The Rule of Fear
Although he already knew it was pointless, he staggered to the motionless figure and tried to find a pulse in her throat, but it was as still as a dead songbird. His eyes scanned her body, but could find no obvious sign of a wound other than reddening around her neck that would soon turn to widespread bruising. She’d been strangled. He swallowed deeply before stroking her brow and walking falteringly from the room, the blood from his hands mixing with the smears already on the walls as he tried to steady himself during the short walk to the next bedroom where the bloody handprints were heavier than anywhere else. He eased the door open and stepped inside. The approaching sirens wailed as if in mourning in the streets outside, but he couldn’t hear them.
The woman who he assumed was the mother of the family lay on a double bed soaked in blood, as were the tangled sheets twisted around her tortured and mangled body. He stepped closer and could see she’d been stabbed more times than he could count – in her chest, neck and face, her hands and arms too covered in slashes and stabs as she’d tried to save herself. He remembered the bloodstains on the door of the other room and realized she must have been killed first – the father, the madman, killing her to stop her trying to save the children. King looked into her face – her eyes still wide open in horror, her mouth frozen in a twisted scream as she’d realized she could neither save herself or her children.
‘Jesus Christ,’ he managed to say before giving in to his swelling nausea and vomiting on the floor. His stomach continued to retch even after its contents had been violently expelled, the dizziness pulling him to the floor where he rested for a few seconds before he tried to flee the room, half walking, half crawling, when the sight of something froze him in his tracks: a foot on the floor protruding from the other side of the bed.
Again he used the wall for support, sliding along it until the boy’s body came into view – lying on its side and, like his mother, heavily soiled by his own blood. Best he could tell the boy was fourteen or fifteen. King closed his eyes for a second and imagined the boy bursting into the room and seeing his own father slaying his mother – his bond with her so strong that he sacrificed his own young life to try and defend her from the wild animal his father had become, but it had all been in vain. The unarmed boy had had no chance. King opened his eyes, unable to comprehend what state of mind the man he’d beaten could have been in to butcher his own son and simply leave him dead on the floor of the bedroom as he went in search of his sisters. He fled from the room backwards – his eyes never leaving the boy on the floor by the side of his parents’ bed.
Back in the hallway he struggled past the family bathroom – breathing heavily with relief as he realized it held no more horrors. But there was still one room he’d yet to visit and now it beckoned him, and although in his subconscious he was aware of approaching sirens and the sound of urgent radio chatter, the only thing that existed in his world was the door to the room. So he staggered forward, his youth and strength keeping him on his feet, though even they were rapidly failing now.
He knew he had only seconds before he surrendered to the blackness, falling more than walking to reach the door and push it open, the lack of any blood marks giving him hope that his living nightmare would end in an empty room of normality, but as he fell inside he realized the cruelty of life and death had saved the worst till last – the eerie peacefulness somehow making what he saw even more harrowing than what had gone before.
The pale young girl, no more than six, a perfect, younger copy of the girl who’d fallen into his arms outside, lay still and staring on her bed, flanked by two empty, perfectly made beds either side. The beds of her sisters – one already dead and the other barely alive. The father’s first victim. He’d taken the time to close her eyes and straighten her clothes before going in search of the rest of the family – no doubt planning equally clean and peaceful deaths for her siblings. But the mother was always going to feel his rage, and when the son fought back everything had changed.
Without warning King’s legs buckled and he fell to his hands and knees, but even they could no longer take his weight as he collapsed onto his side, knocking the last of his breath from him as his eyes flickered and closed. At last the darkness came and took the nightmare away.
2
Nine months later
King sat in front of his computer inputting yet another crime report into the Met’s CRIS system, feeling as bored and frustrated as he’d felt for the last few weeks. At first he’d been happy just to be back at work instead of climbing the walls in the hospital and then in the small flat he shared with his partner, Sara Taylor, a fellow police officer also based in Newham Borough. But now being stuck in an office was more than he could bear and he was longing for the streets. He was still treated as something of a hero after what had happened, but he knew that reputations didn’t last long in the police and if he didn’t make it back to the streets soon his peers would start to consider him as little more than a civvy – police slang for a civilian employee – who was no longer capable of the task of being an officer. He had to get back in the action, even if it meant lying about his true physical and mental state – even if it meant not telling anyone about the nightmares that plagued most of his sleeping hours.
The phone on the opposite desk rang loudly and made him jump. He hoped no one had noticed as he watched the civvy speak curtly into the phone before quickly hanging up and looking across the computer screens in his direction.
‘Apparently the Chief Superintendent will see you now, Jack,’ she told him, smiling. He smiled back and practically leapt from his chair. This could be the call he’d been waiting for – the green light to return to the streets.
As he hurried through the main CID office he almost bumped into Detective Sergeant Frank Marino coming from the other direction. Frank grabbed hold of his arm to steady them both.
‘What’s the big hurry?’ Marino asked with a smile.
‘Sorry, Frank,’ King apologized. ‘I just got a shout to go see Gerrard. I might be getting the OK to return to full duties.’
The smile slipped from Marino’s face. ‘Full duties? You sure you’re ready for that? What happened to you was …’ he struggled to find the words.
‘I’m fine,’ King tried to reassure him. ‘Back and shoulder’s still a little stiff and sore, but nothing I can’t handle.’
‘It’s not the physical stuff I’m concerned about,’ Marino told him. There was a silence for a few seconds. ‘That was a tough situation you had to cope with. Fortunately the sort of thing not many of us will ever experience. It can leave scars no one else can see.’
‘I’m fine,’ King answered again and tried to smile, but couldn’t.
They watched each other for what seemed a long time until Marino interrupted their silent conversation. ‘Tough trial too. Wanker of a defence barrister grilling you for more than two days looking for holes.’
‘Yeah, well, he was wasting his time,’ King answered – the bitterness still thick in his voice.
‘Yes he was,’ Marino agreed. ‘I’ve never seen a cop as young as you handle something like that as well as you did.’
King nodded, looking a little embarrassed before replying. ‘Thanks. I just did what I had to do.’
Marino watched him for a few seconds. ‘You’re a good cop, Jack, you know. You had a lot of good results before … Real good arrests. Not easy to gain the respect and trust of other cops when you’re on accelerated promotion – but you have. If you want to go the way of the CID I can make it happen. A couple more months flying the Crime Desk then we can get you on a plain-clothed squad and look to get you into a trainee detective slot as soon as we can. It’s a good option, Jack.’
King took a deep breath before answering. ‘I appreciate the offer, Frank – but I need the streets. Walking around out there in uniform makes me feel … makes me feel good. I missed it, you know. I need it.’
Marino gently let go of his arm. ‘OK then. Good luck, but if you’re not ready, or if you change your mind once you’re back out there – you’re welcome back here any time.’
‘Thanks,’ he replied. ‘Anyway, mustn’t keep Superintendent Gerrard waiting.’
‘No. Of course not,’ Marino agreed and watched King head off across the office.
King walked so fast through the station that several times he almost broke into a jog, nodding quick hellos to people he knew and some he didn’t until he’d climbed to the top floor of the station and reached Gerrard’s door. He took a deep breath and knocked, resting his hand on the handle in anticipation of a swift reply. He wasn’t disappointed as almost immediately he heard Gerrard’s voice calling him inside.
As soon as he entered he was greeted by the usual sight of Gerrard sitting straight-backed behind his desk as Inspector Joanne Johnston stood to the side. Jack knew it would be Gerrard doing the talking, but was in little doubt who was really in charge. Johnston had a fearsome reputation as being a ruthless self-promoter destined for the top – prepared to stab anyone in the back who got in her way, including Gerrard. Her appearance was, as ever, immaculate; her uniform tailored at her own expense to best show off her athletic, thirty-three-year-old body, her brown hair cut into a short pixie style to best frame her pretty face. Looks that had already lulled more than a few male colleagues to drop their guard only to be crushed. A reputation that had already earned her the nickname of the ‘Poisonous Pixie’ at Bramshill Staff College.
‘Ah, Jack,’ Gerrard smiled. ‘Please take a seat.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ King replied, sitting in one of the two chairs that faced Gerrard.
Gerrard looked down at the obligatory file that lay open on his desk and then back to King, looking as serious as King could remember seeing him. ‘Inspector Johnston and I were just having a chat with HR about yourself – going over your latest medical reports, psychological reports, that sort of thing – something we need to do before considering anyone for full duties. Fortunately it’s not like the old days when we’d have just patched you up and slung you back out on the streets. Times have changed. Things have moved on – for the better.’
King didn’t agree. Being patched up and slung out sounded perfect to him. Talking to psychiatrists hadn’t taken away his nightmares, but perhaps the streets could. ‘I understand,’ he managed to reply.
‘However,’ Gerrard smiled again, ‘having taken everything into consideration, we have decided to allow you to return to full duties.’
King felt his heart soar with excited relief, but his stomach knotted with anxiety. He told himself it was nothing – that it was to be expected after everything that had happened. Gerrard must have seen something in his face.
‘Are you all right, Jack?’ he asked.
He recovered quickly. ‘Sorry, yes, I’m fine. Just excited.’
‘Good,’ Gerrard beamed again. ‘Now, having completed your sergeants’ course while recovering on light duties, you’ll no doubt be looking for more of a leadership role.’
It hadn’t been something King had thought about – other people to look after as well as himself – but it wasn’t enough of a fly in the ointment to put him off returning to the streets. ‘Ideally,’ he lied.
‘Excellent,’ Gerrard told him, ‘because there’s something that’s come up that could be perfect.’
‘I’m listening,’ King encouraged him.
‘We’ve been having a lot of trouble on the Grove Wood Estate this past year or so and, try as they like, the Safer Neighbourhoods Team down there can’t seem to get to grips with it. So we,’ Gerrard glanced at Johnston, ‘have decided to try something new.’
‘Such as?’ King asked impatiently.
‘We’ve decided to dedicate three constables to the estate on a permanent basis, or at least until they’re no longer required. All have exceptional records and are known for their, shall we say, no-nonsense approach to policing. Your job, should you want it, would be to supervise the team and make sure they understand their parameters. We don’t expect you to be walking the beat day after day yourself; after all, you should now be working towards achieving the next rank as you are still very much part of the accelerated promotion scheme.’
‘I’d want to be out and about on the estate,’ King blurted out.
‘Then I take it you accept the position?’ Gerrard asked.
‘Of course,’ King insisted. ‘Sounds like fun.’
‘I’m sure it will be,’ Gerrard tried to play along, ‘but don’t lose sight of your ultimate career objectives. I see this as something to keep you out of harm’s way – until you move forward to the next rank.’
‘I don’t need to be kept out of harm’s way,’ he argued, suspicious of Gerrard’s intentions – fearful he and Johnston somehow doubted he was ready to return to the world outside.
‘Of course you don’t,’ Gerrard quickly agreed. ‘That’s not what I meant. What I mean is we need to keep you away from anything that could hinder your future prospects, such as unfounded complaints from the public, for example. They can drag behind your career like an anchor on a speed boat.’
‘I’ll be careful,’ he promised, ‘but I’ve only been in the job a couple of years. I’m not quite ready for being stuck in an office behind a desk.’
Gerrard cleared his voice and managed to remain smiling. ‘Well then, good. Good. Get out there and get it out of your system.’
‘Thank you, sir. I will,’ he assured them.
Gerrard grew serious again and appeared to look to Johnston for moral support before speaking, moving uncomfortably in his chair as Johnston looked on through her green eyes that shone with intelligence and ambition.
‘Terrible thing that happened to you,’ Gerrard finally spoke. ‘Terrible thing that you had to see.’ King just shrugged, dying inside at the thought of having to discuss it with two people he neither respected nor liked. ‘The young girl – the girl you saved – eventually spoke to the Murder Investigation Team. She confirmed it was her father who’d tried to kill her – who’d killed the rest of his family. The investigating officers discovered he suspected the mother of having an affair and feared she was going to leave him and take the children with her, so he decided better to kill them all. Turns out she wasn’t even seeing anyone else. He just imagined it.’
‘I know,’ King managed to say. ‘The investigation team told me before the trial.’
‘Yes,’ Gerrard said, sounding more melancholy than King had ever heard him. ‘I suppose they did. But after such a traumatic experience I was wondering how you felt – how you really felt? Never mind what you told the psychiatrist.’
‘I’m fine, sir. I just need to get back to work. Proper work.’
‘Very well,’ Gerrard smiled, seemingly satisfied. ‘As I’ve said, you’ll be taking care of the day-to-day running of the Unit and will report to Inspector Johnston here who’ll be overseeing things as a whole.’
‘Fine,’ King agreed, already rising from his chair, happy he’d heard everything he needed to before Johnston stopped him.
‘You’ve been working on the Crime Desk, I understand?’ Johnston finally spoke – her voice accentless and pleasantly toned. Designed to trap the unwary.
‘Yes,’ King confirmed, easing back into his chair.
‘Then are you aware there appears to be a serial offender preying on young children on the estate and surrounding areas?’ Johnston asked.
‘I am,’ King answered.
‘Not as serious as it could be, thank God, although we take all offences against children, particularly sexual offences, very seriously indeed.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ King went along with her, wondering where she was heading.
‘It’s time he was stopped,’ she insisted, ‘before he does something even worse.’
‘I understand,’ King assured.
‘Good,’ she smiled slightly – showing the tips of her straight white teeth as she turned to Gerrard to let him know she’d finished.
‘You start tomorrow,’ Gerrard told him. ‘We’ve sorted out an office over at Canning Town for you. It’s not much, but it’ll do. Your new team will meet you there in the morning and you can all get acquainted. I’m sure you’ll already know one or two of them.’
‘Probably,’ King shrugged and headed for the door.
‘Inspector Johnston will email you a list of the team members before tomorrow,’ he continued. ‘Give you a chance to look them over.’
‘Make sure you keep me fully informed,’ Johnston told him, with a trace of a warning in her voice.
‘Of course,’ he assured him, guessing that Johnston wouldn’t be slow in taking the credit for anything positive they achieved.
‘And be careful,’ Gerrard warned him as he headed through the door. ‘I hear the locals occasionally take potshots from the tower blocks at passing police officers with unwanted television sets.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ King smiled as he pushed himself from his seat and headed for the door.
The next morning, shortly after ten, King entered the small office on the second floor of Canning Town Police Station that used to belong to the now reassigned Crime Prevention Officer. His three charges were already there noisily sorting out their new desks and trying to find places to stash the huge amount of kit that every uniformed officer now possessed: body armour, utility belts, riot helmets, normal helmets, flat caps, CS gas, extendable truncheons, fixed truncheons, light jackets, heavy jackets and a seemingly endless number of other items. He knew all three of them by name and sight, although they’d never worked closely. None of them were distracted from their mission to sort out the office when he entered, choosing to acknowledge his presence in a more casual manner.
‘You must be mad to want to be in charge of this shit posting,’ PC Davey Brown accused him in his strong Glaswegian accent – his hair still cropped exactly as it had been in his days as a Royal Marine before a shoulder injury had forced him to retire when he was only twenty-one. He had a tough, unpleasant-looking face, other than his striking green eyes, all enhanced by a muscular body that made him appear shorter than his five-foot-ten inches. Since joining the Met four years previously, he’d established a reputation amongst his peers and the lowlife of Newham that was to be feared. ‘I heard you actually volunteered for this shit,’ he continued, stuffing his newly acquired drawers with kit.
‘Maybe,’ King played it cautiously, heading deeper into the office.
‘Just like you did,’ PC Renita Mahajan laughed at Brown who pulled a face of disgust.
‘Did I fuck,’ he insisted. ‘First rule of being a police officer – never volunteer for fucking anything.’
‘Well I volunteered,’ she proudly admitted, her bright smile adding to her attractiveness before she pushed her shiny, short black hair out of her face and returned to emptying the previous incumbent’s hordes of paperwork from her desk’s drawers and throwing them into a confidential waste bag. At only five-foot-five and the tender age of twenty-three, she made up for her shortcomings by remaining strong and athletic, fearless and tenacious. She had only three years’ service with the Met, but she was already confident and capable way beyond her years. ‘Better than driving around in a patrol car all day with some old fart who doesn’t want to get involved any more, delivering messages and taking crime reports.’
‘You’ll be wishing you were back in that patrol car soon enough when you’re walking around the Grove Wood Estate in the middle of the night on your own, hen,’ Brown smiled evilly.
‘Ignore these two,’ Danny Williams, the final member of the team, advised King. ‘They think they’re Laurel and Hardy.’
‘Who?’ Brown spat the question. Williams ignored him as he tried to close the tall metal locker he’d filled with equipment with no success, ramming it with his sizeable shoulder in frustration, before giving up and turning to King and straightening to his full six-foot-two, his lithe, athletic body augmented by his mahogany skin. He kept his Afro hair cropped so nothing would distract from his undeniably handsome face, although at only twenty-four some boyish features still remained.
‘We all volunteered,’ Williams ended the argument, ‘and so did a shitload more people, but we got picked because we’re the best.’
‘Aye,’ Brown interrupted. ‘Six months of this shit and I’ll have earned enough brownie points to fuck off to the TSG. Borough policing’s strictly for mugs. Territorial Support Group’s the real show.’
‘It’s the CID next for me,’ Williams explained.
‘And you?’ King asked Renita, who continued tidying her desk for a few seconds while she thought.
‘I don’t know,’ she shrugged. ‘Promotion maybe. What about you?’
‘I haven’t thought that far ahead,’ he admitted before Brown answered for him.
‘Have you not heard?’ Brown grinned. ‘Sergeant King here’s on accelerated promotion. Oh, he’s strictly just passing through on his way to the top.’
‘You’re on accelerated promotion?’ Renita asked, suspicious.
‘That’s the rumour.’ King knew he’d need to quickly earn their respect. ‘If that’s the way I want to go.’
‘If?’ Brown almost shouted. ‘Listen, pal – take some advice. Never look a gift horse in the mouth. Fucking accelerated promotion – easy life, eh.’
‘We’re not pals yet,’ King warned him. ‘Let’s start with Sarge and see how we get on, eh?’
Brown eyed him silently for a few seconds before answering. ‘Aye. Fair enough.’
Williams calmed the tension. ‘So what’s the score – what’s the brief with this estate policing unit?’
‘What you been told?’
‘Only what Inspector Johnston told me,’ Williams explained. ‘Police the Grove Wood Estate and sort it out. I was hoping you could be a little more specific.’
King moved deeper into the office and dumped his heavy kitbag onto the only desk that hadn’t been taken. ‘Fair enough,’ he began. ‘The estate’s in a shit state. Local criminals and yobs seem to run the place. Reported crime’s through the roof, so God only knows how much unreported crime’s going on.’
‘Powers-that-be won’t like that,’ Renita added.
‘Safer Neighbourhoods Team tried to get on top of it, but failed,’ King continued.
‘SNT,’ Brown scoffed. ‘They couldn’t get on top of a whore.’
King ignored him. ‘Our job, to put it bluntly, is to kick some arse – within the confines of the law, naturally.’
‘I like the sound of that,’ Williams joined in.
‘Can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.’ Brown once more grinned his evil grin.
‘I said within the confines of the law,’ King reminded him.
‘Aye,’ Brown argued, ‘but the local slags know the law better than most barristers. We want results, we’re going to have to bend things a little. Know what I mean?’
‘No one minds things getting a little bent,’ King agreed. ‘But it better be for the right reason and the right person. I don’t want anyone overstepping the mark. Very low-grade stuff and only when there’s no question of them being guilty. No stitch-ups – even on the local faces. We’re better than that. Someone tosses a stolen phone when they see you coming and your evidence says you found it in their pocket when you searched them – hey, so be it. No one’s going to get too worried about it, but no more than that. Everyone understand?’ Everyone nodded in agreement, except for Brown who just shrugged. ‘Good,’ King left it.
‘As I’m sure you all know by now, there are several fairly notorious drug dealers in the estate and at least one prolific handler,’ he explained.
‘I’ll soon take care of them,’ Brown crowed before King cut him down.
‘No you won’t,’ he ordered. ‘None of you will. Our job is to take out all the little shits who’ve been making life hell for everyone on the estate. Later on maybe we can move on to bigger fish, but right now we sort out these little bastards who are beginning to feel untouchable. The CID can deal with major crime. Our brief is to get the streets back.’