The Sun Will Still Shine Tomorrow (4 page)

“I want it that badly, sir.”

The familiar roll-call played out once more in the basement parade room as Ashley and his fellow shift colleagues stood to attention.

“Appointments.”

This was the familiar regimental order called out by the parade sergeant with the uniform shift inspector standing by his side. Everyone responded by producing pocket notebook, truncheon and whistle for inspection. The parade consisted of formal instructions and notifying each officer which beat they would patrol that day.

A brief update on local intelligence rounded up the parade briefing whilst any internal mail and correspondence was dished out. Ashley was handed a small brown envelope.

PC A. CLARKE, A Relief.

The letter within it took the wind out of Ashley Clarke’s sail. It had been less than a week since his audacious manoeuvre in the office of Chief Superintendent McCaffrey.

The letter was short, to the point and so very sweet.

PC Clarke has been selected for interview for a position with the Divisional Crime Squad. The interview will take place this coming Thursday at 2pm. The interview will be conducted by Chief Superintendent McCaffrey and Detective Chief Inspector Belcher.

The elegance and refinement of Savile Row to the west of Regent Street seemed at odds with the bland modern structure of the West End Central Police Station. ‘C’ Division Crime Squad was located deep within its bowels.

For Ashley it was just like starting all over again; he was the new boy, the tea boy, the sprog. Call it what you want; it didn’t matter to Ashley because this is where he wanted to be. He was more than happy to put up with any short-term nonsense, and he was expecting his fair share of flak. Being a copper was tough; being in ‘C’ division was harder still. He would get stick for his accent, and his place of birth; he would be a Geordie bastard until he was accepted into the team and get the raw end of any deal again and again. A big nose, slightly thinning hair a slight speech impediment, everything that could... would be picked up on. It was life in the police, a necessary part of creating that thick layer of skin, the wide shoulders that were necessary to handle the job. What galled Ashley more than anything were the policemen and women who ran to their superiors crying foul, taking millions out of the system because they couldn’t hack the job. It was survival of the fittest, end of story; what chance did a copper have on the streets if he or she couldn’t take a gentle ribbing or an occasional offensive remark?

He had had plenty of warning about some of the characters that made up this squad, and he knew that the hard core of hand-picked detectives that made up the team stood and fell by their results which, as they stood in the current climate, were pretty impressive.

This was the dirty end of policing. The pro-active undercover nature of their work required a unique bond and sense of humour; if you didn’t fit in you were on your way in no time at all. Everyone had to pull together. It was a far cry from the main office detectives who came to work in their smart suits and investigated the routine enquiries. They didn’t look out of place walking along Savile Row. However their counterparts on the crime squad often looked like they had just been released from a cell block at the back of West End Central.

“Welcome onboard, Ash.” A friendly voice greeted him with a familiar accent.”Andy Gibbons, we’ve met once before.”

Although Ash was pretty good at putting a name to a face, he was lost on this occasion.

“I’m sorry, when was that?”

The clean-shaven northerner replied, “When I told you to fuck off in Greek Street a couple of months ago. You nearly blew the job out, man.”

He laughed out loud.

“Only kidding, mate, you weren’t to know. It doesn’t matter now, we still got a cracking result on that job. We’ve heard a lot about you, Ash, and we’re glad you’re here, you’ll fit in just fine.”

Ash was lost for words. He looked at Andy Gibbons closely, trying to visualize him as the dirty tramp he’d seen in the doorway a couple of months ago.

Days to weeks, weeks to months, months to years, one good job after another, time was skipping by. Ash and Andy had become inseparable. They had become a formidable partnership and had been at the hub of every decent job that had been pulled off by the crime squad. But Ash knew that things were likely to change. Andy had been mentioning it more and more of late and it came as no surprise when he dropped the bombshell. Ash understood. He had thought that he would more than likely do the same thing if he was in Andy’s shoes, but for Andy it was here and now. Both of his parents were in poor health and their only other child, Andy’s sister, lived in New Zealand. He knew he would have to transfer to his native north-east to be closer to his parents and nobody could criticise him for that. This was a bitter blow for Ash. He was losing his work partner, soul mate, best friend, and there was only one way Ash would cope and that was to totally immerse himself in the job.

After fifteen years this had become Ash’s town; he’d seen the whole spectrum of the underworld, he’d eaten, slept and breathed the job year after year. He’d seen all there was to see in the undercover world and had been seconded from time to time to various Scotland Yard squads.

Being an undercover cop had brought Ash all of the excitement and variety that he could have imagined, and more. He’d never considered promotion at all; he’d seen all of the halfwits and yes men jumping up the ladder over the years and he didn’t want to be part of the same circus. He wasn’t in it for the extra money or credence of rank; he was on a decent wage and, with years of selling his soul to the job, he had earned a small fortune in overtime which he had invested wisely in the purchase of a splendid apartment in Belsize Park. He had latched onto the apartment when property was affordable, before the property boom of the late 80s.All in all he was in a very healthy financial position; he wanted for nothing except the love of a good woman. Unfortunately with this line of work any woman would have to have the patience of a saint to put up with all that went with it.

And Alexis had put up with it, she did have the patience of a saint, but then again there was only so much a girl could put up with. Alexis… why?

Everything was beginning to take its toll; he’d lived in a dirty world for a long time. He’d worked hard but played hard too. All too often. He was still a fit man and when he got the time in between working and drinking he would take his aggression out on the punchbag in the basement gym at Trenchard section house.

He would pound away for what seemed like an eternity, his thoughts drifting back to his youth at Whitley Bay Boxing Club as the sweat cascaded from him in the hot stuffy basement. And as the frustration and aggression evaporated through his pores his thoughts would wander back to Alexis.

Yes, he still felt fit… fighting fit, but he also knew that nearly twenty years of hard drinking with his workmates had done him no favours.

The Smithfield Tavern at Smithfield Market saw the more extreme version of a quick pint after work, for it was here that cops from all over the Met would descend after finishing the night shift at 6am for a handy eight to ten pint session. The only patrons within the establishment that had a special licence to open at that hour for the market traders would be the night shift cops and a handful of vagrants that would invariably end up having their drinks bought for them from pissed-up, off-duty cops. The same cops that would probably arrest them for begging, if both parties were on the other side of the pub threshold.

Ash always kept an eye on the impending premiership fixtures as he knew when he was likely to get the phone call, a very welcome call at that. Andy was welcome at any time but the visit of the black ‘n whites for a key fixture in the capital always seemed the perfect way to stay in touch. Andy more or less had a room for himself at Ash’s apartment.

They would reminisce about the good times they’d had many years ago. And after a few beers Andy would inevitably try to persuade Ash to jack it all in and move back up north.

“Start afresh, take your feet off the gas a bit,” he’d say.”There’s more to life than the fucking job.”

“There’s no way you will catch me going back into uniform.”

The mere thought sent a shiver up Ash’s spine.

“I wouldn’t know where to start. I’d be completely out of my depth. It’s been nearly thirteen years since I wore a uniform.”

“It’s not that bad up there, you know. We’ve even got computers and radios. Look at me, I’ve even managed to get promoted. I had some good times when I transferred back. There’s some good lads up there; you’ll slot in no problem.”

Ash had lost count of the times they’d had this conversation, but the minute Andy was heading back north on the train it was forgotten about.

The incident had prayed on his mind for six weeks now; the demons and the gremlins in his head he’d tried to fight had won. Whichever way he looked at it, deep down he knew he could have prevented the carnage. After the first explosion he’d been one of the first on the scene. It was like something out of a First World War movie scene. Body parts, limbs, fragments of bone and charred, blackened flesh lay everywhere. Slaughter of the innocents: the working men and women of London, students, children, British, African, German, American, Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, it didn’t matter.

The suicide bombers had bombed in the name of their god.

The platform was thick with black acrid smoke and dust but was gradually beginning to clear. Several fires raged on what was once a City of London tube train, now a twisted, burning mass of steel and roasted blackened flesh.

He stood frozen on number two platform wishing he could have turned the clock back twenty minutes. A young Asian woman looked up at him as she lay on the platform. She mouthed the word
help
. She lay in a bloodied heap in her tattered underclothes exposing a bloody breast. The blast from the bomb had blown most of her clothes away and, with it, death’s dignity. Ashley knelt down, held her hand and wiped a trickle of blood from her eye. Her hand was cold, Ashley felt for a pulse but found none. She gazed into his eyes, smiled a final smile at the undercover cop then closed her eyes forever.

He could have stopped it, should have stopped it.

Never break your cover, he’d been told, whatever the circumstances. And he’d sat inside the entrance of Kings Cross station as he’d watched the four men embrace. It was a long embrace, very emotional and two of them shed tears. Ashley had watched their outburst of emotion and figured that one or two of them were on their way to Heathrow or Gatwick for a long trip back home, maybe never to return.

That was the only explanation. Men didn’t hug and cry like that over a week’s holiday or a day at the office. They were off on a long, long journey.

Then it happened.

They walked into the station together.

They didn’t part.

Ashley stood. Why? They hadn’t parted, why the great show of emotion. He thought back to the twin towers in New York. No, surely not.

“DCI Gibbons, can I help?”

“It’s me, Ash.”

DCI Andy Gibbons recognised the significance of the call.

“I think it’s time, Andy. Can you help me?”

Andy had been waiting many years to hear his old mucker Ashley utter those words. The timing couldn’t have been better and yet, his friend’s voice wasn’t full of the optimism and enthusiasm of old. Andy detected it straightaway.

“What is it, Ash? You don’t sound so good.”

Ashley never answered the question, and such was their almost telepathic understanding of each other that Andy Gibbons let it drop. Ashley would come out with the reason when the time was right.

Andy Gibbons was in the perfect position. In the ten years that he had been in Northumbria police he had become a well-respected senior detective and was able to pull a few strings. It would be a complete waste of such an experienced undercover officer to have him pounding the beat again, as was the normal protocol for anyone transferring forces. Andy had been kidding Ash when he had told him on numerous occasions that it wasn’t that bad, for he remembered that when he came back ten years ago he’d hated pounding the beat after the excitement of undercover work.

Fortunately for Andy he was in the right place at the right time. He had recruited a snout that was heavily involved in an armed blagging crew. He knew the lad from his schooldays and he was eating out of the palm of Andy’s hand.

This soon flagged up at the Force intelligence department. Andy was summoned to the Newcastle CID headquarters and was immediately seconded onto the investigation into the armed blaggings that had been going on throughout Tyneside and was assigned to his new partner DC John Markwell who would become a close friend.

Andy’s uniform was consigned to the loft once again.

Andy sat at his desk feeling quite pleased with himself. In the twenty years he had been in the job he’d had the privilege to work with two first-rate detectives at the opposite ends of the country, and now, with the privilege of rank and a quick phone call to John Markwell, the plan had been hatched. John Markwell would soon have a new partner on the Newcastle crime team.

It would be a perfect match.

Ashley Clarke stepped off the train at Newcastle Central Station. He’d decided some months back that nearly twenty years in the Met was long enough for anyone. Besides, the force had changed. Policing had changed. The inspectors and superintendents had changed too.