London Large: Blood on the Streets (19 page)

Was the lawyer dead? If he
was alive, how long would it be before he could speak and identify his
attacker? Had there been any CCTV cameras he hadn’t seen? As it stood, H did
not know the answer to any of these questions. But he’d crossed the line. He’d
been driven over the line. And now he would be a fugitive himself, and get a
taste of his own medicine. The hunter would now be the hunted.

She’s good as gold, this
girl. She’ll never grass me up. But they’ll use her to try and get to me.

‘People are so stupid’,
Amisha had told him not long after she’d come on board with him, ‘they put
their whole life on their phones. They don’t seem to know, or care, that we can
get to almost all their data now, and often as not figure out where they are.’

She’d schooled him long and
hard on all that stuff, and in the end the penny had dropped.

H switched his phone off,
removed the battery and eased himself out of the car. The street was quiet.
Nobody about. He crept, bulkily but skilfully, round the back and into Amisha’s
garden. He peered in through the ground floor window and saw a dark kitchen but
a light on in a room, or a passage, beyond it. He tapped on the widow.

Amisha appeared within
seconds, dressed in silk pyjamas and wielding a whopping great baseball bat. H
liked her style, and for the first time the sight of her triggered a severe
stirring in his trousers. He pressed his face to the glass so she could see he
was not some random burglar or sex monster. She recognized him with relief and
motioned him towards the door.

H burst in. As she always did
now, Amisha spent a few seconds carefully appraising his condition. Was he in
control of himself? Where was his head at?

She assessed him as wired but
rational. ‘What the hell is going on H? Phone calls in the middle of the night,
human rights lawyers, and now this? What the hell are you up to?’

‘I need your help Ames. I’m
onto something. Something big.’

‘But you’re suspended from
duty guv.’

‘Fuck that Ames. I haven’t got
time to fuck about. No time. I’ve got to go missing.’

‘Again?’

‘Again. But this is serious
now. Something’s coming together. In my head. Some sort of conspiracy. Nonces.
Some big names involved. Very big names. I need you to help me join up the
dots. The Dark Web, I remember you telling me about the Dark Web.’

‘Guv… I don’t know. You’re
suspended. We’re not even supposed to talk. And you’re creeping around finding
conspiracies and asking me to help you? Have you lost the plot again? I…’

She’s not up for it. She
needs a persuader.

H held up his hand to slow
her down before she could build up a head of steam, and fished the envelope
containing Old Shitbreath’s photos out of the back of his trousers. He handed
it to her. She got as far as the second one before her eyes filled with tears,
and she began to weep.

They sat at the kitchen
table. Coffee for her, scotch for him. Amisha had regained her composure.

H brought her up to speed. He
talked her through the sequence of events: his meeting with Ronnie, Ronnie’s
collapse, the search of Sir Basil’s place. He showed her the group photo: Old
Shitbreath and his pals, all merry and bright. The best he saved for last.

Amisha could not believe what
she was hearing. ‘What? You did what? Oswald Carruthers? Fucking hell H…is he
even alive?’ she shouted.

Fuck. I’m dragging her
down into my world.

‘Don’t know. Don’t care.
You’ve seen the photos, Ames. I’m not having it. Not anymore. I’m going to
bring this fucking lot down. If it’s the last thing I do. That evil old bastard
was abusing Tara when she was a little baby girl. And now he’s got a whole
bunch of these cunts round him, and they’re doing whatever the fuck they like.
All those kids…I’m not having it.’

‘But guv…what are you
now…judge, jury and executioner?’

H fixed her with the look.
‘Ames, listen to me.
These
are the fucking judges and executioners.
We’re talking about the House of fucking Lords, the High fucking Court, and God
knows what else. We can’t even get an investigation into Tara’s murder off the
ground properly. They’ve shut the shop up. They’ve had me suspended. Look at
the fucking picture.’

He dragged the group photo to
the centre of the table.

‘Look at them, Ames…Sir Basil
Fortescue-Smythe, Lord Timothy Skyhill, Sir Peregrine Blunt, Oswald Carruthers
QC, and the rest of them. And this moody looking fucker, Kyril Kuznetsov, one
of the richest men in the world’, he said, pointing at the face at the centre
of the group. ‘If this ain’t some sort of massive nonce conspiracy…they never
hung Crippen’.

Amisha took it all in. She
updated her assessment of the big man’s condition.

He’s finally lost it. It’s
all been too much. He’s surged off the edge of the cliff, and he’s hurtling
towards the rocks like a character from the old cartoons.

And yet…everything he’s
saying makes sense.

‘I don’t know, guv. If
Carruthers is alive you’re a fugitive now. Being thrown off the force will be
the least of your problems. You haven’t just crossed the line - you’ve shat all
over it so badly you can’t even see where it is anymore. And what about me, my
career. My life?’

Uh oh. I’ll have to let
her sleep on this one.

‘OK Ames. Got it. Fair
enough. I hear what you’re saying. But I need information on their connections,
all the stuff they hide. I won’t be able to do it without you. And there’s no
one else I can trust. Look at those pictures of the kids again. Have a little
think.’

He rose from his chair and
headed for the door.

‘Guv’, Amisha said, ‘don’t
come here again. They’re going to be all over me like flies on a Richard the
Third.’

He smiled at her use of his
kind of talk. She was still onside.

Good girl. Fucking good
girl.

‘And if you need to contact
me - I mean
really
need to - don’t use your phone. Use a burner. And
don’t email me.’

Graham, just back from
his morning run, showered and set himself up at the breakfast bar. In a change
to his former morning routine, these days he sparked up the tablet first and
went straight to Joey Jupiter before he hit the decaff and grapefruit. He had
developed a morbid fascination with the torrents of ridicule and abuse now
being regularly swept over him by Jupiter; and he liked to try and guess
beforehand, on any given day, whether it was to be himself or Hawkins who would
bear the brunt of Jupiter’s vicious sarcasm.

The page came up; it was headed
by a new graphic, which showed Miller-Marchant and Hawkins comically entwined,
gurning and drooling for all they were worth like an utterly deranged Punch and
Judy. Graham scanned the screen quickly and breathed a sigh of relief: it was,
on balance, an H day, as it had been for the last week or so:

‘BIG MAN’ AND ‘LITTLE
MANBOT’:
THE CHAOS CONTINUES

London’s descent into chaos
continues. Not content with allowing a murderous gang war to run the streets of
the metropolis ankle-deep in blood, the Metropolitan Police now seem incapable
of securing the safety of even the most respectable and highly regarded members
of the city’s elite. This morning Oswald Carruthers QC, whom as far as we know
has never harmed a fly, lies in intensive care in the Richmond Royal Hospital,
after being beaten to within an inch of his life during a home invasion.

We do not yet know which of the
Met’s titans will be leading the investigation into this deeply unsettling
crime. For how long, in the continuing absence of Harry ‘H’ Hawkins, ‘London’s
Top Copper’, are we to be left without a defender? Are the streets of our great
city going to be allowed to melt down while this noble sleuth kicks his heels
in Eltham, hammering the scotch and dribbling over his puzzle book? We should be
told.

Meanwhile Detective Inspector
Graham Miller-Marchant, of whom little more needs to be said – indeed, about
whom there was not much to be said in the first place – remains in charge of
the ‘investigation’ into the carnage in St James’ Park. Can it be long, given
this, before public demand begins to grow for a reinstatement of the mighty
‘H’? Might it be, after all, since we appear to be restricted to the shallow
end of the gene pool when it comes to the recruitment of our defenders of law
and order, that a dinosaur with a brain the size of a walnut is preferable to a
sleek but utterly useless invertebrate?

Kyril Kuznetsov walked
into the plush surroundings of his offices in Knightsbridge with his regular
bodyguards in tow. The Kuznetsov Corporation didn’t have any external neon
signs nor corporate logo pronouncing its power and grandeur to the outside
world. Kuznetsov had learned to use his power quietly, from behind the scenes.

A small plaque saying
‘Kuznetsov Industries Incorporated’ embossed in gold hung discreetly on
the wall behind the reception desk, the only visible sign that one had entered
the London HQ of one of the largest energy companies in the world.

Kuznetsov crossed the marble
entrance, smiled pleasantly at the receptionist as he passed by into a
restricted access corridor and took the private lift to the top floor. He
maintained the pleasant smile and air of cordiality as he greeted various
employees on his way to his office. A quiet, serious looking man was waiting
for him outside; Kuznetsov beckoned him.

The serious looking man was one
of Kuznetsov’s most trusted and was a man who could keep a secret, which was
just as well as he knew more secrets about Kuznetsov than anyone else alive.

With the office door firmly
closed behind them Kuznetsov’s mask slipped to reveal the fury and anger that
was waiting to burst out into the open. He was a man who liked his illegal
businesses to tick over nice and easy, bringing in a little cash flow but, far
more importantly, affording him access to those members of the great and the
good of the British establishment who had an ingrained, uncontrollable
predilection for young boys, a predilection he had exploited to great advantage
for many years.

‘How fuck has this happened?
A war breaks out on streets of London. Threatens everything I have built. The
police investigations will be wide and deep, and may drag high profile clients
in. This stops now.’

The other man spoke in soft
tones, calmly and without fuss.

‘What are negotiation
parameters?’

Kuznetsov subdued his anger
and spoke in a more businesslike manner. This was just business, after all.

‘Offer the Albanians ten
million pounds. Agapov they can have to torture and kill and they can control
business south of the river. I don’t care what happens there. If they accept
these conditions, all violence stops.’

‘If they not accept?’

‘Bring in a small army. A
hundred men.’

The inscrutable one nodded
his understanding and turned to leave. As he opened the office door Kuznetsov
gave a final instruction:

‘Make it very clear to them
that they can accept my terms, or they can all be killed. They will all die:
men, women, children. All of them.’

Ronnie felt physically
and emotionally exhausted after the ordeal in the pizza place. He’d gone down
like a sack of spuds; he was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. The
last few weeks had been the worst of his life. When he woke up it took him a
while to get his bearings. He recalled the night before and remembered he was
at H’s.

The revelation of Tara’s
deepest secret had unlocked half a lifetime of lies, evasions and repressed
emotion. For years he had tried to keep it locked securely away, at the back of
his mind, in the part of the brain labelled ‘Pandora’s Box’, the part that
needed to be kept locked to contain the demons that could burst forth and
destroy his world. At Tara’s insistence he had kept the secret all his life.

He recalled the shock when
she had first told him the gory details, when she’d first found the courage to
trust him. The news shattered him, made him murderously angry.

‘I’m going to confront him.
I’m going round to his house and God help me if I don’t kill him.’

‘Ronnie, no. Please. I asked
you to stay calm. For my sake. I’ve held this in all my life. I’ve never told a
soul. It’s taken me years to find the courage to tell you. You have to keep the
secret with me. You have to help me live with this - just you and me Ronnie.
Nobody else.’

After he’d calmed down he’d
stuck to his promise and kept quiet. He knew he could never heal the pain Tara
carried with her. He thought about it often, as the years went by, and he
wished she’d never told him. The secret hadn’t unified them. Over time it had
opened a gap between them and, as much as he loved her, he found it difficult
to live with. He wanted to protect her, to avenge her. But he had been sworn to
secrecy, and to inaction.

And when he’d suspected she
had started to have affairs he turned a blind eye. Keep things under wraps.
Keep Pandora’s Box locked tight.

But the shock of her
involvement with savage gangsters had hit him hard, made him confront the
truth. The box had been opened and could never be locked again.

He trundled downstairs, head
bowed, and entered the kitchen where Olivia was making tea. It was as if a
tidal wave of sadness and regret had flooded the room. Her heart went out to
him and she gave him a big hug and tenderly kissed his cheeks.

But as good a listener as
Olivia was she was not quite ready to hear the full story, and Ronnie was not
quite ready to tell it. So they skipped around it.

‘Tea?’

‘Thanks love. Any news from
H?’

‘No, nothing. God knows what
he got up to last night. I’ve known him a long time and seen his rages and
moods over the years. But last night was something different. The rage was
there, but mixed with a kind of abandon. Like he just didn’t care about
anything, or maybe he cared so much about something that he didn’t care what he
did. I’m worried sick Ron.’