by Matt Hilton
On the far side of Queenstown Road was Battersea Park, an expanse of grass and trees and ponds, and a million hiding places. A tall fence surrounded the park, metal railings topped by ornamental spearheads. There was an entrance down at Queen’s Circus, but none she could spot on the street within hundreds of metres. Robson continued up the main road, and hopefully he’d meet a TPU coming the other direction.
History repeating. She’d chased Erick Swain on foot, and now Jermaine Robson. Perhaps it was a sign that instead of swimming she should take up running as a pastime, so when it happened again she would actually be fit enough to catch somebody. Chance would be a fine thing. With his long-legged gait Robson was leaving her standing. She put down her head, pumped her elbows, and the effort was felt in her chest as if each lung had instantly shrivelled to the size of a walnut. She hollered at her phone, but her voice was a foreign language even to her ears.
In the distance blue lights flashed as a police car streaked towards them over Chelsea Bridge. Kerry didn’t spot the responding patrol car at first, only heard the tempo of Robson’s clattering footsteps alter, and she looked up in time to see him slide to a halt. He was caught in indecision, stepping one way, then the other, before he spun and glared at her. Kerry also slowed, but continued striding towards him, one palm held out flat towards him. ‘Stop right there,’ she shouted. ‘You’re under arrest, Robson.’
He launched at the railings surrounding the park. Swain, appearing from nowhere, attempted to stall him. He wrapped his arms around Robson’s throat and tried hauling backwards. Robson slipped the gossamer noose, and swarmed up the railings. There was no easy way of scaling them. He had to crouch on top, balanced with his hands on two spear heads, feet crimped between them and on a narrow cross bar, then make a flying leap to clear them. Haste was his downfall. The cuff of a pants leg snagged on one of the spearheads. He jumped, and his left leg was yanked backwards before the material tore loose, and Robson went down to the dirt headfirst. Kerry raced to the spot, and saw Robson gathering his feet under him. He turned towards her, grimacing in pain. As he pushed up, he limped heavily on his left leg, and cradled his right arm against his ribs. ‘Give it up,’ she snapped.
He swung his back on her and took off at an awkward, agonised lope.
Kerry shoved her phone in her pocket and sprang for the railings. She was perched on the top like a church gargoyle when the TPU screeched to a halt alongside her. She waved urgently at the armed response officer in the driving seat, sending him to the park’s entrance on Queen’s Circus, then jumped. She landed, didn’t bother checking the car had sped off to enter the park by the distant entrance, and charged after Robson. In the few seconds it had taken to scale the railings, darkness had engulfed Robson. She couldn’t see him, but she could hear. He crashed through some bushes twenty metres ahead. She plunged forward, aware of the darkness folding around her.
Pursuing a desperate criminal into the park was risky. If he turned on her, even injured, he’d still easily overpower her. But it was a risk she was willing to take. Now she had back up converging on the scene, all she need do was keep an ear on his location, then direct her armed colleagues to him. Robson was making so much noise as he blundered through the bushes that she’d get plenty of notice if he came after her. Now he limped on a twisted ankle, and was struggling with an injured arm, she was confident she could evade him, while still keeping close tabs on him. If he tried to hide, she’d have him surrounded and captured in no time. She moved through the shrubs with more care, following his crashing progress.
Swain was at her side, his face set in a rictus. He stabbed his cuffed wrist at the darkness.
‘He’s going to get away from you!’
‘He’s going nowhere. Except to jail.’
‘No! You have to go get him. Now! Before it’s too late!’
‘He can’t escape. Chill out, Swain.’
She forced her way through some broken twigs, caught sight of movement ahead. The line, remarkably, was still open on her phone.
‘Danny? You still there?’
‘I’m here, boss!’ Behind his strident voice, sirens howled. She thought she could hear their fainter echo somewhere in the distance. ‘Where are you?’
‘In pursuit of Jermaine Robson. I’m in Battersea Park, the east side.’
‘I’m a few minutes out. Kerry, for God’s sake, don’t try grabbing him yourself.’
‘I’ve got back up.’ She glanced at Swain’s tormented face, but didn’t mean him. ‘TPU are here. They’re coming in the park by another entrance. I just need to keep an eye on Robson, see where he goes and we’ve got him.’
Swain coughed out a curse and flashed ahead.
‘You’re alone?’ Korba suddenly asked. ‘TPU aren’t with you yet?’
‘No, they’re still a few hundred metres away. They’re coming though.’
‘So who were you talking to a few seconds ago?’
He’d overheard her speaking with Swain. Shit. Hopefully he hadn’t heard her referring to him by name.
‘Nobody. I was shouting at Robson, that’s all.’
He was unconvinced, but she didn’t really care at that moment. Robson had changed direction; his crashing advance had switched to her left. She swung after him, telling Korba Robson was heading parallel to Queenstown Road. ‘Let my back-up know.’
Through the tree trunks she spotted the flashing blue lights of the TPU, but it hurtled past her, speeding along one of the park’s carriage driveways. She spilled out from under the trees just as heavy raindrops showered down. The tumult briefly deafened Robson’s progress.
A deserted sports stadium was to her right, and dead ahead a serpentine jogging trail wound between more trees. She picked up speed, again feeling the exertion in her knees. Fifteen metres ahead, Swain waved impatiently for her to catch up.
‘For Christ’s sake, Kezza! Get a frigging move on, will you? He’s going to get away.’
‘Show me where he is,’ she hollered, and conscious of the phone in her hand, she slipped it back in her pocket, and slapped her hand over it to muffle her voice. ‘Swain, where did he go?’
‘This way. Come on.’ He shot away, a ragged streamer of colours, lit by some inner illumination. Kerry followed as if he was an elusive will-o’-the-wisp.
The jogging path met the same carriage trail the TPU had sped along moments ago. The patrol car’s lights flashed among the tree canopy a few hundred metres to the north, but Swain continued dead ahead, towards a circular building surrounded on one side by wooden picnic tables: some kind of café, there to serve park goers during daylight hours. Out of season, the café looked as if it had been sealed shut until next spring. She briefly wondered if Robson had tried to force entry, to hole up inside, but Swain swept by, and she ran, glancing across at where the patrol car was well out of hailing range. Other blue lights converged on the park’s main entrance. There was a choice of two trails through a copse of trees to the left, but the nearest headed too close to the main gate where the other police cars were arriving. Without her ghostly guide’s insistence, she took the second trail.
‘Jermaine Robson,’ she shouted, ‘stop running. You’re surrounded. Just stop where you are and get down on the ground.’
She heard the scuffing of feet and wheezed curses, as Robson grew more frantic to escape. She charged towards the sounds, and came to the convergence of three snaking trails. Robson was on none of them. He clattered through low tree limbs to her right, swiftly pursued by Swain. She yelled, and plunged after them.
Rain pattered in the canopy. Then it was as if a boulder fell from the sky and hit the boating lake. Wild thrashing followed, and a croak of alarm.
Kerry forced through a tangle of bushes and branches, and skidded out onto a muddy embankment. Robson was already waist deep in water. In a blind panic, he’d staggered from the path and into the large lake that dominated Battersea Park. The lake was dotted with tree crowned islets, and in his desperation to escape Robson wad
ed for the nearest. But with each step his feet were dragged into deeper mud, and in the next instant he was chest deep, and his arms began clawing for something to grab on to. He slipped, went under the surface. In the darkness he disappeared completely. Then he exploded up again, crying out in horror, and his arms thrashed the surface into froth. Swain, baying at his enemy, clung to his head and shoulders.
‘Kerry! Come and help me push this bastard under! Come on. He can run like a whippet, but he can’t swim for shit!’
Robson sank under again.
Next time he exploded up, his mouth was wide and he gasped, stricken with terror, and began slipping under again.
‘Drown you bastard!’ Swain crowed in delight. He snapped his gaze on Kerry. ‘What are you waiting for? This is your chance. Drown him before the other coppers show up and they’ll never know who did it. Do it now, Kerry, and I’ll give you the Fell Man’s name.’
He was right. There wasn’t another police officer in hundreds of metres. She could swim out, add her weight to Robson’s shoulders and let him suck in the murky lake water. Swain would get what he wanted, and she would get the answers she was desperate for. Who would ever know she’d assisted in Robson’s drowning? Did the man who’d ordered the slaying of a mother and child for his own gain deserve any better? Even Suleymaan Ghedi, a devoutly religious man, could find no forgiveness for those responsible for his wife and daughter’s deaths, so why should she show any pity?
It took her all of a second to decide.
‘Danny, Robson’s in the lake,’ she shouted as she plucked out her phone. ‘He’s drowning!’ She looked once at Swain’s gloating visage, and said, ‘I’m going in.’
She threw her phone down, pulled her handbag from around her shoulder and cast it aside too, then plunged into the lake, diving, so that she wouldn’t also be caught in the mire.
‘Drown him! Drown him!’ Swain raged over Robson, his colours flaring as if the drowning man was engulfed in flames. Robson’s thrashing served only to sink him deeper, and he could now barely crane his head back far enough to suck in a last breath. ‘Push him under,’ Swain screeched at Kerry, delirious with delight. ‘Stamp on his fucking throat. Kill the bastard!’
Kerry grasped hold of Robson’s jacket. Robson erupted out of the water again, buoyed by her grasp, but he fought, grabbing and pulling at her. She slapped his hands aside and forced him around so she was behind him, grabbing at both his shoulders, and she levered down.
‘Yes, push him down. Go on. Do it. Push him down, keep him down, keep him under…’ Swain’s commands were almost hysterical, the words rushing from him in ecstasy at his rival’s doom. ‘DrownhimKerryFuckingmurderhim.’
She kicked out with her feet, into the backs of Robson’s knees and he fell backwards against her. Her left arm she wrapped under his chin, elevating his face from the water.
‘Wait! What?’ Swain was in Kerry’s face as she plunged backwards, towing the semi-conscious fugitive with her for the nearest bank. ‘What are you doing? Drown him, before the Old Bill get here.’
Kerry ignored him, too encumbered with the effort of dragging Robson to the safety of dry land.
‘What are you doing?’ Swain demanded, but this time there was a different timbre to his screech. ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’
She struggled through knee-deep mud. Almost fell flat under Robson. He outweighed her, and could have flattened her into the muck if he wished, but he was almost senseless, gasping, crying in relief. Kerry rolled him over and he went on his hands and knees, spluttering. She grasped his collar with both hands, backing for the bank. He scrambled after her, and when finally his torso cleared the water, he collapsed face down in the dirt at the edge of the lake. He lay gagging up filthy water. Kerry forced a knee on his shoulder, held him in place, but there was no need. He wasn’t going anywhere.
‘Jermaine Robson,’ she said, ‘you are under arrest.’
Kerry looked out across the churned up water.
Swain stood waist deep, his mouth working silently as he glared at Robson, then up at her.
‘Why didn’t you do it?’ he croaked. ‘You had a chance and you didn’t take it.’
‘I warned you there was a line I wouldn’t cross,’ she reminded him.
‘You’ve ruined everything,’ he moaned. ‘Everything!’
‘I’ve caught the ones that destroyed you,’ she countered. ‘All of them. They’ll all go to prison for a long time. Isn’t that enough for you?’
‘No. No it isn’t. Noooooo!’ He howled like an injured animal.
Then he was gone, and others were there. Armed police officers rushed to assist her, Korba crashed through the nearest bushes, face stretched wide in concern until he spotted her kneeling on top of her prisoner and he almost sat down in relief.
And Girl was there too, watching the proceedings morosely around the crooked bole of a nearby tree.
41
In the days that followed, Kerry’s life went from complicated to chaotic. Not all of the uproar was bad, only some. Suleymaan Ghedi wept when she informed him that all the plotters had been captured, and suitable punishments would follow: his tears were of gratitude, and he held her hands briefly, kissed her on the cheek and again called her an angel. She was hailed as a heroine in the press and on TV; the downside being packs of baying journalists pursued her whenever she showed her face outside the police station. Her colleagues and superiors alike applauded her — the latter at least in public — and DCI Porter was happy to share in the plaudits, though every time she was in his presence she experienced an uncanny crawling of her skin. There was nothing supernatural in her ability to sense his feelings regarding her. She could almost imagine the tendrils of suspicion coiling off him to prod and poke at her as he delved for something useful to knock her from her lofty perch. He didn’t accept her assertion that she’d been following a lead when she’d located Jermaine Robson’s hideout, especially after she again refused to name her intelligence source. There were procedures in place to protect the identities of CHIS from repercussion, but they didn’t extend beyond the request for clarification from a superintendent, and Porter got Alexandra Tinsley onboard. Charles Porter and “Sandy” Tinsley were not golfing buddies, or members of a secretive brotherhood, but they were firm friends. Back in the day, when Porter was a lowly DC, Sandy was his sergeant, and — if the rumours were true — his lover. They’d both gone on to marry other partners, but affection persisted, though these days in a purely platonic fashion. Whenever Porter chose to throw his weight around, he preferred Sandy in his corner.
Three days after arresting Robson, Kerry was invited to the superintendent’s office, and she refused the offer of having a Police Federation representative accompany her. The office was similar to Porter’s, though slightly larger, and with more framed commendations on the walls, and a larger window that let in natural light. There was a desk at which the superintendent could work, but at the room’s centre chairs surrounded a large table, where policing strategy meetings were conducted. Sandy took the chair at the head of the table, Kerry the one at the foot, while Porter had his choice of any of the other six ladder-backed chairs. He decided to lounge against the wall to Sandy’s right, as if overseeing the proceedings rather than taking an active role.
‘Would you like some spring water?’ Tinsley offered.
Kerry declined politely. Besides, it was doubtful water would sufficiently unglue her tongue from the roof of her mouth.
‘Would you prefer coffee? I can have some fetched.’ Tinsley glanced at Porter, as if he should see to the refreshments, and he frowned. Kerry saved him the humiliation of waiting on her.
‘I’m fine, ma’am.’
‘Are you, though?’ The superintendent didn’t waste any time getting to the crux of things. She could be sharp-tongued, but Kerry had more time for her than for her immediate supervisor — normally. Tinsley sat, her deep brown eyes sparkling with intensity behind the rectangular lenses of her designer spectac
les, a Mona Lisa smile on her lips.
‘Never better, ma’am.’ Kerry glanced up at Porter, who failed to conceal a snort of disbelief. In fact, he hadn’t slipped, but snorted on purpose. Tinsley’s response was to lift her hand off the table an inch, but that was all. Porter crossed his arms, and stayed quiet.
‘I’m impressed by the results you’ve had lately,’ Tinsley said. ‘Charles has also expressed how pleased he is with how you handled the Ghedi shooting. However, it hasn’t escaped his notice that your methods might prove questionable when the defendants come to court. He’s yet to see a report, redacted or otherwise, regarding the chain of events that led you to the original arrests. I haven’t seen such a statement either.’
Procedure meant a full and concise evidence file should be collated and presented to the Crown Prosecution Service. Any sensitive information would be censored — redacted — prior to copies being supplied to the respective defence teams, thus ensuring the anonymity of those at risk of repercussions if their personal details were leaked. Kerry didn’t enjoy special dispensation from legal process.
‘My source wishes to remain anonymous, and I promised they wouldn’t appear in any statement, censored or otherwise.’ Heat grew in Kerry’s throat. Her answer plainly wasn’t good enough.
‘So if I ask how you happened to locate not one but two hiding places, what would you tell me?’ Steepling her hands on the table, Tinsley waited. Her enigmatic smile slipped, her mouth forming a tight line.
‘All I can say is I followed tip-offs from an anonymous source, and both played out.’
‘In the first instance, at the warehouse off Nine Elms Lane, you organised and implemented a raid. Yet you felt the need to go after Jermaine Robson alone. It’s not the behaviour I expect of an inspector under my command.’
‘Ma’am,’ said Kerry, ‘I was under a time constraint with Robson. There wasn’t time for obtaining a RIPA authorisation, or organising the resources to control the location he was found at. If I’d delayed, Robson would’ve slipped away. It’s since come to my notice that he was lying low at the Power House until transportation could be organised to get him out the city.’ She was stating fact. Following her arrest of Robson, he’d admitted he was only hours away from skipping out of London, with a plan to escape to the continent and from there fly to a country with no extradition treaty with the UK. It mattered not if he was telling the truth, it still added to her case. ‘If I hadn’t gone there when I did, he would’ve escaped.’
