My Bloody Valentine (Alastair Gunn) (23 page)

In each case, the courts had ruled leniently. The extremist had been radicalized by a manipulative elder, the hooligan’s brother had been disabled in a brutal attack perpetrated by the men he targeted and, however unsuccessful his attempt at smuggling might have been, the truck driver hadn’t taken any form of payment from the refugees he had managed to kill.

After reading up on every case, Hawkins wasn’t sure whether to be surprised that most of the former detainees had declined the Met’s offer of protection. Granted, the former prisoners were more likely than she was to understand the finer points of staying anywhere courtesy of the UK’s judicial system, and at no point was such a privilege likely to be luxurious. But surely it was better than being killed.

On the plus side, all but two had agreed to increased contact with the parole service, and the three who
had
ended up in protected accommodation left only the remaining twelve for the surveillance units to keep an eye on. Until the next batch of cons emerged, of course. That was likely to happen within days, which
made their pursuit of the one missing convict even more pressing.

Lucas Dean was high risk.

Until his brush with the law, Dean had run two illicit careers. Primarily, he dealt drugs, but as a sideline he’d also managed the interests of a local pimp, which basically meant keeping various sex slaves in line with drugs – a precarious operation at best. Sure enough, in May 2010, Dean had inadvertently killed a sixteen-year-old Slovakian girl called Jana Macek by injecting her with enough ketamine to floor a small horse, to stop her complaining about being forced to have sex with up to twenty men a day. That had earned him nine years.

According to his record, it became clear during the trial that Dean had acted under duress. The pimp had obviously reached him, though, because he refused a deal to testify against his employer, who walked. Instead Lucas entered a guilty plea, despite probable advice from his barrister to do nothing of the sort. At the time, Dean was just a few years older than his victim and was clearly petrified by what his former boss would do to him if and when he got out. According to court archives, Dean had been offered bail but refused it. These factors, in tandem with his demonstration of genuine remorse, had prompted the judge to shorten the standard sentence by a third; a term which then shed a further twelve months by the time the kid had re-joined society.

Since
his release, and now twenty-two, Dean had been placed in a halfway house. He’d also kept appointments like clockwork with his parole officer, whose notes depicted a defiant but basically misguided youngster with an honest desire to reform. Until two days ago, the consensus had been that Lucas’ parole would soon be signed off.

Then he’d disappeared.

As per procedure, the parole service had rung the alarm bell after two missed appointments, sending out notifications to local forces, including the Met, that Dean had scarpered. But nothing had come back.

Within a month of conditional release, most criminals – even the
compulsive
ones – had enough sense to stay in touch with the parole service. So Dean’s recent erratic conduct was definite cause for concern.

In fact, the kid’s haggard-looking parole officer had seemed oddly ambivalent when Hawkins and Maguire turned up at the house that morning, asking after Dean and divulging that he might have become a target for London’s latest serial psychopath. She’d taken it hard when Dean disappeared, having been convinced that, together, they’d progressed. But if the kid hadn’t left of his own accord, at least her faith in him hadn’t been misplaced.

She hadn’t known where Lucas spent his hours of freedom between meetings, but she did point them towards Stacey Bingham, a reformed drug addict also staying at the halfway house, with whom Dean had been
friends. After a round of Good Cop, Bad Cop, Stacey had given up some, hopefully, valuable information. She was adamant that Lucas hadn’t confided in her about any plans to abscond, but she knew he used to do most of his dealing on this section of the river. So it was worth an afternoon in the cold.

Except it was already starting to look more like evening, as Hawkins noted the stream of distant headlights now moving back and forth across Blackfriars Bridge. It wasn’t dark yet, but it wouldn’t be long until their target, if he showed, would be a lot harder to pick out.

To compensate, Hawkins had tied up as many resources as she could reasonably justify, bringing Sharpe and Yasir along to book-end their surveillance of Dean’s patch. She had positioned the two sergeants further along the river, just beyond the large viewing platform to her and Maguire’s left, in the hope that a small-time drug dealer might be less sensitive to the more congruous presence of two plain-clothed couples, rather than lone visitors. The four of them represented Hawkins’ full complement for now.

Todd had made some excuse when asked to join them about an unavoidable prior engagement, while Tanner hadn’t been seen since Hawkins’ confrontation with him. Of course, she’d had her suspicions, but the speed and arrogance with which he’d revealed his true intentions had still taken her by surprise. She’d been right about the coup; the only question mark was
whether Vaughn was as heavily involved as Tanner said.

For the moment, however, Hawkins had decided to keep the DI’s threat to herself, mostly because everyone on the team seemed seduced by Tanner’s effervescence. He had been carefully ingratiating himself from day one and, however devious it was, it appeared to have worked. All the guys, including Maguire and Vaughn, were enamoured. Tanner was bold, hungry and self-assured and, while Hawkins had half expected it, she’d neglected to prepare for his subsequent broadsiding. If she kicked up now, it would look like simple, demoralized backlash, and alert a potentially complicit Vaughn. In contrast, ignoring Tanner’s threat demonstrated a lack of intimidation on her part; plus, it gave her time to reassess the competition, a crucial benefit when his next move was difficult to predict. Patience felt like her best option for now.

But battle lines had definitely been drawn.

Steve Tanner wanted her job – now, if not sooner – and although she hoped he was bluffing about Vaughn’s collusion, perhaps her initial instincts about the DCS wanting to marshal Tanner past her were correct.

As for her challenger’s whereabouts, he was unlikely to be at home watching TV. He’d be out there working his own lines of inquiry, which, if his knack for revelation hadn’t abandoned him, he’d leave till the last minute to disclose. As senior investigating officer, Hawkins was at the significant disadvantage of having to
share new information with him, although, by storming off, Tanner had kept himself off the list of candidates for tonight’s investigation. So if they did ensnare Lucas Dean, at least Hawkins would get first crack at him.

As if in response, her mobile rang.

She dug out the phone to see Yasir’s number, and answered fast. ‘What’s up?’

‘Chief, it’s Amala.’

‘Good.’ Hawkins rolled her eyes at Mike, her head jigging to indicate that, as usual, the sergeant was taking time to state the obvious before saying anything of interest.

But her frustration dissipated with Yasir’s next statement.

‘I think Lucas Dean just turned up.’

They moved quickly out on to the main pathway, past skeletal trees, at a pace blending haste with touristy nonchalance.

Hawkins kept the line to Yasir open, plugging in her headphones as they moved. ‘What’s Dean’s position?’

‘There’s a group of them.’ Amala’s voice was scratchy through the earpiece. ‘Three girls and two guys, all IC3. They just passed us on their way towards the lookout point. Could definitely be him.’

‘Stay with them, but keep your distance,’ Hawkins instructed, mindful of Dean’s fugitive status. ‘If he realizes we’re watching, he’ll run.’

‘Okay.’ Yasir went on: ‘They’ve joined the queue at a
doughnut stall. It looks like the girls want food.’ There were a few seconds of silence before she spoke again. ‘Now the two guys are moving away, leaving the girls, same direction as before.’

Hawkins could see the viewing area now, forty yards ahead: a large protrusion jutting out from the South Bank into the Thames. A few random people stood here and there at the railings, taking in the panoramic views. ‘Where are they now?’

‘At the lookout, sitting down on one of the seats. I think they’re lighting up.’

Hawkins tried to pick up her pace. ‘Don’t approach them yet. We’re almost there.’

They rounded the final corner on to the viewing point, which opened out into a wide hexagonal space with sculpted lamp posts at intervals along the railings and benches grouped in sets of four a short distance from the edge.

Scanning the area, Hawkins picked out the two kids, on the seat nearest the back, facing away from the water. Both were now smoking cigarettes. She also caught sight of Sharpe and Yasir, standing under one of the trees twenty yards to the left, and immediately regretted her decision to pair the two up. Neither was doing a particularly convincing job of looking like one half of a couple out for a casual stroll, which probably meant the rumours about Aaron making a pass at Amala before Christmas were true. Aside from having a boyfriend, Amala thought Aaron was even creepier
than Hawkins did and had apparently said
no
in rather certain terms. Unfortunately, that tension was apparent in their body language, although perhaps it would come across as a lovers’ tiff. Amala gave her a discreet wave.

Hawkins turned her attention back to the boys. They seemed at ease, leaning back on the bench, looking at their phones and chatting, clearly unaware they were being watched. But she also realized that, if you described them, the two would be interchangeable: black, early twenties, skinny, with fashionable dark jeans and white trainers. Both wore puffy black coats and sweatshirts with the hoods up which buried their faces in shadow. She’d seen detailed mug shots of Lucas in his file but, without getting close or removing their hoods, it was impossible to say which, if either, was Dean.

‘Amala,’ she said into the phone, ‘which one of the hoodie brothers is Lucas? Red or Blue?’

‘Sorry, chief, your guess is as good as mine.’

‘Thought so.’ She spoke loud enough that Mike could hear. ‘Right, you two hang back for now. Let’s see if we can do this without any drama. If I want you to come in, I’ll put my hands in my pockets, okay?’

‘Understood.’

Hawkins ended the call and looked up at Mike. ‘Shall we go round and take in the view, dear?’

Maguire smiled, and they began moving along the outer edge of the area. As they went, Hawkins made another quick assessment of the scene. The three girls that had been with their targets were standing by the
food cart, eating doughnuts from small white bags. Beside them, intermittent human traffic moved back and forth along the river bank. Members of the public were dotted here and there around the lookout point: an old couple on one of the other benches, a small family with two kids near the railings, and some Japanese tourists taking pictures across the water of St Paul’s. The daylight was retreating faster now, and spits of rain were starting to fall.

Soon they were level with the bench where the two kids sat, and came to a halt near the tourists.

Maguire asked quietly, ‘What’s our play?’

Hawkins weighed her options. All four Met officers were plain-clothed, so the subtle method was an option: asking their suspects for a light, or for one of the men to take their picture, in the hope that a name might be casually drawn out. But if there were complications later on, something like that could easily come back to bite you in court. Neither could she see any useful way to employ Stop and Search. Even if this
was
Lucas Dean, she had no grounds to suspect him of terrorism or of carrying a concealed weapon, and any half-decent barrister would know that interrogating a member of the public without evidence of either contravened the police code of conduct. Technically, Dean had broken his parole conditions, but going in hard would put their subject off side immediately, and his cooperation may yet be critical. After all, they were here to
protect
Lucas Dean. Which meant the direct approach was best.

Even
if she did plan to employ
minor
subterfuge.

She took a deep breath. ‘Let’s go and introduce ourselves.’

They began moving towards the bench, coming in from the side. As they got within six feet, Hawkins picked up the small glances both men made in her direction as their personal space came under threat. Seconds later, they were face to face, and the two boys looked up.

‘Hi, Lucas.’ Hawkins glanced from one to the other, trying simultaneously to recognize Dean from his mug shot and to mask the fact she was still none the wiser about which he was. Unfortunately, both subjects reacted in the same way, eyes narrowing in the gloom beneath each hood while two sets of stoic body language gave no clues.

At last Red responded; an authentic urban tone. ‘What?’

Hawkins held up her badge, still addressing both. ‘We’re Met Police, but we aren’t here about your breach of parole.’

Blue joined in, his voice quieter. ‘Who you lookin’ for?’

Hawkins’ gaze flicked between the two boys as she struggled to maintain the façade. ‘You’re not in any trouble, Lucas. We’re here to help.’

‘Sorry, lady’ – Red took a drag – ‘you got your shit twisted. I’m Darren, this my boy Lester, so we can’t help you. Come on, bruv.’

Both
men stood.

Red flicked the half-finished cigarette away and put both hands in his coat pockets. Watching him, Hawkins copied his action, signalling for Yasir and Sharpe to join in. If this guy had a weapon, he’d be less likely to use it facing four officers rather than two.

Mike stood in their way. ‘Look, fellas, we’re here because you might be in danger, okay? Which one of you is Lucas?’

‘I told you,
cuz
,’ Red sneered, ‘there ain’t no
Lucas
.’

Both men looked around as Yasir and Sharpe joined the group, the four Met officers forming a semicircle around them. Hawkins saw Red’s eyes flick past them, along the promenade. Looking for a way out.