by Ed James
Loftus’s forehead creased. ‘That’s something we should all consider. Indeed, whether we should factor these,’ he smiled, ‘factors into our planning.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Okay, let’s break for five, then we’re back to discuss Simon’s proposal in further detail.’
Amid the ensuing hubbub, Fenchurch stayed sitting. He pushed his teacup to the side and it was just him and Loftus. ‘Didn’t mean to blindside you, sir, but I’ve been trying to get time with you for the last month to discuss this.’
Loftus huffed out a sigh. No smile this time. ‘Indeed. Well, there’s something promising in it, but I’ll have to process it. Taking on a significantly increased headcount is a huge undertaking. We’ll need to staff up in admin support. And it’s going to lead to difficult conversations with the Commissioner.’
‘I understand, sir.’ But Fenchurch saw a sudden flash of fury, felt it burning in his veins. He should be out on the streets, not stuck in a meeting room that stank of cheap coffee, sweet aftershave, sour body odour and that sharp tang of stewed tea. ‘Glad to be able to bring it to the table.’
‘Indeed.’ Loftus toyed with his cap. ‘You’ve been a DCI for two years now, Simon, and that’s the first strategic input you’ve provided.’
‘Very different roles, sir. As an inspector, you’re out on the streets doing what you do, leading by example. As a Chief Inspector, you’ve got to rely on people a lot more. I can’t get into the interview room or houses with my team.’
‘Or the chases down back alleys.’
Fenchurch gave him a smile, trying for knowing but his array was nowhere near as complete as Loftus’s, or as well-practised. ‘Quite.’
‘I’m afraid I’ve been somewhat busy of late, Simon, so we should’ve had this discussion weeks ago.’
Fenchurch sat there, trying not to react, trying to keep his clenched fists under the table. It wasn’t like he’d been trying to arrange the time for months, was it?
‘And there’s no sugar coating this, but I believe that you’re struggling with the role. Struggling to fill Al Docherty’s shoes.’
‘Right.’ Cheeky sod. ‘Well, I have been struggling, sir. When he was a DI, I could make a difference with what I did. Now, it’s much harder.’
‘And that’s where I need you to get to, Simon. Being a Senior Investigating Officer is about motivating and nurturing talent to do the job for you. At other times, it’s about cajoling. But the bottom line is you’re leading a team. And a team can make much more of a difference than you can on your own.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Maybe?’ Loftus sat back and tossed his hat on the table. ‘I’ll be honest with you, Simon. I’m struggling to know what to do with you. You accepted the promotion to DCI two years ago, but you’re not exactly playing ball. I could transfer you to uniform, so you can oversee the preparations for these upcoming protests?’
And there it was, Loftus’s plan all along.
How he was going to shift on the dead wood. Promote, then move aside. Couple of years in that job, getting fed up of the new flavour of bullshit, then it would be so much easier for Fenchurch to walk. He could probably live off his pension or pick up some work through an agency.
But after everything he’d been through, he still needed to make a difference, if not to the world, then to this city. His city. And his corner of it, at least. ‘I’d rather not, sir.’
‘Well, that’s a good start. But I’ll warn you now, Simon, I’m considering bringing in an officer to work as a right-hand man.’
‘Do you have a name in mind?’
‘It won’t be you.’
‘I don’t expect it to be, sir.’
‘DCI Jason Bell.’
That little shit. How he managed to constantly get the promotions, Fenchurch could only imagine. ‘Well, that’s your decision, sir.’
‘Agreed, but I can see how much it riles you, Fenchurch. That’s good.’
Another thing about Loftus was that he knew how to play Fenchurch. Or thought he did. ‘Look, Simon, you don’t have to be perfect, okay? I’m not asking that. I make mistakes, and Al Docherty made big blunders when he was in your shoes.’
‘And I was one of them?’
‘I’m not saying that, Simon. I’m just baffled by you and what to do with you. I was a mere constable when I first encountered you. You were a rising star of the Met until… Well.’
‘Until my rise was curtailed by my daughter’s disappearance, sir. And I had to focus on that above and beyond everything else. But she’s back, back in my life, and that’s a closed door.’
‘Simon, if you want to keep progressing, then you need to make a bigger difference.’
And if he didn’t want to, he’d be stuck working with Bell, but really for him. Great. Just great. ‘I’ll see what I can do, sir.’
Loftus patted his pocket and reached inside for his phone. Not ringing out loud, but was certainly buzzing. ‘Just a second.’ He got up and left the room.
Leaving Fenchurch with his thoughts. Not very welcome or willing bedfellows. Like a collapsing marriage. Maybe Loftus was right, shift over to uniform, attend meetings and lead strategy.
Christ, it felt like death.
But maybe if Fenchurch focused on filling Docherty’s shoes, if he became the leader his team needed rather than being the doer he wanted to be, then maybe he could make as much of a difference to his city as Docherty had done, if not more.
‘Simon, Simon, Simon.’ DI Jason Bell waddled across the room. Every time Fenchurch saw him, he had put on even more weight. His tiny peanut head scanned around the room, his tiny eyes shrunk by the thick glasses. He hauled off his jacket and rested it on the seat opposite Fenchurch. His armpits were soaked with sweat, and it was still freezing cold in here. ‘Been a while.’
‘Well, I’d say nowhere long enough, but—’
That little tic of irritation, the twitching of nostrils that jostled Bell’s glasses.
‘What brings you here, Jason?’
‘Restructure announced this morning.’ Bell rested his iPad on the desk. ‘Doesn’t sound like you’ve read the note.’
‘Much better things to do.’
‘Well, I’m now reporting to Julian.’
‘You’re part of Specialised Crime East?’
‘As of nine o’clock, yeah. I mean, most of my team’s work is based here, so it makes sense.’ Bell collapsed into the chair and it sounded like he’d snapped the legs, or at least bent the metal. ‘Besides, as you well know, I’m on first-name terms with our new Prime Minister. I suspect Julian’s going to use that to his advantage.’
‘You must send him my congratulations for last night’s victory.’
‘Bit unexpected, wasn’t it? I mean, even winning seemed an outside bet, but the scale of it? The things he can do now.’
‘Pleased for you, String.’
Again, Bell betrayed his irritation with a smile. ‘I hadn’t pegged you as a Corbynista.’
‘Hardly.’
‘But you are a Labour voter?’
‘That’s a matter for me and the ballot box.’ Fenchurch felt his phone thrum in his pocket. A text, but even a message from Satan inviting him to his eternity in literal admin Hell was preferable to listening to this arsehole.
A text from Chloe: Missing you, Dad. Al’s getting good at football. And Mum is doing my head in.
Fenchurch had to swallow down a tear. So long ago, his life felt like someone had stuck him up a tree and was throwing a quarry of rocks at him. Now, it felt… Okay. Alright. Fine. Safe. London was always going to be a dangerous place to live, sure, but this was infinitely preferable to the nightmare he’d lived through.
‘What’s that?’ Bell was nodding at him, ever the nosy bastard.
‘Never you mind.’
‘Simon.’ Loftus was standing by the door, beckoning him over.
‘Sorry, String, I’ll catch you later.’ Fenchurch walked up to the door, but Loftus was already out in the corridor, hands in
pockets, cap stuffed under his arm. ‘What’s up, sir?’
‘You’ve just caught a murder.’
Fenchurch felt about ten stone lighter. Aside from someone being cold and dead, he felt alive now. A puzzle to solve, justice to deliver.
Loftus blocked his path to the lifts. ‘You shouldn’t look pleased.’
‘These meetings aren’t my style, sir.’
‘Weren’t you listening to me earlier? You need to mobilise your team, get them to do the job, then you can get a summary from them and formulate an action plan.’
‘That’s not my style either, sir, and I ask you to respect that. I’m an SIO, not a Deputy SIO. To be able to accurately summarise to you, sir, and to be able to guide my team to catching whoever’s done this, I need to see the details for myself. Okay?’
Loftus snorted. ‘On your head be it.’
2
Fenchurch’s old neighbourhood was still the wrong side of the tracks.
Rather than gentrify, it was like the new developments on the right side had pulled up a drawbridge and sidelined the place. No prospect of bombs to flatten the area, so they just ignored it.
Fenchurch bumped up onto the pavement and killed the engine, his hazards ticking. He took a long look at the target.
The new Cyril Jackson school was the exact same plan as all the buildings chucked up in the New Labour era, whether it was in East London or the Scottish Highlands. All brick walls at strange angles, with a low roof that would be better on a Dutch barn than a British primary school. The playground was dotted with miserable-looking kids making their way inside, soaked through despite the short trip.
But Fenchurch’s target was next door. Tucked in amongst all the new buildings, where old Victorian slum housing for dock workers was transformed into fancy apartments for bankers and management consultants, was the Old School Brewery.
And it was literally Fenchurch’s old school.
Almost forty years ago, little Simon Fenchurch was led hand in hand by his mum, pushing his baby sister in a pram, and left outside in the September sunshine. The old playground now had a couple of beer delivery trucks, and a lot of police cars and the Crime Scene Investigations van.
Hard brick walls, wrought iron gates. The building itself was a brutal old Victorian thing, as much like a prison, with the teachers who once stalked the corridors acting like jailors.
Fenchurch opened the door and got out, just as his phone rang. ‘Bloody hell.’ He checked the screen, and realised his fear of the phone ringing had somewhat abated over the last couple of years.
Julian Loftus calling…
‘Bloody, bloody hell.’ Fenchurch sat down again, his trouser legs outside the car catching the pissing rain. ‘Hello, sir?’
‘Simon, it’s Millie.’ Loftus’s PA. Her voice still had a northern edge to it. ‘Julian is asking for you to have his budget report.’
‘Well, Julian knows I’m attending a crime scene. Tell him it’ll be with him by lunchtime.’
‘Okay, thanks. Um, but you do know that you’re down to attend the Diversity Focus forum?’
Fenchurch couldn’t hide the grunt. It wasn’t the content, he had evidence his team was significantly more diverse than the rest of Loftus’s empire, it was just the constant drain on his time from every bloody angle. ‘Even with that.’
‘Excellent. Oh, and, while I’ve got you, Julian’s also asked me to schedule time to review your team’s contribution to meeting the Met’s strategic policing goals.’
It just never ended. ‘Sounds like fun, pencil it in for this afternoon.’
‘Is six okay?’
‘I mean, it’s after noon, I suppose.’ Fenchurch looked across at the building housing yet another dead body. ‘Not that I’ve got much else to do once I’ve seen this.’
‘Excellent. Bye!’ And she was gone, off to annoy the hell out of some other poor sap.
Loftus was trying to prove his stupid point, that policing could only be done one way.
Well, he needed to be shown, didn’t he?
Fenchurch muted his phone then pocketed it. He hauled himself out of the car and set off down the street, then through the gates like he was a small boy again, walking through the downpour to that school.
‘Sir.’ DI Uzma Ashkani stood outside the front door, holding up a brolly that didn’t extend to the poor uniform in charge of Crime Scene Management. Her hair was even darker than the cold grey sky, but was salon perfect, framing her heart-shaped face. ‘Didn’t expect you here.’
‘Wouldn’t miss this for the world.’ Fenchurch gestured at the door above her head, which still had Limehouse Primary School etched in the stone and separate boys’ and girls’ entrances that weren’t in use even in his day. ‘My old school.’
‘You too?’
Fenchurch frowned. ‘What, you went here?’
Ashkani thumbed down the road. ‘Grew up just along there.’
‘Well, I lived the other way.’ Fenchurch’s gaze drifted over in the direction of the two-up/two-down his old man still lived in. ‘Must’ve missed each other by a few years.’ He took in the area, that mix of the old London unwanted mixing with newer generations of immigrants, like her parents from Pakistan, or Jon Nelson’s from Jamaica, or those more recently from the EU. And some hipsters had turned it into a brewery, not long after the Truman’s one down the road shut, taking its jobs with it.
Ashkani took the clipboard from the shivering uniform and started jotting something down. ‘I’m taking a few of the sergeants out for dinner tonight, sir.’
Fenchurch wrote his name underneath hers. ‘I’ll join you.’
’Even with your family life?’
Fenchurch smiled at her. ‘Abi’s down in Cornwall with her parents and our two kids for a few days.’
‘Everything okay?’
‘I’ve just been too busy, recently. Abi’s got some time off school, so she’s taken full advantage of it.’ Fenchurch let out a heavy sigh. ‘Been a hell of a time, though. We’ve booked a big family holiday to Florida in April, it’s all I’m living for. The end of the world won’t stop me going.’
Ashkani didn’t seem that interested in his tale of woe. ‘Well, I presume you want to see the body downstairs?’
Despite attending the school for seven years, Fenchurch had no idea there was a basement.
And he had no idea what the owners were building down here. Or whether anyone should even be down here at all.
A series of brass contraptions lay across the stone floor, running from the “small enough to fit in a jeans pocket” to the “How the hell did they get that down here?” Not that there was anybody around who could provide any more information on what it was.
The walls were all bare drywall, though not recently applied and the plain white had faded to dull beige. And the lighting was low, and not getting any help from the misty windows that looked up to the playground, so Fenchurch almost missed the rainwater leaking down from street level to the floor. Place was like a sewer, though didn’t smell quite that bad.
But just like that, an arc light clicked on and almost blinded Fenchurch through his smeary crime scene goggles. The glow came from a door at the end, leading to another room, though it seemed smaller than this one, which was like the cloisters at some ancient church.
Fenchurch followed the light over.
A wraith-like figure dashed out and pressed a hand to his chest. ‘Woah, woah, woah!’ Tammy, the Deputy Lead CSI, or whatever her title was these days. ‘Watch your feet!’
Fenchurch stared down at his blue bootees and, sure enough, he was standing on evidence. Two pairs of footprints in blood red were caught by the light. Leaving the room. One looked bare, while the other was wearing shoes. ‘What’s happened here?’
‘A chase, I think. The kind you used to do a bit too often.’ Tammy folded her arms, guarding the path like a sentry and pushing Fenchurch off to the side. ‘I think.’ She crouched down and pointed at the shoe prints. ‘Generic soles, like yo
u’d get on a pair of quality leather shoes from any shop, or you could get as a replacement from Timpson or the like.’
‘So someone’s run away?’
‘Maybe.’ She waved off towards the staircase Fenchurch had just climbed down. ‘It’s been raining since supper time last night, and this place isn’t exactly watertight, so we’ve lost the trail.’
‘So they didn’t get outside?’
‘Well, we just don’t know. But it appears they were being chased.’ She pointed at the door, where one of her goons was photographing with a lens that could probably see the rings of Saturn in daylight. ‘There’s a bloody handprint on the inside of the door.’ Her eyes shut through her goggles. ‘That’s not me swearing, by the way. I mean, the hand was covered in blood when it pressed against the door.’
Inside the door, a walkway had been placed across a pool of blood, looking barely curdled at the edges. Meaning it was fresh. A suited figure huddled by the body, humming opera like it could only be one man. Usually the sight of a dead body would instil fear, terror, revulsion, but Dr William Pratt associated it with Puccini or Mozart, hell maybe even Hamilton.
But the most-curious sight was revealed by another CSI shifting their stance.
Two pairs of shoes sat in the pool of blood near the door. Work shoes, but equipped for an office rather than a building site. One pair was as plain as you could get, but the other had those horrible little tassels and etchings.
Fenchurch felt that spike of intrigue again, of hunting down a killer. The prospect of catching them. The relief of stopping them doing it again. Piecing together the various clues.
