A Bitter Taste

by Annie Hauxwell

  She changed out of the suit and back into her own summer uniform: black jeans and a long-sleeved black T-shirt. She carefully wound the thin nylon scarf around her neck, inspected her boots and got down to business. She didn’t ever bother to put the kettle on.

  A week ago she had taken her first tentative steps in pursuit of a missing kid. Now the kid in question was sitting on her bed, but she couldn’t say she had ever really found her.

  Berlin sat down beside Princess, who looked at her, head cocked, expectant.

  ‘What?’ she said.

  ‘Where is it?’ asked Berlin.

  ‘Where’s what?’

  ‘The smack.’

  ‘I thought you had it,’ said Princess.

  ‘Give it a rest,’ said Berlin.

  ‘The ogre took it. He came back to the hotel when you were gone.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ said Berlin.

  ‘That fat prick took it,’ said Princess.

  ‘Bertie’s dead. He died belting you to get me to give it up.’

  Princess was suddenly animated.

  ‘But you didn’t,’ she said, accusingly.

  ‘Because I didn’t have it. Now for the last fucking time, where is it?’

  ‘It was Bertie, honestly! He was tricking Mr Kennedy. He had it all the time, but he wanted to pretend he didn’t so he could keep it all for himself.’

  Berlin didn’t know what to believe. This wasn’t unusual in her line of work. It was policy not to believe anything unless you had checked and double-checked it. She had overlooked these basics lately, and look where it had got her.

  ‘Okay,’ she snapped. ‘If that’s the way you want to play it, I’m going out.’

  She got up and strode towards the front door.

  Princess sprang off the bed.

  ‘What?’ she said. ‘You’re just going to leave me?’

  ‘If you’re not going to co-operate, you’re on your own.’ said Berlin. ‘Be gone by the time I get back.’ Berlin could see the kid was crushed.

  ‘I’ve got no money, nothing,’ she cried.

  ‘Tell someone who gives a shit. You’ve got half a kilo of heroin stashed somewhere,’ said Berlin. ‘Sell it.’

  Berlin made sure the door slammed as she left the flat. She went downstairs quickly, in case Princess followed her. Crossing the courtyard, she noticed that the trees were losing their withered leaves. They were pretending it was autumn so they could endure the searing heat of summer. Lying to themselves to survive.

  Bertie didn’t have the heroin. Kennedy certainly didn’t have it, and Berlin knew that Snowe didn’t either. Which left Princess. Snowe said the dope was in the backpack when Princess arrived at Love Motel. His source, whoever that was, had confirmed it.

  A couple of kids were riding their bikes down the street. They looked like sisters. Berlin stepped out in front of the one with trainer wheels.

  ‘Hello,’ she said.

  The kid stared at her. Don’t talk to strangers.

  Berlin walked over and dropped something into the woven plastic basket on her handlebars. The big sister circled, watchful. They rode off. The big sister glanced back over her shoulder, but Berlin had already gone.

  ‘Fuckin’ nutter,’ she said, then turned to her little sister. ‘You always get everything.’

  The little sister glanced in her basket and grinned.

  Around the corner, an officer watched the blinking cursor on his GPS. His offsider started the car and they pulled out. ‘Target on the move,’ he muttered into his radio.

  ‘Copy that,’ came Snowe’s reply, his voice distorted by static.

  The techie said that sunspots were playing havoc with the comms. It was a bloody nuisance and would affect the tracking device, too.

  ‘Stay well back,’ Snowe instructed through the crackling. ‘We might not be the only ones watching.’

  When Berlin walked back into the flat Princess sat up and quickly wiped away her tears.

  ‘You still here?’ Berlin said.

  The kid pouted, defiant. ‘You’ve only been gone ten minutes,’ she said. ‘Give us a chance.’ She slid off the bed and slung on her backpack.

  ‘Just a minute,’ said Berlin.

  ‘What?’ said Princess.

  ‘What about what you owe me?’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘All that room service.’

  Princess looked blank. ‘I haven’t got any money,’ she said.

  ‘I can’t let you go while you owe me,’ said Berlin. ‘You might do a runner. We’re talking about serious cash here.’

  ‘What’ll we do then?’ said Princess, uncertain.

  ‘We’ll have to come to an arrangement,’ said Berlin.

  77

  Kennedy was appalled when he opened his front door to Berlin and Princess.

  ‘What the fuck?’ whispered Kennedy. ‘You can’t be here. This is insane.’

  Berlin pushed past him. ‘I’ve missed you too,’ she said.

  Princess followed her into the house.

  Kennedy glanced up and down the street, then shut the door quietly. His mum was having a nap, his wife had taken her medication and was out for the count, and his other two kids were at his sister’s to give him a bit of a break.

  He was on compassionate leave after his terrible experience with Bertie. It was a polite term for suspension.

  He followed Berlin and Princess into the living room, where his little boy was in bed.

  Princess stared at the kid, surrounded by medical equipment, an oxygen mask covering his small, pinched face.

  ‘Are you a boy in a bubble?’ she asked, advancing on the pulsing machines, fascinated by the flickering LEDs.

  ‘In the kitchen,’ said Kennedy to Berlin, indicating a door off the living room. ‘Don’t touch anything,’ he warned Princess.

  Kennedy shut the kitchen door behind them.

  ‘There’s such a thing as a telephone, you know,’ he said.

  ‘Which you might not answer,’ said Berlin.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ said Kennedy. ‘I could be under surveillance. You’re taking a real risk.’

  ‘Snowe knows everything anyway,’ she said. She saw him flinch.

  ‘About Bertie?’

  ‘No. Not about Bertie,’ she said. ‘There’s no reason that should ever come out, is there? He doesn’t know I was there.’ It’s not really a lie, she thought. Snowe only knows Bertie had Princess at some point. He might have a well-founded suspicion I was there, but he can’t prove it.

  Kennedy looked baleful.

  ‘I’m not going to give you up,’ she insisted.

  He didn’t seem reassured.

  ‘Snowe brought Sonja in while I was at the station,’ said Kennedy, miserable. ‘Trying to put pressure on me.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And nothing. I haven’t been near her or spoken to her since you told me I was under investigation. He’ll turn over her place, but so what? He won’t find anything there, will he?’

  Berlin hadn’t got time to think about that.

  ‘Listen to me, Kennedy. Just listen.’

  Snowe stared at the photo of Princess that Burlington had sent Sonja. It bothered him. Something wasn’t right here. There had been no sign of Princess when the uniforms had arrived at Burlington’s in response to Kennedy’s call.

  Kennedy had denied she was there and suggested that Burlington could have already let her go, or had her at another location. Bullshit.

  CCTV from the Limehouse hotel and the surrounding area should place Burlington in the vicinity and confirm he had snatched Princess. But so what? What happened next? Did Kennedy and Burlington fall out over this move?

  Perhaps Kennedy took Princess, Burlington saw everything going pear-shaped, and in the grip of a pharmaceutical cocktail offed himself. Or not.

  The thing that was nagging at Snowe was that the next confirmed sighting of Princess was at Berlin’s flat, when she was brought in by Hurley’s team. Berlin refused to fill in t
he gaps.

  How did the kid get there?

  He put in a call to the lab.

  ‘If I do this, I want my cut,’ said Kennedy, defiant. ‘And Bertie’s. I have to have that money to keep all this afloat.’

  Berlin caught a glimpse of his desperation. A man struggling to keep his head above water in a drought. He’d had more than one reason to knock off Bertie.

  ‘Fifty per cent of nothing is nothing,’ said Berlin.

  ‘Don’t give me that,’ said Kennedy. ‘You’ve got the girl, so you’ve got the dope.’

  She wasn’t going to confirm or deny that. Doubt was her best friend in these circumstances.

  ‘You’re in a queue that includes Snowe,’ she said.

  ‘What Snowe really wants is Cole,’ argued Kennedy.

  ‘And you.’

  Kennedy shrugged. ‘We’ll see about that. But when Sonja gets Princess back, Cole will rise to the surface like the scum that he is and Snowe will nick him. We could hang on to the product. You and me. Everyone goes home happy.’

  ‘There’s only one problem with that picture, Kennedy,’ said Berlin. ‘Cole’s dead.’

  Kennedy’s relentless movement was stilled for a moment, then went into overdrive.

  ‘How did he die?’ said Kennedy.

  ‘Need to know,’ said Berlin. ‘You don’t need to.’

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ said Kennedy.

  ‘I’ve done a deal with Snowe,’ she said. ‘He’ll drop anything he has on you and put it all on Burlington.’

  ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘Because I asked him to,’ she said. Kennedy was slow, but not that slow. She saw his expression change.

  ‘He doesn’t know about Cole,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ said Berlin. ‘And we need to keep it that way, because the moment he finds out, he will renege on the deal. He’ll need to pull someone to justify his existence, and you’ll be handy.’

  ‘So what’s the deal?’

  ‘Snowe needs my co-operation. And I need yours. I want you to find out where they took Murat.’

  When they walked back into the living room, Princess was wearing the oxygen mask and Kennedy’s son was lying there giggling at her antics, his chest heaving with the effort.

  ‘What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?’ shouted Kennedy as he snatched off the mask and slipped it back over his son’s head.

  ‘I was just fuckin’ playing with him,’ said Princess, offended.

  Kennedy and Berlin looked at each other.

  ‘Do you think you can look after him without killing him?’ said Berlin. ‘It’s called babysitting. This is the arrangement.’

  Princess thought about it for a moment.

  ‘Okay,’ she said.

  ‘She’s my friend,’ wheezed Kennedy’s son.

  Kennedy looked doubtful.

  ‘Come on, Kennedy,’ said Berlin. ‘It’ll be fine.’

  Princess beamed.

  Kennedy smoothed the boy’s damp hair back from his brow. ‘I have to go out for a while,’ he said. ‘Mum will be up and about soon. Be a good boy.’

  He kissed his forehead.

  ‘I won’t be long,’ he said.

  78

  ‘Stop,’ commanded Berlin.

  Kennedy braked hard.

  The blast of a car horn behind them was echoed by each vehicle down the line. A storm of abuse followed.

  ‘Now what?’ said Kennedy.

  ‘Pull over,’ she said.

  They had driven down to Whitechapel in silence. The tension had been building inside Berlin and she couldn’t contain it any longer. There was no time for this, but she could think of nothing else.

  Kennedy edged the car up onto the narrow pavement, parked and put the ‘Police’ sign on the dashboard.

  The heat smacked Berlin in the face as she got out of the car.

  The waiting room was packed, the air sour with desperation. Rolfey’s receptionist took one look at Berlin and shook her head.

  ‘You missed your appointment; you have to go to the back of the queue,’ she said.

  ‘It’s an emergency,’ said Berlin.

  There was a general restive muttering from the impatient throng. They all had a fucking emergency.

  ‘I’m not arguing with you,’ said the receptionist.

  Berlin looked at Kennedy.

  He took his badge out of his pocket and displayed it around the waiting room. There was a stampede for the door.

  Berlin surveyed the empty chairs.

  ‘Looks like I’m next,’ she said.

  *

  Rolfey stood up when Berlin walked into his office with Kennedy.

  ‘What’s this?’ he said.

  ‘This is Detective Sergeant Kennedy,’ she said.

  Rolfey took a step back. He took another, until his back was literally to the wall.

  Berlin was surprised, but she didn’t have the time to string it out and see where it led.

  ‘Kennedy’s here to guarantee my personal safety,’ she said. ‘I need a script.’

  Rolfey sat down before he fell.

  A small fan on his desk was limply circulating the stale air.

  Berlin noticed dark patches in the armpits of Rolfey’s denim shirt. The computer mouse slipped in his damp fingers as he clicked through to her file.

  The printer whirred and the script emerged. Rolfey snatched it out of the tray, signed it and thrust it at Berlin.

  ‘I don’t know what’s going on here, but I must say I don’t app­reciate these standover tactics,’ he said, with a vehemence that surprised her.

  ‘Me neither, mate,’ said Kennedy, as he followed Berlin out of the clinic.

  Kennedy went back to the car and Berlin went into the chemist.

  When the pharmacist handed her just one cap Berlin realised that Rolfey had got his own back. It served her right. She downed it on the spot. Just the act of swallowing it dampened the anxiety that threatened to envelop her. She had to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

  Kennedy was leaning on the car when she emerged. He gave her a look but kept quiet. He was in no position to judge.

  ‘Okay, let’s go,’ she said as she walked past him.

  He followed her down the road. They didn’t have far to go.

  *

  Berlin hung back among the listless horde waiting in reception at the Royal London Hospital. Half of them seemed to be there just to escape the heat.

  The seven men who met in the Feathers Tavern in 1740 to found an infirmary for the poor would have been astonished by the soaring blue towers of medical technology.

  But they would have been less surprised by the clutch of elderly Bangladeshi ladies swathed in bright cotton who sat in a row in the lofty foyer, knitting and chatting.

  Nor would they have baulked at the rumour that the mortuary in Newark Street was overflowing with pensioners who had failed to follow the advice to stay well hydrated. Corpses were being shipped to Surrey. The sealed, airless homes of the elderly were ovens. Afraid to leave their doors and windows open, they were cooked by fear.

  Berlin watched Kennedy at the counter. The clerk checked her computer, spoke without looking up, and Kennedy moved off in the direction of the lifts. Berlin followed.

  They didn’t speak in the crowded elevator. When Kennedy got out, so did Berlin. He hesitated, looked left and right, then proceeded to the nurses’ station.

  Berlin sat down on a chair in the small space off the corridor, which was equipped with a water cooler and soft chairs for friends and family enduring an anxious wait. She picked up a magazine.

  Kennedy walked past without looking at her. His footsteps receded down the corridor. A few moments later another set of footsteps approached.

  Berlin peered intently at the two-page spread on Posh and Becks. A uniformed officer strode past, an automatic weapon slung across his chest. She heard the ping as he pressed the button to call the lift and then his voice addressing the nurse.

&nbs
p; ‘I’m off to the canteen,’ he said. ‘Do you want anything?’

  Berlin reflected that Londoners had become inured to the sight of heavily armed officers hanging around in public buildings having cups of tea. Even in hospitals. It was a cosy look.

  As soon as she heard the lift doors close, she dropped the magazine. She looked along the corridor. About halfway down was an empty chair. Kennedy stood beside it, about to push open the door. He looked up, gave her a reassuring nod, then stepped inside. She sat down again.

  Kennedy closed the door behind him. It sealed with a gentle sigh. He gazed around the dimly lit room. The only sounds came from a bank of humming monitors and the regular squeal of a ventilator. He approached Murat Demir, struggling to control his nervous tremor. The idea was that the moment the bloke opened his eyes, Kennedy would question him about the night Kylie Steyne was murdered.

  In theory Kennedy was still assigned to the case and entitled to interview Murat. He hadn’t been formally suspended. If he obtained useful information nobody would be bothered by how he got it. Berlin was convinced that Murat had seen the perpetrator. They needed a description.

  Even if Murat couldn’t give one – it was dark under the canal bridge – at the very least he might be able to confirm someone else murdered Kylie. Not Berlin. If Murat died, Kennedy would have his contemporaneous notes of the interview, which would save her bacon. In return, she would save his by keeping quiet on the Bertie thing.

  On the other hand, if Kennedy got a description then he could go back to work with a win under his belt, and set about finding the real killer.

  After talking to Murat he would just let him drift back to the Land of Nod. No one would be any the wiser. The armed officer guarding him would just be grateful for the break. Of course, Murat could just tell him to go to hell, although Berlin seemed to think that doped up he would be more malleable. She should know.

  Sweat trickled down Kennedy’s forehead and his glasses slipped down his nose.

  ‘Pssst. Mate, wake up,’ he said, giving Murat’s arm a squeeze. No response. He shook him and leant closer. ‘Murat Demir. Come on, wakey-wakey.’

  Intent on his task, he didn’t notice the door open until the light from the corridor spilled onto the bed.