The Rebel

by Jaime Raven

  Slack nodded. ‘I am. I’m a legit businessmen, not some kind of Mafia godfather who gets his rocks off by paying for coppers to be killed.’

  The reporter had told him that the interview was going out live on the BBC. That was good because it meant they couldn’t edit his words or bleep out Marsden’s name. It would infuriate the Met and that made it all the more satisfying.

  He decided to take a couple more questions even though he was anxious to get home. His head was pounding and the tablets he’d been given to dull the pain in his stomach hadn’t yet kicked in.

  But there was also something he wanted to get out into the open. Something that would make what Marsden had done all the more unpalatable in the eyes of the public.

  ‘I understand that your injuries have been treated, Mr Slack,’ the reporter said. ‘But why are you going against the doctor’s advice to stay here overnight?’

  ‘There’s nothing more they can do for me,’ Slack said. ‘I’ve told them to use the bed for someone who’s worse off than I am.’

  ‘And what about your driver, Mr Walker? We’re told he was also injured.’

  ‘He was clobbered with a gun when they ambushed us,’ Slack said. ‘He’s got a bad wound to the back of his head and will have to stay in. His wife is at his bedside.’

  ‘So is there anything else you’d like to tell us about what happened today?’ the reporter asked.

  Slack pulled another face to show that he was still in pain. Then he said, ‘What’s really sickening is that Detective Marsden and all his colleagues know that I’m not a well man. I have pancreatic cancer and I’ve been given only a few months to live.’

  He wanted to smile because he knew that the revelation would pile further pressure and embarrassment on the Met, and hopefully win him some public support.

  He didn’t answer any more questions after that and signalled for Danny to escort him to the car.

  Physically he felt like shit, and he knew that he should have probably let them keep him in. But he hated hospitals almost as much as he hated coppers. They made him feel weak and vulnerable and brought back painful memories of the two days and nights he spent at his wife’s bedside after she crashed her car. She never regained consciousness and died slowly, her body broken, her face badly disfigured.

  ‘You sure you’re up to going home, boss?’ Danny asked him.

  He nodded as he shuffled towards the car.

  ‘I need a stiff drink and a cigar more than I need a bunch of nurses fussing over me,’ he said.

  He sat by himself on the back seat of Danny’s car. Danny had come straight to the hospital after Slack had got them to phone him as his next of kin.

  ‘I still can’t get my head around it,’ Danny said as he gunned the engine. ‘I was convinced you’d been grabbed by one of the other outfits. It never even entered my head that it might be the Old Bill.’

  ‘Mine neither until Marsden walked in,’ Slack said. ‘But there’s an upside because the bastard has fucked himself good and proper. He’ll still be doing time long after I’m dead and buried.’

  ‘And what you said back there about the cancer won’t help his case any,’ Danny said.

  Slack grinned. ‘That’s exactly why I decided to say it.’

  ‘I gathered that, boss. But the lads will be pissed off that you hadn’t already told them. And they’ll start to panic about what’s going to happen to the firm. I’m sure our phones will start ringing any minute.’

  ‘I get that,’ Slack said. ‘But it won’t matter now anyway. Time’s running out, Danny. A few days from now I’m checking out. I’ve done what I set out to do and it’s worked out well. You’d better get on your bike too.’

  ‘I’m planning to, boss. Just got a few things to sort.’

  Danny reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a mobile phone, which he held up for Slack to take.

  ‘Mike found it on the floor of the car and gave it to me when I turned up there,’ he said. ‘I figured you wouldn’t want the Old Bill to get their hands on it.’

  ‘Good thinking,’ Slack said.

  Mike had only been unconscious for a few minutes after the guy slugged him with the gun. As soon as he came around he called Danny before phoning the police. The car was now being subjected to forensic examination, along with the mechanic’s workshop in Peckham.

  In addition four London coppers were being questioned on suspicion of kidnap, causing grievous bodily harm and conspiracy to commit murder.

  For Slack it was proof that every dark cloud had a silver lining.

  They arrived at Slack’s apartment twenty minutes after leaving the hospital.

  ‘Don’t bother to come up,’ he told Danny. ‘I’ll be all right. I want you to go home and call the lads. Tell them not to hassle me tonight on pain of death. And arrange a meeting for tomorrow. I’ll answer all their questions then.’

  Before Danny drove off, Slack asked him if he’d sent the latest text message.

  ‘I put it on a timer,’ Danny said. ‘It went out when we were supposed to be having lunch. Just like you wanted.’

  It was seven o’clock when he entered his apartment – six hours after he was abducted.

  A drum was beating in his head, and he was sore all over. He checked himself in the mirror and saw that he still looked as bad as he felt. His bottom lip was swollen, and there was a large bruise beneath his left eye. His mind flashed back to just before the cops came bursting through the doors of the workshop. Marsden had been threatening to snap his fingers off with an adjustable wrench. And that would have been just the start. God only knew what else the cunt would have done.

  So he could hardly complain about a few bruises and a tender gut, especially when the cancer was eating away at his insides anyway.

  He stripped off, took a shower, then slipped on his dressing gown. While he was doing this, his phone rang several times and he heard the pings of incoming text messages.

  He didn’t bother to find out who had tried to get in touch until he was sitting in front of the telly with a large Scotch and a Cuban cigar.

  By now the pain in his head had lulled to a dull, persistent throb, and he was glad he hadn’t stayed at the hospital. At least here he could do what he usually did to relax and think. And there was a lot to think about. Like when to acknowledge that he’d achieved his objective. When to tell Rosa Lopez she could go home. When to take the gun from the safe and use it to put himself out of his misery.

  He checked his missed calls and text messages. Frank Piper had phoned and so had Clive Miller, two of his top lieutenants. But they hadn’t left messages or voicemails.

  His mole inside the task force had left a message, though, and it answered a question that had been bugging him.

  It was me who tipped off the team as soon as we were cut off. Glad they got there in time.

  Slack: How did you know what Marsden was going to do?

  Mole: Overheard him talking on phone. Pure luck.

  Slack then opened the next text message, which had come from Jasmine.

  Tried to call you babe. Been so worried. If you want me to come straight over just say the word.

  But sex was the last thing on his mind, and he didn’t want her company because although she was a tasty piece of arse she was also as thick as two planks.

  He just wanted to be alone so that he could drink, smoke and watch the news on the television. There was plenty there to keep him entertained.

  He laughed as a shame-faced detective was forced to say that no police officer should take the law into his or her own hands. He cringed at his own ugly mug being interviewed in front of the hospital. And he listened with interest as one newsreader laboured the point that alleged London crime boss Roy Slack had been detained and released no fewer than four times during the past week or so.

  He had to laugh. It was like icing on the fucking cake. It would have been enough to hurt the Old Bill with the murders. But now they faced a major self-inflicted scandal that woul
d tarnish them for years to come.

  It was an unexpected bonus and well worth the pain he’d suffered at the hands of that maverick detective.

  A montage of photos appeared on the screen and his thoughts switched immediately to Rosa Lopez. The photos were of the four people she had killed. Detective Inspector Dave Prentiss, Marion Nash, the copper shot on Balham High Road, and the Commissioner, John Saunders.

  He wondered why he hadn’t heard from her. Maybe she hadn’t seen the news. Or maybe she took the view that as he’d been released it was going to be business as usual.

  She certainly wasn’t the type to panic. She had nerves of steel, that one. And the job she was doing for him was surely much easier than most of those she’d been tasked with in the past. Now it was set to get even simpler. All she had to do was cruise the streets on the bike and gun down any copper on the beat. Or she could fire directly into the windscreen of a patrol car. Or play safe and take aim from a distance using the sniper rifle. The Slayer was a true pro so the next few days were going to be a doddle for her.

  He decided to send her a text to reassure her that he wasn’t about to pull the plug.

  I’m still alive and kicking. Carry on the good work until you hear from me.

  He thought about her while he waited for a response. The woman intrigued him. She had to be the hottest contract killer out there. The kind you see in the movies. In Mexico – a country filled with assassins – she must have outshone all the others.

  Her boss, Carlos Cruz, had told him a few interesting things about her during their last phone conversation.

  ‘She’s an enigma even to us, my friend,’ he’d said. ‘Most of the guys in the cartel would love to fuck her, but unfortunately she prefers women to men. And that doesn’t surprise me because as a little girl she was badly abused by her adoptive father and his paedophile friends.’

  Cruz also said that Rosa’s parents were murdered and she took revenge on the man who killed them.

  ‘Soon after that we became her family,’ he’d added. ‘She’s been a loyal member of the cartel since then, and our most accomplished sicaria. We’re all she has and all she needs. I can’t imagine her ever leaving the fold.’

  It was 7.30pm when Rosa replied to his text. She didn’t bother with any pleasantries or even say that she was glad he was still alive.

  She simply wrote: OK.

  62

  Laura

  The taxi had dropped me off at home an hour ago and I was still here because I was having second thoughts. The enormity of what I was planning to do had hit me suddenly, like a harsh wake-up call that gives you a fright.

  It didn’t help that I hadn’t really thought it through. I was being driven by an unbridled anger and a burning sense of injustice. The same emotional triggers that had caused Tony Marsden and three other police officers to put their careers – and their lives – at risk.

  Did I have it in me to step over the line? To break the rules. It was a question I had never had to ask myself. But then I’d never faced a situation where the law was desperately failing the victims of a brutal murderer.

  Now the threat went beyond the organised crime task force. All police officers in London were potential targets, and there didn’t seem to be a damn thing we could do to stop it.

  It was an alarming change of strategy aimed at ‘teaching you all a lesson’. It also illustrated yet again the startling ease with which a crazy person with a weapon can strike terror across a whole city or country.

  We’d had it before, many times, with jihadists who let off bombs and attacked innocent people with knives. Now it was the turn of an assassin who was doing it, not for some radical cause, but because the gangster paying her wanted revenge on an entire police force.

  I’d spent the last hour sitting on the sofa trying to work up the courage to go and confront the man I believed was heavily involved in what was happening. And to use brute force if necessary to get him to come clean.

  I kept asking myself how I would feel if I chickened out now and another officer was killed tonight or tomorrow. Or what if the bitch came looking for me again? Or even went to the hospital to finish Aidan off?

  It was entirely possible that Danny Carver was actually in touch with the woman. That he was the middleman between her and Slack. And if so, then maybe, just maybe, I could get to her through him.

  Weighed against that were the dire consequences for me if it went belly up, like it had for Tony Marsden and his crew.

  Anxiety clawed at my chest as I agonised over it. I started pacing up and down the length of the living room, clutching the sheet of paper with Carver’s address on it.

  Once again images cascaded through my mind. Images with unwelcome clarity that were driving me towards committing a criminal act. Aidan in that hospital bed. Dave Prentiss lying dead in his own hallway. Marion Nash’s body on the floor of her shop. And the blood that poured out of me into the toilet pan as my own baby’s life was extinguished.

  When the phone rang the acid churned in my stomach. I thought it might be one of the police bodyguards, ringing to see where I’d gone to without them.

  But it was my mother, and I spent five minutes reassuring her that I was fine. She sounded terrified, though, and I yearned to reach out and give her a hug.

  ‘When will this end, Laura?’ she sobbed. ‘Surely it can’t go on. It’s so awful and sad. Why can’t the police stop it?’

  ‘We’re trying, Mum,’ I said. ‘Believe me we are.’

  I told her where I was and gave her an update on Aidan’s condition, then said I’d contact her first thing in the morning.

  While I still had the phone in my hand I called the hospital and they told me that Aidan was asleep and his parents were still with him.

  A headache began to rage between my temples and my thoughts continued to burn like a fuse.

  I checked my watch, saw it was eight o’clock already and time to make up my mind either way.

  My heart was beating its way out of my chest so I sat down and switched on the TV. I wanted to know if there had been any further developments since I’d left the office.

  I happened to catch the start of a recorded interview with Roy Slack, who looked as though he’d been trampled under a herd of buffalo.

  As I listened I scowled my hatred at the screen and felt my pulse escalate. The bastard was clearly in his element, acting like he was an innocent victim while slagging off the police.

  But his face betrayed him. There was the smug expression that he was trying hard to conceal. And there was the glint of amusement in his eyes.

  He thought he was untouchable. That the law was powerless to stop his grotesque killing spree, especially after what had happened to him. But this sick, arrogant performance was surely enough to drive any copper to breaking point.

  Including me.

  I grunted out a bitter laugh and said aloud, ‘You’ve made up my mind for me, you evil fucker. I’ll do whatever it takes now to put you and that psycho bitch away.’

  I spent the next fifteen minutes working out what I was going to do, while praying that Danny Carver would be in and alone when I got to his house.

  Then having come up with the bare bones of a plan, I hurried upstairs to change into a dark polo sweater, jeans and a hooded windcheater jacket.

  Back downstairs I grabbed my scarf and gloves from the table in the hall and made sure my shoulder bag contained the Taser gun, a set of handcuffs and the car keys.

  I then stormed out of the front door, ready and willing to break the law in the name of justice.

  Aidan and I shared an ageing Peugeot 307. It didn’t get much use because driving in London was usually a nightmare and it was much easier to take the bus or tube.

  But I didn’t anticipate the roads would be very busy this evening and it was only two miles from Balham to Streatham. I put Danny Carver’s address into the satnav and got going.

  I was glad I didn’t still have the gun with me because there was a go
od chance I’d be tempted to us it. But I did have the police regulation Taser X2, and I felt safer knowing I had it. After all, the guy I was going to see was a violent psychopath. He’d spent twelve years in prison for stabbing a man to death and then two years as a mercenary in the Middle East before going to work as an enforcer for Roy Slack.

  Since then he’d earned a reputation that was as ugly as he himself was. By all accounts he’d killed half a dozen people and crippled a few more. But like his boss he’d managed to avoid prosecution.

  It was always the same story. There was never enough evidence to get a conviction and nobody was ever brave enough to testify against him.

  Villains like Danny Carver weren’t easily intimidated, and they knew how to work the system. That was why going through the formal interrogation process with him would be a complete waste of time. If he knew more than he was letting on then the only way to get it out of him was to play by his rules.

  There was a limit to how far I’d be prepared to go, of course. But until I reached it I wouldn’t know where it was.

  I’d never been a shrinking violet. And I’d be the first to admit that I had a fierce temper that had got me into trouble on more than one occasion.

  But this was the first time I’d allowed myself to get worked up into such a frenzy, though I felt it was justified in view of what had happened to Aidan and to the baby that had been growing inside me.

  Carver’s house was in one of those streets that didn’t look very impressive, but where properties were worth a fortune.

  It was end-of-terrace, with a small, enclosed front garden and a short driveway on which stood a smart BMW 7 Series.

  I parked across the street and saw that there were lights on inside, both upstairs and down. I switched off the engine and sat there in the dark for a while, trying not to acknowledge the nerves that were raging inside me.

  According to Danny Carver’s file he lived alone and wasn’t married. But that didn’t mean he was by himself in the house. For all I knew he was spending the evening with a girlfriend or a couple of his gangster pals.