by Adam Carter
“As in the high school drop-out who didn’t fit in? You see the first episode? The Cunninghams hated him, didn’t want their son mixing with him. By the end of the series he was like their son and they loved him for who he was.”
“God, you watch Happy Days?”
“I can’t watch feel-good TV?”
“You know, just when I think I know everything there is to know about you, you come up with some corkers.”
“Trust me, you don’t want to know everything about me.”
“Right. So what you’re saying is I should ingratiate myself in people’s lives, let them get to know the real me, and then they’ll stop hating what I am?”
“God no.” He recoiled at the very thought. “Since when is real life feel-good TV? You be whoever you are, Jen, and if someone doesn’t understand that, to hell with them. I love you for who you are, and if you actually care what anyone else at the bunker thinks of you then it’s you who has the issues.”
Thompson could not help but smile. “You love me, Charles?”
He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, closed it. “Figure of speech.”
“Since when?”
“Figure of my speech then. Like I said, everyone’s different.”
She could see the humour in his eyes and felt some of her anger, some of her distress, wash from her. “You should’ve fallen in love sooner, Charles,” she said. “It does wonders for you. Come ‘ere.” She embraced him in a tight hug and his arms encircling her was the most reassuring thing she had felt all day. She nestled her face in his shoulder and said, “Why couldn’t Sanders have given me you for a partner on this one?”
“I could phone him. He could easily replace me with Jeremiah.”
“Unleash Jeremiah as our public liaison? God no.” She pulled away from him and wiped the back of her hand across her eyes. “I should be getting back to work.”
“You need anything, I’m a phone call away.”
“I know.” She stepped back onto her bike and lowered the helmet over her head. Taking tight hold of the handlebars, she winked at him as she started the engine. “And for what it’s worth, Charles, I love you too.”
CHAPTER SIX
Hyde Park was a big place, but once darkness fell Thompson knew there were very few people who spent any time there. A few homeless, but beyond that there was no one. Nor was the lighting too good at night, which meant she would be afforded a great deal of natural cover by which to sneak up on her prey. She had told Searle to get everyone to meet there and it did not matter that she now knew it to be a trap. She supposed she should have been grateful to Foster for that piece of information, but she was not feeling especially grateful to Foster about anything right that that moment. Once more she wished she had Baronaire with her, especially since he seemed to have an odd affinity with the night; but the truth of the matter was she was on her own and that was all there was to it. Nor did she even have much of a plan as yet. Her gut told her to find a way to kill these people, but her common sense reminded her there was no way of doing that and keeping it quiet. So many times had she almost contacted the DCI and asked for his opinion, but he had given her this assignment and she would not go running back to him just because she had no idea how to proceed.
A small part, actually a very small part, wished she had brought Foster out there with her, like she was supposed to.
A greater part wished she had slugged the stupid woman and been done with it.
Lying on her belly like a snake waiting to strike, Thompson could see them now: the figures in the darkness. She had chosen a meeting point by the lake so the water could reflect the moonlight. This way no one would have to bring any torches, predator or prey, and she would be able to see everything. Searle was the first man she saw, standing nervously by the water’s edge as though he expected a scuba diver to launch herself from the lake armed with a machete. He was with one of the others, a tall thin man by the name of Bill Jenkins. What she knew of Jenkins was sketchy at best, but he was an accountant for some big law firm. He had a wife and two children and was typical of most men these days. He wore thin glasses and didn’t look as though he had it in him to harm anyone. A few drinks inside him and she knew that could all change, and had done so.
She saw two more men approach these now, and the four began chatting nervously, hands in their pockets. There was a chill to the air Thompson could not deny, but she could not help but feel they were concealing weapons and just waiting for her to poke her head out from the darkness. The two newcomers looked pretty much the same. They were both large, beefy men with short hair, almost entirely shaved. They wore casual clothes and clearly spent a lot of time in the gym. It was difficult for Thompson to tell Larry and Harry apart, brothers as they were, although Larry was slightly the eldest and the man in charge of the gang. If gang they could be called. Neither man looked like someone she would like to meet in a dark alley, and that was before they knew her sexuality.
Thompson lowered her binoculars. These were ordinary people. She was starting to think that was the point Baronaire had been trying to make. Except for maybe Larry and Harry Jones, they weren’t thugs looking to beat someone up. They were just ordinary men with ordinary jobs in ordinary offices. They had families, hobbies, favourite game shows they could never miss, songs that always made them smile. They were just the same as everybody else, and if Thompson started to think otherwise she was doing exactly what they had done when they had kicked Martin Smith into a coma. The only difference being that their aggression had been about the high of the moment and their inner perversions, while Thompson was as far from perversion as she had ever been. And she was out for justice, not hatred.
It wasn’t about revenge.
She continued to scan the lakeside, waiting for the other two men to show. She had all the time in the world, and if they didn’t appear soon she was willing to wait another day and perhaps even pay Searle another visit in the meantime. So long as one was out of sight it meant there was a sniper, and if there was one thing Thompson had been taught to be on the lookout for it was a sniper.
Dick Porter appeared next. He was still wearing his suit and had clearly only just left the office. That he still had a job was a miscarriage of justice all in itself, but Thompson knew she had to stay focused, else this could all turn very sour very quickly. The final man she was waiting for was named Patrick Gordon. He was a science teacher, and at least he had been struck off following his arrest. She supposed it would not do to have suspected gay-bashers teaching the next generation, but it was fine for them to do the accounts. She had done her research on Gordon but there wasn’t much to him. His marriage had broken up following the attack, the only one of the six for that to happen to. So far as Thompson could determine, Gordon had not seen his six-year-old daughter for a year now, which likely made him the bitterest of the bunch. Still, he only had himself to blame.
She began to wonder whether she could somehow push them all in the lake and claim the tide had come in and swallowed them whole. Or maybe she could just make them all disappear and leave the press to speculate on just what had happened to them all.
The idea appealed to her so much she almost forgot where she was and what she was doing.
Placing the binoculars back to her eyes, Thompson scanned the area once more, although again there was no sign of Gordon. Shifting her weight in the bushes where she was concealed, Thompson’s stomach growled and she wished she had brought some sandwiches.
Her gaze fixed on Searle and she could see how nervous he was. He did not know she had discovered this was a trap, but had every reason to be concerned. Nor did he know she was in the police, so for all he knew she would come charging in with an army of friends, armed to the teeth with guns and knives and shovels to bury the bodies afterward.
A further half hour passed and Thompson was beginning to suspect their final member would not appear. Then at last she noticed movement and her hand snaked down to her boot. Thompson was lying with
her belly pressed against the ground, and had not moved in over an hour. She had long ago been trained how to stalk her prey, and now she would put into action how to silently sneak upon them unsuspectingly. She was just beginning to move when she froze, staring in horror. Patrick Gordon was exactly as she had remembered him from the court: average height and appearance, with dark hair spiked up at the front and a calm, presupposing manner. But it was not Gordon that concerned her.
It was the man Gordon had brought with him.
The man with Gordon was tall, a little on the thin side, although not quite gaunt. He had short hair and an eternally sad expression. Thompson’s heart hammered in her chest as she realised the terrible mistake she had made back in Searle’s flat. Perhaps her biggest had been not to have killed him there and then.
Gordon had brought Ralph Lorenzo.
“All right,” Larry, the eldest thug and leader of the little band, declared to the night air. “We know you’re out there, watching us. Whoever you are, you picked the wrong people to mess with, because the courts let us go. We’re innocent citizens, and you can’t do nothing to us. So come out, so we can talk all civilised like.” He stopped, looking about slowly. His gaze finally settled on Gordon, who shrugged and held a knife to Lorenzo’s throat. Thompson bit her lower lip, her breath catching in a hiss. She did not know whether Smith would ever regain consciousness, but if the man he loved was hurt, even killed, because Thompson had committed herself to a vendetta on his behalf she would never forgive herself. She did not know Smith, had no idea what he would have wanted for his legacy. She could only go by how she felt and what she wanted. Perhaps her biggest mistake was in assuming too much, and Lorenzo was about to pay the price for her idiocy.
Going out there would of course gain her nothing. She could not face six armed men, and she had to assume they were armed. Even with her training they would beat her. But by not going out she would guarantee Lorenzo harm, perhaps even his death. She had continually labelled these men as opportunists; men with anti-gay feelings who had never expressed them until that one night when they had drunk too much and were all together. That one night when they had got into an argument, an argument which had turned violent. She had assumed that aside from the thug brothers they would not be willing to attack again, that they intended to keep a low profile. It seemed instead they were desperate men, and desperate men were resorting to desperate measures.
And she was a fool to have ever considered otherwise.
“Looks like she doesn’t care,” Harry, the younger brother, said. “Maybe we should get her attention.”
Larry’s fist struck Lorenzo about the face and Thompson winced as she saw the blood fly from his split lip. There was no remorse, no emotion upon Larry’s face other than revulsion. Larry Jones was not a man who had lashed out one night because he was drunk; he was a violent individual who had likely spurred the others on. It was something else Thompson should have seen beforehand.
Larry turned to the darkness, laughing. “No?” he asked aloud. “OK.” And he drew a kitchen knife from his belt.
Thompson saw that Jenkins and Porter both seemed uneasy, while Searle turn incredibly pale. “Steady on, Larry,” Jenkins said, eyeing the knife fearfully. Thompson could see no such nervousness within the eyes of Gordon, the teacher who had lost his family, and Gordon was the one holding Lorenzo, which wasn’t good.
Larry cast a baleful glower at Jenkins and waved the knife in his face. “The only language they understand, mate. He wants to be a woman so much, we’ll make him one.”
Thompson understood what he intended to do of course, and wondered whether Larry was actually idiotic enough to believe that was all it took, whether he thought that was the only difference between men and women. If Larry ever took a good look at himself in the mirror and actually sat down to examine his own psyche, he would cease to wonder why a woman would prefer to bed another woman over him.
He turned to Lorenzo with the knife, the blade flashing in the moonlight, and Lorenzo’s eyes widened. He shook his head, saying something Thompson could not catch. Perhaps he was pleading with his enemy, perhaps he was praying. Whatever it was, it didn’t matter. Thompson had brought him here and she would have to get him out again.
“All right,” she shouted without rising. “Let him go and I’ll come out.”
Larry turned with a triumphant grin. “You think we’re stupid?”
“Only some of you.”
Larry didn’t seem to understand that, which was probably handy. He held the knife closer to Lorenzo, his eyes scanning the bushes and trees as though he would be able to see her. “Not joking here. Come out or I gut him.”
She knew he meant it, so rose, making sure her knife was firmly concealed in her boot. She had no other weapon on her, and would have to hope they didn’t notice it. Placing her arms in the air, Thompson stepped out of the darkness. “All right, I’m here.” She stopped ten metres from the group, her eyes focused entirely upon their leader. “Now let him go.”
Larry’s grin broadened as he looked her up and down. Thompson tried not to shudder at such a repulsive assessment of her, and said in a calm voice, “I’m here. You don’t need Lorenzo now.”
“She’s right,” Jenkins said, jittering. “Let’s let him go, Larry, yeah?”
Larry seemed confused. “Let him go? Why would we want to let him go?”
“Because she’s here?” Jenkins asked. “Because this is the woman we’re after. Jack?”
Searle nodded. “Yeah, it’s her. Where’s your redhead special needs friend?”
Thompson glanced at him. “Turns out she was borderline homophobic so I ditched her.”
She heard Larry mutter to Jenkins, “What’s homophobic? That mean she’s a lezzie?”
“Good Lord!” Thompson shouted.
Thankfully it was only Larry who didn’t seem to understand, and Jenkins took a step towards Lorenzo. “I’ll get him out of here, take him home. I don’t want to be here anyway.”
“Don’t want to be here?” Larry asked. “We’re doing what we have to, Bill. None of us wants to be here, but we have to protect ourselves.”
“You’re going to kill her?” Porter asked, shocked. “God, Larry, you can’t do that.”
“Why not? We killed one of ‘em last year.”
“There’s no them, Larry,” Jenkins said, afraid. “You can’t go around ... What happened last year was a stupid mistake. You can’t just murder people.”
Larry was truly confused. “Why not?”
“Jen,” Lorenzo said, but Gorton held his knife tighter to the man’s throat as a warning.
“Jen?” Larry said, the grin returning. “So we get a name at last. Surname?”
Thompson narrowed her eyes and set her jaw firm.
Larry looked to Lorenzo. “Surname?”
Lorenzo licked his lips. “D ... Detective Jen Thompson.”
There was a series of groans from the men. Gordon shifted his weight nervously, maintaining his knife hold. Of them all only Larry was unaffected. “So?” he said. “She’s a pig, so what? Double the reason to off her.”
“Whoa, no,” Jenkins said. “I’m not going there. I’m not having any part of this, Larry.”
“What are ya, gay or something?”
Jenkins shook his head and briskly walked past him. “I’m gone. If you guys have any sense you’ll come with me.” After a moment Porter followed. Jenkins stopped at Gordon and said, “I’m taking this guy too.”
Gordon glanced at Larry, who shrugged indifference, so Gordon released him. “Fewer witnesses the better,” Larry said, then waved the knife at Lorenzo. “Just remember not to talk, ‘kay?”
Jenkins and Porter left with him, and Thompson said nothing as they went. It was what she wanted after all. It didn’t mean she wanted to kill those two men any less, but she could do so later, at her own leisure.
She noticed Searle staring at her in something close to tears. “I’m sorry,” he said, and ran also. Larry
watched him go with loathing, as though he had been betrayed by three of what he considered to be his gang. Thompson’s odds were down to three to one, which suited her fine.
“Jack said she has a knife in her boot,” Larry said. “Harry, go fetch it.”
“Like to see you try,” Thompson replied sweetly.
“Honey,” Larry said with that same sickly grin as earlier, “before you end up in that there lake, I’m going to enjoy being the first man who ever showed you a good time.”
There was a strange belief among people like Larry Jones that rape could be enjoyable. Thompson had studied the concept during her time in WetFish, but had never really understood it. It was a belief she knew Larry would forget if she was to hire a bigger, stronger man than Larry to show him a ‘good time’. Couple that with the man’s obvious belief that women were only gay because they didn’t know what a ‘real man’ was, and Larry was one screwed up individual.
Harry came for her then, obeying his brother’s instructions. With Lorenzo out of the way Thompson had no need to acquiesce to anything, so dropped into the standard defensive stance she had been taught back when she was a teenager. Her father had wanted her prepared for life, and her father’s way of preparing someone was to make sure you could beat up anyone who came for you. To say that he was overprotective would have been an understatement, but he was pretty much as every father was, she had always figured. He loved the vision he had of his daughter, the showpiece he could bring out at family occasions or military functions. Thompson had learned a lot more about life through the regular soldiers under his command, although there were always benefits of having a man of rank for a father.
Great ape arms reached for her presently and Thompson’s foot came up sharply, catching Harry under the chin and sending him reeling. He took several tottering steps backwards, his head trying to cartwheel, before he finally collapsed. Thompson was back in her stance a second later. Larry and Gordon just stared at her.