by Adam Carter
Baronaire left for the office and Rachael tidied up the dinner things and blew out the candle. There was always tomorrow. It was just a shame Baronaire only ever thought about today.
CHAPTER FOUR
He made good time to the bunker, running far faster than an ordinary human and leaping from rooftop to rooftop in an effort to take the quickest route. Baronaire hurried into the underground bunker WetFish used as office space, not having even broken a sweat. He noted several officers busy at their desks, filing reports or else looking up information pertaining to their various specific cases. He knew all of them by face, most of them by name, and only a handful by character. Baronaire had little to do with the officers who were not field agents; nor did he much want to.
Across the room stood Sanders’s private office. It was walled by what appeared to be glass, although Baronaire had strong suspicions it was harder than diamond. That it was transparent allowed Sanders to keep an eye on all his officers while they worked, to make sure they understood he was an ever-present god among them. Presently Sanders sat within that office, a scowl upon his fuming face. Sanders did not lose his temper; Baronaire did not believe he had ever seen the man do so more than half a dozen times in the years they had known one another. Sanders tended to seethe instead, and he was seething now. Baronaire noted Detective Lin was in there with him, a fawn caught in the lion’s den. Sanders was likely discovering this fawn had grown antlers.
Espying Baronaire, Sanders waved him over and Baronaire took a deep breath, meeting the eyes of none of the other staff as he moved steadfastly across to the DCI’s office. He entered without knocking and closed the door slowly, allowing Sanders a few extra moments to calm down. The office was soundproof, just in case the DCI ever did take to shouting.
Edward Sanders was a man of around fifty years. His receding hair was dark, his eyes heavy with stress and age, his body still in its prime. There were many people who underestimated Sanders, but Baronaire had come to understand he was the peak of physical perfection and not someone to be crossed lightly.
Lin had already told Baronaire something of the mess over the phone, but knew Sanders would be repeating it all for him regardless. It was Baronaire’s job to stand there and listen, taking the appropriate berating as necessary.
“Apparently,” Sanders began, “I’ve not been giving my field agents enough work to be getting on with. Some of them have taken it into their heads to go out and find jobs of their own.” He waited for Baronaire to say something, and when he wisely maintained his silence Sanders continued. “Your presence at the docks did not go unnoticed. I received a call today, a rather angry call, informing me that two officers had been seen looking around West India Quay. Those same two officers had brought in a homeless man for questioning, so he was able to identify them. Care to guess the two names he came up with?” Again he was met with wise silence. “Six months,” Sanders said. “That’s how much work you’ve ruined.”
Baronaire closed his eyes. There was a surveillance on the docks, he should have thought of that.
“I see you’re starting to think now,” Sanders noted. “Good man. Perhaps you’d like to call the station and explain just why you were looking into a case beyond your jurisdiction?”
“No one was looking into it, Ed,” Baronaire said. “The murder was closed.”
“I know. And I know you’ve uncovered evidence that Frank Fiennes was actually murdered. That’s commendable work, or at least it would be if it was married to a little common sense. If you had toxicology reports on Fiennes, you should have taken them to the appropriate officer. If they had tossed them in the bin, then you come to me and I make a few phone calls to their governor. Softly, softly, by the book. No one gets on anyone’s wick and everyone’s happy. Instead you two rush off to play cowboys and destroy half a year’s work.”
“We found a body at the docks,” Baronaire said.
Sanders’s glower told him the DCI knew full well they had found a body at the docks. “And you dragged it out. The corpse had been there two days, it wouldn’t have hurt any for it to have stayed there a couple more. My point, Charles, is that you do the work I tell you to do. You want to help out a friend, or lend assistance to another department, that’s fair enough. But you run it by me first, and you follow the proper channels. What you do not do is run off half-cocked as though you’re a rookie looking for your first arrest.”
He was simmering now, having passed beyond boiling, and Baronaire was under the impression he was beginning to calm. He was also entirely correct in what he had said. Baronaire and Lin should indeed have told him what they had been doing. Sanders treated every citizen equally and Baronaire knew full well Sanders would have authorised their investigation into the homeless man’s death, especially once he was convinced no one else in the force cared any.
Why had he not gone to Sanders then? Baronaire could not answer that question. Perhaps he didn’t trust Sanders as much as he wanted to. The truth was he did not trust Sanders beyond the clearly defined parameters of his employment, and nor did Sanders trust him similarly. It was an odd relationship, although it only reinforced everything Rachael always said about him. Perhaps Baronaire would indeed be better off leaving London far behind. Somehow though he realised he would never be able to run far enough to escape the reach of Edward Sanders.
But that was a problem for another day.
“What’s done is done,” Baronaire said. “How can we salvage anything from this?”
Lin glanced sharply Baronaire’s way, but Baronaire had worked alongside this cantankerous old man for too long now not to know what he was thinking. If Sanders even cared that his officers were stepping on other people’s toes, it was by far outweighed by the desire to make the streets a little cleaner. Baronaire could stand there grovelling all he liked, but it wouldn’t put any villains down for the count.
“You stay out of the way,” Sanders told him. “You stay out of the way of the official investigation and let the proper authorities make their arrests at the docks.”
“What’s the investigation for?”
“Drugs smuggling. I think your homeless man saw something he shouldn’t and was silenced. The guy in the suit has been identified as a Max Hubert. Near as we can tell, he was killed for the same reason. Wrong place at the wrong time.”
“He could have been involved,” Baronaire suggested.
“Could have been. But that’s not your investigation.”
“We’ll get back to work,” Lin said. “Our proper assignments I mean.”
But Baronaire could see something in Sanders’s eyes. This wasn’t over, so far as the DCI was concerned. “There’s something more isn’t there?” Baronaire asked.
“Probably nothing,” Sanders replied. “Not our call to make.”
“Go on anyway.”
“The operation to bring these people down has been going on for six months,” Sanders said, “but from what I’ve reviewed of their case it’s not a very well built one.”
“How did you get access to the case details?” Lin asked.
The two men looked at her as though she was especially dense before turning back to one another. “There are corners cut,” Sanders said. “Evidence not gathered which I would have thought was statutory.”
“You think there’s a mole,” Baronaire said. “A bent cop looking the other way.”
Sanders shrugged. “I wouldn’t like to cast disparaging accusations, but yes. I think the investigation was flawed to begin with.”
“Then we’ll be careful not to be seen,” Baronaire replied. “What end result do you want for this?”
“I don’t want drugs flooding into my city, Charles. However you see fit to stop that, it’s fine with me.”
Baronaire and Lin left his office then and Lin seemed confused. She did not voice her concerns until they were far from Sanders’s line of vision. “This isn’t what we do,” she said in a quiet voice. “We don’t hunt criminals before their trial, Baronaire
.”
“We do whatever we need to do, Detective,” Baronaire replied. “And sometimes you don’t need a court to tell you who the guilty parties are.”
“If we do this we’re nothing short of vigilantes.”
“We’re police officers, Lin. We’re the law.”
“Judge, jury and executioner? Baronaire, the point of WetFish is that the trials have already taken place, but the jury was coerced, or not allowed the information necessary to put the villains away. We can’t just circumvent the jury.”
“We do what the DCI tells us to do, Lin. That’s why he’s in charge.” Baronaire glanced back to the DCI’s office to find Sanders standing by the glass, staring at them with narrowed eyes. They did what they were told and they lived to see another day. Baronaire once more considered what Rachael had been saying, that Sanders would one day be rid of him, as soon as Baronaire’s usefulness came to an end.
It never seemed more real than at that moment, and Baronaire was suddenly afraid for the future. For the first time in his life he was afraid for what was to come.
CHAPTER FIVE
It had been a bad day and Detective Sara Greel was looking forward to a hot bath and maybe something to eat before turning in for the night. The operation had fallen apart, the six month operation they had all been busting their backs to get together, and no one was sure what to do about it. The DCI had spent half an hour shouting down the phone to some other DCI, but Greel couldn’t see how that was going to change anything. Two officers had blindly wandered into the docks, found a body, and called it all in. Malcolm had shut down his entire racket, had seemingly disappeared from sight entirely. They had spent six months tracking Malcolm, making sure they knew all the routes used, every drop-off point, each man in his employ. And it had all been for nothing.
It was unsalvageable, and most of the officers involved in the investigation were downhearted. Greel was worried more than anything, worried that this could all backfire on them. She had worked an extra four hours tonight, they all had; running around trying to sort the mess. But it was no good and finally the DCI had sent them all home. There was nothing more they could do, although Greel wondered what would happen to those two who had screwed the whole thing up. Their own DCI had likely had a few unkind words to say to them, but Greel didn’t really care. It was over, and there was no changing that now.
She arrived to a dark, cold flat. She tried the light switch, although wasn’t surprised when nothing happened. Her lighting had been playing up for months now, and the landlord kept promising to sort it out. On a good week it would work for maybe four days straight, but Greel didn’t really mind. It wasn’t the electrics, because the fridge and the TV still worked, which meant it was the wiring. And adequate lighting just wasn’t essential to good living.
Opening the fridge spilled light into the kitchen, and Greel found a quiche she had been meaning to eat for the last couple of days. Drifting back to the living room she flipped on the television, thankful it at least could light up one corner of the room, and lit herself some candles. She had some set up in neat rows on the table, although it took a fair few to make any decent light. Still, she was used to them, and they provided her with some small semblance of comfort. At least she knew the candles would be waiting for her when she got home.
Speaking of which, she wondered whether her cat was coming home for the evening. The landlord didn’t like pets and had expressly forbidden them, but Greel didn’t like having no lights so she didn’t much care what the old fool said. Mr Brown (the cat, not the landlord) didn’t seem to be around though, but she was used to that as well. Her only constant companion in life seemed to be her landlord, but right now she had to settle for the candles.
The quiche wasn’t quite off, but it didn’t taste too good. She had made it herself though, so that probably explained it, and she contemplated just shoving it in the bin, but there was precious little other food in the house and she wasn’t about to go hungry just on account of her being a terrible cook.
She concentrated on the TV then, but truth be told she really couldn’t stand television. There was a game show on at the moment and she had long ago convinced herself that she liked game shows, but she didn’t. It didn’t just provide light and companionship, but white noise as well. It made her believe for one moment that she wasn’t entirely alone in life.
Finally giving up on the quiche, Greel decided to head to the freezer. She had a tub of strawberry ice cream she was saving for an emergency, and if the collapse of the Malcolm case didn’t class as one she didn’t know what would. She was halfway to the kitchen when she heard something and stopped. She peered into the gloom, into the corners of the room, but nothing moved. Her eyes were adjusting quickly, for she had been on enough stake-outs at night for her to be long used to this, and she was able to make out a vague shape in the darkness. No, that wasn’t right. It was a part of the darkness, of the shadows. It wasn’t so much as someone standing there, as of someone merging with the shadows themselves.
And then it was gone.
Greel blinked, stared harder, but there was nothing there. She wandered cautiously to the corner, her hand reaching the wall, but whatever she had thought she had seen it had been simply her imagination. She knew she should have been relieved, because if there had been someone there she knew precisely who it would have been, and that was a conversation she could really have done without.
A noise sounded from the kitchen, a hissing of water, and Greel frowned, moving cautiously in that direction. She could see in the darkness the taps were running in the sink, although again there was no one about. Moving slowly into the kitchen, Greel took up a breadknife and carefully stared around. Even in the dim light she could see there was no one there, and she turned the taps off to get rid of the noise. She could still hear the television from the other room, the dull think of music and darts striking a board, questions being mumbled, answers forthcoming, more darts overlaid with a jingle.
And then silence.
Greel clutched her knife tightly. If someone had turned on the taps and had now turned off the TV, it meant she had walked straight past them, that they had pressed themselves up against the wall and she had walked right past them. They had moved as silent as the grave, but she would not allow them to torment her. Without taking her eyes off the doorway to the living room, her hand opened the drawer to her side and withdrew another knife. Holding the smaller blade down and concealed by her hand, Greel stalked her way back to the living room. It was almost pitch in there now, the candles also extinguished, although there was a little light shining through from the street outside. A car screeched in the distance, providing the only sound in her flat other than her pounding heart. Her eyes scanned the room, searching for unusual shadows, although there was nothing.
Holding the breadknife steady before her, Greel took two steps back into the living room.
A hand reached out from the darkness, closing upon her wrist and crushing. She wailed involuntarily, her hand opening, nerveless fingers releasing the breadknife. But she had been ready for this and swung about with her other hand, the smaller concealed knife stabbing down through the chest of her attacker.
Greel staggered as her knife found nothing and she caught herself just before striking the ground. She stared around with wild eyes. It was impossible. Whoever had grabbed her had to have been standing right where she had stabbed, but she had seen no movement, heard no sound, and still she was alone.
A candle flared to life and she could see a man standing before her slowly lighting them all. He was tall, rugged, and entirely unbothered by her standing there with a knife. He was well-built, wearing an old trench coat, and when he had finished lighting the candles he turned to stare at her. Greel cringed. His eyes were deep and accusing, although somehow soulless. Whoever this man was, she would have preferred the alternative.
“You were expecting someone else,” he said. It took her a moment to realise he had not even phrased it as a question.<
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“No,” she said, her voice breaking. “No, of course not.” Then she wondered why she thought she had to justify herself to someone who had just broken into her flat. Coughing, trying to regain some semblance of dignity, she said, “Who are you? What are you doing in my flat?”
“You thought I worked for Malcolm.”
Again not a question.
“Who’s Malcolm?” she asked tremulously.
The man gave her a sympathetic look. “The man you’ve been investigating the last six months?”
“And what precisely do you know about that?”
“I’m one of the cops who blew your cover.”
A wave of relief washed through Greel. This man was a cop. Definitely better than the alternative.
“Maybe I’m worse,” he said as though sensing her thoughts. Greel shuddered, her fingers still wrapped protectively about the knife at her side. How he had broken in was obvious – he was here waiting for her when she got home – although how he had done all the things since then she could not say. However he had done it, he was playing with her mind, and she would not allow him to gain control. One of the first things Detective Greel had learned on the job was that if you lost control during a confrontation you may as well turn and run.
“Charles Baronaire,” she said, eliciting a raised eyebrow from the intruder. She did not know whether it returned control to her, but it was a good start. He did not ask how she knew his name, although she figured he was clever enough to work it out. The officers at the docks had been identified and her DCI had been cursing their names all night. Greel folded her arms defiantly. “What do you want?”
“I’m sorry, were you busy?” He cast a derisive glance about her flat; its lack of heat, light, food; the lack of comfort of any nature. “I would’ve thought you’d welcome a chance to get out of this wonderful life you live.”