by Andy Maslen
She kept her head down as she entered the store and grabbed a wheeled orange plastic basket with a telescopic handle. As she dropped items into the basket, she wondered whether any of the other customers were planning an extended torture session. Or was it just her? Most seemed to be either happy young newly-weds buying wallpaper or tins of paint; middle-aged guys humming and hawing over electric lawnmowers; or older couples arguing in subdued but irritable voices about whether zinnias or geraniums were better for the front garden.
At the till, the young guy listlessly zapping her purchases with the laser gun had seven facial piercings including enormous white plastic rings inside his earlobes. She was surprised that the store’s manager hadn’t asked him to remove them. Then she looked down at the sleeves of tattoos on both arms – Japanese koi – and guessed that it was a seller’s market.
“Arts and crafts?” he asked, with a smile.
Nice eyes, she thought. Brown. Shame about all the metalwork. She followed his gaze.
In front of her were a claw hammer, a pair of pliers, bolt cutters, three metres of blue polypropylene rope, a bundle of ten-inch, black plastic cable ties, a needle-pointed awl and a blowtorch.
“Something like that,” she replied as she punched in the PIN for her credit card.
Her next stop was an independent kitchen shop. “Jeffers & Tanton” the British racing green sign said. Stella wandered between two racks of insanely expensive saucepans, enamelled in rainbow colours. She was looking for the knives. Up a ramp carpeted with the same bristly stuff they use for doormats was the cash desk. Behind it and off to one side were three glass-fronted cabinets. Each one was full of knives. Each one was locked with a small chromed cylinder in the centre of the right-hand door.
She stood in front of the cabinet not obscured by the cash desk. It looked like something a serial killer would have in his front room. The blades within ranged from heavy cleavers down to delicate little paring knives. One set caught her eye. The handles were made of a black wood. She wondered if it was ebony. Or was that one of those banned substances now, like tortoiseshell or ivory? The handles were inlaid with swirling silver motifs that made Stella think of dragons.
“Do you need any help there?” a friendly, female voice asked.
Stella turned. The woman who’d asked the question was a short, matronly sort, with a black and gold apron embroidered with the shop’s name over her own clothes. She had purple-framed glasses perched on the end of her nose, prevented from falling to the ground by a string of matching plastic beads.
“I’d like to take a look at the knives, please. The inlaid ones.”
The woman smiled conspiratorially. “Those are I.O. Shen. German weight and handle but Japanese steel and blade angle. Lots of chefs like them. Which ones caught your eye?”
Stella pointed to two knives, one a cleaver, the other a more conventional-looking, round-bellied blade.
“Those two.”
The woman picked up a key from a scarlet ceramic dish behind the till, holding it between purple-varnished nails, and twisted it in the chromed lock. She slid the glass door aside and lifted the cleaver from its mount in the display. Then she handed it to Stella.
Stella curled her fingers round the inlaid handle. Now she had it in her grasp, she could see that the design chased into the handle wasn’t a dragon but an abstract swirl. She could feel the silvery steel, cold against her palm and fingers. The cleaver was heavy. She turned it so that light from one of the halogen downlighters caught the razor-sharp blade.
“You could joint anything with that,” the saleswoman said.
“Hmm?”
“I said you could use that to joint anything. It’ll go straight through the thickest part and out the other side without stopping.”
Stella put it down on top of a butcher’s block in pale pine positioned to the right of the display case.
“Can I try the other one now, please?”
The saleswoman handed her the more conventional cook’s knife.
“This is the Maoui Deba. It was actually designed by a chef, Karim Maoui. It has a beautiful balance, don’t you think?”
Stella held the knife as she would to chop an onion. Then she flipped it so the blade was uppermost with the ball of her thumb pushed up against its thick rear edge. Spun it back again. Then she changed her grip again.
The saleswoman took a step back, a flash of anxiety visible in her face.
Stella was holding the big knife point downwards, her hand tight around the handle, whitening her knuckles. She rested the point on the sleek, varnished timber of the butcher’s block. She looked down. Blood was welling up around the tip of the knife. Given that it was embedded in a man’s eye that was only to be expected. She loosened her grip a little and twirled the point. The surface of the eyeball gave a little, then tore. The knife slid down to the back of the socket with a soft pop. She leaned on it and heard the distant crunch of thin bone. The knife sliced down into his brain. He was dead.
She looked round at the saleswoman, who was blinking rapidly, and smiled.
“I’ll take them both. Can you wrap them for me?”
*
The following Monday morning, Stella arrived in the exhibits room to be greeted by a smiling Reggie Willing. Food poisoning seemed to have done him good. He looked about twenty pounds slimmer and was wearing a new suit and a wide smile.
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t my favourite new recruit. How are you, Stel?” he asked, coming round the edge of his desk, arms wide, as if her to hug her.
She stepped back.
“Fine, Reg. How are you?”
He stood, arms still spread, and smiled.
“Funniest thing, Stel. Once I’d stopped rushing to the toilet every five minutes, which, I can tell you, was not fun, I don’t know, I just found some sort of inner peace. I lay in bed while Karen looked after me. Woman’s a saint. A real saint. Couldn’t do enough for me. Got my strength back, little by little. But look at me!”
At this point, Reg executed a clumsy pirouette like a hippo in a tutu.
“You lost weight then, Reg?”
“Two stones, near enough. Karen had to go out and buy me new clothes. My old ones were that big they kept falling off me. Couldn’t come to work with my trousers round my ankles, could I?” he said, winking.
Pushing away the image of a debagged Reg the Veg, Stella answered him with a straight face. “Glad to have you back, Reg. Anyway, listen, now you are back, I hope you don’t mind but I’ve got some Operation Streamline meetings to go to this week. Might need to be away for a day or two.”
“As you wish, dear lady, as you wish. You’re not exactly a career administrator, are you?”
With that, he spun on his heel and marched off towards some distant corner of the exhibits room, the sound of his footsteps bouncing off the hard surfaces of the floor and ceilings.
Right, Stel, time to get going. Let’s call Mr Riordan.
“Hello? Who’s this?” The voice at the other end was friendly enough, with a Mancunian twang.
“Is that Barney Riordan?”
“Yeah. Who wants to know?”
“Detective Inspector Stella Cole, Metropolitan Police, Mister Riordan. I’d like to talk to you about your car.”
“Oh, no! Some bastard hasn’t nicked it, have they?”
“No, sir. But I would like to come and see you. Just a few questions. Would you be free tomorrow?”
“Can’t, can I? Training in the morning. Then meetings with my sponsors all afternoon.”
“It won’t take very long, sir. No more than half an hour.” Unless I think you killed my baby and her daddy, in which case I’ll make it last as long as you can draw breath.
“I could fit you in right after training, I suppose. Get a shower first then meet at our ground.”
“What time?”
“Twelve thirty all right? It’s Craven Cottage, yeah?”
Stella told him the time was fine and that she knew her way to the ground –
which isn’t a million miles from our old house – thanked him and ended the call.
She rang the other four numbers, but they all went to voicemail. She left a short, polite message each time, asking the owners to call her back.
She started as someone tapped her on the shoulder. She spun round in her chair, then smiled.
“Jesus, Daisy! Don’t creep up on me like that.”
“Is it true? Did I just hear you arranging to meet Barney Riordan?”
The girl’s heavily made-up eyes were wide with a mixture of delight and curiosity.
“You might have? Why, want to tag along, do you?”
“Oh, God, I’d probably wet my knickers!”
Stella decided to break another rule. Why not? It wasn’t as if she’d had a spotless record since coming back to work.
“You can, if you want to. Be my number two. Normally, I’d have a DS with me, but I’m a bit persona non grata upstairs.”
“A bit what?”
“An unwelcome person in a country. Like suspected terrorists or those mad religious fuckers who want to come over here and encourage people to bomb abortion clinics.” The girl’s eyes widened further, if that were possible. Stella smiled. “Which I’m not, obviously. But I am a bit short-handed. So, if you did want to come with me–” Stella let the sentence hang between them like a thread of cigarette smoke.
Daisy nodded. Fast. Then poked her glasses higher on the bridge of her nose.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, please. But, like, what should I wear? Am I on active duty? I’m only police staff here, you do know that, don’t you?”
“Slow down. First, you work for the Met, like me. Like every copper in this station. Second, something simple and quiet. Black, maybe, or navy. Third, you do what I say, okay? No simpering or asking for his autograph. And definitely no selfies.”
Daisy nodded, again. “Yes. I can do that. I have my interview suit at home. I can get Mum to press it for me.”
“Good. We’ll leave here tomorrow at eleven. And one last thing?”
“Yes?”
Stella felt sure Daisy would have agreed to sign over every penny she had in her bank account, and possibly her soul, for the chance to meet Riordan. Be a shame if I have to kill, then.
“Lose the nose ring.”
*
Stella arrived in the armoury as a posse of stone-faced, black-clad firearms officers were clearing their weapons into the sandbox and signing them back in with Hutchings and Nick Probert. She waited, keeping well out of the way until the last of them had disappeared, then approached the counter.
“Hey, Danny!” she called over, at the armourer’s back.
He turned. Saw Stella, and smiled. Came back to the grille.
“Hi,” he said, smiling. “Thought we’d lost you. Haven’t seen much of you since the fun and games with those new Glocks.”
“I know, and I’m sorry. Been a bit preoccupied with Operation Neat and Bloody Tidy, to be honest, much though it pains me to say it. I thought you might want to come round tonight.”
Hutchings grinned. It was a very attractive grin. Not smug, just a bit boyish, as if he truly believed everyone and everything in the world were conspiring to make his life as full of pleasure as possible.
“I’d love that. Same as last time? About eight?”
“Perfect. Do you like Chinese?”
Another smile. “Chinese, Indian, whatever. If I’m sharing it with you, it’s fine.”
She left him there, arguing with Nick about the best way to store magazines – empty or full – and took a detour on her way back to the basement.
Walking into the hubbub of the CID office gave her a sudden rush of adrenaline. She could feel it in the pit of her stomach. All around her, detectives were scanning computer screens, on the phone, standing at whiteboards presenting new findings, huddled in twos, threes and fours discussing cases. She had to remind herself that light duties had always been part of her plan. She inhaled, savouring the smell of coffee, marker pens, sweat, coffee and the raw tang of excitement.
She threaded her way through to Frankie O’Meara’s desk, having spotted her coming back from the kitchen with a mug of tea.
“Boss! Hi, how are you?” Frankie said, once Stella had arrived at her desk, its surface free of even a post-it note. Frankie was obsessive about keeping her workspace clear and filed every single piece of paper the moment she’d read it. “I thought we’d never see you again.”
Stella smiled. “I’m good. You know, slowly going mad working with Reg the Veg, but it’s okay. They’ll have to recall me to the team at some point or I’ll be going postal down there myself.”
“I feel your pain, boss. Is there anything I can do for you? I mean,” she dropped her voice to a murmur, “The Model told us all you’re kind of easing your way back in, and he’d prefer us not to burden you with operational detail.” Frankie rolled her eyes as she mimicked Collier’s measured cadences.
“There is something, Frankie. Do you want to come out the back for a fag break?”
Frankie looked puzzled. “I don’t smoke, you know that.”
“I know. Now, do you fancy coming down for a fag break or not?”
*
Paddington Green had a central courtyard enclosed on all four sides by administrative offices, the armoury, the custody suite and a block of holding cells, and the front of the station. The latter housed the reception area where members of the public were permitted, coming in to report lost dogs, snatched bags and suspicious characters milling around outside public buildings, who almost always turned out to be students, foreign tourists or winos congregating by a warm air vent.
The courtyard, with its nooks and crannies, also served as a discreet venue for the station’s smokers to light up away from the disapproving eyes of their more health-conscious colleagues and those senior officers who felt smoking showed a lack of self-discipline. Not to mention the hated pen-pushers who’d banned smoking in the first place, forcing anyone who needed a nicotine fix to skulk around like a criminal.
Stella led Frankie to an unoccupied corner, nodding on the way to a couple of plainclothes officers she knew from an operation she’d worked on before the accident. The murder. Before the murder. He’d murdered them. I’ll make him pay, baby. Don’t worry.
Frankie was talking, but her voiced sounded muffled. It didn’t matter. What did matter was the small child playing in the centre of the courtyard. She couldn’t be more than eighteen months old, in a little flowery dress and pale pink sandals. Must belong to a witness or maybe a relative, or a guest of the custody sergeant. As Stella watched, the little girl retrieved a cigarette butt from a patch pocket on the right side of her dress and placed it between her lips. She took a lighter from the same pocket, thumbed the wheel and touched the flame to the blackened end of the butt, cupping her other hand around the flame.
Stella tried to run to her. To snatch the burning cigarette from between her fingers and grind it under foot. But she couldn’t get moving. Her knees were locked together and she knew if she tried to run, she’d simply collapse. The little girl screamed as the cigarette flared with orange flame. The flame blew backwards into her face and within seconds her hair was blazing. The dress caught fire next, roaring as the flames were fanned by a sudden breeze. The screams intensified and Stella watched helplessly, wordlessly, tears streaming from her eyes as the little girl’s skin peeled off in the heat before she toppled sideways and lay still.
Then she disappeared.
Stella lurched sideways, colliding with Frankie’s right hip.
“Oh, God, no!” she wailed. “Lola!”
Frankie was leaning over her, an expression of concern creasing the normally smooth skin of her forehead.
“Boss? Stella? Are you all right?”
Stella got to her feet, brushing dirt from her jeans.
“I’m fine. Did you, did you see the little girl? In the flowery dress?”
Frankie frowned. “Where?”
/> Stella turned her head, knowing there’d be nothing but the scrubby patch of scuffed dirt and grass.
“Nothing. It’s nothing. Just felt a bit faint. I missed lunch, that’s all.”
“You were staring over there. Your mouth was working, but you weren’t making a sound. Did you not hear me talking to you?”
A voice in Stella’s head was muttering the same two words over and over again, “run now, run now, run now”. But she wouldn’t. Couldn’t. Oh God, for a Valium now. Just half a one would do it. A little round pill to quell those fucking sparrow-sized butterflies fluttering and panicking to be let out of her stomach. She fought down the fear, forcing herself to slow her breathing, and lighting a cigarette to buy a little time.
“Like I said. Just felt a bit woozy for a moment. Must be the thought of that fag.” Stella took a drag and aimed for a smile, but she could tell it wasn’t convincing from Frankie’s doubtful expression.
“I’m going to let that go. For now. But you need to come out with me. Soon. For a proper conversation. You can let me in, you know. If you’re having problems coping. I won’t tell The Model. Or Miss Bitchy-Face from occie health.”
“You know her too, do you?” Stella asked, knowing exactly who Frankie meant.
“Everyone does. We call her Eva Braun. She’s like Collier’s loyal little sheepdog. Always pestering us about this training or that evaluation centre. I think she imagines all the lowlifes on our patch just put their shit on hold while we go off to get lectured about appropriate professional standards and best practice. I’d like to give her a slap, boss, I really would.”
Stella gave a wry smile. If what she suspected about Linda Heath was true, Eva Braun was just about on the money. And a slap would be only the beginning.
“Frankie, do you ever wonder whether we’re truly the good guys?”
“What do you mean?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Square Eyes
STELLA PAUSED. SHE was as sure as a body could be that Frankie O'Meara wasn’t the sort of cop – the sort of woman – who would join a vigilante group inside the police force. Just as she had been about Lucian.
