Spit it out or I’ll fucking choke you.’ O’Neil spluttered and gagged as he tried to swallow, but Brown’s grip made it impossible. After a few more seconds of struggling, O’Neil succumbed to the inevitable and allowed a small yellowish rock, no bigger than a child’s fingernail, to fall from his mouth.

Brown snapped on a pair of latex gloves while King kept hold of the panting, gasping O’Neil and recovered the crack cocaine. Brown held it up to the light as if examining a diamond before dropping it into a small plastic evidence bag. ‘That’s you fucked then, Dougie,’ he told the luckless prisoner and slid the bag into his trouser pocket.

‘Leave it out.’ O’Neil coughed as he tried to talk. ‘It’s just one rock. Just a bit of personal. Come on, man. Let me off.’

‘We might think about it,’ King told him, giving him renewed hope, even if the rock and therefore the chance of escaping to the paradise of oblivion was lost to him. ‘But first I think we’d better search your flat. What d’you say, Dougie? Got anything to hide?’

His shoulders slumped at the prospect. ‘Fuck,’ he declared, closing his eyes and shaking his head in disbelief. ‘I just wanted to get stoned for a while,’ he told them.

‘Never mind, Dougie,’ Brown told him condescendingly, patting him on the shoulder. ‘You know what they say – Life’s a bitch, then you marry one.’

As soon as they entered O’Neil’s squalid flat the smell of decaying humanity, burnt heroin, crack cocaine and hopelessness assaulted them. It was a devil’s brew of a scent neither of them had ever experienced until they’d joined the police, but now they knew its signature all too well – a self-inflicted torture caused by the addict’s fear of opening a window and risking attracting the attentions of a passing policeman. Better to live in a putrid, airless hovel, again and again breathing in recycled air that had passed through diseased lungs a thousand times before. They pushed O’Neil along the short hallway ahead of them and into the pit of a sitting room, sparsely furnished with items donated to charity and others pulled from the skips of the more fortunate. The battered coffee table was littered with burnt-out homemade crack-pipes and tinfoil that had been used over and over to chase the dragon. O’Neil had made no attempt to hide it away.

Filth was everywhere. King doubted they’d find a single cleaning product no matter how hard they searched the flat. The old, rancid carpet stuck to the soles of their shoes as they walked around, pushing the still handcuffed O’Neil onto the threadbare sofa riddled with burn holes and stains while the surviving flies repeatedly crashed into the opaque windows above the many bodies of their dead comrades who now lay unburied on the window sill.

‘Jesus,’ Brown gagged. ‘I can’t breathe in here. I need some air,’ he told them and moved towards the window.

‘Don’t open the windows,’ O’Neil said with urgency. ‘You’ll let the flies in.’

‘Let the flies in,’ Brown replied, pulling a window open. ‘Poor bastards would rather commit suicide than stay in this shithole.’

‘Got any drugs stashed away?’ King broke them up.

‘Do I look like someone who would have drugs stashed?’ O’Neil asked. ‘Anything I get, I smoke,’ he assured them.

‘Fair enough.’ King saw his point. ‘Something else then? Something you couldn’t keep your thieving little fingers off?’

‘I ain’t got nothing,’ O’Neil pleaded with them, his feet tapping away agitatedly.

‘Best tell the truth,’ King warned him, looking around the virtually unfurnished flat. ‘Not like it’d take us long to spin this rat hole.’

‘I swear,’ O’Neil lied convincingly, but his startled eyes following Brown as he entered the bacterial bombsite of a kitchen betrayed him.

‘Fuck me,’ Brown declared. ‘You need an NBC suit before coming in here. How can you fucking live like this?’

‘A what?’ O’Neil asked, confused.

‘A nuclear, biological, chemical protection suit, you fucking moron,’ Brown explained. O’Neil just shrugged, but his eyes grew ever wider as Brown went straight to the cooker that hid under a thick layer of ancient grease and kicked open the door. ‘Well, well,’ he called into the oven loud enough for the others to hear. ‘And what do we have here?’ He reached inside and pulled out a good-quality Blu-ray player before heading back into the sitting room and placing it on the coffee table in front of O’Neil. ‘Why do you slags never think we’ll look in the oven, eh?’ he asked, smiling menacingly. ‘First place we look, Dougie. Always the first place we look.’

‘I didn’t know that was there,’ O’Neil tried in vain.

‘Save your bollocks for the interview,’ King told him, hoisting him off the sofa and pointing him towards the front door while Brown continued to open every cupboard and drawer he found – looking under everything and anything, anywhere illicit goods could be hidden, listening intently to every word being said as he did so.

‘Oh come on, guv’nor,’ O’Neil pleaded. ‘Don’t nick me.’

‘We haven’t really got a lot of choice, have we?’ King told him. ‘Possession of crack cocaine and a stolen Blu-ray. Serious offences, Dougie. Serious offences.’

‘Come on,’ O’Neil kept trying. ‘I only got out a few months ago. I can’t go back inside yet.’

‘Might clean you up,’ Brown offered as he tossed the foul cushions off the sofa to reveal even more foul things hiding under them – although nothing illegal. ‘Do you a bit of good.’

‘Listen,’ O’Neil offered conspiratorially. ‘Let me go and I can give you Astill. I can set him up for you. You can get him for supply – a proper result for you. Better than a fifteen-quid rock and a knocked-off Blu-ray.’

‘So you admit it’s nicked then?’ Brown told him.

‘Come on,’ O’Neil looked from King to Brown and back, desperate to see some enthusiasm for his offer. ‘I can help you make a name for yourselves.’

‘We don’t need your help for that,’ Brown told him.

‘What you thinking, Dougie?’ King stepped in.

‘You’re joking, right?’ Brown interrupted.

‘Give him a minute,’ King rebuked him. ‘I’m listening.’

‘I could guarantee you take him out with, what, an eighth of an ounce of crack on him,’ O’Neil talked fast. ‘That’s too much for personal. You’d have him for possession with intent, easy.’

‘And how would you do that?’ King asked calmly.

‘I could call him,’ O’Neil explained. ‘Tell him I want to score large. That I want an eighth.’

‘Where would you get the money for an eighth from?’ King pressed.

‘I’ll tell him I’ve had a top result,’ O’Neil talked even faster. ‘I’ll tell him I screwed an office and found a petty cash tin stuffed with tenners and twenties. He’ll believe me, I promise.’

‘All a waste of time,’ Brown intervened. ‘Astill never comes out from behind his fortifications. Not while he’s holding, anyway.’

‘That’s what you think,’ O’Neil smiled.

‘Fucking bullshit,’ Brown insisted.

‘To sell an eighth he’ll come out,’ O’Neil persisted. ‘Astill won’t be able to resist getting that much cash in his hands in one sale.’

‘Won’t he be afraid you could try and set yourself up as a dealer with that much crack?’ King asked. ‘Why would he risk having competition?’

‘No,’ O’Neil shook his head. ‘I couldn’t deal it because I couldn’t buy from him and match or undercut his price. He’d be selling it to me at a punter’s price – not as a dealer. I might get a bit of discount for buying in bulk, but not enough so I could sell it on and make money. And besides, he knows me, knows what sort of user I am. If I had an eighth I’d do it all myself. It wouldn’t be around long enough for me to sell. It’ll work,’ he tried to convince them. ‘Astill’s dumb and greedy. It’ll work.’

‘But he’s going to want to see the cash before he even shows you any drugs, right?’ King asked. ‘He’s not that stupid?’

‘Of course,’ O’Neil shrugged, as if it was obvious.

‘So where you going to get the cash from?’ King questioned.

‘You’ll have to give it to me,’ O’Neil answered casually, as if it was nothing.

King and Brown looked at each other, before Brown spoke. ‘You fucking serious? Forget it, Dougie.’

‘No,’ King intervened. ‘Let’s hear him out.’

‘Bad idea,’ Brown insisted. ‘Remember? You said it yourself – bending is one thing, but something like this …’

‘Whatever happened to “you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs”? Your words, I seem to recall.’

‘Saying it’s one thing,’ Brown argued. ‘Giving cash to a fucking druggie to set up a dealer is another world altogether. Not somewhere we want to go. Trust me.’

‘I just want to hear Dougie here out,’ King smiled. ‘That’s all.’

They looked hard at each other for a few seconds before Brown relented. ‘Fine,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘We hear him out. That’s it.’

‘So?’ King turned back to O’Neil. ‘How much cash would you need for an eighth of an ounce?’ he asked.

‘Two hundred and thirty-one or thirty-two pounds,’ O’Neil told them.

‘That’s a very precise number,’ Brown pointed out. ‘What’s with the pound difference?’

‘Profit margins are tight on the street,’ O’Neil explained. ‘Nobody’s getting rich selling this shit – except the big players.’

‘Big players like who?’ King pressed.

‘The sort of people who supply people like Astill,’ O’Neil answered vaguely.

‘A name?’ King tried.

‘No names,’ O’Neil told them. ‘Even if I knew I wouldn’t say. You don’t fuck around with people like that. They’re dangerous people. Very dangerous people.’

‘But you still want us to hand over two hundred and thirty-odd notes for you to go play with?’ Brown brought them back.

‘If you want Astill, yes,’ O’Neil insisted.

‘You must be fucking joking,’ Brown told him.

‘But I thought we were making a deal,’ O’Neil complained.

‘I don’t think so,’ King explained. ‘Nice try, Dougie. And by the way – you’re under arrest for possession of a class A drug and suspected theft of a Blu-ray player. You know the caution.’

‘Come on, guv’nor,’ O’Neil pleaded. ‘I’m more use to you out here than banged up. Let me go and I’ll work for you, I swear on me mother’s life.’

‘Your mother’s already dead,’ Brown reminded him.

‘Yeah well,’ he replied weakly.

‘Nice try,’ King told him. ‘Better luck next time, Dougie. Now move.’

King was standing next to the photocopier in the custody suite making clones of the paperwork he’d need to put together the file on O’Neil when Marino drifted alongside him.

‘Another good arrest, I hear,’ Marino told him. King briefly glanced sideways before returning to the copying.

‘Thanks,’ he replied.

‘I see old Dougie had a rock on him,’ Marino pried. ‘Any idea who supplied it to him?’

‘No,’ King lied. ‘We just saw him coming along the walkway and took a chance he’d be holding. Davey Brown got him in a stranglehold and he coughed the rock.’

‘Stroke of luck,’ Marino said.

‘I guess,’ King answered without looking at him. There was a few seconds’ silence before Marino spoke again.

‘Any luck with the Blu-ray player?’ he asked.

‘It was stolen yesterday,’ King explained, ‘in a burglary on a flat on the estate. SOCO says they found plenty of fingerprints at the scene. Only a crack-head like O’Neil would be so careless. We’ll charge him with the drugs and bail him on the burglary while fingerprints try and match his prints to the scene.’

‘Sounds like a plan.’ Marino suddenly sighed before speaking again. ‘On the not-such-good-news side of things, while you’ve been tucked up in here dealing with O’Neil, there’s been another child sexually assaulted on the estate.’

King stiffened. ‘Serious?’

‘It’s always serious with kids, Jack,’ Marino answered, ‘but no – we’re still at the lower end of the scale. For now.’

‘Any leads? Forensics? ID?’

‘No. Sticking to his MO this one. No fluids exchanged. Usual disguise. Girl’s too young and too petrified to be able to ID him anyway. Sorry, Jack.’ King just shook his head. ‘You and your team are really ripping it up down there,’ Marino continued after a couple of seconds, trying to lift the despondent mood. ‘Keep going like this and you’re going to run out of people to arrest.’

‘I doubt that,’ King forced a smile. ‘There’s plenty more where O’Neil came from.’

‘Yeah,’ Marino agreed. ‘I suppose there is. Well, if you ever need any help just let me know and I’ll do what I can do – lend you the Crime Squad for surveillance or something.’

‘I will,’ King assured him. ‘I appreciate it. Anyway, much to do and all that.’

‘Of course. See you around.’

King headed across the custody area and tapped the security code into the pad that unlocked the main door leading into the rest of the relatively small station. As he was making his way to the Unit’s office, Renita intercepted him, her face a picture of seriousness.

‘Sarge,’ she began, steering him out of the way of the passing human traffic.

‘Something up?’ he asked.

‘Just had a call from one of my friendlies on the estate,’ she explained, impressing him with the fact she already had informants in place, even if they weren’t official or registered. ‘They’re saying there’s an older man hanging around with a group of young kids.’

‘This happening right now?’ he checked.

‘Yeah,’ she confirmed, ‘a guy called Alan Swinton, male, IC1. I ran an intelligence check on him and he comes back no convictions for anything, but lots of suspicion around possible sexual involvement with minors.’

‘Well if it’s happening right now,’ King nodded thoughtfully, ‘then I guess we’d better check him out.’

Kelly Royston stood outside her maisonette on the walkway of Millander Walk enjoying the sun on her face, her eyes closed as she smoked a cigarette, her mind wandering wherever it wished – far from where she stood. Such moments of simple pleasure came rarely on the estate. Her finely tuned survival instincts alerted her to people approaching and her eyes fired open, but her manner remained relaxed as she scanned the two figures, a bounce in their step that told everyone they considered themselves players. Kelly groaned inside as she recognized Tommy Morrison and Justin Harris striding quickly towards her, as if they had a real purpose, although she knew they almost certainly didn’t. Both had made it plainly clear to her in the past that they desired her, albeit only in the crudest of physical senses, and neither ever missed an opportunity to reinforce their intentions towards her. She always acted bored by their lewd, clumsy advances, but she enjoyed the attention.

Morrison, the more dominant of the two feral youths, sprang up to her, moving deep within her personal space. ‘All right, Kel?’ he asked, quickly glancing at Harris for moral support and grinning. ‘Fancy sucking my cock yet?’

‘Fuck off, Tommy,’ she told him, pushing him away with a two-handed shove in his chest. ‘I wouldn’t suck it if it was the last cock on earth.’

‘Yeah?’ Morrison asked, half smiling, half snarling.

‘Yeah,’ she made it clear, leaning into his face for emphasis.

‘Then what about sucking his cock,’ he continued, motioning towards the grinning Harris, ‘while I fuck you from behind.’

‘Fuck off, Tommy,’ she repeated. ‘You wouldn’t know how.’

‘Oh yeah,’ he smirked as he took a few steps backwards and began to unzip his dirty jeans.

‘Jesus, Tommy,’ she shook her head as if he was nothing more than a disappointing child. ‘You’re wasting your time. I wouldn’t fuck you even if you were a millionaire and, anyway, how come you two haven’t been nicked by these new cops yet?’ Her words turned their faces to stony seriousness. ‘You’ve heard about them, int’ya?’

‘Yeah, we’ve heard about them,’ Morrison told her.

‘Got most of the villains on the estate scared of their own shadows, I heard,’ Kelly baited them.

‘Yeah well, not us,’ Harris bluffed. ‘Old Bill. Fuck the Old Bill.’

‘Yeah,’ Morrison pumped himself up. ‘We’re too fly and sly for any copper.’

‘Is that right?’ Kelly smiled in her special way – a mix of flirtation and condescension. ‘Well I suppose we’ll see,’ she mocked them. ‘Find out if you’re as fly and sly as you think you are.’

‘Fuck you, Kel,’ Morrison snarled, aggrieved at her apparent admiration for the Unit. ‘You need to remember where you’re from.’

‘What?’ she asked indignant. ‘I’m supposed to have some sense of loyalty to this …’ she rolled her head and eyes at her surroundings, ‘toilet – just because I’m unlucky enough to have to live here. You know what the difference between me and you is?’ she continued. ‘This is as good as it’s ever going to get for you. But I’m getting out of here. One way or the other, sooner or later – I’m getting out of here. You won’t see me pushing a screaming baby round before my eighteenth birthday. I know where I’m headed, but you’re never gonna escape.’

‘You ain’t that special,’ Morrison spat. ‘See you round, Kel.’ He motioned with his chin to Harris that it was time to leave, their legs springing to life as they scampered off along the walkway, moving at an almost frenzied pace like the habitual thieves they were – heads and eyes darting every which way, always on the look out for a window left open, a door left unlocked.

‘See you round too,’ Kelly whispered to herself. ‘If you last that long.’

King and Renita walked through an ancient railway arch built by the Victorians in the early years of steam trains. Although a road still ran through it, it was rarely used by traffic and endless fly-tipping had all but blocked it. The graffiti daubed on the dirty bricks made it clear the favoured football team in the area was West Ham, while other tags, both new and old, some crossed out and replaced with others, enhanced with threats of death and acts of sexual violence, suggested the arch lay on the border territory between at least two street gangs.

‘You sure about this?’ King asked.

‘Yeah,’ Renita reassured him. ‘I’ve been through here a few times. The wasteground’s on the other side and that’s where my friendly says she saw Swinton and the kids heading.’

‘OK,’ King went along with her, casually reading the graffitied messages of impending doom from one gang to another. ‘If you say so.’

As they exited the arch they immediately heard the sound of laughing children, but it still sounded distant. They skirted around the tall wild grass that hid their approach, heading towards the young voices that grew ever louder, until they heard the voice of a man mixing cheerfully with the others. King automatically held his hand up to stop Renita.

‘Hear that?’ he asked.

‘Yeah,’ she whispered. ‘Looks like the friendly was right.’

‘Come on.’ He led them off, moving slowly until they reached the end of their cover, the wasteground stretching out beyond their hiding place. He slid his hand into the tall sheaves of grass and moved them aside just enough to enable him to spy on the children. They were all between ten and eleven years old, he guessed, sitting and lying on the floor, using whatever they could as makeshift chairs and sofas. In the middle he could see the figure of Alan Swinton, a unattractive white man in his early thirties with unkempt greasy brown hair and thicker-than-normal spectacles. His thin arms and legs contrasted badly with his swollen pot belly and made him appear like some sort of hideous spider-type creature. It was if he was trying to make himself perfectly fit the public’s stereotypical idea of what a paedophile would look like.

‘Is that your man?’ King whispered to Renita, leaning away so she could take a look, as if they were big game hunters spying their quarry through the long golden grass of the savannah. She looked through the parted stalks and began to nod slowly.

‘Yeah,’ she confirmed. ‘That’s him. He certainly looks the part. What do you want to do?’

‘Give him enough rope,’ he told her. ‘You say he has no convictions, then let’s wait until we have him bang to rights.’

‘But they’re kids,’ she warned. ‘If we wait until it’s too late for him, it might be too late for them too.’

‘We won’t let it go too far,’ he assured her, ‘just enough so we can bury him.’

‘How far is too far with children?’ she asked, her voice thick with concern.

‘So what do you want to do?’

‘All we can do,’ she explained in her hoarse whisper. ‘Warn him off – let him know we’re watching him. Maybe let the kids’ parents know.’

‘So he walks away again?’ he complained. Renita just shrugged resignedly. ‘Fine,’ he gave in. ‘Have it your way.’

Without warning they burst from their hiding place and strode into the open ground, not worrying about the two or three more experienced children who took advantage of the others’ hesitation to jump to their feet and flee into the surrounding mess of rubble and trees. ‘Everyone stay where you are,’ he ordered, closing the distance quickly until he was in the middle of the group. ‘What you doing here?’ he asked the children, ignoring Swinton who sat wide-eyed and resigned on a stack of old cushions salvaged from God knows where, looking even more innocent and bewildered than the children around him.

The children shrugged, pulled faces and muttered a collective ‘Nothing’.

‘You know who these kids belong to?’ he asked Renita.

‘Yeah,’ she confirmed, scanning the frightened faces. ‘Most of them.’

‘OK,’ he nodded. ‘All right, you lot – disappear.’ The children looked at each other disbelievingly until King barked at them again, causing a small stampede of little feet. ‘I said, disappear.’

Swinton tried to join the exodus until King’s hand fell heavily on his shoulder. ‘Not you,’ he whispered menacingly before turning and shouting after the fleeing juveniles, ‘and stay away from this man,’ he warned them. ‘He shouldn’t be around children.’

‘Why, why, why did you say that,’ Swinton stuttered. ‘I, I haven’t done anything wrong.’

‘Haven’t done anything wrong?’ King mimicked him. ‘How old are you?’

‘Thirty-two,’ Swinton replied, his eyes flicking from King to Renita.

‘So what’s a thirty-two-year-old man doing hanging around with a bunch of kids?’ King asked calmly, leaning closer to the still sitting Swinton who just shrugged. King kicked him slightly in the foot to get his full attention. ‘I asked you a question.’

‘Take it easy, Sarge,’ Renita intervened. ‘He’s not worth it.’

‘No, he’s not,’ he agreed, ‘but I still want him to answer the question.’

‘I wasn’t doing anything,’ the scared-looking Swinton replied. ‘We were just talking.’

‘If you want to talk to someone, why don’t you talk to someone your own age?’ King questioned.

‘I don’t know,’ Swinton shrugged again. ‘I don’t like listening to the things they talk about.’

‘What things?’ King pushed.

‘You know,’ he looked at the floor. ‘Ugly things.’

‘You ever talk to any children about these ugly things?’ King asked softly.

‘No,’ Swinton insisted, his face a picture of indignation and embarrassment. ‘I’m not interested in that stuff. That’s all other people talk about, but I don’t care. The children don’t talk about it.’

‘So what do they talk about?’ King demanded, his voice full of suspicion and distrust.

‘Interesting things,’ Swinton answered, sounding more upbeat, as if the memory of childish conversations had lifted his spirits. ‘You know, like school and toys and computer games.’

‘And you like stuff like that, do you?’

‘Yeah,’ Swinton smiled nervously back.

‘School?’ King picked on one of the things Swinton had mentioned.

‘Sometimes, I suppose,’ he tried to backpedal somewhat, as if he sensed a trap.

‘And why the fuck are you talking to children about their schools?’ King turned on him.

‘I, I just like to hear about the things they learn,’ Swinton tried to explain.

‘Fucking bullshit,’ King almost shouted into his face, making Renita take a step closer.

‘Sarge,’ she tried to leash him.

‘You’re trying to find out about their friends, aren’t you?’ King accused him. ‘So you can find out who the vulnerable ones are, right? So you can, what – follow them and pick them off? Just like you did the others?’

‘No. No,’ Swinton denied it all, twisting uncomfortably on his makeshift seat, his face contorted in confusion and fear. ‘I, I don’t do that. I wouldn’t do that. The children are my friends.’

‘This is getting us nowhere,’ Renita intervened, trying to calm King, even resting a hand on his forearm.

‘OK,’ he nodded slowly, looking down on the fearful Swinton. ‘Get the fuck out of here.’ Swinton looked to Renita for confirmation he was free to go. She motioned with her chin and he scrambled to his feet. ‘And if I ever see you hanging around children again, I’ll kick your door in and take your computer – give it to our experts and see what they can find on it. Would you like that?’

‘No,’ Swinton argued naïvely. ‘I need my computer – to play my games on. It’s, it’s all I have.’

‘Get out of my sight,’ King told him as if he was nothing. Swinton stood in front of him, straightening his spectacles and wiping his sweaty palms on the stomach of his shirt before tentatively walking away, only stopping once he was a safer distance away, turning back towards them to speak.

‘I know what you think of me,’ he called. ‘But I didn’t do anything wrong. You, you shouldn’t talk to me like that.’

‘Walk away,’ Renita warned him before King could react. ‘Just walk away.’ He looked at them with a mix of disappointment and fear before disappearing into the long, straw-like grass, the reeds closing behind him in the breeze as if he’d never been there.

‘Fucking paedophile,’ King accused him once he was gone. ‘We should have waited till he did something. Could have nicked him and turned his flat over. There’s probably enough shit on his computer to send him down for years.’

‘We couldn’t wait until he touched one of them,’ she reminded him. ‘We would have been slaughtered once people found out.’

‘Maybe we were a little too honest in our approach,’ King tested her.

‘Easy,’ she warned him. ‘You can’t gild the lily when it comes to kids. They have a nasty habit of contradicting you.’

‘I guess,’ he nodded.

Renita looked for a long time in the direction Swinton had walked. ‘If you’re that sure we’ll find evidence in his flat maybe we should nick him and search it. Or we could always try and get a search warrant.’

‘No,’ King shook his head slowly. ‘Too risky. We’d never get a search warrant and if we do a Section 18 and find nothing we’ll look like idiots. I’m not having someone like Swinton make a fool of me. No forensics, remember? And the victims can’t identify him.’

‘OK, Sarge,’ Renita said. ‘Then how do we stop him?’

‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘Maybe for this once, we’ll have to bend a few rules. For the sake of the children, if nothing else. And stop calling me Sarge all the time. Driving me bloody mad.’

‘I thought you wanted us to,’ she reminded him.

‘The others maybe,’ he told her, ‘but not you. Doesn’t sound right coming from you for some reason. Just call me Jack, will you?’

‘OK,’ she nodded once, a little unsure, following his eyes as they continued to stare at the space where Swinton had disappeared into the long grass. ‘Let it go,’ she encouraged him. ‘Swinton will come again.’

‘Creepy little bastard, wasn’t he,’ King answered, his eyes still not moving.

‘Maybe,’ she only partly agreed. ‘But looks can sometimes be deceiving. Maybe he’s just a little simple or maybe he’d just rather hang out with the kids than the adults on the estate. At least they have some semblance of innocence. He probably couldn’t handle the adults. They’d rip him up for arse paper.’

‘So what you saying?’ He finally looked at her. ‘That he’s just lonely or something?’

‘We all need human contact,’ she reminded him. ‘Maybe talking to the kids is the only way he can get any?’

‘Human contact?’ King scoffed. ‘I know what kind of contact he’s after and when he gets it I’ll be there to nail the little freak to the floor. Come on,’ he told her, the bile still in the tone of his voice, the thought of Swinton like an oil slick in his mind. ‘Let’s get the fuck out of here.’

King and Renita stood with a small group of off-duty uniformed cops in the Trafalgar pub enjoying a drink at the end of another long day as they discussed the early success of the Unit while the others listened admiringly. Renita did most of the talking and teasing as King played along, increasingly distracted by the growing pain in his shoulder and back that spread and flourished in his head. He left his half-drunk pint on the bar, made his excuses and headed to the toilet where he found an empty cubicle and locked himself inside. He wasn’t due to take any buprenorphine for a few more hours, but decided to tackle the pain before it got out of hand – exceeding his daily dose of the drug again. His GP had told him he should be thinking about coming off the opioid, reducing his dosage slowly, but things seemed to be going the other way. He popped two from the tinfoil and plastic capsules and hid them in the palm of his hand, assuring himself he’d come off the pills as soon as work became less hectic and he had time to try an alternative.

He left the sanctuary of the cubicle and headed back to the bar where it was apparent he’d hardly been missed as he recovered his drink and subtly transferred the drugs from his palm to his mouth, quickly washing them down with the warming, flattening beer, unaware he was being watched by intelligent, experienced eyes from the other side of the bar.

Frank Marino drained his drink and weaved his way through the revellers until he stood next to King – appearing almost surprised to see him. ‘Jack,’ he nodded.

‘Frank,’ King nodded back.

‘I was just getting them in,’ Marino told him. ‘Can I get you one?’

‘I’m good, thanks,’ he replied. ‘I’m in a round.’

Marino looked at Renita and the others. ‘Of course,’ he said, while checking they were too occupied with their own conversation to hear his. ‘Same old faces, eh?’ he suddenly asked, catching King unawares.

‘Sorry?’ he asked.

‘This lot talking to Renita,’ Marino smiled. ‘I don’t come here often, but whenever I do they seem to be in here.’

‘Everyone has their way of winding down,’ King defended them.

‘Winding down or drinking to forget?’ Marino questioned. King just shrugged. ‘You don’t want to wind down too much,’ Marino explained. ‘Not if you want to go further than sergeant.’

‘Maybe,’ King half agreed.

‘Hardly ever used to see you in here at all before you got hurt,’ Marino reminded him. ‘The occasional leaving-do maybe. What was it – rugby in the winter for the borough and cricket in the summer, keeping fit and studying when you weren’t?’

‘Something like that,’ King answered, shifting a little uncomfortably.

‘But not since you returned to duty?’ Marino continued. ‘I still pop along to watch the odd game when I can. Always a bit surprised to see you not playing.’

‘My injuries,’ King insisted. ‘They need a little more recovery time.’

‘Shame,’ Marino told him. ‘It sure is a better use of time than hanging around the pub.’

‘Listen,’ King snapped a little, the irritation coarse in his throat. ‘Why you suddenly so worried about what I do in my own time?’

‘You’re very young,’ Marino advised him, sounding almost paternal. ‘I occasionally still get to hear what the senior management are saying.’

‘And what are they saying?’ King asked impatiently.

‘What they’re saying is you could go all the way,’ Marino answered. ‘Maybe even to the very top. And I agree. We could do with a few like you at the top, instead of the usual bean-counters who’ve never nicked anyone in their careers. But it won’t happen if you get too used to …’ Marino paused, looking around their surroundings to make his point more clear, ‘this.’

King relaxed somewhat. ‘It’s just short term,’ he tried to reassure him. ‘Last chance to live like a real cop before they drag me off to Bramshill and tie me to a desk. Work hard, play hard – just for a while.’

‘Of course,’ Marino nodded. ‘But I’ve been doing this job a very long time and I’ve seen many a promising career disappear in the bottom of a glass. This job’ll chew you up and spit you out if you let it.’ Once he was sure his comments had registered he placed his empty glass on the bar and made his excuses. ‘Anyway, I’ll let you get on with your fun. Take it easy, eh.’

King watched him wind through the drinkers and head to the exit, Marino’s words of warning spinning around his head. He patted his trouser pocket and felt the pack of buprenorphine inside. So what if Marino had seen him take them – there was no way he could have known what they were. But why would Marino be watching him so closely? He shook the paranoia from his mind, reminding himself Marino had been looking out for him ever since he returned to light duties. Even before that – visiting him in hospital and calling at his flat. But all the same, the feeling of being watched made him uneasy.

7

King’s eyes flickered open as the early summer light filtered through the thin curtains – the heavy blinds having already been hoisted to the ceiling. His hangover washed over him like an unwanted residue as he tried to focus on the figure moving around the bedroom, making no attempt to be stealthy. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut before slowly opening them and allowing Sara’s form to take full shape. He tried to open his mouth, but found his lips had sealed themselves shut. He summoned what liquid he could from the back of his throat and rolled it around his mouth until there was enough to loosen the other moving parts.

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