London Large: Blood on the Streets (3 page)

Settling to his task and
digging in, H reflected fuzzily for a second or two on his good fortune. Olivia.
What had he done to deserve a woman like this, at his time of life, with his
track record, with his issues? She was his rock, his compass. Unflappable,
normal, beautiful Olivia, daughter of the suburbs. He doubted now whether he
could face up to the murderous chaos that London was becoming without her.

‘More tea, H?’

‘Yes please, doll. And put
the radio on will you? Might as well see what’s happening in the world.’

‘H, you don’t want to know
what’s happening in the world, trust me. Eat your breakfast.’

H gave her the look. There
was no arguing with the look. Olivia switched the radio on.

‘…the gangland war that has
pushed London’s murder rate to record levels. Just who is in charge of London’s
streets? Give us a call now with your view of the crisis, on…’

H gave a low, bottomless
groan and pushed his plate away. Olivia switched the radio off. She was not one
to say ‘I told you so.’

‘What do you have on today
then H?’

‘Going to Bermondsey this
morning - I need to talk to Confident John. There’s bound to be more
tit-for-tat bollocks between these Russians and Albanians. Hardly a day goes by
now without something. If we don’t get on top of this soon…And then the office
this afternoon. Some sort of meeting, or “workshop”. Complete fucking waste of
time. Amisha will know what it is.’

Ping! Olivia checked H’s
phone. He was not one to pay much attention to it himself.

‘Your driver says two
minutes.’

Amisha Bhanushali hit
the bell just as Olivia reached the door and pulled her gaze, as if with some
effort, away from her phone. Her outstretched hand was ignored. Another morning
ritual.

‘H, your driver’s here’,
Olivia shouted over her shoulder. She always and only referred to Amisha as
‘driver.’ The high-flying daughter of ambitious Indian immigrants from Gujarat,
she strode confidently into the flat. Beautiful, poised and ‘posh’, educated at
Cambridge and 28, she had been H’s partner now for almost a year.

She was the new sort of
copper, but she triggered the old sort of jealousy in Olivia.

Amisha entered and headed for
the kitchen. ‘Morning guv’, she said.

‘Morning Ames. Have we got
time for a coffee? What’s happening?’

‘Good or bad news first?’.

‘Bad.’

‘Well, the media’s still up
in arms. London-as-Syria is a common theme. Law and order in meltdown. That
sort of thing. Where are the police, what is to be done? They’re calling for
someone’s head. And you’re mentioned by name here and there. My guess is you’ll
be trending on Twitter by this afternoon.’

H let out his second groan of
the morning, like a shattered old dog waiting to be put out of his misery. The
‘T’ word. Nothing wound him up, or got him down, like this mindless digital mob
rule. He didn’t know how Twitter worked, but he knew two things: he was clearly
accumulating more and more enemies, and he couldn’t name or put faces to them.
Give him a cornered villain brandishing a crow bar any day. Any fucking day.

‘Why? What now?’

Joey Jupiter is all over you
again. He’s recirculating the ‘slag’ clip. And this time it’s had a lot more
views.’

‘You mean more people have
watched it?’

‘Yep. Over 200,000 on
Youtube. You’ll be famous soon at this rate.’

Six weeks before H had been
blissfully unaware of this ‘celebrity blogger’, as Amisha called him. Now the
‘jumped up, soppy little two-bob wanker’, as H called him, had become his
nemesis. And for what?

A few years before, on a
bender with a few of his old muckers from the Falklands, someone had filmed H,
in full flow, on the subject of his ex-wife. H thought it was just pictures
being taken. Next thing he knew he was on Youtube, ranting good humouredly but
out of context about ‘harridans’ and ‘slags’ and ‘ducking stools.’ All a bit
drunkenly embarrassing, but soon forgotten.

Until six weeks ago, when the
clip turned up on Joey Jupiter’s blog. ‘Is this’, wrote Jupiter, ‘really the
sort of man we want “protecting” Londoners in the 21
^st
century? How
can this dinosaur be expected to treat the female half of the population with
any respect?’

And so it began. For the last
month H couldn’t scratch his arse in public without Jupiter, and his quarter of
a million ‘followers’, getting on his back. And now, with these Eastern
Europeans running riot and turning the streets of the metropolis red with each
other’s blood, it seemed like Jupiter and his minions were on H-watch twenty
four hours a day, blogging-tweeting-texting-messaging for all they were worth
about his shortcomings - as a man, and as a detective.

‘I’ll rip his bollocks off
for him if he ever gets round me’, said H.

‘I don’t doubt it for a
second, guv. Will you be saying that at the press conference this afternoon?
Shall I feed it through to the PR people?’, Amisha asked.

‘Turn it in Ames, I’m not in
the mood. Finish your coffee.’

Two minutes later they were
in the car, H behind the wheel, and heading north out of Eltham towards
Bermondsey and their meeting with Confident John Viney. It seemed, for a while,
like it was going to be another ‘normal’ day of fear, loathing, blood, guts and
Eastern European corpses.

‘I don’t know why
Olivia always calls me your driver. You haven’t let me behind the wheel in six
months’, Amisha said in mock exasperation.

‘I don’t need to be driven
around just yet, thanks, nor wheeled around in a buggy nor spoon-fed porridge
nor have my arse wiped because I’ve shat my nappy. There’s still a little bit
of lead left in
this
old pencil, don’t worry about that. Focus on your
screens. What’s happening? Any good news from Joey Jupiter?’ As much as he
hated him it was difficult for H to ignore Joey and company.

But Amisha had already tuned
out of the conversation, her face now rapt and trancelike in the backlit glow
of her phone and tablet, her eyes scanning the never ending streams of
information. It seemed to make her happy. It seemed to make them all happy, as
far as H could tell. ‘Good, that’ll keep her quiet’ he thought, as he gunned
the car towards Bermondsey.

Bermondsey. Last of the
old-school London manors, bastion of the world that H - and a good proportion
of the villains it was his lot to badger - had come out of. Or so it was always
said. Truth was, his old stomping ground was changing, and changing fast. Like
everywhere else. A lot of the old faces had melted away. Confident John,
though, had stayed put, supporting the few pubs that were left, running his
book and keeping his ear close to the ground. He wasn’t exactly a grass, but he
and H went back a long, long way, and if anyone knew what the Albanian firm
which had taken up residence in the area were up to it would be him.

This thing between them and
the Russians had driven H closer to the edge than he’d ever been. For years it
had been a fairly predictable struggle for control of Soho - drugs, people and
sex trafficking, the usual things. But these last couple of weeks the dogs of
war had well and truly been let slip, and the bodies had been piling up like
they hadn’t since…nobody knew when.

These fucking psychopaths
and their endless fucking vendettas
.

Close to two dozen murders in
less than a month, and a queasy panic beginning to grip the city.

H had drawn the short straw
on this one and found himself in charge of the investigation. A proper shit
sandwich, with all the trimmings. But now he was determined to do a last bit of
proper coppering before they put him out to pasture. Get these bastards sorted
out…

‘Guv’, said Amisha, ‘you’d
better hold onto your hat. Something big’s kicking off…Christ on a bike…the
Internet’s just exploded!’

‘What, what is it?’

‘Some sort of bloodbath…in
St. James’ Park.’

‘St. James’ Park? For fuck’s
sake! Quick, turn the radio on.’

How quaint
,
he’s still living in the old world
.

‘They won’t have it yet. It’s
only just happened. Social media’s driving this one. Some tourists have
stumbled across a bloodbath. It’s a Twitterstorm, #slaughterinthequeenspark.
Jesus - look at this! There’s bodies everywhere. Guv…you’ve got to see this.’

H’s head was spinning and he
found himself short of breath. This was all he needed. The beeping and pinging
of Amisha’s gadgets was driving him nuts. A bloodbath? Bodies everywhere? In
the Queen’s own park? Just after breakfast time? Fuck!…we’re losing it. Is
nothing sacred anymore?

He’d have to hit the ground
running on this one, or someone would be having his guts for garters.

Ping! His own phone piped up.
He swung the wheel and headed towards Westminster Bridge before he answered it.
Confident John would have to wait.

H cranked up the siren
and put his foot down before taking the call from his guvnor, Chief Inspector
Hilary Stone. A smooth operator if ever there was one. It wasn’t that long ago
that he’d been her boss; before, inevitably, she was promoted above him. It was
the first time in his not-so-glittering career that he’d had a female boss. He
was still coming to terms with it.

He had a grudging respect for
her ability to work a room of superiors and high flyers like a newly elected politician
on overdrive. Always neatly dressed, an ability to make other people think they
were important and an easy eloquence allowed her to climb the greasy pole in a
way H never could, not that he could ever have been bothered.

When they’d first met H had
made a play for her during a drunken night out, after cracking a major murder
case. Never one to grasp the intricacies of female sexual messaging, he had
been sternly rebuffed. Sometime later, over a liquid lunch, Hilary confided
that she also preferred the ladies, or, as H put it, ‘batted for the other
side.’ With sexual tension off the agenda their professional relationship kind
of worked OK.

‘H, what in God’s name is
going on in the West End? My PA has just shown me a murder scene exploding all
over the internet. In St. James’s Park. It’s not even been called in yet.’

Hilary had always been good
under pressure, thought H. Until now.

He often had cause to feel
grateful for how good she was at making sure he could get on with the job in
his own way, the way she kept the top brass off his back. But since London had
started going to hell in a handcart, and with the unsolved murder rate
spiralling by the day he’d noticed the cracks appearing in her well-manicured
persona. She was starting to feel the pace.

In all the years he’d known
her she hadn’t sworn and this was the first time he had even heard the ‘G’
word.

‘Already seen it. On my way.’

Something approaching relief
came over her. It wasn’t his patch, and he had other things to do, but she
wanted him there early. He was the best copper on the force at reading a murder
scene. She knew his record. No one else was even close to his clear-up rate -
even if his methods were considered by some to be unorthodox and outdated.

‘H, find out what’s
happening. Find out who could have done this. St. James Park, broad daylight,
tourists everywhere. Please, for God’s sake. Get this one sorted.’

Blimey, thought Harry. A
second use of the ‘G’ word and a ‘please.’ Upstairs must be close to hanging
her out to dry.

‘I’m on it’, he said.

He ended the call. The
beautiful geek to his left had slipped into a parallel universe. Multiple tabs
were opening on her tablet and her phone was pinging with a whole host of
airborne updates as her co-ordinated eyes and hands moved faster than the wings
of a hummingbird on speed.

‘I’ve never seen anything
spread this fast. A million hits and it’s only been on Twitter for twenty
minutes. That’s more than the Pope’s Christmas message. I’m telling you guv,
this is going to go worldwide.’

Different clips and videos
were appearing from multiple sources; the tourists of London town had been well
and truly entertained. Amisha was piecing the multiple pics and clips together
like an electronic jigsaw, trying to work out the timeline of events.

‘There’s a clip showing this
guy firing multiple rounds’, she said, ‘looks like he’s killed three or four
people, including two women slumped on a bench, who are appearing in more and
more pictures. Everyone at the scene is taking pictures of them and posting them
on Twitter.’

Amisha flashed a picture of
the gunman.

‘Mike Richards.’ said H.
‘Solid lad. Worked with him a few years back, at Carter Street nick before it
was closed down. He’s now part of the Queen’s Protection Unit.’

‘Ok,’ said Amisha. Realising
her mistake, she returned to the puzzle, instantly merging with the machines as
she assimilated the images and video clips flooding in.

She barely noticed H’s expert
gear shifts as he veered in and out of the London traffic as fast as a fat kid
in a sweet shop. He knew every inch of this town, every rat run and dark
alleyway. He kept to the back streets to keep clear of the grinding London
traffic, and decided to stay south of the river until he reached Westminster
Bridge. The concrete jungle estates of South London passed by in a blur of
architectural ugliness. He skirted the Elephant and Castle roundabout and
zipped past an estate where a gang of hoodies, huddled under a pissed-stenched
stairwell, were crowded around a phone; they were displaying more alertness
than he would normally expect. He knew exactly what was animating them.

‘Three million hits’, said
Amisha, ‘the Twitter spike is already fifteen times above the previous record
in this timeframe. We’re witnessing internet history in the making.’