London The Misper

The latest gripping police procedural from the author of major ITV drama The Tower
Main
ISBN: 978-1-83895-450-5
Verlag: Corvus
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 400 Seiten

From the author of ITV's THE TOWER 'Rips along like a rattlesnake. Absorbing. Relevant. Tense.' Imran Mahmood There's more than one way to go missing... When Ryan Kennedy is imprisoned after killing a police officer, he knows what he has to do. Keep his mouth shut about who he was working for, keep his head down, and rely on his youth to keep his sentence short. When he gets out, he'll be looked after. Following the death in the line of duty of a fellow detective, DI Sarah Collins has left the capital for a quieter life in the countryside. But when a missing teenager turns up on her patch, she finds herself drawn into a much bigger investigation - one that leads her right back to London, back to the Met, and back to Ryan Kennedy, the kid who killed a cop. This powerful novel from a former Met detective explores the devastation that organized drug-running gangs can wreak on young lives. It asks who deserves to be saved - and whether saving them is even possible...

Kate London graduated from Cambridge University and worked in theatre until 2006 when she joined the Metropolitan police service. She finished her career working as part of a Major Investigation Team on the Metropolitan Police Service's Homicide Command. She has since written four novels in The Tower series, which is now a major ITV drama, starring Gemma Whelan.

Autoren/Hrsg.

London, Kate

Leseproben

PART ONE

THE INCIDENT

2

The gun springs back in his hand and Ryan thinks, Wow, I didn’t shoot myself. But, in almost the same instant that he has this thought his eyes communicate to his oh-so-slow brain that the guy in front of him has jerked backwards, as if pulled suddenly by a hawser attached to his back. The bang almost deafens the exhalation the man makes. But the exhalation is definitely there. You’ve shot him, he thinks. That’s crazy. Things are moving both super-fast and very slowly at the same time. How is that possible? And the look on the man’s face. No one could be more surprised than he is! One minute so cool and in control, using big words, and calming him down, the next, well, not so cool. It’s nothing like the telly. No holding your hand to your chest. No big speeches. The man falls onto the floor and sort of gurgles.

Ryan stands for a second with the machine in his hand. In the next instant there’s a blast downstairs. Steve says, ‘Throw the gun away or they’ll shoot you.’ Feet hammer up the stairs. Ryan throws the gun into the corner of the room just as a man appears in the doorway. Helmet. Balaclava. Ballistics vest. No chance of that; the room is full of them. The whole thing has been a dream, or this is a dream; his brain is struggling to catch up, to seize an understanding of what is happening, while the other Ryan, the physical Ryan, is swept away. A tornado has got hold of him and lifted him into the air and then thrown him on his front, face down on the floor, guns pointed at his head, hands in cuffs behind his back. It doesn’t even hurt. The main thing is astonishment because even though it’s all clearly been some sort of massive illusion, he still can’t work out what the illusion actually is.

Can’t see much but black boots. Although he’s shot someone, he’s surprisingly irrelevant; no more than the subject of a kind of packaging service. It’s Feds Amazon! Black boots everywhere. There must be loads and loads and loads of them. He’s pulled to his feet and put to stand with his back to the mantelpiece. The snitch, whose fault this all is, Steve, stands beside him. Out of the corner of Ryan’s eye he sees that Steve has blood on his hands, his face, his chest. Hopefully that’s from the guy on the floor. He can’t have shot him as well, can he? They don’t look each other in the face. They stand and watch what is unfolding in the room. Ryan thinks, Even though I’ve actually shot someone, it’s not about me. There seems to be some information there about his whole existence. Any case, the most important thing is, without a doubt, the guy on the floor. Turns out the black boots weren’t just police. There are lots of medics in green with their dead bags, and side pockets and heavy stuff that must do something important. Screens and tubes and canisters. They are crowding around the guy and every single one of them looks busy. The guy’s a fed, for fuck’s sake. Kieran, he said his name was. And just about a minute ago he was promising Ryan could get off lightly. That having the gun, and holding Steve prisoner, wasn’t so bad, all things considered, but murder was, so better steer clear of that one. And now the guy who told him to steer clear of murder is lying on the floor surrounded by medics because Ryan’s shot him. What a joke. For another stupid second Ryan thinks, . The window is shattered – when did that happen? What remains of the panes of glass are splashed with blood too. The whole room is like someone’s been throwing cans of red paint. There’s a woman. He recognises her. Lizzie, that’s it. She arrested him about one hundred thousand years ago. She’s crying and trying to get close to the man on the floor and the man says, ‘Let her come.’ And she says, ‘You’re going to be all right.’ So, it’s calm after all. It was an accident, and like the woman said – Lizzie – the guy’s going to be all right. But for all that the medics are very busy. There’s dressings and shit all over the floor and the thump thump thump of helicopter blades.

That was what he thought then, but it turned out that wasn’t even the half of it. Because his lawyer told him when they talked in the police station – Ryan in a white paper suit – that Steve wasn’t a snitch. He was a fed too. An undercover officer. Like in a film. And the man he shot? Detective Inspector Kieran Shaw? He died.

At the magistrates’ court, he’s remanded. The lawyer warned him that would happen. It’s standard, he said, as though that made it better. For a murder charge, he said. Standard. Don’t worry, he said, it’s just the beginning.

Oh, thanks, man. Yeah, great.

It’s SERCO now, not police. Out of the court in handcuffs, up three steps to the door at the side of the truck. Then into one of the compartments. Three feet wide, three feet deep, just big enough to hold a man. A hard moulded seat facing forwards. He sits. The guard locks the door. He expects them to drive away but nothing happens. How come they call these things sweatboxes? It’s freezing. More packaging. He’s an Amazon delivery again, not a human, and he’s stuck in here with his thoughts.

Other people. The doors of another compartment opening. He stands and looks through the darkened pane of the small window. He can see the yard of the court. People moving around. What it’s like to be free. Then a voice from inside the truck.

‘Oy, you the cop killer?’

Even in this little box with its darkened window he already has a sense of how important it is to be respected by the people he is confined with. It is vital to say the right thing. He has to learn quickly. But his lawyer said, Don’t talk to anyone. Anyone can witness against you.

Another voice. ‘It is. I saw him. Ryan Kennedy.’

Suddenly the truck is full of voices.

‘Killing a fed, Ryan. Well done, bruv.’

‘Murder, that’s life. Minimum twenty years.’

‘Killing a cop? He’ll get whole life for that. Never get outside again.’

Then there’s the joker.

‘You innocent, Ryan? Just like Andy Dufresne in .’ The voice does a passable Morgan Freeman imitation. ‘You gonna fit right in.’

Ryan pulls his feet up onto the seat and wraps his arms tightly round himself.

And they’re off. The van surges. He steadies himself on the bulkhead. Pulling out of the gates there are flashes at the window. ‘That’s for you, Ryan. You’re famous!’ He stands up and immediately there’s a bright flash through the dark glass. They’ve got him. It’s gonna be everywhere. His poor mum. His sister.

I’m a celebrity, he thinks. Get me out of here.

Out into London’s streets. Simple things, seen through the frame of the small square of glass. It’s like a boring film on Channel 4 that normally you’d bin in five but which has suddenly become completely engrossing. A boy on a bike. An old man with a dog. A park with a playground empty except for three youngers hanging out on the swings smoking weed. The van pauses like a labouring beast then swings heavily left onto the main road that runs along the edges of the Deakin. The concrete line of home spools out. The ramparts and walls. The walkway where he and Spence stood as kids looking down on the chuntering tube trains. The meadow that the newcomers planted with flowers. They used to go there and lie on their backs and smoke weed. The Deakin will carry on without him and Spence. Spence is under the earth. Ryan may never get back there.

‘You been in prison before, cop killer?’

‘You wait,’ another voice shouts. ‘Prison smells like a junkie’s arse.’

The smell hits him as soon as he enters the prison and wraps itself round him as he walks along the landing to his cell carrying the bag of stuff his mother brought to the court for him.

He understands at once what the smell is: it is the sweaty fearful molecules of boys confined. Boys eating, shitting, wanking and staring at the ceiling in a cramped space with a window that doesn’t open.

The door is unlocked but he stands on the threshold for an instant.

‘In you go, son.’

He steps inside and the pain of the door locking behind him is a little explosion under his chest. He puts the bag on the floor and presses his hands against his face.

He tells himself he’s on remand. Not guilty yet. Not yet. He can still wear his own clothes and they are endlessly precious to him these sweatshirts and trousers and socks and T-shirts. He sits on the bed and sticks his face in the bag and smells his mother’s washing powder.

He takes one of the T-shirts out, leans forward and opens the locker. Inside, on the top shelf, is a brand-new pair of black Balenciaga trainers. Five hundred quid’s worth. He shuts the door. He opens it. They are still there. What the fuck? He holds them in his two hands and is afraid.

He’s only been in three days. They are on something called the red regime. Not enough staff so just one hour for exercise. Standing in the yard thinking how he can’t even see the sky properly. How long before he will see it unconfined again. How long before he can take a shower whenever he wants one. How long before he can get on a bike.

One of the lads told him there was a...