London Large: Blood on the Streets (9 page)

For her, Justin was
everything H was not, and that was exactly what she needed. Talking to a man
who was open about his feelings was a new experience; there were not many of
those in the south London she knew. She didn’t love Justin, not in the way she
had loved H. She knew she never would. But she liked him, she liked him just
fine and that was enough. That was the best she could hope for, as she
stoically pulled her life back together.

The only time H and Justin
had previously met was at the divorce hearing and only Ronnie’s presence had
prevented a bloodbath.

‘How could she leave me for that
prick, that complete and utter prick’, H had said to Ronnie after the hearing.
Many other people who knew them wondered why it had taken her so long.

For a moment an awkward
silence reigned as the three protagonists stood rooted to their respective spots
in the triangle of love and loathing. Amisha, who had been following H as
unobtrusively as she could, did not need to lean too heavily on her detective’s
instincts to realise H was in the presence of his ex-wife. He had mentioned her
once or twice but mostly avoided talking about her. As he mostly avoided
talking about any part of his personal life.

‘Where is he?’ said H.

Julie said, ‘Not sure,
Inspector Marshall won’t allow us access.’

As if on cue Marshall entered
the waiting area. He was another of the university recruits, fast tracked into
his position, a highly motivated moderniser determined to make a successful
career. H looked him up and down; he did not much like what he saw. Shoes shiny
enough to see his face in, tie knotted and arranged to perfection. A good crop
of neatly cut black hair sat atop a soft-featured, pleasant face.

Looks like a fucking
newsreader.

‘Chief Inspector Hawkins, can
I point out it is highly irregular for you to be here and ...’

‘Room number?’

‘Your son is in interview room
four but I’m afraid I cannot allow...’

H shoved Marshall out of the
way and barrelled on to see his boy.

‘Same old H’, Julie whispered
to Justin.

Little Ronnie was
hunched over the white table that adorned the otherwise bare surroundings when
H entered the room.

Ronnie turned to see who had
entered the cell. Father and son looked at one another. H tried unsuccessfully
to hide the disappointment in his face. Ronnie tried desperately to subdue the
sense of guilt, the shame and the anger that surrounded and trapped him.

‘So what the fuck is this all
this about?’ said H.

Little Ronnie looked his
father in the eye for a brief moment. His shame was vying for supremacy with
the anger for the man who had let him down, the so called hero who had
disappeared when he needed him.

‘What’s it to you?’

‘Ronnie son, this is serious.
This is heroin. You could go down for years.’

‘As if you could give a
fuck.’

‘What do you mean? Do you
understand the depth of trouble you’re in? I’m... your father.’

The anger in Ronnie’s heart
was turning to contempt; bitterness framed his response.

‘So where the fuck you been
all these years?’

Ronnie’s words were razors,
slicing through H’s heart, the heart in his body and the heart of his belief
system in the strength and unity of family - a belief system that had collapsed
around him like a deck of cards in a gale. They hurt far more than any beating
he had taken in the line of duty.

They left him momentarily
speechless. He didn’t want to get into a blame game about the breakup of his
marriage.

‘The past is the past. It’s
complicated.’

‘Too complicated to ring. Too
complicated to pick up a fucking phone and press call. What the fuck happened
to you Dad?’

H simply wasn’t equipped to
deal with this line of conversation.

‘But son, why heroin? Of all
the things in this fucking world to get into. Heroin smuggling. Please tell me
it was a plant; something, anything we can use to get you out of here.’

Ronnie had never spoken to
his father as he was doing now. In fact he’d never sworn at him before. He was
finding it liberating.

‘No dad. I smuggled it in. I
did it. I’m totally bang to fucking rights. Just fuck off and deal with it.’

He saw the pain in his
father’s eyes. It was a victory of sorts, the first time in his life he’d come
out on top in an argument with the big man. He savoured the moment, for a
second, but as victories go this one was about as hollow as they come. As H
walked out of the room a solitary tear fell from Ronnie’s eye.

It had been a long day. For
everyone.

When the cab pulled up
Olivia went out to meet it and, without saying anything, eased H out of the
back and into the house. She led him upstairs and put him, like a boy who’s
been out to play for too long on a hot summer’s day and can no longer keep his
eyes open, into a hot bath, and went downstairs to get his scotch.

She’d seen the footage from
the park, and had spent the rest of the day wondering how bad it was. H had put
up the shutters before - she knew better than anyone how taciturn and moody he
could become - but this looked different. Like he couldn’t face what reality
was throwing at him and had gone somewhere else. And in front of all those
people, all around the world…

When she got back to the
bathroom the big man was dozing. Good. Let him rest - but not too much. She
stripped off and got in opposite him, with the taps at her back, and gave him a
little stroke where he liked it. She knew she’d have to ease out the tension
before she’d get any sense out of him. He groaned as she finished him off, and
opened his eyes.

‘Ready for your scotch, Mr
Bear?’ she said.

‘Yes please doll. I’m
gagging.’

He gulped from the tumbler
like there was no tomorrow, asked for a refill, and gulped again.

Like some great animal
finally reaching its watering hole. How I love him.

‘Better?’

‘Much.’

‘Busy day, by the looks of
it. How are you?’

‘Fucked. Can’t remember the
last time I was so tired.’

‘Talk to me H. I know you’re
tired, but…do I need to be worried? I saw you on the telly this morning, in the
park. It didn’t look good. Are you just overworked, or…’

H stared at her, and then
into the water, for what seemed an age. In the old days he’d have toughed this
one out and given her the strong and silent routine. But she’d worked on him
for years now, opened him up, and these days he found it harder to keep things
from her than to keep them in. It wasn’t true that Ronnie was the only person
in the world he trusted.

‘Liv…remember when I told you
what I was like when I got back from the Falklands? How I used to get panicky,
and really angry, and really tired, and feel like crying, and not want to go
out, and sometimes struggle to figure out what was happening around me?’

‘Of course.’

‘Well…I felt a bit like that
in the park. I just lost it when I realised it was Tara Ruddock. Her head was
nearly hacked off, there was blood everywhere…but it was Tara. I just
couldn’t…How’s Ronnie going to handle it? What’s he going to do? What…’

For the third time in a day
Harry Hawkins was lost for words. Instead, to Olivia’s astonishment, he began
to cry. And cry. And cry, like a baby, like a blubbering, vulnerable small
thing with no one to protect it. She held him. He shook, and wailed, and cried
until his face was raw.

When he was finished she
emptied the bath, took him out, wrapped him in his bathrobe and led him to bed,
tucking him in and kissing him on the forehead.

Little man you’ve had a
busy day.

‘Sleep tight, Mr Bear. Let’s
see how things look in the morning.’

Graham Miller-Marchant
rose at 5.30, went for his morning run around Wandsworth Common and the streets
around Northcote Road, showered, dressed and was at his breakfast bench for
7.00. He prepared his pot of decaff and opened his phone. There’d been a lot of
activity while he’d been out. Multiple signs were directing him to the stir
caused by Joey Jupiter’s latest blog piece, so he went there before checking
the mainstream media coverage of the previous day’s events.

Beneath a Youtube clip -
which appeared to be a mash up of the already infamous ‘slags’ fragment and a
silent H giving his thousand yard stare above the heads of the assembled media
in St James’ Park, with ‘The Laughing Policeman’ as the soundtrack - Graham
read the following:

PANTOMIME IN THE PARK –
THE PLOT THICKENS

News has reached us that Harry
‘H’ Hawkins – ‘London’s Top Copper’ – covered himself in glory in more ways
than one yesterday. After his sterling work in the park, sleuthing for all he
was worth despite clearly being the worse for wear, and giving his best
impression of a startled meerkat at our impromptu press conference, the great
seems to have assaulted a colleague back at the Yard.

Is the pressure getting to ‘H’?
Or is it all part of his elaborate masterplan to return the rule of law to the
capital’s increasingly chaotic and blood-spattered streets? This blog, at
least, would like to know more about his methods and overall strategy, but
unfortunately his superiors appear to have decided that he is not the man to
lead the investigation into the sickening murders of the daughters of Sir Basil
Fortescue-Smythe and one of Her Majesty’s ‘special’ policemen.

Not that Graham
Miller-Marchant, who is to head up the investigation, inspires much more
confidence than the ‘big man’. Known at the Yard, we understand, as
Little
Manbot
, he is said to be more desk jockey than action man. But let’s hang
fire for a while on this one, folks: he can’t be worse than ‘H’, can he? The
estimable Sir Basil can, at least, look forward to a job done thoroughly, and
rest assured that all of the stops will be pulled out for this one – as they
always are for people of his kind.

Graham was mortified; the
mist cleared, and he could now see that, rather than being given a chance to
shine he was in a lose-lose situation. No database on earth, it seemed, had
ever heard of, seen or so much as suspected the existence of Aliyev. It was as
if he were a ghost. As yet there was no lead, nor suggestion of a lead of any
sort on yesterday’s killings.

This was going to be a tough
investigation, what Hawkins would call an
absolute bastard
. He would
have to engage with the upper echelons of the British establishment, and face
the brunt of their withering contempt for people like him; he would have to
scour the earth for traces of the killer himself, as well as look for dirt in
the secret lives of two daughters of the aristocracy; and he would be, at all
times, under the scathingly watchful eye of Joey Jupiter and his ilk, who would
portray him either as an ineffectual, dithering clown - ‘Little Manbot
Miller-Marchant’ - or as part of a conspiracy to serve the interests and protect
the privacy of the most powerful people in the country.

So this is what Hawkins
has been putting up with.

His phone rang. It was Hilary
Stone.

‘Hello Graham, how are we
this morning? Had a good night’s rest? Ready to go?’

‘Yes maam, I most certainly
am. Just getting ready to leave.’

‘Good. We really need a
result on this one Graham. We don’t have much time before the media starts to
hang, draw and quarter us. I don’t want this ship sinking any lower.’

‘Understood. Leave it to me
maam.’

‘Fuck’, he said to himself
after hanging up, ‘fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.’

Part 2

It was the day of the
funeral, and it could not have been bleaker. The wind was howling and the slate
grey sky bore down on H like a lead weight as he waited outside Ronnie’s
riverside flat in his car. They were driving down to Tara’s ancestral home in
Wiltshire, not far from Chippenham. Sir Basil had arranged a small service in
the family chapel. Family and close friends only.

It had only been six days
since the sisters had been butchered. There was no need for an autopsy, the
whole world knew the cause of death, and Sir Basil had been insistent on an
early funeral. At Hilary’s insistence H had taken a few days off to come to
terms with the momentous events of that day. Despite his protests Hilary had
insisted he go nowhere near the Tara case, which was in the not-so-capable
hands of Graham Miller-Marchant.

‘H, if I get a sniff of you
getting involved in the St James’ Park murders you’re finished. Have I made
myself absolutely clear?’ she’d said as she packed him off.

‘OK guv’, H had said meekly.

For now
.

H stayed in contact with
Amisha as she concentrated on the carnage in Bermondsey. She had worked
relentlessly, piecing together every known reference to the two firms involved.
Never one to waste a moment, he had a paper copy of Amisha’s latest files on
his lap that so he could work on them whenever he got a moment. She had learned
that it was pointless advising him everything was now online, if only he would
learn how to use the latest Police IT system; a system that contained every
detail of the investigation; a system that could run multiple fast paced data
matches in an effort to find links and clues amid the mountains of information
it contained.

‘Guv, the system even runs
various “what if” scenarios based on configurable algorithmic parameters that
can be entered via numerous online user interfaces’, she had told him when they
had first become partners. Both the language and approach to working with H
didn’t survive first contact.

‘What if, what if, what
fucking if. If my grandmother had wheels, she’d be a fucking bus’, he’d
replied.

When he rang her from his
rest bed to ask for the printouts she knew it was pointless to tell him to log
on from home. And anyway, even before giving her the chance to go into her
spiel he had pre-empted her.