Читать книгу The Rule of Fear - Luke Delaney - Страница 12

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.