by LJ Ross
But Faber had a discerning eye, and Lareuse could only think that the old duffer had spotted the switch by chance. He’d heard rumours about Eddie having turned into a police rat, and maybe that’s why pieces of him were now rotting in some godforsaken cemetery, already forgotten by most who ever knew him.
Suddenly, it hadn’t seemed so important to ask for more money. He could manage on what he had, and pick up odd jobs to tide him over, until another plum commission came along. At least he’d be alive, and not six feet under.
But Lareuse had barely gathered up his suitcase and passport—forged, of course—before a knock had come at the door. How the police had found him, he didn’t know.
Unless…
Unless they were tipped off, and the plan was to off him while he was behind bars, with nowhere to run.
He’d been demanding protection for days, now. Any one of his fellow inmates could have been hired to finish him; even the prison officers could be on the payroll, for all he knew.
The pigs thought he was lying.
Why would they believe a man who refused to give them a decent reason for demanding solitary confinement, or special treatment? If he wanted any privileges, he needed to start sharing some useful information, they said. Otherwise, he was just peddling lies.
Just another lie, from the man who sold lies for a living.
But this was no lie.
Not this time.
In fact, for the first time in Mathieu Lareuse’s thirty-one years, he was telling the absolute truth.
* * *
“Morrison won’t like this, mind.”
Phillips made this insightful remark while watching the slow, inexorable progress of the drinks trolley along the gangway of the train carriage, heading directly towards him laden with goodies.
Was that bacon he smelled, wafting from the dining cart?
Get thee behind me, Satan, he thought.
“She’ll blow a gasket, when she gets wind we’ve overridden her direct order not to go to London.”
“Maybe she’ll like it better when we speak to Mathieu Lareuse and he confesses to making that forged cross,” Ryan said mildly. “Besides, we’ll only be gone for a few hours—she’ll barely have time to miss us.”
Phillips leaned back in his chair, shuffled around in an attempt to get comfortable on the scratchy material, then sat up straight again as the train slowed to a crawl across the railway bridge spanning the River Tyne. He peered through the window and counted five other bridges to the east, including the curved ‘Millennium Bridge’ which had been repaired following a terror incident not so long ago.
“Y’nah, I haven’t felt the same about train travel since we had that bridge bomber,” he admitted. “I always get a bit nervy when we cross the river.”
Ryan looked at the long drop to the murky waters below, and was reminded of a different incident entirely; one that had happened years before, where a man accused of the Hacker’s crimes had plunged to his own death.
Then, there was that nun who washed up on the riverbank…
Come to think of it, still waters ran bloody deep in the Tyne.
“Well, the consolation is, you get to have a day trip to London,” he said, cheerfully. “I’ll even buy you a peppermint tea, when the trolley arrives.”
“You’ll turn my head with talk like that.”
* * *
A long klaxon reverberated through the corridors of Pentonville Prison, following which the doors to the cells opened to allow the inmates an hour of social time in the communal areas. There was a cacophony of sound as his fellow inmates filtered out, eager to go about their business…whatever that might have been.
Lareuse stared at the open doorway in horror, wishing he could drag the electronic mechanism shut again.
“Ain’t you comin’ out?”
One of the prison officers happened to stop outside, no doubt wondering why he wasn’t eager to walk around.
He shook his head.
When the officer shrugged and moved on, Lareuse looked around the cell for something—anything—that could be used as a weapon. If he’d been more experienced in these matters, perhaps he’d have known what to do, but he’d been out of the game for more than three years and didn’t know who to ask for protection on the inside.
Through the doorway of his open cell on the upper level of a quadrangle-shaped cell block, he could see a large clock which read a couple of minutes after ten.
He stared at it with wide, frightened eyes, and willed the hands to move faster.
When the second hand had passed ‘twelve’ another eighteen times, a shadow fell across the doorway.
“You the bloke they call ‘Rodin’?”
Lareuse knew then that his time was up.
CHAPTER 17
London never changed, Ryan thought, and yet it never remained the same, either.
There was always some new skyscraper being built, to rival the last one and claim the ‘tallest building’ award—or a new road system being laid, to give the cabbies something to complain about. It was a vibrant, colourful and cosmopolitan place with a character of its own, home to super-rich oligarchs and the impecunious alike, both walking the same network of streets that baffled tourists on a regular basis. Wheeler-dealers, Del Boys, Wide Boys, Rude Boys, Royal Convoys…London had it all, and much more besides.
“It’s got a special kind of smell, London,” Phillips declared, when they stepped off the train at King’s Cross. “A delicate aroma of exhaust fumes, river water, street food and…”
“Dog shit?” Ryan offered, and raised an eyebrow towards the floor, where Phillips had wandered into a pile, unwittingly.
The air turned blue as Frank hopped around for a minute, trying to clean it off with a tissue.
“Bloody filthy sods!” he raged.
Ryan made a sympathetic sound while his eyes scanned the crowds milling around them, looking out for a familiar face.
“Who’d you say we were meetin’ again?”
“DCI Hassan,” Ryan replied. “He was a DI in the same command unit when I was down here in London, although I didn’t report directly to him. My DI at the time was Jennifer Lucas, if you remember.”
“Least said about that, the better,” Phillips replied, and pulled an expressive face. “God rest her, an’ all.”
Years earlier, Ryan had graduated from the police academy and taken his first job at Scotland Yard, moving up the ranks at breakneck speed until he’d joined their Homicide and Serious Crime Command. The unit was split into eighteen Murder Investigation Teams, nowadays; but, fifteen years earlier, when governmental budgets had been more generous, there had been over thirty teams tasked with investigating the most serious crimes in one of the largest cities in the world. Ryan had cut his teeth as a young detective in one such team based out of the Command’s ‘Central’ unit, which covered most of the city centre. He’d reported to a Detective Inspector Jennifer Lucas who had, ultimately, changed the course of his life—for, had she not been the abusive woman she was, Ryan might not have taken the decision to carve out a better life at Northumbria CID. Had he not done so, he would never have met Anna—and the rest was history.
Still, he had many happy memories of his time down south, and one of them weaved his way through the lunchtime crowd towards them with an enormous smile on his chiselled face.
“Here he is,” Ryan told Phillips, who followed his line of sight and simply gaped.
“You didn’t tell me your mate was Idris Elba!” he whispered, in outrage. “Between the two of you, I must look like a bloody hobbit…”
Ryan chuckled, and moved forward with hand outstretched to greet his old comrade.
“John,” he said, warmly. “It’s good to see you.”
Hassan looked at Ryan’s hand, then brushed it away in favour of an expansive hug.
“C’mere, big guy! Max Finley-Ryan, in the flesh! Let me look at you,” he said, and released him from the embrace to cast his warm brown eyes over
the boy he’d known, who was now a man. “Still breakin’ those hearts, my friend?”
“Not any more,” Ryan said. “I married a wonderful woman, and I’m a father now.”
“God almighty! Well, congratulations—congratulations!”
He turned to Phillips.
“This is my sergeant and very good friend, Frank Phillips,” Ryan said, and the two men shook hands.
“Been keeping this boy in line, I hope?”
“Tryin’ to, but it’s a losin’ battle,” Phillips said, liking the man more and more. “We’ll have to exchange notes, over a pint, sometime.”
“Now you’re talking my language,” Hassan said, and clasped an arm around Phillips’ shoulders, already the best of friends. “But first, it’s a sunny day. Let’s walk up the road here, towards Pentonville—it’s not far. It’ll give us time to talk, and you can tell me what this is all about.”
“Lead on, Macduff.”
* * *
Pentonville Prison was many things and, chiefly amongst them, a misnomer; for the Category B men’s prison was not in Pentonville at all, but rather on the Caledonian Road, in the borough of Islington and a short walk from King’s Cross station. Having housed a number of high-profile inmates since its inception in 1842, the prison had formerly enjoyed some vicarious fame, which had more latterly descended to infamy, since the publication of a recent, damning report that described its conditions as squalid, inhumane and overcrowded. Just as worrisome for the justice system was the prison’s chronic staff shortage and seeming inability to prevent contraband from entering its walls—though new windows had gone some way to easing the situation, as had anti-drone netting to prevent the micro-machines from landing in the prison yard and offloading their wares.
It was, altogether, a grim place to spend a Tuesday lunchtime, but needs must.
“Here we are again,” Hassan said, with irrepressible cheer. “Bet this brings back memories, eh, Ryan? How many jokers did we throw in here, I wonder?”
“Lost count,” Ryan said, without rancour. It was not a source of pride to him to know that he’d been responsible for removing a person’s liberty; it was more a question of justice, and of righting wrongs. He was neither lawmaker, policy-maker, politician nor penal reformer but, if he was, he might have suggested a different system of justice altogether. Since he wasn’t, he was forced to operate within its existing parameters.
“How many have they got in here?” Phillips asked, as they made their way towards the entrance. “Six, seven hundred?”
“Try doubling that,” Hassan said. “The prison was built to hold five hundred and twenty, but now you’d be lucky to keep the figure under twelve hundred. Is it any wonder the place is infested?”
On which ominous note, they began making their way through a series of security gates, a process which could sometimes take up to half an hour before they’d even set foot inside the main building.
They were nearing the final checkpoint when a deafening alarm began to sound.
“What’s happening?” Hassan asked of the security guard, over the din. “Has there been an escape?”
The guard looked nonplussed. “That’s the emergency alarm,” she explained. “Probably another attack, or casualty. I’m afraid I can’t let you go in.”
Ryan felt an odd sort of prickle trail down the base of his spine, and he turned to his old friend.
“John, I need you to find out what’s happened in there,” he said, urgently. “I think it might be something to do with Lareuse.”
“You’re paranoid,” Hassan said, and was only half joking. “It’s probably nothing. Who would waste time over some forger? In here, it’s gang warfare—”
“Please,” Ryan repeated. “As a favour, to me.”
Hassan held up both hands. “All right, all right,” he said, and leaned forward to speak to the guard again. “Look, we’ve got an appointment to speak to one of the inmates and these officers have come all the way from Northumbria to do that. Any chance you could let us—”
“No,” the woman said. “Sorry, sir, but you’ll have to take it up with the Duty Governor. Rules are rules. I can’t let anybody in now, because the place has been locked down. The only way you can go is back the way you came.”
“So much for your reputation,” Ryan said, under his breath. “Time was, you’d have charmed the birds from the trees.”
“I’m older now,” Hassan said. “I only charm birds that are already on the ground.”
Before they could decide what best to do, he received a call on his mobile.
“Hassan? Yes—yes…how? No, it’s all right. I’m already here. I’ll secure the scene in advance of the CSIs arriving.”
A moment later, he ended the call and looked between the pair of them.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and all trace of humour had gone. “You won’t be able to speak to Mathieu Lareuse now—he was found dead in his cell, only a few minutes ago.”
“That was quick,” Phillips muttered.
Hassan pressed his face to the reinforced glass of the security window once again.
“The reason for entry has changed,” Hassan snapped. “DCI Hassan, DCI Ryan and DS Phillips, responding to a report just received by Scotland Yard. We understand one of your inmates has been murdered.”
The security door buzzed open, and they rushed inside.
* * *
There was no need to construct a notion of ‘Hell’, Ryan thought, when there was already a perfectly good approximation, right here on Earth.
The interior of Pentonville Prison was every bit as unappealing as its reputation promised, but they weren’t concerned with the décor. In the few minutes it had taken them to cross the courtyard from the security office, one emergency siren had stopped and another had started, this time to signal that a riot was underway. Officers had been mobilised to shut down the prison, wing by wing, and the atmosphere in the reception area of the main building was chaotic.
“Hey!” Hassan called out to a couple of the prison officers, who streaked past them dressed in full riot gear, on their way to B Wing. “Where’s the Duty Governor?”
“Pro’ly hidin’ in a bloody bunker!” one called back, over his shoulder. “You shouldn’t be in ’ere! Get aht!”
Hassan swore, and turned to Ryan and Phillips with a worried expression.
“Look, man, I think there could be a full-on riot. This isn’t the time—”
Ryan needed no further persuasion. They were not trained prison officers; they wore no protective clothing and were otherwise not equipped to be anything other than a burden to an already over-worked staff. He also had a wife and child to consider, and wasn’t prepared to put himself in unnecessary danger, nor run the risk of leaving his wife without a husband and his daughter without a father.
Not for this.
They beat a hasty retreat, Hassan speaking quickly down his mobile phone to report the situation and put the rest of his team on notice that it would be a while before they could gain safe access to the crime scene. Eventually, they re-emerged onto Caledonian Road, which might have been a million miles away from the disordered violence they had just left.
Phillips blew out a gusty breath.
“I’m gettin’ too old for all this excitement,” he said, wondering why it seemed that, everywhere he went, he could smell bacon.
Must be crackin’ up, he thought. Either that, or wasting away.
“I’m sorry you didn’t get a chance to ask him about that case you’re working on,” Hassan said. “Pentonville is a tough place—these things do happen.”
Ryan thought about what he could and could not tell his old friend. As far as Hassan was concerned, they were in town to interview Lareuse about his relationship with fellow forger, Edward Faber, whose death was already a matter of public record. Just another routine interview, to the outside world, but perhaps not to the person who had ordered Lareuse’s death.
“They do happen,” he agreed. “But, as you
say, I wonder why anybody would want to kill a forger? They’re the pen-pushers of the underworld; the computer geeks, not the muscle.”
“Maybe he stole from one of them, or their boss,” Hassan offered. “Lareuse was inside for historic dishonesty offences—wide-ranging ones, too. It seems he was quite creative with art and money, so maybe one or the other caught up with him.”
“The riot will hold everything up, now,” Phillips said, as they wandered back towards the train station. “Might not be much of a crime scene left, by the time you get in.”
Hassan nodded, dispirited.
“The timing is interesting, isn’t it?” Ryan said. “Some might say, very convenient.”
“Rioting isn’t exactly unheard of in Pentonville,” Hassan said. “You’ve got overcrowded, unsanitary conditions, understaffing, drug, alcohol and mental health problems, all wrapped up in a group of angry, confined men. If they sense any weakness, like when a prison officer has to deal with an emergency, more often than not they’ll try to capitalise on it.”
Ryan could see the logic in what his friend was saying, but the doubt remained.
“There’ll be questions to answer,” Hassan went on to say, as he read a series of e-mails coming through to his mobile phone. “Lareuse’s lawyer has just sent through some more demands—he obviously hasn’t heard the news, yet; it’s too soon.”
“What demands?” Phillips asked.
“This and that, but most importantly, that his client wants to be transferred to solitary confinement because he’s in fear for his life.”
Hassan swore softly, and ran an agitated hand over his neck.
“Too late, man. We were too late.”
CHAPTER 18
At precisely the same moment Ryan and Phillips were dodging a prison riot in London, MacKenzie was called upon to dodge a different kind of threat—the kind that came from within.
“Denise?”
Chief Constable Morrison caught her on the fly, as she was returning from lunch in the staff canteen.
