Metropolitan Dreams (Cityscape Book 1)

by Mark A. King

  Ryan hesitated. Jimmy could almost hear the cogs and pistons in his brain engaging. “What about Westbourne?”

  “I’m too weak for a war. Westbourne has been untouchable for many years. I’ve had no choice but to do smaller jobs—but only those I felt comfortable about. I want no part in this other crap. The city is being dragged down the toilet because of the lack of respect—drugs are one thing, but this slavery, you know, sexual exploitation, forced labour and human trafficking, is fucking wrong, pure and simple. It turns my stomach. I don’t want to be a grass, but if I can hand information over that’ll bring Westbourne down, that’s one fewer item on my conscience to take with me when I die. Is that it, Ryan? I need to know everything.”

  Ryan glanced at the floor, at the ceiling, anywhere other than Jimmy’s bed. He rubbed between his neck and his collar. “Yes, sir. There was one more thing. The kid Leo took with him, he had a phone.”

  Jimmy tutted. “And? What’s that got to do with anything. Everyone carries phones these days.”

  “But the phone was one he shouldn’t have had. He nicked it from the last job, a few weeks back—when we were supposed to break into that house and take computers or anything that looked like notes. He palmed a phone from the house. I didn’t know about it. Leo only told me when he phoned me.”

  “You’re shitting me, right?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You really have screwed up, Ryan. Do you know who gave me that break-in job?”

  “I’ve got a feeling.”

  “Westbourne. I gave you specific instructions to hand over anything that was found. How did this happen? If there is data on that phone relating to Westbourne then we’re in deep shit, and the girl with the phone is even more trouble than I thought. How could you use Leo and his mate again after that?”

  “I didn’t know anything about the stolen phone until Leo phoned me in a panic. He’s scared, sir.”

  “He ought to be. Anyone connected with the event—or that phone—is going to be in the crosshairs now. Including you, Ryan.”

  Ryan straightened and clenched his fists. “I can look after myself, sir.”

  “I doubt that, Ryan.” Jimmy was staggered at the level of incompetence his most trusted employee had displayed.

  Jimmy had been working with Ryan and Josh for decades. They’d always been reliable and fiercely loyal. They were like sons to him. Ryan wasn’t normally careless. What can I do? Three thoughts were competing in Jimmy’s mind:

  Do nothing? That option was easy—sit it out. Leo Jeffers would be dead soon enough. But what about the boys? What about the witnesses? What about the city—his city—that was turning a blind-eye to the suffering of some of the most vulnerable? No—that wasn’t an option.

  Go to the police? A ridiculous suggestion. They’d like nothing better than for the once-great Jimmy Kinsella to turn grass. Besides which, Westbourne had connections everywhere. There was no telling how far the information would get.

  Go to someone he could trust? There was someone. She was working inside the system. He could trust her.

  Jimmy faced away from Ryan and turned to Josh. “I want you to find Detective Iona Stone. Bring her to me.”

  Charlie

  “Does that security guy have to keep patrolling the ward?” Charlie whispered to Nurse Ciarán.

  “You’re lucky that they decided against a permanent police presence. Cutbacks, I guess. You were a key witness to the crime. The hospital is reluctant to take chances with the safety of a patient. He’s here for your protection.”

  Charlie eased herself to the side of the bed. For a moment, she forgot the injuries. The pain was a sledgehammer hitting her ribcage from inside. On her skin, the stitch-wounds tugged in a sharp reminder for her to move more carefully. “Is that really necessary? I mean, I told the police everything I know, which wasn’t much. They didn’t even seem that interested.”

  “I guess they’re stretched. We’ll make sure you’re safe. Please try not to worry.”

  Charlie had become all too familiar with worry.

  Noah dominated her thoughts. She wanted to hug him tightly and feel the warmth of his skin against hers. Smell the scent of the baby-lotion bubble-bath in his hair as she cradled him after a nightmare. Protect him. Harbour him from the violent world outside—a world that could do this to her, could end the life of an innocent woman, could endanger a vulnerable girl. Charlie’s skin crawled as though insects had burrowed just beneath the surface. She needed to get home to Noah. To allow her boy to fulfil his potential. To shield him from the violent world. To protect him from Robbie’s influence.

  “How are you feeling today, Charlie?” Ciarán asked, interrupting her thoughts.

  “Oh, you know—just fantastic. I’m thinking of writing a TripAdvisor travel report,” she mocked. “You know ... brilliant service, fab food, entertainment involving high amounts of audience participation and the overpowering cloying aroma of bleach adding to the illusion of cleanliness.”

  He smiled. Ciarán had the perfect smile. Natural and easy. If there was anything she disliked more than rotten teeth, it was the fake, shiny, put-your-sunglasses-on veneer smiles that had become popular.

  She watched Ciarán as he fussed around her. Could Noah become a caring young man one day? Although she’d never say it to Noah, his father was the human equivalent of a parasite; he knew only how to get what he wanted. Charlie was pleased that Noah’s dad no longer had a role in his life, but she was uneasy with Robbie, too.

  Robbie had shown so much potential. In the first months he had worshiped Charlie, but as she asked more of him, he withdrew into his old social circle. His outbursts became frequent and intense—violent summer storms that would quickly dissipate.

  Charlie watched the security guard scanning for threats. But how would he know? She thought. An underworld clean-up assassin would hardly be wearing a sign. It could be that middle-aged man dressed in scrubs. It could be that young woman, pretending to visit a relative. It could be that tall, well-dressed man, with slicked-back hair, who looks like a consultant.

  “When can I go?” Charlie asked the nurse.

  “You need to heal first,” Ciarán replied. “The antibiotics are working, but the infection was strong. We have to wait until you are better. It’s going to be at least a couple of days.”

  “A couple of days? You don’t understand. I need to get home.”

  “If you go home any earlier you’re only making your recovery harder. Walking will be painful. We’ll arrange physio.” Ciarán gestured to the other patients. “I know daytime TV is mind-numbing, but it doesn’t cost much and it helps to pass the time between visiting hours.” He explained how it worked and turned it on for her. “I’ll leave you to rest up now.”

  After the nurse left, Charlie scanned the channels, looking for the rolling 24-hour news station. A familiar image appeared on the screen. Charlie’s mouth opened but she failed to realise she’d stopped breathing. Her inhale paused, putting further pressure on her lungs and ribcage. After half a minute, she gasped, a loud panic breath that would have turned heads in any other place.

  Charlie touched her hospital gown, rubbing her fingers over her wounds. The events replayed in her mind like wrathful GIFs—short, snappy video-loops. She was surprised by the focus of her flashback. The scenes of her trying to restrain the armed robber were hurried and distorted. She felt anesthetized and detached as she replayed the knife entering her body. Her attention was on the mother and child.

  Charlie looked at the pictures on the TV screen. The reporter’s voice became muffled as Charlie focused on the area of the shop where the mother must have been killed. Charlie remembered being outside on the floor, helpless, but wanting to get up and intervene. The mother and the girl were not in a position to defend themselves. Charlie was—given her occupation as a nightclub bouncer. She replayed the scene, over and over, trying to find a way to save them. She would heal; the mother would not. Nor would the daughter.

&nbs
p; Charlie snapped out of the internal replays and tuned in to the voice of the reporter, who verified that the missing girl was called Maria Mathan. She was only twelve. She had cerebral palsy, and the reporter explained how this affected Maria’s mobility and spatial perception. Maria had only been in the country a few hours. Some welcome.

  If Charlie was at risk, then what about Maria? She was a witness, too. Twelve was an age for music, social media, boys, homework—maybe.

  Tears welled in Charlie’s eyes. Charlie hadn’t cried at the death of her parents or in the pain of childbirth.

  The tears were as much for Noah as they were for Maria Mathan. How would he have coped in a foreign city, all alone? How would he feel if she—his mum—his only safety—had been stabbed and killed in front of him? How would he cope if every step was difficult and draining? What would he do, all alone, with people looking to harm him?

  Charlie had always tried to be upbeat and positive. Even through the lens of alcohol-fuelled fights with Noah’s father. Even through Robbie’s mood swings, when she never knew which version of him she would walk in to find. Was she really any better off being in a relationship than being a single mum? She started to realise that, perhaps, Noah was lucky, despite the current circumstances. Although Charlie wasn’t with Noah, she would be there for him as he grew into a man.

  Charlie knew how to take care of herself. Her job was trouble avoidance, not trouble management. It was something many of the gym-pumped guys who normally served as bouncers failed to realise. A polite word in the ears of punters who showed signs of drunkenness or aggressive body language. An arm round the shoulders of crying girls who’d watched boyfriends cheat on them. A firm march to the alleyway for someone who spent too much time in dark corners exchanging packages.

  Life in the nightclub was a condensed version of London, glitzy and promising from a distance. But coming off a nightshift at the nightclub, Charlie knew the streets were not paved with gold. The real city was as much about the grey puddles rimmed with vomit, the half-chewed kebabs in hedges, and the million chewing-gum stains sticking to the streets like metastasis.

  She used to worry about Noah growing up. How would she stop him going to these places? Prevent him from getting into trouble? But Charlie would be grateful if she could get him that far and let him find his own path. Be there to fix him up, support him, when he failed. Charlie knew she was lucky to still be in the position where this seemingly mundane hope existed. Maria would not be so lucky.

  The news report had said the police were searching for the girl, and they had even posted a hotline for leads or information. But Maria was all alone on the streets of London.

  There was no busy hospital for Maria Mathan. No security guard. No mum. And—it seemed—little hope.

  Iona

  After the confrontation with Verity Armitage, Iona returned to the toilets. She stuffed her formal attire into a backpack and eased into her normal clothing. She dumped the backpack in the bin as she left the office; she wouldn’t be needing those clothes again. What was the point? It didn’t make a scrap of difference.

  Armitage had been right about some things. Iona’s shoulders sagged under the weight of her guilt. The missing girl, Maria Mathan, was still out there, and Iona’s inaction and selfishness had allowed it to happen.

  What could she do? A shamed and suspended detective is no use to anyone.

  A towards the end of the street, Iona could see a van. The aerials prodded out like porcupine spines. The throb of her pulse pushed behind her eyes—she rubbed her sockets, hoping to push back the incoming migraine.

  She thought about crossing the street. Thought about turning around and finding another way home. Thought about begging to be let back into the office so that she could sit it out. The Investigative Reporter, Danielle Greene, had been mercilessly pursuing the unit Iona worked for—often implying incompetence, misadministration, and even hinting at corruption.

  Running and hiding is feeble. Facing it head on is the best way to deal with it. Show no weakness. No fear.

  Iona didn’t trust people like Danielle Greene. She’d seen how they had destroyed figures of authority, celebrities, and sports stars. Nothing was off limits to them. No matter how personal or how old the information was, it was all fair game to them. Iona knew if they looked hard enough, they would judge her less-than-perfect upbringing. They’d use her background in cyber-vigilante networks, single-out her old friends—they’d ignore the fact that this was what made her perfect for her job, much to the dismay of her colleagues. Iona knew the media manipulated stories on behalf of owners or shareholders with vested interests. These reporters were masters of subversion and misinformation hidden behind statements of public interest and freedom of the press.

  If the Cyber Crime Prevention Unit was unpopular within the Force, then outside there were worse troubles—and Danielle Greene was their self-proclaimed nemesis. Despite Iona’s dislike for Greene, she grudgingly admired the reporter’s tenacity and perseverance—even if the reporter had little proof of any wrongdoing in the unit. No doubt the events at the newsagents’ and Iona’s failures would be an early Christmas present for Greene.

  Iona approached the van with her head held high on a platform of tense, strained neck muscles.

  The side door of the van rolled open, and Danielle Greene leapt out in a motion worthy of an A-list actress in an action movie.

  Danielle and her media crew blocked the path, and Iona had to stand back a few paces to engineer some distance between them.

  The reporter wasted no time. “Danielle Green, Xenon News Group,” she stated with well-practiced familiarity.

  Iona looked at the reporter’s suit and tugged at her own jeans and hoody, as if they would magically transform into something more respectable and credible for the camera. “I know who you are, it’s pretty hard not to,” Iona replied, trying to mask her contempt. “Please turn the camera off.”

  “It’s not against the law to film someone in the pursuit of truth.”

  “Yeah. Right. Next you’ll be giving me the line that it’s your job to investigate stories that are of substantial public interest.”

  The reporter didn’t seem fazed by the provocation. “Well put, Detective Stone. Maybe you’d have better luck as a reporter than an officer of the law.”

  “No thanks, I’d rather—” Iona remembered the camera was still on her.

  “You’d rather what, Detective Stone?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Come now. I think the public wants to hear what you have to say. Maybe you could start by explaining what exactly you were doing in the area of the newsagents’ at the time of the crime.”

  “No comment.”

  “Perhaps you could fill us in on why we have witnesses who say you were seen talking to the young, innocent girl moments before you let her disappear. What do you have to say to that?”

  Crap, it’s much worse than I thought. “No comment.”

  “A vulnerable girl, who lost her mum in a crime you watched happen, who you then let disappear into an unfamiliar city filled with more dangers than I can count. The Cyber Crime Prevention Unit has been a shameful waste of tax-payers money since day one, wouldn’t you say?”

  Iona’s fists were tightly balled, her knuckles white and her fingernails pressing deep into her palms. “No comment.”

  Who did Danielle Greene think she was? The media were as corrupt and unethical as the criminal organisations. Payments for information. Bribes for leads. Iona knew it went on; she didn’t blame the police officers. What they were asked to do, with such inadequate numbers, was reprehensible. Iona didn’t condone it, but she could see how someone might be tempted by those little extras and luxuries that were hard to come by on a pitiful basic wage.

  Iona was a realist. The police often used the press, too. They’d pass on leads, and they could get messages out to the public in a way that the traditional police communication channels simply couldn’t achieve.

  Da
nielle Greene closed the small gap between them. The reporter’s eyes were narrowed and focused, predatory in intensity. “That’s right, Detective Stone, keep saying ‘no comment’ and you’ll give us licence to make you look like an incompetent coward in the editing process.”

  This time, Iona said nothing.

  Danielle Greene became more aggressive. “Tell us about your underworld connections, Detective Stone. Your penchant for corporate disruption. Your shady, criminal friends who make the hacking group Anonymous look like apprentices. Explain why we, the put-upon, tax-paying public, should be paying for an inept police officer who sits behind a PC all day, when the streets need more visible—and some would say—more honest cops.”

  Torsion pains pulled on Iona’s biceps; she was working hard to restrain herself. She wanted to stretch her arms. Shake off the tension. Roll her neck and take the edge off the migraine that was increasing in power. She was done trying to play games with Danielle; there would be only one winner. Iona couldn’t win this game. She had no way of reaching millions of people and didn’t have the slick media training that Greene had. “Excuse me,” she said, gently forcing an opening through the media crew.

  “One more thing, Detective Stone. Do you think it’s appropriate that someone in your well-paid and privileged position should be employed in such a sensitive job when her own mother was a known criminal? A crack-addict and a sex-worker who would do anything for her next fix.”

  Iona stopped walking, turned sharply, and marched back to the reporter. They were inches away from each other. Face to face. Iona felt the reporter’s warm breath on her skin—it might have smelt of peppermints, but Iona imagined it was masking the odour of people she’d chewed up and spat out.

  Iona wanted to thrash out. Give Greene a lesson she was long overdue. But the red light on the camera glowed. She saw her inverted and angry image in the reflection of the bulging lens. “You disgust me,” was all she could say. Her voice was scratchy, the stress of restraint tightening her vocal cords.