The traffic lights ahead turned red. He glanced over his shoulder at Berlin.
‘The toxicology on Billy just came through,’ he said. ‘It was an overdose of Special K. No sign of a struggle. Definitely self-administered.’
‘Where did he get the cash?’ she said.
‘Maybe someone made a generous donation,’ he said.
‘Yeah,’ said Berlin. ‘Maybe.’
64
Sonja sat at her table staring at her phone. She waited for a call or for someone to come.
Her fear was so great that she felt one more shock, no matter how small, could finish her. She would fracture and disintegrate into a thousand tiny fragments.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men would never put Sonja together again.
An awful vision was seared into her brain: a photo of Princess had been sent to her phone. Her daughter was bound and gagged, her eyes wide with terror. Did they have Berlin too?
Paralysed, she sat and waited. Someone would call. Someone would knock.
Bertie’s front door was on the latch. A note pinned on it read Gone to the shops. Back in five minutes, love Mum. The ink was faded, the paper weathered. The note had been there a lot longer than five minutes.
Berlin gave Kennedy a nudge in the back with the gun and he pushed open the door. The minute they stepped into the hall they were assailed by the smell.
‘Jesus Christ,’ said Kennedy. ‘Bertie?’ he called.
‘Up here,’ came the muffled response.
Towering mounds of newspapers and milk cartons lined the walls, forming a tunnel that had to be negotiated with care.
Dank gloom swarmed in as they filed up the stairs. The reek of decay grew as they reached the first landing. Berlin heard the skittering of rats in the walls. Every window upstairs was sealed behind mountains of old handbags, overcoats and clothes. Hoarders.
A door on the small landing stood ajar.
Kennedy hesitated. Berlin pushed him forwards.
Kennedy’s hand went to his mouth as he pushed the door wider. The stench hit Berlin like a punch in the guts.
A single bed against one wall was heaped with blankets and covered with sheets of thick plastic.
‘I’m in here,’ came Bertie’s voice from somewhere above them.
They backed away from the door, crossed the landing and took the final three stairs to the top of the house. Kennedy entered the attic first. The dirty skylight was closed, bathing the room with a yellow stain.
‘You took your time,’ said Bertie.
Berlin was right behind him.
Princess was gagged and tied to a kitchen chair. Bertie was pointing a sawn-off shotgun at her head. Berlin could see the stock was slick with sweat.
Bertie didn’t seem surprised to see her.
The floor was littered with empty blister packs of medication and bottles of cough syrup.
‘Give him the gun,’ Bertie ordered Berlin. ‘And get over there against that wall.’
She offered Kennedy the Glock. He took it without looking at her. He was staring at Bertie with loathing and horror. Berlin went and stood where she was told.
Bertie relaxed once Kennedy had the gun and Berlin had backed off. He took a step away from Princess.
‘You can let the kid go now, Bertie,’ said Kennedy. ‘Then we can all go downstairs.’
‘Mum likes company,’ said Bertie, with a chuckle.
The silence that followed was broken by the scrabbling of tiny claws across the sheets of plastic in the room below. Berlin and Kennedy stared at the floor, their eyes following the sound.
Bertie had his mum’s body tucked up down there.
‘Let the kid go, Bertie,’ said Kennedy.
‘No,’ said Bertie, and cocked the shotgun.
Berlin watched the blood drain from Kennedy’s face.
Princess began rocking back and forth on the chair, rolling her head, struggling to spit out the gag.
Berlin tried to send a message with her eyes. It’s okay. Take it easy. Calm down. Don’t provoke him. Bertie was on the shortest of fuses.
Kennedy took a step towards Princess.
‘Where is the fucking dope?’ said Bertie.
‘In the kid’s pack, like always,’ said Kennedy.
‘No, it isn’t!’ shouted Bertie, waving the shotgun about. His finger was still on the trigger.
He reached down, snatched Princess’s backpack from the floor and up-ended it. Stuff flew everywhere: pens, books, beads, feathers, stones, charms, an old lipstick and eye makeup, dirty hankies. But no package.
Bertie pointed the shotgun at Berlin.
‘Where is it, you cunt?’ he demanded.
Berlin tried to find her voice, but her tongue felt dry and swollen, stuck to the roof of her mouth. She swallowed hard and struggled to think of something to say.
‘I haven’t got it. Do you think I would be standing here if I had half a key of smack?’ she said.
‘Yes, I think you would,’ said Bertie. He swung around and smacked Princess hard with the back of his meaty hand. Her chair wobbled with the impact, but didn’t tip over.
Berlin flinched, as if the blow had struck her.
‘Bertie! No. Not the kid,’ shouted Kennedy.
‘Shut up, you fucking girl’s blouse,’ sneered Bertie.
Kennedy was shaking so much Berlin thought he might fall down.
‘We could belt her all we like,’ said Bertie, indicating Berlin. ‘She would never give it up. But I’m guessing she’s sentimental about this little tacker.’ He swung again and caught Princess full in the face.
Blood began pouring from the kid’s nose and soaking into the gag in her mouth. She struggled to breathe. Berlin felt something inside her snap and she lunged across the room.
But Kennedy was closer. He raised the Glock, shoved it under Bertie’s chin, and fired.
65
Snowe cursed himself for the umpteenth time. Berlin and Princess were in the wind and he had no damn idea where. The housekeeper at the hotel had told him the room had been a mess; her description was consistent with a struggle, which was inconsistent with the kid and Berlin taking off together.
That was bad enough. But now Berlin had been involved in what was being described by the brass as a ‘debacle’ and as a result he was here, instead of doing his job. As he approached Thames House he gazed up at the floodlit figures of St George and Britannia. They protected the denizens of this grey building, who in turn protected the wilful inhabitants of the British Isles; no one would protect him.
His instructions were to ‘negotiate a positive outcome for the commission’. The Whitechapel incident had been triggered by a sighting of his CHIS, so it was down to him. He had no idea why she was there; it involved the family who had alleged she was stalking them. But nevertheless he had to deliver a solution that would satisfy the competing agendas of all the so-called stakeholders; every agency and their dog were involved.
He slipped off his shoes and stepped into the explosives detector. He didn’t understand how Princess could have been snatched from the hotel. No one knew she was there. He hadn’t logged it or mentioned it in any email or verbal briefing.
If Berlin had told someone, it wouldn’t be anyone she knew was a threat. Unless she had staged the struggle to throw him off. That didn’t make sense. She could have just taken the heroin and left the child.
He finally made it through the interminable layers of security and slipped his shoes back on, then took a seat in a vestibule, as directed.
After a while, a door opened. A uniformed officer of the Metropolitan Police, a sergeant, emerged. He practically crept past Snowe; head down, shoulders slumped. Snowe glanced at the name on the man’s visitor’s pass: Harvinder Pannu. It didn’t ring any bells.
The tall, austere figure who had shown Pannu out beckoned Snowe and stood aside to usher him into the conference room.
The men and women at the table ignored him, murmuring among themselves, ma
king notes, texting on smartphones. Some were dressed for dinner, some were in tracksuits. All had been dragged out of their clubs or gyms or armchairs to form a committee. An ad hoc committee: it would never be given a title or have its deliberations minuted.
Border protection, customs and excise, SO15, MI5, MI6, the mayor’s office and, of course, the Met. Task forces, command units, operational teams, directorates, advisers. Uncle Tom Cobley and all with a single aim: to manage the fallout from another bloody cock-up in policing the capital.
An officer had died and another was wounded; the families were screaming blue murder. Two women, one a doctor, the other a nurse working at the Royal London, both suspected terrorists, were dead. Londoners were asking if they were safe.
An abortive raid had been undertaken on the spur of the moment without a proper risk assessment; a team had gone in without intel on the address or its occupants – not that there was any intel, anyway; there had been miscommunication at every level of command.
A representative of the political wing of a Kurdish organisation had accused the British government of carrying out assassinations at the behest of the Turkish government.
MPs were already rising to ask what the enormous counter-terrorism budget was being spent on. If the apartment had been booby-trapped the whole of Whitechapel could have been blown sky-high.
They had to get ahead of the news cycle.
Snowe cleared his throat. His inquisitors looked up.
No one smiled.
66
‘I’d better call this in before the neighbours do,’ said Kennedy. ‘You should make yourselves scarce.’
Berlin extricated herself from Princess and turned her towards the door. But the kid resisted. She wouldn’t leave without her stuff.
Berlin crouched down and swept it all into the backpack. Princess took it from her and slipped it on. It was her security blanket. And it contained the things in her chaotic existence that she could rely on. Things that were truly hers, that were worthless to anyone else, that nobody would want to take from her. Not the heroin.
‘The heat does funny things to people,’ said Kennedy.
He wiped the gun down carefully, placed it in Bertie’s grip, then let it slide to the floor, where it lay beside the shotgun he’d dropped as he fell. Kennedy righted the chair and scooped up the plastic ties that had held Princess.
He would remove all traces of their presence at the scene.
‘No one knew what a seriously ill man he was,’ he murmured.
When the worm turns, it really turns, thought Berlin.
‘What about the Glock?’ she asked.
‘It was his anyway,’ said Kennedy. ‘Met issue. Bertie gave it to Mortimer.’ He reached for his mobile.
Berlin realised he had stopped trembling. He was calm, in charge. She caught a glimpse of the capable officer.
Kennedy was waiting for his call to be answered.
‘There’s never a policeman around when you want one,’ he said.
He glanced down, startled, as Princess touched his hand in a mute gesture of thanks. Removing his blood-spattered glasses, he cleaned them on his shirt, slipped them back on and smiled at her. To Berlin he said, ‘I’m sorry.’
Not as sorry as you will be, she thought.
The air outside seemed sweet after the stench of the charnel house, but Berlin could still detect the odour of death clinging to their clothes.
Doors and windows were open to expel the heat of the day, the lives inside spilling onto the street; screams and cries, shouts and gunshots that could come from the TV. Or not.
Princess’s nose had stopped bleeding, but her cotton top was dark with it. The kid was docile, compliant. In shock.
‘His mum was wrapped in plastic,’ she said.
‘Come on,’ said Berlin.
Princess took her hand and gripped it.
Berlin gripped back.
Even those who stood in doorways scanning for soft targets turned away from the woman and child as they moved through the night. Menace went with them.
They walked on in silence, each resigned to a solitary fate that would be dogged by violence.
When they finally reached Berlin’s flat in Bethnal Green, she circled the block, just in case. It was very unlikely the police would be waiting for her. Kennedy had said his boss hadn’t issued a warrant yet. Anyway, she and the kid were both shattered and had nowhere else to go.
She didn’t turn on the lights in the flat, just flung open every window and poured herself a very large Scotch with a shaking hand. Gestures to celebrate the fact that they were still alive. It had been a close call for the kid.
The Scotch was also a substitute for something stronger. She had missed yet another appointment with Rolfey. The small voice reminding her she had run out of caps would soon turn into a roar.
She stripped off and wrapped herself in her dressing-gown. She ran a bath for Princess and gave her an old shirt to wear as a nightie. She stuffed all their clothes into a large bin bag and tossed it under the sink. The kid didn’t ask why.
When it was Berlin’s turn for the bath, she took the bottle of Scotch with her and lay in the tepid water for a long time in a bid to dissolve the anxiety scrambling her brain and the pain plaguing her body. By the time she got out, Princess was asleep on the couch.
She stood at the open window for a moment and wondered if it would ever rain again. The air itself was parched. Even the weeds that grew between the bricks had withered as the mortar shrank and fell. London sighed and the city’s crevices yawned as the moisture evaporated from her foundations.
Berlin lay down and yielded to desolation, slipping into the rifts between her past and her future.
36˚C
67
The flat light before dawn barely penetrated the thick glass of the small, square window high in the corner of the interview room.
Kennedy’s paper suit was itchy. He’d already been grilled by two blokes from Professional Standards, and now Snowe was sitting on the other side of the table. They were letting him have a go.
Snowe’s cold, clipped tone couldn’t conceal the anxiety in his eyes. Kennedy knew all the signs.
‘Why did DCI Burlington initiate a request for firearms officers to respond to any sighting of Catherine Berlin?’ asked Snowe.
‘I assume he believed she was armed.’
‘It wasn’t his case,’ said Snowe.
Kennedy shrugged. ‘Is this going to take long?’ he asked. ‘I’m a bit shaken up, you know. My mate blew his head off in front of me only hours ago.’
‘Why do you think he did that?’
‘What? Involved armed officers, or topped himself?’
‘Involved armed officers,’ said Snowe.
‘I’ve no idea,’ said Kennedy. ‘He’d known Jock McGiven a long time.’
‘And if his death was suicide, why would he do that?’
‘He’d just gone off on stress leave, under the cloud of an inquiry,’ said Kennedy. ‘I went to check up on him, concerned about his state of mind, and he did it right in front of me, before I could stop him.’
‘My understanding was that the raid on the apartment in Whitechapel was triggered by an anonymous call,’ said Snowe.
‘Anonymous?’ echoed Kennedy. ‘Then there was the death of his mother,’ he added. ‘To whom he was very attached. As evidenced by his retention of her remains.’
‘And don’t forget the difficulty of feeding his habit during the drought,’ said Snowe.
Kennedy affected shock.
‘Let’s talk about the Glock,’ said Snowe.
‘What about it?’ said Kennedy.
‘It had been issued to DCI Burlington,’ said Snowe.
‘So I believe,’ said Kennedy.
‘A bullet from it was dug out of the wall at the residence of Catherine Berlin’s mother,’ said Snowe.
‘Is that right?’ said Kennedy.
‘What was his interest in Berlin?’ persisted Snowe.
‘He wasn’t working any case involving her. Your boss Hurley was running the Steyne investigation. Why didn’t Bertie tell him about his contact with Commander McGiven?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Kennedy. ‘He didn’t discuss it with me, or of course I would have informed DCI Hurley.’
Kennedy knew that the direction of the interview depended on whether Snowe trusted Berlin. If he suspected she had warned Kennedy about Snowe’s investigation, or that Kennedy had warned her she was a suspect in the Steyne murder, they were both stuffed.
Snowe opened a file and took out a sheaf of photos. They were long-range shots of Bertie and Kennedy leaving Sonja’s.
‘Who took these?’ said Kennedy, feigning surprise.
‘Tell me what you were doing,’ said Snowe.
‘You know what we were doing,’ said Kennedy. ‘It’s no secret. You can check the logs; they’re all up to date. We were running a job on Cole Mortimer so we kept an eye on his wife. De facto, I should say. The question is, why were you watching us?’
Attack is the best form of defence.
‘Where is Cole Mortimer?’ asked Snowe.
‘If I knew that I’d have him in custody,’ said Kennedy.
‘Did you know Burlington had the child?’
Kennedy sensed his tongue swelling in his mouth. He wanted to spit it out. He wondered how the fuck Snowe knew that.
Snowe’s next question came hard and fast.
‘Did you murder Burlington in order to cut him out of a heroin deal?’ he barked.
Kennedy felt the universe wobble.
‘Jesus Christ,’ he yelled, and stood up. ‘What is this?’ He paced the room, shouting at Snowe, making sure the camera caught his reaction and every word.
‘Am I under caution?’ he stormed. ‘No! I’m talking to you out of professional courtesy. Now you’re telling me I’ve been under investigation and you’re making wild fucking accusations about a dead man who can’t defend himself! Fuck off.’
‘I’m on to you, Kennedy. So sit down,’ said Snowe.
Kennedy hesitated, then sat down. ‘This is bollocks,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was transferred to the Kylie Steyne murder and Berlin is a suspect. That doesn’t have anything to do with Burlington, Cole Mortimer or drugs.’
A Bitter Taste Page 18