He looked up eagerly, obviously hopeful of being reassigned more interesting work.
“Reuben, please see if you can track down the origin of the call you just transferred to me.”
Doubt flashed in Reuben’s eyes. He raised a hand to scratch at his artfully tousled locks. “I’m not sure if that’s possible, Boss. I had the impression that call was forwarded through multiple departments.”
“Well, it originated from a number that was used on television for people to volunteer information.”
“That would’ve more than likely been the 101 number. It’s an automated system that fields thousands of calls every day to appropriate switchboard operators. I don’t like your chances unless we can somehow pin a time frame on the call.”
“Do your best, Reuben. Oh, and can you think of a location around here that isn’t windy?”
His face scrunched into a frown as he considered the question.
“Jeez, Boss, England’s an island in an archipeligo off a large landmass next to the gulfstream. There’s always a breeze floating past.”
Bex left the office, taking the stairs two at a time to the next level. Normally she avoided Cole Mackinley’s domain. She had enough testosterone in her own backyard without looking for more, but this time she was hoping to put Cole to good use.
She pounded on Cole’s closed door.
When he opened it, irritation flared across his features. “Haud yer wheesht, as my gran would say!” he greeted her, hands on hips. “You were banging so hard on my door I thought it was the tax collector breaking in.”
Bex grimaced. “Enough of the pleasantries, DCI Mackinley. Can I come inside?”
“Life’s very sad without some pleasantries, but even so, I’ll invite you inside if that’s what all the noise is about.”
Bex normally phoned him when they needed to converse, but past experience had often led to her being fobbed off by Cole’s minions and her mission today was too important.
She couldn’t help checking out Cole’s office and comparing it to her own poky premises as Cole lowered his huge frame into a padded leather captain’s chair behind a cherry wood desk. He even had a window, albeit the view was of the bricked wall of the neighboring building.
Being a likable fellow in the London Met obviously rated its own rewards. The thought triggered a flash of annoyance.
Cole wagged a finger in her direction.
“Now, now, DCI Wynter, I can read in your face where your thoughts are going. Let me pass on some advice for free. Take advantage because I normally charge. If you want better trappings than the Met hands out, you need to squirrel your own possessions in bit by bit when the brass aren’t looking.”
Bex cursed her open face.
“No doubt you’re here to ask for a favor.” Cole sat back comfortably, his hands laced across his stomach, the green glint in his hazel eyes sharpening with anticipation. She could almost see his mind ticking over into a tit for tat situation. Cole was never one to let the flies settle if he could gain some advantage.
“No, not a favor, just asking you to do your job,” she retorted, taking her own seat in the padded visitor’s chair.
Mehmet Sahnan and Mikayla Parkinson were the most recent missing persons out of the eleven names Bex had turned up, so she hoped theirs would be the easiest leads to follow.
“I need to know if any unidentified John and Jane Does have turned up since August last year. Jane Doe to match for a sixteen-year-old, possibly pregnant, female and the John Doe a seventeen-year-old male.”
“Can I ask why?”
“I’m looking for two missing teens.” She gave him a run down on their particulars, even though she knew it was a long shot, since both teens’ DNA was on file from their criminal records.
“Do you mean just in the local borough or London-wide?”
“London-wide.”
“I’ll look into it and let you know. Now that we’ve established I’m doing you a favor, I’d like a little information in return. There’s a whisper doing the rounds that Dresden may be moving on from her position. Since you’re close to the horse’s mouth, I thought you might have some news on that front?”
His request made Bex suspect Cole was keen to put his hat into the ring for promotion if one presented itself. Well he was welcome to any promotion on hand. All that meant was more hours spent on risk assessment and occupational health and safety issues rather than actual policing.
Cole also seemed to think she was closer to Dresden than she actually was. Dresden was much like herself in that she wasn’t an easy woman to get to know and the two women had never shared confidences. Dresden’s office in New Scotland Yard was barren as a desiccated bone and yielded no insight into what made the superintendent tick.
All Bex had gleaned about Dresden’s private life was that she was married to a former police officer who now lived life in a wheelchair. But it wouldn’t do her cause any good to reveal that paucity to Cole.
Bex rose to her feet before she was tempted to give too much away.
“Tell you what, I’m meeting Dresden tonight so I’ll see what I can tease out of her. Hand over your info tomorrow and I’ll do the same.”
She gave him a curt nod before heading back to her office.
Chapter 4
Thursday, March 1
Outside dark clouds scudded across an indigo sky. The wind followed Bex as she trudged inside the recently whitewashed walls of the drop-in center and blasted the door shut behind her. Against the odds of reduced government funding, raging skepticism and doubt from Dresden, she had nursed this project to fruition. Tonight the center opened for the first time.
Knife crime was at critical levels for London youths and Bex hated the limited vision of rinse and repeat cycles that consisted of arresting young gang members, slapping them in detention and then releasing them without support knowing they would reoffend again. She hoped to entice kids off the streets into a safe environment to express their aggression and prevent the extremes of violence that she had witnessed too often ending in death.
Bex paced from the doorway through an interior that had been scrubbed to sanitary cleanliness into the annex that housed kitchen facilities. She checked the stocks of coffee, hot chocolate, varieties of green and black teas and plastic containers of milk, and ensured the hot water dispenser she had lashed out forty pounds for was connected and boiling.
The thirty-five foot long main room was divided into separate areas. The smaller area was equipped with two well-used punching bags, a gym bench, various free weights and some training mats, donated by gym-owner Tony Garcia. From the side, sweaty boys could access a shower room, as Bex had learned with surprise was the common name for a bathroom that contained only a shower.
When Reuben explained the concept she hadn’t been able to repress a bubble of laughter over the absurdity. Her giggles had only intensified at the sight of Reuben’s puzzled expression at her amusement.
“It’s just that all this time I thought your mom was renting me a studio apartment with a bathroom, but it turns out it’s only a shower room,” she explained. “Just call me a crazy Yank, Reuben, but no self-respecting American household would dream of not having a shower in the bathroom.”
Bex crossed from the smaller area into the larger, roomier space. An assortment of easy chairs, picked up from various second hand sources, ringed the walls while a pool table and foosball occupied the middle of the room. A vending machine stood in one corner containing sports drinks, sodas and bottled water.
Bex’s immediate superior, Sophie Dresden, sat in one armchair chatting idly with Lady Lillian Perry, founding partner of the legal firm Perry Grais Standing.
Bex jumped when a hand clamped down on her shoulder.
“Calm down. You’re wound up tighter than a Scot in a recession.”
She looked upwards into the grinning face of Josh Brymer, as thin and tall as a scarecrow. Having just celebrated his seventeenth birthday, Josh still had a way to go bef
ore filling in his lanky frame. Right now he was all spindly arms and gangling legs.
“I just want tonight to go well,” she breathed, eyeing Dresden and Lillian Perry’s serious expressions as they conversed together. “I’ve got my boss and the center’s main sponsor here tonight and so far the only thing missing are the kids. What if no one turns up?”
“Relax,” Josh said again. “I’ve switched on the wifi and I’ve sent out a couple of tweets to let the kids know. That’s bound to be a draw card.”
He was earning a small stipend as the center’s live in caretaker. He had been desperate for a place to stay when his father took a job working overseas. Josh couldn’t meet the rent payments on their home because his traineeship only afforded him unpaid work experience.
When he brought his troubles to Bex, she offered him the caretaking job, provided he keep studying online for the next year, believing it would be a win-win situation for them both.
Josh had had a brush with the law last year and Bex hoped sharing his experience would persuade other youths that crime didn’t pay. A tiny office had been created near the front door that contained a fold out bed. Josh had brought his laptop, which perched on a wobbly-legged wooden desk. An army-green metal shelving rack contained his clothes and a brand new, lockable, reinforced steel weapons cabinet completed the furnishings. One of Bex’s hard and fast rules for youths entering the center was that they relinquish anything that could be construed as a weapon before stepping over the threshold. She had bought a stock of replica weapons for them to use in their training sessions.
Now Josh handed Bex a business card.
“I forgot to mention. Some dork from the local news is coming round later to cover the opening. He was jabbing on about how recent budget cuts meant a lack of opportunities for kids. He wants to interview you about how the center will make a dent in the area’s ‘fractured community cohesion’.” Josh used his fingers to add the quote marks to his words.
Bex sucked in a deep breath. Publicity was beneficial to get the word around the neighborhood, but if all she had to show a reporter was an empty building the coverage wouldn’t be favorable.
Bex peered out the darkened windows, praying that someone would turn up. A flash of lightening lit up the night sky and at the same time the front door gusted open.
Reuben stepped inside, shaking raindrops off his leather jacket.
“Whew! It’s getting wild out there!” he said, moving towards Bex. “Nasty night like this is turning into, the kids’ll be hopping for a warm spot.”
His eyes roved around the empty space before meeting the strained look in Bex’s eyes.
“Don’t worry, I’m on it like a car bonnet, Bex,” he assured her, pulling out his erstwhile smart phone.
Reuben had been a real lifeline. Using his former real estate connections he had unearthed this disused community hall for a pittance in rent because it was situated in a corner of Hackney that hadn’t been gentrified, in a stretch of lingering remnants on a council estate.
Watching his fingers fly over his keypad, Bex guessed he was working the hell out of social media to generate a buzz for the center.
Leaving Reuben to his electronic devices, Bex braced herself as Lady Lillian and Dresden descended on her. Both women were in their fifties, but there the similarities ended.
Lillian wore sturdy black boots and a tartan kilt topped with a man’s navy blazer and a stylish silk cravat. Dresden wore a Peter Hahn ribbed twinset whose color mirrored the caramel waves of her coiffed hair. A strand of pearls encircled her throat. Only her sharp nose spoiled the look of a benevolent grandmother who might whip out her knitting bag at any moment.
“I’d kill for a good cheroot, but I’m guessing this place is a smoke free zone,” Lillian greeted her in her gravelly voice.
Bex offered a smile. “Good of you to attend tonight’s opening,” she said.
“Clem’s sent me to see where the sponsorship money’s gone.” Lillian smiled in return. “I have to say you’ve spent the money well. Clem will be pleased.”
Clementine Perry was both Lillian’s law partner and life partner.
“Send Clem my regards,” Dresden said. “I’m surprised she’s not here tonight.”
“She’s home, clucking like a mother hen. She’s been positively beaming since Christmas and I can’t wipe the smile from her face. I hadn’t realized the death of Eric had left such a hole in her life, but I’m glad it’s being filled.”
Clementine and Lillian had enthusiastically taken on the guardianship of an orphaned teen.
“Bex, there is one condition that Clem insists you adhere to if you want to keep our financial support. All the kids attending here must go through drug screening. No drug use on the premises or having kids here who are affected by drugs.”
Bex’s heart sank. Keeping the kids clean was one of her dearest wishes, but she was realist enough to know that that requirement would prevent many from even stepping foot inside the center. Knowing that Clementine had lost her son, Eric, in a dramatic, drug-related death, Bex understood her emotional response.
“I thoroughly support that idea,” Dresden chimed in.
Bex bit back a reply, realizing protest would be futile.
Dresden gestured around the empty space. “I hope your idea of compassionate policing takes off, Wynter. If it does it’ll be a coup for the Youth Crimes Team in the Lord Mayor’s books. But in my experience, it’s hard to break the welfare cycle that keeps these teens trapped. By the time they’re fifteen or sixteen it’s the only life they know and they don’t want to change it.” Dresden patted Bex’s arm, displaying French manicured fingertips to advantage. “You’re still young and idealistic, Wynter. Nothing wrong with that of course, but don’t be too disappointed if the center flops.”
Bex had heard similar comments from older police officers back in New York. It seemed the longer officers were on the force the more cynical they got. But her aim in becoming a police officer was not to bring justice to offenders but to save youngsters from becoming offenders in the first place.
From the other side, Lillian squeezed Bex’s shoulder. “Oak trees grow from acorns, so give yourself time.”
Dresden’s eyes speared Bex.
“Don’t get so involved with this center that you forget your role with the Youth Crimes Team,” she warned. “How did the stats shape up for last month? Any interesting cases come across your desk?”
“I’m following up some intel on a number of missing teens.”
Dresden raised an eyebrow. Her eyes continued to slice through Bex. “And that relates to youth crimes how exactly?”
Bex debated whether or not to let Dresden know the intel was from an unknown eight-year-old child. Dresden made her stance very clear to the Youth Crimes team that they were employed to solve crimes committed by under-age perps, not hold the hands of underage victims.
“If it turns out not to be part of our jurisdiction then I’ll pass any info onto DCI Mackinley.”
Josh approached them.
“That dork from the paper’s here for his interview,” he said.
“I’ll handle this,” Dresden said. “We must put the right PR spin on this venture.”
Lillian patted Bex’s arm again.
“Don’t take what Sophie says too much to heart,” she advised. “Ever since Lander’s shooting she’s been touchy about teen crime.”
At Bex’s startled glance, Lillian returned her look steadfastly.
“I doubt that Sophie will have shared the story with her subordinates, but it’s not a secret. It happened years ago, when she was an inspector investigating a botched burglary. When they realized the offenders were still on the premises, some bright spark at her station contacted her husband, Lander, to let him know. He took off like a lightning bolt to get to her. Unfortunately the situation went all to pot. The long and short of it is that he took a bullet in the spine to save her life. They never caught the offenders and he was forced to retire from
policing, confined to a wheelchair ever since.
“I’ve known Sophie since she investigated Eric’s death, and Lander’s shooting really changed her. We all thought she was going to quit the force. Instead, after taking six months off work to nurse Lander, when she returned she was like a woman possessed, ambition driving her up through the ranks. I don’t think she’s content to stop at Detective Superintendent in her attempt to purge the city of every offender she can sink her teeth into.”
“Was the shooter a teen?” Bex asked, fitting the puzzle pieces of Dresden’s life together as to why she had birthed the idea of the Youth Crimes Team.
“They suspected it was some sort of teen gang warfare that sparked the shooting,” Lillian agreed. “Don’t take Sophie’s tirade personally. In some ways she reminds me of Clem, both survivors of tragic circumstances.”
Their glances were drawn to where Dresden was talking into the reporter’s outstretched phone, her face both serious and concerned.
“Time I stopped waffling and nip outside for a smoke. Stop worrying, Bex. What’s that movie line that everyone always quotes in situations like these?” She gave Bex a cheery wink and a light tap on the arm. “You’ve built it, so now just wait for them to come.”
Chapter 5
Friday March 2
Bex looked up as a long shadow fell across her desk. She was shocked to see Cole Mackinley leaning nonchalantly against the doorjamb, arms crossed.
“I see they’ve turned this storage cupboard to good use,” he said, a lopsided smirk tilting his mouth. “It’s so cozy I can rap my elbows from one side to the other.”
As far as Bex knew Cole had never stepped foot on this level since the Youth Crimes Team had moved in. Any dealings they had were either in neutral territory on the ground floor or via telephone.
She rested back in her cheap office chair, rotating her cramped shoulders to unwind kinks from hours hunched over her laptop.
“Yeah, it leaves your office looking paltry in comparison,” she chipped.
Bex Wynter Box Set 2 Page 3