Blake whispered, ‘There’s no one in here DI Wray. I think all the shooting came from our side.’
But Rio kicked the door back. She levelled the Glock up and around. No movements; no sounds. One of the others shone their torch behind her striking the room with a vein of light. She went inside. A kitchen. The room was empty, except on a long oak table, as if set out for inspection, were knapsacks and holdalls. Rio let her gun drop and went over to the table. She opened one of the bags. Inside were silver plates, figurines, jewellery and other valuable items. Blake was by her shoulder. ‘What is it?’
‘I don’t know for sure, but I strongly suspect that it’s some of the gear that was stolen by the Greenbelt Gang,’
‘They were here then? They must have got away.’
‘Maybe. Let’s clear the house.’
They left the kitchen. Some of Jenkins’ team were now congregating in the corridor. They were ordered to search the rooms one by one. Rio took the upstairs alone.
The stairs groaned under her feet. On the landing at the top were various rooms with their doors closed. But one door was slightly open. Silence was interspersed with shouting – ‘Armed police’ – from downstairs, and doors being kicked open. Rio kept her gun up and her torch breast-high in her other hand. She kicked the door further back, breathing heavily in her nose. There was already a small light in the room; the orange glow of a cigarette and the stub of a cigar on a side table. Sitting next to it was a tumbler of booze with ice still floating in it. When Rio shone her light around the air caught in her throat; illuminated was the pale, astonished look of a man slumped in an armchair. Further down, two large holes gouged by bullets were soaked in blood and jagged flesh. Rio’s torch moved on. Another man, also dead, by a window shattered by gunfire. He was lying contorted on the floor, his head half blasted away.
‘Jenkins? Billy? Sir?’ Rio roared.
No response.
She called again. Silence. She knew she should wait for someone to join her, but she didn’t. Rio hit the stairs to the next floor, stopped when the torchlight shone onto the feet of another dead man dangling on the landing above. Probably gunned down trying to escape upwards into the oast house’s tower. He gripped the bannister tightly, his lifeless fingers holding on more powerfully in death than they’d been able to in life. His face was frozen in terror and two shots blasted open his chest.
Rio couldn’t get her head around the scene of death around her. If this was the Greenbelt Gang, why had someone murdered them? Rio picked up a trail of blood with her torch that led into an attic bedroom. Inside was another victim. He lay face down on a bed as if taking a demonic nap amid the terror. This body had taken more punishment than the others. He’d been shot multiple times. Riddled with holes in his right arm and leg. Another bullet had hit his shoulder and the shot that had probably finally killed him had gone through his heart. In his hand was a grey object, which was being held by the victim like a talisman. Rio knew what it was – an asthma pump.
She grabbed the victim’s jacket and pulled the body over. Shone her beam into the dead man’s face.
Gary Larkin.
thirty-five
11:09 p.m.
‘This is one hell of a mess,’ Billy Jenkins told Rio angrily as they entered the operations room back at The Fort.
No one else spoke. There was none of the feeling of high elation of a job well done. Four men were dead and someone was going to have to pay the price.
Rio answered as she pulled off her stab-proof vest. ‘I’m telling you that they were already dead—’
‘But you weren’t meant to have a gun for fuck’s sake.’
Hearing Commander Jenkins turn the air blue, everyone stopped and looked openly at them. Billy was one of the coolest leaders of any unit in the Met, one of the reasons he’d been especially chosen to manage an arms response unit. He had the deep respect of his team and superiors, led by example not by insult and cursing.
Rio strode towards Billy as if being nearer to him would make the truth of her words sink in. ‘Someone else killed them. You were there when I saw someone outside.’
Jenkins shook his head in disgust at her. ‘I told you at the time, I didn’t see anyone—’
‘Then how did they all die?’ Rio threw back. Then she saw the look on his face, which made her gasp and rock back. ‘What? You think I pulled the trigger? I—’
‘Rio, are you alright?’ Heart still beating badly she turned to find Jack Strong striding towards her. His face was tight and slightly red with confusion, eyes deep blue with concern.
‘I just heard what happened,’ he continued when he reached her. Then his large palms were sliding up and down her arms as if to make sure she was really there.
‘I’m fine.’ But she knew she wasn’t.
Their gazes caught and held.
‘Out,’ a strident female voice commanded.
All eyes turned to the doorway where AC Tripple and DSI Newman stood. Tripple looked furious, while Newman’s face was stamped with annoyance and worry.
‘You and you,’ the Assistant Commissioner continued, pointing a finger first at Rio, then at Billy Jenkins, ‘stay put. The rest of you, out.’
Strong gave Rio a reassuring squeeze before he let her go. No one hung around and soon the room held only four people. Rio knew she was about to get the bollocking of her life, so straightened her back ready for the battering. She didn’t have to wait long as her former mentor reached her in clipped strides.
‘Tell me the reports of you handling a firearm are not true, Detective Inspector.’
Rio dipped her head. ‘I’m sorry, ma’am—’
‘Look at me when I’m addressing you.’
Rio instantly raised her head, but didn’t dare look the older woman in the eye.
‘You silly, silly . . .’ Tripple railed, shaking her head as she tried to find the words. Then she turned her head in fury towards Billy Jenkins. ‘How the hell did she manage to get hold of a firearm? You were meant to be organising that team with absolute precision—’
‘It wasn’t Billy’s fault—’
Tripple swung back to Rio. ‘Don’t. Speak.’
The tension tightened with the tautness of an elastic ready to snap as the AC paced backwards and forwards, forwards and back. It gave Rio the space she needed to realise that her actions had jeopardised not only her own position but that of the whole team. Billy was a man who had taught her so much when she’d been part of his team and it hurt now to think that her behaviour might mean he’d earn a strike in an exemplary career.
AC Tripple finally stopped pacing. The expression on her face was back to the one Rio associated her with – professional calm.
‘You’re suspended.’
Rio rocked back. ‘What?’
‘Commander Jenkins, I want a full report on my desk in two hours. Now please leave us.’ Billy nodded once, then made for the exit.
‘That includes you, DSI Newman,’ the other woman added.
Seconds later Rio and the woman she’d admired above everyone else were alone.
Rio wasn’t someone who could keep her mouth zipped when there was something that needed saying, even to a superior officer, so she spoke. ‘This was no one else’s fault but my own. I decided—’
But Pauline Tripple cut over her. ‘If anyone asks, you’re to say that you were defending yourself while you were being attacked.’
‘Ma’am?’ Rio was startled by the suggestion.
‘And that you took your firearm’s refresher training this year—’
‘No,’ Rio responded with fire in her words. ‘I can’t do that. I come from a community that always feels that the police are colluding and twisting the truth against them. Do you know how many times my friends were stopped and searched by the police when we were growing up? I was stopped? The police weren’t the police, they were cops roaming the streets like any other gang, except they could do what they wanted because they had the law on their side. One of the rea
sons I joined was to change all that. I need to be able to look the people I serve in the eye. So, with respect, ma’am, don’t stop me being able to do that.’
‘But you’re part of another community now as well. Our community. Our rules. Our ways of working together. You broke those rules so you’ve put at risk everyone in our community. You decide to walk a straight line on this then we’re all going to be walking right on behind you, except the rest of us will be falling one by one as we’re crucified.’
The other woman stared at Rio with a determined glint in her eye, waiting for her to say the magic words. But Rio couldn’t do it. Couldn’t lose that one part of herself that had remained pure and true – her integrity. People could point out other shit she might have done, but her understanding of right from wrong? No fucking way – no one was going to take that away from her.
‘Then be prepared,’ Tripple said softly seeing Rio had made her decision, ‘because you might go down. I’m not going to be able to protect you from those who’ve just been waiting for a chance to say “I told you so about that Rio Wray. Got where she was going because of some positive, ethnic and gender monitoring initiative, not on her own merit.”’
Rio tipped her head back. ‘They’re already saying that, so let them now come out of the hole they’re hiding in and tell me point blank to my black, magic woman face. I learned integrity from you and I’m not about to let you down.’
An emotion crossed the other woman’s face that Rio found hard to identify. Pain? Sorrow? Regret? Whatever it was it made Rio’s belief in herself grow.
‘I only took the gun because I saw someone – whoever that person was gunned down every last one of those men. I was trying to protect them. Trying to make sure that they stayed alive to face a fair trial.’
‘So there’s clear evidence that they were the Greenbelt Gang?’
Rio nodded, shedding some of the weight that had been clinging to her since the end of the disastrous raid. ‘There were firearms and other items that will easily be tied to the crime scenes. And our main person of interest, Gary Larkin, was among the deceased.’
‘Well, we’ll be able to use that to deflect from everything else. Knowing that the gang are no longer active will keep the public on our side.’
‘But something’s not right here. Why would someone kill the gang?’
The AC looked at her sternly. ‘Our business is to make sure that the crime was solved, which is what we’ve done. Anything else can be sorted out. Obviously you’re still suspended pending an internal investigation—’
‘But if there’s something we’re missing here, a hitman could still be on the trail of Nikki Bell. Something’s not right here—’
‘You’re suspended Detective Inspector Wray. As far as the service is concerned, the perpetrators have been identified and no longer pose a threat. That’s the story I’m going to tell, Commander Jenkins will tell and you better be telling too. If there’s a contract killer still out there we will find him, not you.’
‘What’s going to happen to Nikki?’
‘The girl’s not your concern anymore. It’s already late so best to leave her with Calum Burns for the remainder of tonight. I’ll send a unit over in the morning to get her. You’re to stay away from her.’
She moved her face closer to Rio and menacingly whispered, ‘If you go anywhere near this case while you’re suspended, you’re finished.’
thirty-six
The Hit: Day Three
Midnight
The last time Rio tried getting drunk was three years back; the night she’d found out her dad was dead. And look how that had turned out! Shagging Calum and doing one of the craziest things in her life. Now here she was – playing crazy again - willing herself to get smashed out of her head, in a low-lit bar where the patrons were interested in only one thing - the volume of liquid in their glass. Neat, dark rum, that was her poison – booze her mum had called the Devil’s Juice. The only problem was, she hated the taste of spirits. Disgusting stuff. How anyone became a slave to it she would never understand. Rio sat at a stool at the bar, facing the twin shelves of drinks housed in bottles so colourful she thought they were fireworks standing to attention, getting ready to blast off. Just like her career exploding before her eyes and she could do fuck all about it.
Rio knocked her head back as the glass touched her lips. She grimaced, wanting to spit rather than swallow. Thirty per cent alcohol burned a path down her throat, but still wasn’t strong enough to stop the shit swirling around her head. She wasn’t just off the case, she was out in the cold.
Suspended.
No warrant badge.
No Detective.
Just plain old Rio Wray born in Notting Hill, West London.
God, it hurt. Really hurt.
‘I got a pretty mellow Glenfiddich at home, DI.’
Hearing the words whispered close to her ear, Rio slo-mo turned her face to the side to find Jack Strong beside her. Strange thing was, she zeroed in on those eyes of his – a kind of sparkling, magical blue, probably the brightest thing inside this dark dump. She mentally shook her head – no, the brightest things were the bottles tempting her to consume more.
She turned back around as he spoke, surprised that her words were rock steady. ‘Haven’t you heard? I’m not a detective inspector no more.’ She lifted the glass again and pressed it against her lips. Tipped it back. Fire hit her belly. Slammed the glass back down.
‘Let’s get you out of here,’ Strong continued, his hand touching her shoulder.
Rio violently shook him off. ‘No. Like it here.’ She twisted her whole body around, almost tipping off the stool. But she didn’t notice, only intent on talking. ‘Know why? Because I think every last person in here has fucked up as well.’
The man beside her made no response; instead he slid his arm around her waist and heaved her up. Her feet didn’t feel like they were on the ground.
As Strong gently started to lead her away, Rio mumbled, ‘You believe me, don’t you? Someone killed those men before I got there. Someone else was inside that house.’
‘Sure I do.’
Strong kept her moving, not letting up until a nasty blast of cold air shook Rio up. She gulped in massive bands of air, each inhalation making the world come more into focus.
Rio started talking again. ‘No more red-eye when we get to your place. Just chuck a bucket of cold water in my face.’
Rio gasped for breath as the unexpected water blasted her in the face.
‘What the hell did you do that for?’ she stammered, gasping at the water clinging and dripping on her face with the power of Greenland ice. ‘I didn’t really mean it when I said dump water on me.’
She’d been half-slumped in a high-back chair in Strong’s kitchen. Now she was ramrod straight after he’d heaved a large glassful of cold water in her face. She glared up at him. He grinned back.
‘You need waking up. Plus I still owe you for that coffee trick you played with your elbow.’ Then his face became serious. ‘Never thought I’d have to shake up the mighty, all-powerful Detective Inspector Rio Wray.’
Rio used her fingertips to swipe some of the water from her skin, her expression intensifying. Everything above her shoulder hurt as the booze pushed her head into a spin. ‘What do you want me to do? Get a bloody mega-phone and stand on the rooftop of The Fort preaching “Some bastard dunnit!” to the world.’
Strong swung a chair out and shoved himself into it with such urgency the top half of Rio shuffled back slightly. Her head was back thumping again. His eyes held hers with the force of being pinned to the floor. ‘I want you to follow the truth.’
That made Rio start sobering up. She licked her dry lips. Spoke. ‘The only way to do that is to not go by the book. I don’t bend the rules, don’t break them, I just follow them. I rattled the rules one time today and look at the awful mess I left behind.’
Frustrated, Strong flung his hands in the air. ‘The first thing I learned as a boy in b
lue was to listen to my gut instinct. And your gut is shouting at you that something in that house wasn’t right. If that’s true, you know what that means? There’s still a hitter out there gunning for that girl. Probably killed the gang as—’
‘Don’t you think I’ve told myself that?’ Rio winced as she yelled, but couldn’t hold it back. Who the hell did he think he was, getting in her face and reciting what she already knew? ‘If I start down that path I’m going to end up like . . .’ Rio clamped her mouth shut.
But she didn’t need to say it because the man opposite said it for her. ‘Like me.’
The silence in the small room was no silence at all, its power a huge pane of glass shattering around them.
Suddenly Strong looked exhausted as he leaned across the table. ‘You want to know what happened four years ago?’ Rio said nothing, just stared back, some of the anger draining away from her. ‘I got it wrong, that’s what happened. Not the way you think.’ He inhaled deeply. ‘I wasn’t there.’
Confusion quickly followed by surprise changed Rio’s features. ‘What do you mean—?’
‘I should’ve been there, but I was laying flowers on my wife and daughter’s graves. They died in a road accident six months earlier and tore my world apart. I was a mess; didn’t know if I was coming or going.’ The unevenness of his breathing touched Rio somewhere deep in her chest. But she remained quiet, letting him talk. ‘I got to work that evening, but couldn’t stop thinking about them. You know, thinking about the last time I saw them frozen forever on a slab inside a black body bag. So I skipped out of the office, without telling anyone, and went to their graves.’ He smiled. ‘My Debbie was the same age as Nikki – sweet sixteen. Gorgeous girl who had the best future waiting for her.’
The smile dropped away. ‘Got back to base to find a shit storm waiting for me. There was no way that the top brass were going to admit that the senior officer - me – wasn’t there. And they were right; I should’ve been there. The buck stopped with me. I owed that family an apology.’ His head flipped up, the belligerent Jack Strong she’d come to know back in place. ‘But I didn’t owe no accounting to this black group, ethnic minority watchdog, Islamic whatever they were calling themselves—’
Death Trap Page 20
