Team Spirit (Special Crime Unit Book 1) (36 page)

‘Hey,’
he said.

‘What
time is it?’ she wheezed, furious that it was taking so long to get her voice
working properly.

‘Half
sevenish. Lucia should be here soon.’

A
dark thing slithered over her mind, clinging for a moment like oil, and then
was gone. ‘I had a dream.’

‘Mmm?’

‘A
nightmare. I woke up. Somebody... Was that you?’

‘Last
night.’

‘When?’

‘Midnight,
bit after.’ He yawned.

‘How
come?’

‘I
sat in for Lucia. She had a date.’

‘A
date?’

She’d
mustered a croak, but it couldn’t convey expression and he misinterpreted her
reaction. ‘Long standing,’ he said.

‘Thanks.’

‘What
for?’

She
didn’t answer him, but smiled fleetingly and turned a hand palm upwards. He
drew his chair nearer and took it, his free arm resting lightly on the bed.

Nina
said, ‘You looked after me.’

‘You’re
my wife.’

‘Finally
he realises it.’ She smiled again, the only method she could be sure of to try
and show him there was no malice intended. Her arm ached from the IVs and she
was hungry. Nil by mouth was getting to be a pain somewhere else.

‘Give
me the chance,’ he said, strained, ‘and I’ll always - ’

‘I’m
not getting at you.’

‘I
was off my head,’ Paul rambled. ‘She’s... Anyway, I made a vow to take care of
you. Wouldn’t blame you if you never forgave me.’

She
sighed and squeezed his hand, exhilarated to feel a trace of real power
returning to her grip. ‘I don’t know,’ she said.

He
waited.

‘Had
a lot of time to think, lying here.’

‘You’ve
been asleep.’

‘You
reckon.’ She grinned and closed her eyes. ‘Nothing profound; all I’ve figured
out is I’ve got a lot more thinking still to do.’

‘Yeah,’
he said, looking at the floor.

‘It
can wait till I get out of here.’ She squeezed again. ‘But I need time. It’s
not just us I’ve got to sort out. Don’t forget, there’s...’

She
broke off and tried to swallow. Feeling her shiver, he began to stroke her,
soothingly, with his hand on the bed.

‘There’s
Porter,’ she said, another surge of triumph as she pronounced the name of her
nemesis. ‘Still got to decide what to do about him.’

Paul
frowned. She didn’t know what he thought she meant by the remark. She wasn’t
sure herself.

She
went on, ‘There’s this Job rehab place. Sophia spent a week there once after
she got knocked down by a stolen car. She’s going to talk to Welfare Services
about getting me in there. You know, convalesce. I think we need some time
apart.’

‘We’ve
spent enough time apart lately.’

‘I
mean apart, not separate. Not together-apart. Just some breathing space.’

He
nodded glumly. ‘Where?’

‘Reading.’
She saw his expression and added quickly, ‘M25 to the M4, hour and a half. You
can come and visit me at weekends.’

‘Only
weekends?’

‘Yeah,’
she smiled, ‘’cause during the week you’re going to be camped out in the Job
Centre till they’re so fucking sick of the sight of you they
have
to find you some work.’

He
held her gaze, stern. ‘Don’t.’

‘What?’

‘Say
“fucking”,’ he mumbled.

‘Chance’d
be a fine thing.’ Her awareness shifted down her battered body, feeling a firm
pressure: Paul’s clenched fist. ‘Mind where you’ve got your hand.’

He
looked at it. ‘What, here?’

‘Mm-hmm.’

‘Sorry,’
he said anxiously. ‘Does it hurt?’

Surprised,
she realised it didn’t. Lucia had looked up the weapon, the Bowie knife,
tactlessly told her the damage it could do, its extent beneath the entry wound.
She’d cried tears of panic, begging to be told her precious ovaries hadn’t been
harmed. On the consultant’s next ward round, he’d assured her they were intact,
deep and safe within her body. Suddenly she felt indestructible.

‘Now?’

‘Eh?’
She could feel a soft, back and forth movement, a light pressure. ‘Oh.’

‘Doesn’t
hurt?’

‘Not
much.’

She
tried to lift her head to confirm that Paul really was doing what she thought
he was doing, but it was still too painful. Far better just to lie there, to
concentrate on the nicer feelings, to let... to let...

‘You
mad bastard,’ she gasped. ‘If I come, I’ll burst my stitches.’

Aghast,
she felt him stop. Her arm weighed a ton as she heaved it across herself and
pressed it on top of his, the searing spots along the length of her body
marking where the injuries were. But not for any amount of pain, now, would she
deny them this moment. She was going away, but they both understood that she
could not have gone knowing her husband’s last sex had been adulterous.

Nina’s
mute cry of delicious agony was laced with triumph. For the first time in
months, she and Paul were on the same wavelength.

Thursday

No sooner had
Sophia got her team in position in Ladywell Road than Michael Quaife put in an
appearance.

‘We’re
not ready.’ The terse male voice came over the radio from the green BMW with
tinted windows parked in front of Sophia’s Saab. It contained Sergeant Rodney
Gough and three heavily armed PCs from SCO19. Helplessly, Sophia and Kim
watched Quaife, in camouflage jacket and jeans, close the gate of number 289
and head towards them. They ducked down in their seats. He walked by without
stopping.

‘Shit,’
Kim breathed.

‘Beadle
from OP.’ Sandra Jones, coming to the end of her all-night vigil in a flat
opposite, sounded tired and irritable. The flat was unoccupied and she’d had
just herself and a thermos flask for company, no friendly householder
delivering tea and sandwiches at regular intervals.

‘Go
ahead, Sandra,’ Sophia said, grabbing the radio as she sat up.

‘That
was hairy, guv,’ Sandra remarked. The radios were switched to talk-through and
she‘d have heard what had happened. ‘Not to worry too much, though. He didn’t
look like a bloke about to up sticks and bugger off into the bush.’

‘Any
thoughts on where he might be going?’

‘There’s
a corner shop five minutes down the road opens at six,’ Sandra said. ‘Pound to
a penny he’s just nipped out for a paper.’

‘Do
you copy that, Sarge?’ Sophia asked Gough.

‘Got
it, ma’am. If DC Jones is right, we’d much prefer to take him on the way back.
With any luck he’ll have at least one hand full.’

‘With
luck. Otherwise we’ll have to wait until he comes back from wherever he’s off
to.’

‘Who’s
paying for the overtime again?’ Gough wondered.

But
Sandra was right. Kim was the first to spot him, climbing back up the hill. She
pointed to Sophia’s wing mirror. The DCI nodded, checked, and warned everyone
by radio.

The
next few moments ran like a silent movie. Breath held, they watched Michael
Quaife appear in their field of vision and walk past without slowing or showing
any other sign he was aware of them. He carried a loaf of bread, a carton of
milk and
The Sun
.
Reaching the house, he turned and disappeared through the gate.

Kim
watched the BMW’s rear doors swing open and the SCO19 men in their navy blue
flak helmets get out, radio earpieces in their ears, Heckler and Koch carbines
in hand, holsters on their belts open with Glock handguns at the ready. They
ran lightly to the gate, two hanging back, two either side, one covering while
the other pivoted inwards, rifle aimed. He nodded, then dipped through, his
colleague following him.

For
a moment that seemed longer than it was, nothing happened.

Kim
sat up and opened her door.

‘Stay,’ Sophia snapped. ‘Wait for the - ’

Out
of the corner of her eye, movement. Quaife had just appeared at the top of the
wall. How he’d evaded the firearms men, she didn’t know. What she did know was
that Kim couldn’t see him from her side. He vaulted the railing, landing right
next to the man Gough had positioned there for just that eventuality and
surprising him with a rabbit punch. He crossed the pavement and ducked between
two parked cars. Gough stepped out to intercept him.

In the empty flat,
Sandra was a helpless spectator. She could see what those on the ground
couldn’t, the woody old buddleia in the basement garden up whose twisted
branches Quaife had swarmed. By the time she’d got on the radio to warn them he
was crossing the road, sprinting towards Kim’s half open door.

He saw her face and
veered straight for her, oblivious to Gough’s shotgun trained on him, oblivious
to the two PCs who’d now assumed firing positions behind him. Kim froze, half out
of the car, one foot on the ground. He still had his groceries but now there
was something else in his hand, something that glinted. She croaked a warning,
hoping Gough could hear her.

‘Armed
police!’ the shout came, enunciated clearly and firmly. ‘Stop or we
will
shoot you.’

Quaife
came level with the door, staring with utter hatred into her eyes, and hurled
the carton into the gap. It struck the frame and burst with a bang, showering
Kim with milk. She screamed. It was an involuntary reaction, but she would
regret it all her life.

The
morning exploded with noise as the SCO19 men opened fire. Quaife’s back erupted
crimson in four places and he was thrown forward, his face striking the tarmac
with a clear, sickening smack. The knife skittered and disappeared under a
parked car.

How
long Kim remained in her foetal crouch she didn’t know, but eventually she
uncoiled at the touch of a hand on her shoulder. Sophia frowned down at her.

‘That
wasn’t wise.’

‘I
didn’t mean to yell out! They wouldn’t’ve fired if I...’ She peered
questioningly up at the DCI. ‘Is...?’

‘Yes,’
Sophia said. ‘Quaife’s dead.’

Allowing
herself to be helped back up onto the seat, Kim registered the unnatural quiet.
Even the birds seemed cowed. The only distinct sound, over the constant London
hum, was the approaching wail of an ambulance siren.

For a few reasons,
Anne White was starting to wonder if transferring to the Film Unit was the
worst career move she’d ever made. Of course, she told herself yet again as she
pulled off Blackfriars Road and rolled down the ramp into the subterranean car
park, it was nothing more than coincidence that Nina had been attacked the
moment she’d left the team, nor was what had happened to Lucky her fault. But
she couldn’t shake the irrational feeling that she should be back at Croydon,
hands on,
doing
something. The reports she got from Zoltan when he dragged himself home late
every evening, too tired to go into much detail, just left her feeling stifled,
frustrated, stuck on the outside.

She
pushed the button for the lift and a couple of office workers joined her for
the wait. They rode up in silence. That was another thing. The Film Unit were
the only coppers in the building and she had no idea what her fellow passengers
did, not did she have any particular desire to find out. She missed the
comradeship, the shared sense of mission and purpose that buzzed through a
police station in the early morning and at shift changes. This was the chance
to put her acquired skills to new use, from Special Crime to liaising with
filmmakers and TV producers, present the Met as a friendly piece of the London
scene. As yet, it didn’t seem like enough.

The
others worked on floors below hers and she was the only one who got off on the
ninth. Almost as soon as she’d swiped her keycard to enter her new team’s
offices she ran into the third reason for her regret. Sergeant Lee Chivers was
one of those people who are convinced tales of his and his wife’s adventures in
re-tiling their fireplace or researching fortnights in Cornwall with the camper
van are as riveting to everyone else as to himself. He’d been promoted and
transferred in at the same time as Anne, one of the unit’s two previous
sergeants having been compelled to resign due to leukaemia, coincidentally
three weeks after the other had retired. As such the unit had a backlog, and
Lee and Anne were more or less training themselves, operations manuals and
contact lists and notebooks spread out across their desks, which they’d pushed
together in a corner for the purpose. Mind-numbing as their combined project
was, it was made more so by Lee’s apparently limitless fund of banal stories.

That
aside, he had the ideal CV for the Film Unit, his previous posting having been
with Surrey Police, piloting a BMW traffic car out of Guildford nick. Anne
hoped the producers and movie scouts and the respective film officers of the
thirty-two London borough councils would be able to handle Lee with the same
forbearance she felt she was managing.

‘Morning!’
he said, his pale, round-cheeked southern peasant face blithe and cheerful as
always. ‘Early start?’

‘You
and me both,’ Anne said and then added, instantly regretting it in case it
triggered an anecdote, ‘Couldn’t sleep much.’

‘Cuppa?
That’ll get you going.’

‘If
you’re having one.’ Say one thing about Lee, he did make a decent brew.

He
smiled again and pottered over to the small wheeled cart on which they kept
their kettle, tea and coffee supplies. ‘Been meaning to mention,’ he said, and
Anne inwardly rolled her eyes in anticipation. ‘Taken me a while to put two and
two together, but you were on that special unit down Croydon, weren’t you? The
team that investigated the KKK-style arson? DC that got stabbed this past
weekend?’

‘Yeah,
that’s right, I was,’ Anne said guardedly. ‘Wasn’t involved much with what was
going on because I was leaving, but yeah.’

‘Only
those two suspects, the neo-Nazi people: had a run-in with them myself not long
ago.’

For
the first time ever, Anne was finding him interesting.

Interpreting
her leaning forward in her chair as a prompt to continue, he said, ‘Before the
bulletin went out, of course, or I like to think I would have detained them.
Pulled them over near Dorking one afternoon, my last week with Traffic. On the
A24, Mickleham bypass. Vauxhall Astra, failure to signal for a lane change,
though it turned out their indicator light was broken, so I told the driver
– the ex-con, the heavy, odd surname, begins with Q? – told him to
get it fixed ASAP and sent them on their merry way. Recognised the descriptions
when they were circulated later. No reason to suspect them, both very polite,
calm, cooperative.’

‘Your
last week?’ Anne said, an unquantifiable, vaguely horrible feeling starting to
creep over her. ‘So the week before last?’ Despite herself, his account of
de-slugging the garden during his week off had somehow become imprinted on her
memory.

‘Yeah,
but like I said, before anyone knew we were after them. Monday, Tuesday, have
to check my logs to be sure, which of course I can’t as they’re locked up back
at Guildford somewhere.’

‘Afternoon,
you said?’

‘Pretty
sure it was the Tuesday afternoon, thinking about it.’ The kettle boiled and
switched itself off and Lee set about pouring water on their tea bags.
‘Mid-afternoon. Round about school chucking-out time.’

Zoltan listened to
Anne’s voice on the other end of the line and with his free hand, pulled a
notepad towards him and scribbled very precise instructions in what he hoped
was a legible fashion. Spotting Jasmin looking more or less in his direction,
he beckoned her over and handed her the paper. She read it, nodded, went back
to her desk and picked up the phone.

Hanging
up, Zoltan immediately lifted the receiver again. Sophia was still at Lewisham
so he dialled her mobile number from memory. She waited while he relayed what
Anne had told him. After a pregnant silence she said, ‘Today just gets better.
So if this Chivers is right, which I hope to God he isn’t, he’s just given
Porter and Quaife an alibi for the Bentons?’

‘If
the day and time are right, no way they could have got from Dorking to Croydon
in time to transfer to a van and get over to Chapel View,’ Zoltan said.

‘No.’
There was another long pause. ‘So if not them, who in hell did this?’

‘I
have a feeling you’re thinking the same thing I am.’

‘Probably,’
Sophia sighed. ‘And under the circumstances the first thing we need to do, if
Jasmin can confirm the timeline, is re-arrest Debbie Clarke.’

‘That
also,’ Zoltan said drily, ‘I was thinking.’

An hour later,
Jasmin got off the phone with the DC at Guildford who’d been yanked from
whatever it was he’d been doing to review the recordings from the dashboard and
rear window cameras of the traffic patrol car driven by PC 272 Chivers during
the late shift of the Tuesday in question. The DC had confirmed that a stop of
a dark blue Vauxhall Astra had been conducted that afternoon, that the index
number visible in the video matched Quaife’s, and that as far as he could tell,
the two men who could be seen in the front seats answered the descriptions of
Michael Quaife and Edward Porter. According to the time stamp on the video, the
stop had commenced at 3.01 p.m. and concluded at 3.07, around the same time
that Debbie Clarke had arrived back at the Bentons’ house with Robin.

At eleven o’clock
that morning, nine tall men in their early twenties lined up behind a one way
glass screen at Gipsy Hill police station. On the other side of the glass,
accompanied by a sergeant, Miranda Beckett walked slowly back and forth along
the line. After much deliberation she identified man number three, Michael
Robert Prosser a.k.a. Bayliss, as one of the youths who’d raped, sexually
assaulted and robbed her on that Sunday night long ago.

With
Zoltan Schneider in the next room were Mrs Beckett’s counsellor, a grey-haired
New Zealander called Anne Davies, and Lucky, whom DCI Summerfield had given
special permission to attend. When Zoltan had finished taking Mrs Beckett’s
statement, the three women escaped without him to the restaurant over the road.
No-one but themselves ever knew what was said there.