by Luke Delaney
‘I was just looking for an FPN,’ Knight tried to convince him.
‘We’re a tight team here,’ King warned him. ‘You want to be part of that team, we have to know we can trust you. Trust you completely.’
‘You can trust me,’ Knight lied.
King watched him for a long time before replying. ‘Why you here, Rana? What are you doing here?’
Knight felt his mouth go dry. ‘I don’t understand,’ was all he could say.
‘Here,’ King said. ‘On the Unit. Ordered or volunteered?’
‘Volunteered,’ Knight replied – the relief washing over him.
‘Why?’ King continued his interrogation.
‘I want to try for the TSG,’ Knight lied again. ‘I need to up my crime arrests and here seemed like a good place to do it.’
‘We’ll get you your arrests. So long as we can be sure you’re one of us.’
‘Don’t worry about me,’ Knight assured him. ‘Whatever it takes. Know what I mean?’
‘Good,’ King nodded. ‘That’s all I needed to hear.’
Susie Ubana paced around her kitchen waiting for the person she’d called to answer her untraceable pay-as-you-go mobile phone while her head spun with the implications of what King’s ambitions meant for her and everyone else on the estate – their status quo of drug dealing and petty crime shattered by the intervention of the Unit. She shook her head in disbelief that a small number of uniformed cops could turn the lives of people on the Grove Wood upside down. She had to do something. Finally the man answered the phone.
‘Hello,’ was all he said.
‘It’s me,’ she told him, but it was enough for him to recognize her.
‘Trouble?’ he immediately asked.
‘King,’ she simply answered. ‘He’s going too far – getting out of control. He’s taking over all the dealing on the estate – even moving in on me.’
‘What you talking about?’ the voice asked.
‘I mean it,’ she warned him. ‘Word is he’s got that loser Dougie O’Neil dealing crack for him and now he wants me to pay him fifty percent of my profits every week.’
‘I’m taking care of it,’ he tried to reassure her, ‘but I need something solid. They’re cops. I can’t do anything without proof.’
‘What about when I pay him at the end of the week?’ she asked. ‘That could be enough.’
‘And implicate yourself as a drug dealer?’ he reminded her. ‘Is that really what you want to do? There’s no immunity in British law. You could testify against them, but you’d have to do time yourself.’
‘I can’t,’ she told him, shaking her head. ‘My daughter – they’d take my daughter away.’
‘Then you’d better leave it with me,’ he replied. ‘I’ll think of something. We don’t necessarily need enough to send them down, just enough to get rid of them. Save them from themselves as much as anything.’
‘I don’t care what you do,’ she admitted, ‘so long as they’re gone. But remember – if you can’t solve this problem, then I know people who can. King’s crossed the line now. He’s in play. The people I know won’t see him as a cop any more. They’ll see him as a villain dressed as a cop trying to muscle in on their territory and they know how to deal with people who try to move on their business.’
‘It doesn’t need to come to that,’ he appealed to her. ‘I’ll handle it.’
‘You’d better,’ she warned him, ‘because time’s running out. Can’t keep the wolves at bay forever.’ She hung up and lit another cigarette, unsure of what to do. The people she was thinking of had probably already heard rumours about King and the Unit. She knew that King and the others had taken down Astill, but had they done more than that? Had they been stupid enough to take his supply and cash for their own purposes? The people Astill worked for could tolerate losing the odd batch of drugs during a legitimate drugs raid, but local cops taking it for their own profit was not something they’d stand for and if she didn’t tell them about King demanding protection money they might get the impression she’d willingly crossed to his side. And that would be bad for her. Bad for her daughter. ‘Christ,’ she complained. King could fuck everything up, but she didn’t want blood on her hands. Especially not a cop’s – even one who barely acted like it any more. She decided to give her contact a few more days – then she’d have no choice but to tell them King was trying to move in on her. After that – God help him.
Marino stayed out of sight in the small cark park at Canning Road Police Station, keeping an eye on the door he knew King would use to exit the building before heading to his car and home – if indeed home was where he was spending his nights. Marino was in luck as King appeared through the door and headed across the asphalt towards his car looking like a man in a hurry with a lot on his mind. Marino caught up with him quickly enough – King turning on him and looking to the heavens once he knew who it was.
‘What the fuck do you want now?’ he snapped aggressively.
‘Just a chat,’ Marino answered calmly, noting how exhausted and strung-out King looked.
‘I’ve got nothing to say to you, so why don’t you just stay out of my business and stop bothering me.’
‘What are you taking?’ Marino cut to the chase. ‘Amphetamines? Cocaine? Crack?’
‘You know fuck all,’ King snarled at him.
‘I know someone on drugs when I see them,’ Marino reminded him. ‘And I know the prospect of Edwards’ appeal is causing you more problems than you’ll admit. No one would want to have to relive something like that more than once.’
‘More than once,’ King almost laughed – remembering the hundreds of times he’d already relived the nightmare incident in his mind. ‘Just leave me alone, Frank,’ he warned him. ‘If I have to bury Edwards again I will. I’m not afraid of giving evidence. I know what happened.’ He tried to walk away, but Marino grabbed him around the bicep and pulled him back.
‘You went through some bad shit,’ Marino explained. ‘What you had to deal with was beyond what anyone should have to see. A man killing his own family – damn near killing you. You don’t just get over that.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ King lied, images of the young girl in the white dress with the spreading crimson tide flooding his tired mind.
‘So,’ Marino tried to persuade him, ‘you’ve done some questionable things, but it’s not too late to turn things around. This thing with Swinton went way too far. The man could have died. If that had happened there wouldn’t be anything anyone could do to help you.’
‘We had a man running loose on the estate attacking young children,’ he answered. ‘CID failed to deal with it so I did.’
‘Jesus, Jack,’ Marino said, looking around the car park to ensure they were still alone. ‘You probably didn’t even get the right guy.’
‘I didn’t get anyone,’ King rounded on him. ‘You accusing me of something, Frank?’
‘You said you dealt with it.’
‘You misunderstood me.’
Marino said nothing for a while. ‘Get your career and your life back on track, Jack. Quit the Unit first thing tomorrow and come see me in my office. We can sort you out an extended attachment to the CID where I can look out for you – get you cleaned up.’
King suddenly looked defeated – like a man without hope, set on a preordained road to self-destruction.
‘It’s too late for that,’ he quietly told Marino.
‘It’s not too late,’ Marino pleaded. ‘We can still fix this.’
King prised Marino’s fingers from around his arm. ‘Ever considered I might not want to change?’ he asked. ‘Ever thought I might like things the way they are?’
‘That’s not you talking,’ Marino argued. ‘Not the real you. The job will support you – they have to. You didn’t get the help you should have. Anything you’ve done can be laid back at their door. Trust me, they won’t want the stink. Anything you’ve done can be sorted out – so long as y
ou stop now.’
‘And what?’ King shook his head. ‘Claim temporary insanity? That I lost it because of what happened?’
‘You won’t have to,’ Marino tried to assure him. ‘Everything will be smoothed out and forgotten before it comes to that. It’ll be like nothing ever happened.’
King was silent for a while as he tried to comprehend returning to his previous sober world, being everything to everybody – trapped in a passionless marriage to Sara – the occasional dinner with friends and a bottle of wine as wild as it would ever be. How could he return to a life like that after tasting life around the extreme edges – the mind-blowing effects of crack compared to the slow drowsiness of alcohol? Predictable sex with safe women or being inside the wild, writhing Kelly. The drugs helped him forget – took him to a better place and so did Kelly. He could never leave that world now. It had trapped him.
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ he finally told Marino. ‘Too much unfinished business to take care of. I’m not ready to go back to how things were. I’m not sure I ever will be.’ He turned his back on Marino and walked towards his car, but Marino grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him back round. Before he could speak King knocked his arm away and pushed him hard in the chest with both hands, making him stumble and fall against another parked car. A look of shock spread across Marino’s face.
‘Don’t fucking touch me,’ King warned him. ‘Don’t ever fucking touch me.’
‘I can’t protect you much longer,’ Marino recovered enough to plead with him. ‘You’re pissing off some heavy people, Jack. You go too far across the line and they won’t care about the uniform you wear – they’ll come looking for you. They’ll do the same to you they would to anyone who moves in on their manor and starts shaking down people under their protection. You give them no choice.’
‘I don’t need or want your protection,’ King insisted. ‘Just stay away from me and stay out of my business, Frank. Someone wants to come after me, let them. I can take care of myself.’
‘You don’t know what these people are like,’ Marino pleaded. ‘You don’t know what they’re capable of.’
‘And you don’t know what I’m capable of,’ King replied. ‘Just stay out of my way, Frank. Just stay out of my way.’
King stood next to Sara as they waited for the front door to be opened, feeling agitated and paranoid, partly due to the decent hit of cocaine he’d taken before meeting Sara and heading to his parents’ house, but more so due to the confrontation with Marino in the station car park. He and Sara had hardly spoken to each other during the long cross-town drive, although he’d managed to ask a few polite questions about how things had been at work for her, the cocaine stimulating his brain enough to actually speak, even if he could barely remember her answers. They never discussed their relationship and they never touched each other. Several times he’d had to shake the image of Kelly from his racing mind and resist the almost overwhelming compulsion to tell Sara all about her, but somehow he managed not to. Better to let his relationship with Sara fade to a natural conclusion – a drift more than a deliberate split. There was no need to torment Sara with how little she ultimately meant to him and how much Kelly, a young woman he hardly even knew, did. The door swung open and his mother stood in silence looking back and forth between them, concern etched into her face.
‘Good Lord, Jack,’ she said. ‘You don’t look too good. You OK?’
‘I’m fine,’ he told her. ‘Just a little tired from work.’
‘I see,’ she replied, unconvinced. ‘And you, Sara – how are you?’
‘Good thank you, Emily,’ Sara lied and managed a slight smile.
‘Well don’t just stand out here,’ she encouraged them enthusiastically. ‘Come in and join the others.’ She stepped aside and allowed them to enter. ‘It’s been months since we saw either of you.’
King found himself momentarily frozen. The space beyond his mother suddenly appeared dark and foreboding, as if it was trying to lure him inside and trap him forever, his mother’s accusation that they hadn’t seen him in months when he knew it had only been weeks adding confusion to his fear.
‘Jack,’ Sara tried to bring him back. ‘Jack.’
‘What?’ he asked as he came back to the world.
‘You all right? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
‘Yeah,’ he insisted. ‘I’m good.’
She stepped towards the entrance, but still he didn’t move. ‘You coming?’ she asked, looking frustrated and annoyed.
‘Yes,’ he answered, forcing himself to move towards the door and the dark interior as Sara and his mother passed knowing looks of disapproval between them – his behaviour clearly a mystery to both of them. He followed them through the house to the kitchen where his father, brother and his fiancée sat around the table sipping from glasses of wine and talking cheerfully until he entered the room – his mood and distance from them trailing behind him like a poisonous vapour expanding and filling every inch of space.
‘Sara,’ his father acknowledged them. ‘Jack.’
‘Dad,’ King barely answered, falling onto the chair next to his brother.
‘Hello, Graham,’ Sara answered a little stiffly.
Graham smiled as he stood to fetch extra wine glasses. ‘Drink?’
‘Yes thanks,’ Sara answered quickly.
‘Jack?’
King looked at the wine on the table as if it was toxic. The last thing he wanted was to drink alcohol and risk numbing the effects of the cocaine he hoped would see him through the evening. ‘No thanks. I’m driving.’
‘Ah,’ his father nodded. ‘Probably for the best. You look bloody knackered as it is. Too much time in the pub with the other coppers sharing tales of the latest arrests?’
‘I don’t think so,’ King replied flatly. ‘I’ve been working long hours. Doing what it takes to get the job done. Know what I mean?’
‘You do look tired, Jack,’ Scott interrupted. ‘Everything all right?’ He’d seen too many soldiers in Afghanistan take drugs to briefly escape the horror and fear that surrounded them not to immediately recognize it in his own brother.
‘You’re all right,’ King snapped at them slightly. ‘I’m tired. So what? No big deal.’
‘It’s not just that,’ Sara told them. ‘The man who … hurt Jack is appealing his sentence.’
‘What?’ his mother asked. ‘How can he do that?’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ his father smiled. ‘Any appeal by that monster will be refused.’
‘It’s already been agreed there are grounds for the appeal,’ Sara explained. ‘Something about an unqualified psychiatrist.’
‘Under-qualified,’ King corrected her. ‘Not unqualified.’
‘What?’ Graham pushed.
‘One,’ King said. ‘One of the shrinks who declared him sane to stand trial may not have the level of expertise the prosecution thought. That’s all.’
‘You’re not seriously talking about a re-trial, are you?’ Graham asked.
‘No,’ King answered, ‘but I might have to give evidence again.’
‘That would not be good for you,’ Sara told him.
‘I’ll be fine,’ King lied.
‘Of course you will,’ Graham tried to reassure him. ‘It’s only a matter of standing in the box and telling the truth.’
‘And what would you know about it?’ King suddenly snapped – awkwardness suddenly sweeping through the room.
‘Leave him alone,’ his mother tried to rescue him, smiling as she made the final preparations for dinner. ‘He’s allowed to be tired if he wants.’
‘It’s not a choice I made,’ he corrected her. ‘I work hard – keeping the streets safe for people like you.’
‘We’re quite capable of looking after ourselves,’ his father argued. ‘Thirty years in the army taught me a thing or two about survival.’
A heavy silence hung in the room as father and son locked eyes. Sara tried to break the oppressive
atmosphere. ‘How’ve you been, Scott?’ she asked.
‘Good, thanks,’ he replied politely. ‘Got out of hospital a while back now. Everything seems to be on the mend nicely.’
‘He’ll be returning to his regiment soon,’ Graham interrupted. ‘Get back in the saddle – best thing to do.’
Scott smiled and nodded, but made no comment. ‘And Hannah’s been great,’ he addressed Sara. ‘Put up with all my … moods.’
‘Not easy,’ Sara sympathized, ‘recovering from something like that.’
‘No shit,’ King found himself saying almost involuntarily, killing the improving atmosphere and reminding everyone Scott wasn’t the only one who’d spent weeks in hospital recovering from terrible injuries.
‘We found ourselves a right pair,’ Hannah tried to salvage the good will. ‘Didn’t we, Sara?’
‘Found?’ King attacked again. ‘What are we – stray dogs?’
‘That’s not what she meant,’ Sara chastised him – weeks of frustration surfacing. She knew she was losing him, but wasn’t even sure if she cared any more. Their relationship felt more and more like a sick pet that needed to be put down.
‘Anyway,’ Graham tried to exert his authority, ‘without these lovely young women I don’t know what would become of you two careless so-and-sos. About time you made honest women of them.’
‘Well,’ Scott stumbled slightly, ‘we’ve only been engaged a few weeks.’
‘If you’re engaged what are you waiting for?’ Graham asked. ‘When you know you know. No point waiting around. In the old days you’d be engaged for a couple of months – just long enough to sort out the logistics – and then you’d get married. That’s what we did.’
‘Jesus,’ said King, resisting the temptation to pull out the paper fold of cocaine he had in his pocket and snort it in front of all of them. ‘What century we in? Sara and I aren’t even engaged. We’re living in sin. We like living in sin. Don’t we, Sara?’
‘Living?’ she asked, her eyes watery. ‘Is that what we’re doing, Jack? Just living?’
‘Food’s ready,’ King’s mother interrupted quickly.