A Bitter Taste

by Annie Hauxwell

  ‘When she ran out of the Blind Beggar I had no option but to blow my cover,’ said Snowe. ‘I knew if she saw me the chances were that she would run straight back to you. It indicates she trusts you – as much as she trusts anybody – and that’s what we need.’

  ‘We?’ said Berlin. His speech was clipped, precise. Oxbridge perhaps, management fast track. He had probably missed the action so had himself assigned back to the street. Or perhaps he was just a lone ranger. Some people spent so much time undercover they could never readjust to normal operations. Or normal life.

  ‘We need to clear up a few matters,’ continued Snowe. ‘First, where’s the weapon?’

  Berlin didn’t like his tone. She leant back and folded her arms.

  ‘I dropped it down a drain.’

  She didn’t give a shit if he believed her or not. She was reasonably confident he wasn’t going to search her in the current circumstances. He had driven Princess back into her arms, instead of just grabbing the kid and calling Social Services. Which meant he needed her, and the kid, for something.

  ‘Second, I need you to brief me on your relationship with Sonja Kvist and Cole Mortimer.’

  Berlin glanced at Princess to make sure she couldn’t hear them. She winked to reassure her they were in this together. Princess gave her the finger. So much for trust. It was going to take some work to repair that relationship.

  Berlin turned her attention back to Snowe.

  ‘Why don’t you just cut this officious bullshit and tell me what’s really going on here?’ said Berlin.

  Snowe’s jaw tightened. For a moment she thought he was going to produce handcuffs and snap them on her. Then he scratched his chin and pinched his nose, as if he was telling his face to relax. His coppery eyes softened and his expression changed to a wry smile.

  ‘I should know better than to shit a shitter,’ he said in his posh voice. ‘Let’s take this somewhere more private.’

  Somewhere more private turned out to be a hotel in Limehouse. Princess had been taciturn during the cab ride, but after Snowe checked them in, excitement overcame her surliness: a TV and minibar hidden in cupboards, lights that dimmed, free stuff in the bathroom. She couldn’t hide her delight.

  After Sonja’s it must seem like the Ritz, thought Berlin.

  Princess made a beeline for the minibar and helped herself to orange juice and a cellophane packet of expensive muesli cookies.

  Berlin took a Coke.

  ‘That stuff’ll kill you,’ said Princess.

  ‘Says who?’ said Berlin.

  ‘Sonja. It’s full of sugar. Pure, white and deadly.’

  Berlin had once known a junkie who fed his dog a vegetarian diet because he thought meat was unhealthy.

  ‘Go and have a bath,’ said Berlin. ‘It’s a spa.’

  Princess looked sceptical. She went to investigate.

  Snowe and Berlin went out onto the tiny balcony.

  They were on the tenth floor. It was the first time Berlin had felt a breeze on her face for days. She unwound the scarf from her neck and let the air soothe the taut, febrile scar tissue. Snowe didn’t give it a second look.

  ‘I’m going to ask my boss to authorise your registration as a CHIS,’ he said. ‘It won’t protect if you do anything illegal, but it means that if you’re picked up at any time they’ll come straight to me.’

  Berlin doubted it would help if she were charged with murder.

  ‘How did you get onto me?’ she asked. ‘If you’ve been staying so close to the kid?’

  ‘Kvist’s phone. I receive logs of incoming and outgoing numbers, date, time and who’s calling. All the best tramps carry a smartphone.’ He smiled.

  Berlin didn’t.

  ‘I ran your name through PNC,’ he said. ‘You haven’t got any convictions, although even if you had that’s no barrier to being a Covert Human Intelligence Source.’

  ‘What about the outstanding matters?’ she asked.

  ‘As I said, to date you have avoided conviction.’

  Which meant he was up to speed on her current status as a person of interest, and he was prioritising his case over the others. Berlin loved inter-agency cooperation.

  ‘So what’s the upshot?’ said Berlin.

  ‘Putting together your background and the sequence of events, it seems reasonable to assume that Kvist engaged you to find her daughter.’

  He was being economical with the truth: in his job it wasn’t ‘reasonable’ to assume anything. Intelligence had to come from a reliable source before it was actionable. Which meant they were actually listening to Sonja’s calls, not just logging them, and Snowe was receiving transcripts. Or he had a snout. Or both.

  ‘Why did you try to stop me from getting her out of Love Motel?’ she asked.

  ‘Because I couldn’t follow you in that get-up without you spotting me,’ he said.

  ‘You didn’t have to torch the car,’ she said.

  Snowe didn’t react. ‘I backed off when the ambulance arrived, then just enquired at with the hospital and picked you up when you left.’

  ‘Why were you following the kid in the first place?’ she asked.

  ‘Mortimer and Kvist are under investigation,’ he said. He was hedging.

  ‘And?’ she asked.

  ‘There are other targets,’ he said. ‘Police officers.’

  She didn’t press him. Bertie and Kennedy.

  ‘So why are you staying so close to her?’ She gestured at Princess.

  He turned to look back into the hotel room. She followed his gaze. Behind them the sun was sinking into the river. It cast a pink radiance over the glass, bathing the tableau beyond, a reclining Princess, in a soft rosy glow.

  ‘Because there’s half a key of heroin in her backpack.’

  51

  Snowe stood with his back to the view and watched Princess sprawled on the bed watching TV. Berlin stared at the river below: it was the silent custodian of so many secrets.

  Snowe had been monitoring the activities of Sonja Kvist, Cole Mortimer and two Metropolitan Police detectives for some time.

  He was unaware that Berlin knew who the officers were. She would keep it that way. There was nothing in the record about her contact with Kennedy. He wasn’t the senior officer in either Kylie’s or Billy’s case. It was doubtful, anyway, if Snowe would know what other cases Kennedy was working on. He was only interested in busting Cole and the two corrupt coppers. Then Cole would give up his source, probably someone abroad, to reduce his sentence and the operation would go transborder.

  The glint in Snowe’s weird eyes was familiar: he had a job to do and he would do it, whatever it took.

  He had mentioned that the senior of the two bent detectives had a history of ‘cutting corners’ and was old-school, with extensive contacts in the law-enforcement community. He was also a clever delegator. There was always a sucker to carry the can. But at the moment Snowe had nothing concrete on the pair. They had the best cover that money could buy: running their own legitimate operation on Kvist and Mortimer.

  Berlin reflected that it was a story as old as cops and robbers: the bad guys pay a tax to stay in business. If they failed to pay, they would be busted. And who among them was going to complain that he was actually in possession of a kilo of smack, not half a kilo, at the time of his arrest?

  It was more efficient all round if a deal was done up front. No messy raids or arrests were required. Just hand over a percentage of the profits or the product, or both. Everyone went home happy.

  When Snowe fell silent it was clear he was waiting for her to reciprocate with the history of her relationship with Sonja and Cole. She kept it brief, emphasising that it was ancient history until very recently. She left out the juicier bits. Like the fact that Sonja had killed Cole. She simply said that she and Sonja had reconnected by chance because they both attended the same clinic. There was no point in disguising her status as a user.

  Snowe listened to her account and then in a quiet, neutral
voice explained Princess’s role in her parents’ activities.

  Disgust rose in Berlin’s throat: the bile of guilt and self-loathing. For more than twenty years she had been able to persuade herself that she wasn’t implicated in the relentless, unforgiving machine that fed addiction. She couldn’t deny it any longer.

  She had played her part.

  ‘Princess had a critical role in distribution. She was Mortimer’s most trusted mule,’ he said. ‘He sent her out on the street.’

  ‘With a Glock 17,’ said Berlin. ‘Which is what the police use, isn’t it?’

  Snowe nodded.

  ‘One of the detectives has to have been the source of the gun,’ Snowe said. ‘Given the people Princess had to deal with, she must have been terrified half the time. It’s a miracle she’s still walking around. God knows how Cole managed to keep her in line.’

  Berlin knew how. If Princess played up, Sonja suffered.

  ‘I was watching their place when she came running out that night,’ said Snowe. ‘I knew Mortimer’s shipment had arrived. Sonja and Princess had been out to collect. Whenever the drugs were in transit the child always carried them. I went with her.’

  ‘You took a chance. She might not have had the heroin,’ said Berlin.

  Snowe shook his head. ‘My source confirmed it.’ His intel had obviously been solid.

  ‘She went straight to the container yard and stayed there,’ said Snowe. ‘I was sure the drugs were in her pack, as usual. But beyond that, I had no idea what was going on. I’d reached a dead end.’

  ‘It could have been a lot deader if she had used the gun,’ observed Berlin.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Snowe. ‘I didn’t know about the gun. I might have taken a different approach if I had.’ His smile was wan, self-deprecating.

  Berlin was struck by this. There was a kind of professional courtesy in his frankness, an almost collegiate respect, which she didn’t deserve. She saw herself collecting bread, milk and Scotch from a distressed shopkeeper, and felt ashamed.

  Snowe continued his story, staring at his own reflection in the balcony doors now that it was dark outside. Berlin realised that it wasn’t vanity. He was using the opportunity to debrief. The real conversation was with himself, about the job.

  ‘It was all quiet on the western front after that,’ he said. ‘Mortimer must have taken off soon after Princess, but he didn’t follow her or I’d have seen him. When you appeared and moved in on the child I thought you were her connection.’

  He turned to face her. For a moment she saw him entertain the possibility that this might still be the case – that she’d known about the smack all along.

  ‘Why did you take her to your mother’s?’ he asked.

  ‘She wouldn’t go home. She’s a runaway, remember? I needed some time,’ said Berlin.

  ‘But Sonja knows you’ve found her, so why hasn’t Mortimer resurfaced?’ asked Snowe.

  Berlin glanced down at the river. She couldn’t afford to hesitate. This was the sixty-four thousand dollar question. She looked Snowe in the eye.

  ‘Because he’s done a runner,’ she said.

  He gave her a hard look. ‘I don’t believe it,’ he said.

  Berlin shrugged. ‘That’s what Sonja told me. I certainly haven’t seen hide nor hair of him. Have you?’

  ‘Why would he walk away from all that gear?’ asked Snowe.

  ‘Maybe he was on to you. Maybe he sent Princess out so he could take off while you were busy following her. You would nick Princess and Sonja and he would live to fight another day.’

  Snowe dismissed this suggestion with a flick of his hand.

  He would be a difficult man to sell a bill of goods.

  ‘No. Nothing has compromised this operation to date, and nothing will,’ he said.

  He was a true believer. The most dangerous kind.

  52

  Sonja waited in the shadows, just out of range of the bright lights of the petrol-station forecourt. It was late, business was slow. The attendant, securely locked inside his perspex box, was dozing between customers.

  An old Mondeo pulled in and stopped at one of the pumps. Perfect. No electronic locking mechanism. The scruffy young driver got out, yawned and began to fill up. He looked like a student. He stopped the pump at ten quid – strapped for cash, probably. Enough fuel to get him home.

  When he went to pay, Sonja flitted across the forecourt, ducked low behind the Mondeo, opened the door and reached inside. His mobile was on the passenger seat. When would these people learn? She grabbed the phone, shut the door with a quiet click and ran.

  Standing beneath the silent overhead rail line, Sonja waited for her call to be answered. Across the road she could see the flicker of Rita’s television, faint through the dirty windowpane. ‘Come on, come on, please answer,’ she muttered. She felt as if she’d spent her whole life chasing, pleading, running, hiding, waiting. Waiting.

  The sound of water on shingle drifted to her across the still night. The tide’s coming in, she thought. Easing the shore’s burden.

  At last her prayer was answered.

  ‘Were you asleep?’ she asked. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I know what we agreed. But I can’t do this any more.’

  A dog slunk out from behind a skip overflowing with rubbish, its eyes yellow in the moonlight. It stared at her as she listened.

  ‘I know!’ She took a deep breath and tried to keep her voice under control. ‘I know that. But it’s not easy. You understand. Please. I’m begging you. Meet me behind the petrol station.’

  She hung up, lacking the strength to argue any more. She tossed the mobile in the skip and went back to the petrol station. To wait.

  The dog trotted on.

  Berlin sat in the dark watching the sleeping child. Or rather, her backpack. Sweet salvation lay an arm’s length away.

  She still wanted to believe in Rolfey’s approach: the talking cure and a gradual reduction in morphine, so she could experience life without dependence. A normal life. Whatever that was. So many people seemed unable to let go of something, or someone. Even when it was killing them.

  She’d seen amputees, people who had lost a leg because of smoking, sitting outside the hospital attached to drips and still lighting up.

  What was Snowe’s weakness? Risk. He wasn’t oblivious to the gamble he was taking by leaving Princess with her. But he didn’t have any choice if he wanted to run the job his way. The hierarchy would never condone it.

  Snowe wasn’t interested in just taking half a kilo of smack off the street and putting a kid into care. He wanted the big score.

  He was relying on the assumption that she was an addict of a different order from the Sonjas of this world. Was it a reasonable assumption?

  If she took the heroin from the pack she was no better than the people who had put it there. Princess would wake up, there would be a struggle and she would hurt the kid, who would hate her.

  Why did she care?

  She didn’t even have to use the stuff. She could just offload it and use the money to start again. Or for someone to start again. It cast a new light on Sonja’s desperation to get Princess back. Sonja could pay off Bertie and Kennedy. Half a kilo of smack would be worth a small fortune on the street during the drought. It would be stepped on three or four times, with lactose, glucose, or even brick dust, before it reached the user.

  All at once Berlin was engulfed with pity for the terrible regime that mother and daughter endured. She swore to herself she would get them out before the shit-storm broke. It was surely coming.

  If Berlin could say she wanted to get clean, what right did she have to be sceptical of Sonja’s intentions?

  The fact that Sonja hadn’t mentioned the heroin.

  Snowe lay wide awake, staring at the ripples of light on the ceiling, reflections off the river. He’d spent nearly every penny of his salary on this tiny glass box in sight of the Tate Modern. The proximity to culture was his substitute for a proper life.

&nbs
p; He went over it again; he’d really had no choice but to leave Berlin and Princess at the hotel. It was either that or take Berlin into custody and put the child in care. Which would have put paid to his operation. He only needed to keep Berlin under wraps for about twelve hours, just enough time for him to get the paperwork and his team sorted.

  The main thing was that she was off the street and wouldn’t be picked up until it suited him.

  He switched on the light and made a call.

  ‘Snowe here. Any activity on that mobile?’ he asked when the call was answered.

  He listened.

  ‘Okay,’ he said, disappointed. ‘Let me know as soon as there is.’

  He hung up. He had to be patient. Give her some time to think it through. Inciting betrayal was a tricky business. Treachery could become a habit.

  He switched off the light.

  Berlin slid open the door and went out on the balcony, restless with doubt. From up here she could look out over the twinkling domain that was Silvertown. A world where, at night, crane gantries were transformed into soaring parapets and flyovers became magic paths of light in the sky.

  Everyone wanted the kid for the wrong reasons: Bertie and Kennedy, Sonja, Snowe. He was the worst somehow. He wanted to use her as bait.

  ‘So what do you want me to do?’ Berlin had demanded. ‘Tie her to a picket and smear her with blood to attract the predators?’

  ‘Unless you can think of a better way to apprehend the targets in flagrante,’ came his cold response.

  ‘You’re as bad as Cole,’ she’d muttered through clenched teeth, unable to shout in case Princess overheard. ‘She’s just a fucking kid.’

  He had been adamant.

  ‘Call Sonja and tell her you’re bringing Princess home tomorrow. I’ll see that Sonja is bailed once I have the other three locked up.’