The Copper Heart

by Sarah Painter

  ‘So, it’s not about JRB or the Silvers.’ Or the Crows, is what Lydia meant, but didn’t say.

  ‘Only tangentially and recently. This Operation has been going on for the last two years. Maybe longer. Even I’m not privy to all of the intel.’

  Lydia could see his annoyance at that.

  ‘And when I say ‘making trouble’ I mean killing key people at inopportune moments around the world.’

  ‘This is about an assassin?’ Lydia took a moment to let that settle in. ‘Why would they be after me?’

  ‘We don’t know that they are,’ Mr Smith said. ‘I’m inclined to think not. It is more likely that the attempt on your life today was more tangentially linked. Which doesn’t mean you shouldn’t consider my previous offer. Let me protect you.’

  Lydia ignored that. ‘You mean, that Maria sent someone to have a pop because she thinks I killed her father? So it wouldn’t be happening if it wasn’t for your stupid operation. Fleet got shot. Did I mention that?’

  ‘Don’t be dramatic. It was just a graze. Not even a through-and-through. He’ll be fine. And don’t pretend Maria wasn’t looking to off you before the operation. You can’t blame us for the bad blood between you.’

  Lydia forced herself to be quiet, to think. She took a calming breath and squeezed her coin in her palm. ‘So what was the back-up part of your grand plan?’

  ‘The public nature of Alejandro’s disappearance.’

  ‘The funeral?’

  ‘All of it. Having him die, not disappear. We wanted to see if it would bring the operative to London.’

  ‘Why would it? You had just done their job for them? Saved them a trip?’

  ‘They would have to check he was really dead. And also that it wasn’t another operative. Professional pride.’

  ‘That seems far from reliable. Why would they care?’

  ‘Reputation, then. At the level this person is working, there is no margin for error and no room for competition. And, beyond that, there is a chance the assassin may have further targets in the city. If they were commissioned to hit one of the Family heads, it’s possible they were commissioned to get them all.’

  Lydia went cold. ‘So today’s attempt could have been your assassin. Make up your mind.’

  Mr Smith smiled. ‘Anything’s possible between heaven and earth.’

  Something else snagged Lydia’s attention. Which was good because it stopped her from punching him. ‘You keep saying ‘they’. How much detail do you have on the killer?’

  ‘Very little. We don’t have a gender as witness reports are extremely scarce. We have a man in Buenos Aires who swears he saw a beautiful blonde leaving the hotel after a prominent union leader took his own life in his suite. And we have another report of an unknown man with a short beard and brown hair seen driving away from the scene where the head of the Colombian cartel was gunned down as he left his mistress’s apartment.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me this last time we spoke?’

  ‘I work on a need to know basis,’ Mr Smith said. ‘You know how it is.’

  ‘And getting shot at qualifies me for clearance. I guess it’s my lucky day.’

  ‘I’d say so,’ Mr Smith said. ‘The assassin we are looking for doesn’t tend to miss.’

  * * *

  Back upstairs, Lydia held a whispered conversation with Jason in the living room and then went into the bedroom as quietly as possible, not wanting to wake up Fleet. She got into bed with him and lay awake, watching headlights on the ceiling. She knew there was a pressure sensor outside her flat, heavy-duty locks on the building and a watchful ghost in attendance, but her mind wouldn’t stop racing.

  A couple of hours later, Lydia hadn’t slept. She thought she was keeping still and quiet but she felt Fleet stir. ‘Can’t sleep?’

  ‘How’s the pain?’ Lydia sat up, reaching for the packet of paracetamol.

  ‘Not too bad,’ Fleet said, grunting slightly as he shifted position. ‘How about you?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Lydia said. And it was true. Her neck felt a bit stiff and sore, but it paled into insignificance when she thought about how close Fleet had come to being seriously hurt. Or worse. She propped herself up on one elbow to look at him in the dim light filtering through the curtains. Alive and whole. Sleepy-eyed and with a rough scruff of stubble.

  ‘Do you ever wonder about your father?’

  ‘Not really,’ Fleet said.

  ‘Not ever?’

  Fleet was quiet for a while and Lydia wondered if he was drifting back to sleep. ‘Why are you asking?’

  ‘There’s something about you,’ she began, trying to pick her words carefully. ‘Something different.’

  ‘I should hope so,’ he said, pulling her down with his good arm and kissing her lips.

  After a few pleasant moments of that, Lydia holding her weight off his body for fear of hurting his shoulder, she tried a different tack. ‘What do you think makes you such a good copper?’

  Fleet frowned. ‘Training? Hard work? Ability to not punch people when they’re being annoying.’ He smiled. ‘Most of the time.’

  Lydia shook her head gently. ‘You have really good instincts.’

  ‘Thank you. I think?’ Fleet’s frown deepened. ‘Why do I feel you are leading up to saying something I don’t want to hear?’

  ‘That guy at work. The idiot. He wasn’t wrong about your success rate.’ She held up her hands. ‘Wrong about the reason for it, of course, but I was just thinking… Do you ever get a feeling about something before it happens?’

  ‘Of course, all the time. Everybody does. We’ve got those evolutionary survival instincts that mean we take in loads of information subconsciously and make decisions quickly before we’ve consciously noticed. I read a book about it once.’

  ‘Right. But more than that, do you ever have a strong feeling about how something is going to play out. And then everything happens the way you expected?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Fleet looked properly wary now. ‘Maybe sometimes. But that’s experience. I know what’s going to happen with some cases because it’s happened a hundred times before. Criminals aren’t that inventive. They make the same mistakes. They say the same things. I’ve just been doing this job a long time.’

  ‘And when you’re out and about, you sometimes react really quickly. Before even the tiny signs have happened. Like today.’

  ‘That was luck,’ Fleet said. ‘And I must have seen something. It goes with the job. Coppers are all the same. The good ones, anyway. You develop a sixth sense for trouble.’

  Lydia knew he wanted to drop it, but she couldn’t. ‘I didn’t see anything. If you hadn’t steered when you did, one of us would have been killed.’

  ‘Unless it was a warning shot,’ Fleet said. ‘Or we might not have been the targets.’

  He was playing devil’s advocate, Lydia knew, but she wasn’t going to be derailed. ‘How did you know to move when you did?’

  ‘The gunshot was a clue,’ Fleet said, his voice sleepy now.

  ‘That wasn’t how it happened,’ Lydia said. ‘You wrenched the steering wheel and then the glass shattered. How did you know there was a sniper?’

  Lydia stared at his shadowed face, looking for an answer, but Fleet had slipped back to sleep.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Lydia walked through the downstairs of Charlie’s house, closing blinds and lighting candles. She had considered holding the gathering at The Fork, but wanted to make it clear that this was a private family party with a small ‘f’ on the word ‘family’. It was also a gathering of the inner circle of the capital-f Family, too, but it felt important to emphasise the blood ties foremost.

  Angel had made two large pans of lasagne and dropped them off earlier with detailed instructions. Even Lydia couldn’t mess up reheating them in Charlie’s state-of-the-art oven. She had taken a delivery of garlic and rosemary focaccia, six bottles of wine and a raspberry and ricotta cheesecake from the Italian deli. Fleet w
as in the kitchen, dressing salad leaves in a glass serving bowl. He was only able to use one arm so it was taking longer than it might have done, but Lydia left him to it. Telling her tough-as-nails copper that he wasn’t capable of applying olive oil to some vegetation wouldn’t be great for his self-esteem.

  The guests arrived right on time and there was much kissing and hugging. Daisy and John brought wine and Aiden staggered under a flower arrangement of unwieldy proportions.

  ‘No gifts necessary,’ Lydia said. ‘This is just a family meal. Nothing formal.’

  She directed the guests to the living room for drinks and then heard the front door open again. She had invited both of her parents, though she hadn’t been sure they would come, but there they were. Her mother looked well-rested and surprisingly relaxed, wearing a fitted black dress and her signature red lipstick. Her father was in a suit, something she hadn’t seen for a few years and, together, they looked more like heirs to a crime family than she had ever seen. John went pale as Henry Crow walked into the house and greeted everyone and his colour didn’t improve when he kissed Lydia and congratulated her on her successful climb of The Shard. It was a public declaration of approval and John would have to be a fool – or sick of life – to challenge her authority now.

  After drinks, Lydia led the way to the kitchen where the big table was set.

  ‘What is he doing here?’ John said as soon as he caught sight of Fleet, who was chopping peppers, a tea towel over one shoulder.

  ‘We’re together. And he’s part of the family,’ Lydia said.

  ‘Did I miss the wedding?’ Daisy said in an acidic tone.

  ‘The man took a bullet for me,’ Lydia indicated Fleet’s bandaged shoulder. ‘And I have just informed you that he is part of this family. Anybody got anything else to say about it?’ She looked around, making eye contact. Nobody did.

  Lydia told them to sit at the table while she dished up. ‘I’ll help,’ Daisy said, pushing her chair back.

  ‘No, sit down.’ Daisy froze halfway out of her seat and Lydia attempted to sound less authoritarian. ‘Relax! You can pour the wine.’

  In the kitchen, Fleet put a steadying hand on the small of her back. Lydia leaned against him briefly and then tackled the lasagne, dishing out squares while trying not to think about the weirdness of the atmosphere. This shouldn’t be odd. They were family. She had been kept separate from the Family business while growing up, but she had still enjoyed family parties and outings, had still been doted on by uncles and aunts, had played with cousins. A memory of Maddie, dead-eyed in the dim light of her living room with her hands wrapped around Lydia’s throat, jumped into her mind. Lydia pushed it away.

  ‘Dig in,’ she said brightly, slinging plates in front of people and then carrying across the second pan of lasagne which was still half-full. ‘Help yourself to seconds when you’re ready.’

  Slowly, conversation began to flow. Henry talked to Aiden about snooker and Aiden gazed at him in frank hero worship. John asked Fleet about his shoulder as a way to segue into his own litany of physical complaints; his dodgy ankle, his slipped disc, the time he got shingles. Daisy drank wine steadily and hardly spoke, but you couldn’t have everything.

  Once plates were cleared and people were sitting back in their chairs making the kind of satisfied noises that indicated a good meal had been devoured, Lydia took a ten-shilling note out of her pocket and put it on the table. Instantly, the conversation stopped, all eyes drawn to the money.

  ‘You all know there is someone taking pot shots at this family.’ Lydia looked around the table. ‘Someone killed Mark Kendal and I found one of these in his wallet. And this week, someone took a literal pot shot at my car. If Fleet hadn’t acted as quickly as he did, I might have been seriously hurt. Maybe even killed.’

  Lydia glanced at her mother who hadn’t been able to stop a small gasp. She had a hand up to her mouth and her eyes were wide with horror. Henry put an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close. ‘It’s okay,’ Lydia said, taking her mother’s hand and giving it a squeeze. ‘I’m fine. Thanks to Fleet.’ She let that settle in for another moment.

  ‘Thank you,’ Susan said to a clearly embarrassed Fleet.

  She hated to worry her parents, but any member of the Crow Family who still had a problem with her boyfriend would have to stay very quiet about it indeed. ‘I don’t know who to blame, yet.’

  ‘Maria Silver would be top of the list,’ Aiden said. ‘Surely?’

  ‘I’m not jumping to conclusions. Alejandro was mixed up in a government operation and I have it on good authority that there is a rogue assassin currently on the loose. You’re right, though,’ she nodded to Aiden and he sat up a little straighter, ‘Maria Silver is not my biggest fan.’

  ‘What do you want us to do?’ Aiden asked.

  ‘I want you to all be on your guard, that’s sensible, but I don’t want any retribution. No eye for an eye bullshit,’ Lydia looked at John as she said the last part. ‘But I’m going to sort this out, make sure there is no more unpleasantness.’ She tapped the ten-shilling note. ‘I’m taking this to Maria, but before I give it to her, I’m going to give her the chance to ally with us. I need you all to understand something very important. Our quarrel is not with the Silvers. Or the Foxes. Or even the Pearls. In fact, if we don’t join with the other Families, put aside past problems and learn to work together, we’re going to be picked off one by one. There’s a government department that would like to use our power, and there is JRB. All I know for sure is that they want us at each other’s throats, weak and squabbling like little children. I’m proposing we don’t play into their hands.’

  ‘What makes you think she’ll even hear you out?’ John said. ‘Charlie told me what she did to you after you got her arrested.’

  ‘I have some information which is extremely pertinent to the Silver Family. She’s going to want to hear what I have to say about her father.’

  ‘What about Alejandro?’

  Lydia smiled her shark smile. ‘He’s not dead.’

  * * *

  After the family had left, Lydia prepared to head to her meeting with Maria.

  ‘Please don’t go,’ Fleet’s voice was gentle, but very serious. ‘I’m asking you.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Lydia said. ‘You heard my rousing speech. Now I’ve got to follow through.’

  What Lydia didn’t say was that she couldn’t stop seeing Chunni and Heather’s frightened faces and Ash’s lifeless one. She was head of the Crow Family, but she wasn’t Charlie Crow. Or Grandpa Crow. If there was a chance Maria Silver was walking around believing that her own father was dead when he was very much alive, Lydia was going to take her the truth. She might be a murderous witch with a cold dead heart, but she was also a human being. And Lydia had seen real grief in her face. She had to tell her the truth.

  ‘Then, I’m coming with you.’ Fleet picked his coat up from the chair.

  ‘You don’t have to do that.’

  ‘Maybe the presence of the Met will stop it from escalating.’

  ‘And maybe it will do exactly the opposite. If Maria thinks I’m trying something when she told me to come alone…’

  ‘When people say ‘come alone’ they usually mean you harm.’

  ‘Or they’re frightened. Or value their privacy,’ Lydia countered. ‘Some people find it hard to trust.’

  Fleet gave her a long look. ‘Tell me honestly, is that what you think is going on in this situation?’

  Lydia didn’t meet his gaze. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Fleet said. ‘I’ve told you, I’m all in. I’m not a copper first, I’m yours. Whatever that means and wherever it takes me. We’re in this together from now on and I’m not going to let you keep me at arm’s length.’ Fleet was breathing a little harder by the time he’d finished his speech and his eyes were shining a little.

  ‘Well, then,’ Lydia said lightly. ‘Let’s go.’

  * * *

  The meeting was in
neutral territory, at least, but Lydia didn’t disagree with Fleet’s assessment of the plan. It was a clusterfuck. ‘At least it’s not a multi-storey car park,’ Lydia said. ‘She can’t be planning anything especially bad in a hotel.’

  Fleet gave Lydia the look she deserved. Maria Silver had booked the sky bar at one of the nicest hotels in the City but that didn’t mean she wasn’t planning to stab Lydia over cocktails.

  ‘I’m bringing good news,’ Lydia said. ‘It could be the making of us. A bright new day.’

  Whoever had decorated the hotel had been overly fond of shining black glass and glittering gold decorations. The effect was luxurious but with an undertone of sleaze. Probably not what they were going for, but Lydia would be the first to admit that she might be wrong. Interior décor was not her strong suit, and five-hundred-quid-a-night hotels not her natural environment. Weirdly, Fleet looked perfectly at home. She commented on it as they rode the lift to the top floor. ‘You always seem at ease, how do you manage that?’

  He flashed her a smile. ‘Because I always am.’

  A uniformed member of staff stopped them as they entered the bar. ‘This is a private function. There’s a bar open on floor seven or the Milanese Restaurant on-’

  ‘We’re invited,’ Lydia said, and one of Maria’s security staff nodded them through.

  Maria was standing on the terrace, looking out at the twinkling lights of the city. She turned as they approached. ‘You said you have information for me. I’m listening.’

  ‘We should sit down,’ Lydia said.

  Maria raised an eyebrow but she indicated chairs arranged around a table. Lydia waited for Maria to sit before taking a seat opposite. Fleet remained standing behind Lydia, like a bodyguard. Lydia was glad his jacket hid his bandaged shoulder. She didn’t think there was going to be a physical confrontation but, in her experience, it was best not to show any weakness around Maria. With that in mind, Lydia launched straight into her prepared speech.