principle, but they're not all like that.'
Oaten's gaze rested on the green metal trunk, the bottom of which had been spattered with blood. 'Has anyone looked inside that?' she asked, pointing.
The superintendent nodded. 'It's empty. Or rather, almost empty. There are traces of cocaine all over the inside.'
'Meaning that maybe the shooter may have taken the stash with him,' Oaten said.
'Or her,' Paskin said with a grin.
Amelia Browning didn't appear to have heard him. 'Maybe the guards were lured out and disposed of. The shooter may not have been alone.'
Karen Oaten bit her lip. 'I still don't understand why a Kurd would be murdered here.' She looked up at the letter S that had been spray-painted on the wall. 'And no one in their right mind would steal drugs from a Shadow store.'
Browning raised her hand. 'Maybe Izady was a turncoat and the King found out. Killing him here would be a good way to get back at the Turks.'
'Imaginative,' said Paskin. 'But you haven't got a shred of evidence.'
The sergeant went back to scribbling in her notepad.
The women headed up the steps to the pavement. Paskin followed them, pausing to catch his breath.
'This is getting out of hand,' Oaten said. 'A Turk, a Kurd and now another Kurd. Soon we'll have a full-scale gang war on our hands.'
Paskin's expression was blank. 'It's a possibility.'
'Still nothing on the grapevine about another gang moving in?' Oaten asked.
Paskin shook his head. 'That's the strange part of all this. No one's saying anything about Albanians or Russians. And this is too neat for the Jamaicans. It can't be internal, because both Turks and Kurds are being hit.'
Karen Oaten took off her protective cap and smoothed her hair down. 'You know, there was another shooting with what we presume was a silenced pistol this morning. South of the river.'
'I heard. Potential connection to the White Devil.'
The chief inspector nodded. 'Maybe the same person's screwing with the gangs up here. Some serious money's been spent to get the information these hits would have needed.'
Paskin looked away. 'Sounds like a job for the VCCT then, Karen. Are you going to take these cases away from us?'
She sniffed. 'As if I have the personnel. Taff Turner's running the Dulwich murder. Obviously I can't have any direct involvement.'
'I know about your conflict of interest,' the superintendent said gently.
'And DS Pavlou's trying to kick some life into Homicide West over the woman author who was murdered. That's another dead end so far, though at least she wasn't shot.'
Paskin touched her arm. 'Are you taking over my cases or not?'
Oaten shook her head. 'Not for the time being.' She smiled weakly. 'They're in good hands. We still have no direct evidence connecting the three gang murders. The AC has insisted we take the Dulwich murder because of the press interest in the White Devil connection.' She rubbed her forehead. 'If there are any more murders, my job's going to be harder than a Middle East negotiator's.'
'You'll manage,' the superintendent said. 'And the weather's so much nicer in London.'
Karen Oaten snorted and watched Ron Paskin walk away, the coverall making him look like an overweight polar bear. She didn't remember him making that kind of quip when she worked for him. Maybe he kept them for jackasses parachuted in from New Scotland Yard.
She certainly felt that someone was committed to ridiculing her in public. If she didn't get a break soon, the AC would put her head on the revolving sign outside the Met.
'Mummy!' Lucy screamed.
Caroline came down the stairs in a tumble. 'What is it?' she asked, eyes wide as she looked around the hall of the detached house.
'You gave me the wrong password. That's why we haven't got e-mail. I've been trying other combinations and finally I got in.'
Her mother glared at her. 'You screamed as if you'd been…as if you'd seen a ghost because of that? I almost had a heart attack.' Something similar had happened when Lucy had run up shouting at the motorway services, when Caroline had been talking to a woman who had asked her about her shoes. The child had her father's tendency to overreact.
'It's your fault,' Lucy said. 'Daddy will be so worried, not hearing from us. I'm going to send him a message now.'
'Don't stay online any longer than you have to,' Caroline ordered. She was sure she'd typed in the right password. She'd been required to learn it by heart after being handed a sealed envelope by a solicitor over a year ago. He had then taken the envelope and its contents back, and run them through a shredder. She normally had an excellent memory for numerical and alphabetic codes, but she had so many to remember and today had been very tense. She would have killed for a gin and tonic, but whoever had stocked the cupboards had not included alcohol. Maybe Matt was behind that.
'Daddy's sent a reply,' Lucy called from the front room. 'He's angry that you took your car.'
'You told him?' Caroline said in disbelief. 'Get off that chair.' She pulled it from beneath her daughter and peered at the screen. .you might have compromised the operation and put all three of you in danger. Caroline, this is not a game. If you've watched the news, you'll understand that. Please follow every other instruction to the letter. And do not stay online for more than a few minutes at a time. M.
Caroline leaned forward and typed a reply.
Time's up. Logging off NOW. C.
That would teach him to order them about, she thought triumphantly. But what did he mean about the news?
'Lucy,' she said, 'it's well past your bedtime. Upstairs now, young lady.'
'Oh, Mu-' The child broke off when she saw the look on her mother's face. ''Night,' she said, kissing Caroline on the cheek. ''Night, Gran.'
'What, dear?' Fran said, raising her eyes from the book she was reading. 'Oh, good night. Sleep tight.' She watched as Caroline turned on the television and moved from channel to channel. Only BBC24 was showing a news bulletin. It was from there that they learned of Dave Cummings's murder.
'Oh my God,' Caroline said, her hand to her mouth. 'Poor Dave. How awful for Ginny and the children.'
Caroline and Fran looked at each other and clasped hands, something they'd never done before. It made them feel better, but not much. Ten I thought about calling Karen before I turned in, but decided against it-she needed distance from me if she was to do her job properly. As I lay on the big bed that we'd shared only two nights earlier, I thought about our relationship. I loved her and she said she loved me. But what sort of love was it when both people's work was the most important thing in their lives? I also had Lucy, Fran and my mates, while Karen, whose parents had died when she was a student, was a loner, with no friends outside the police and, from what she'd said, not many inside-she certainly didn't meet up with people after work. I was all right as my needs were fulfilled, but it was difficult to tell what she wanted from the relationship as she'd built a protective shield around herself. Sometimes I wondered if a steak, a decent red wine and a massage followed by energetic sex were all she required. When I caught a wistful look or she embraced me more passionately than usual, I realized that she really did love me. I was more open about what I felt for her, but I was also skeptical about the ultimate power of that emotion. The divorce from Caroline and Sara's comprehensive betrayal had caused that, though I knew I was at fault for much that went wrong in my marriage. I also should have paid more attention to Sara. Every day I've blamed myself for failing to perceive her true character.
I didn't think I'd sleep, especially not with Andy stretched out on a row of cushions on the floor in my bedroom-he'd insisted on staying close-but I dropped fairly quickly into an exhausted slumber. Soon I was jolted awake by a vision of Dave. He was covered in blood and he started to speak. I heard the words, but couldn't make sense of them-only that he was frightened, and kept looking over my shoulder. I turned to see Sara, her eyes red and her mouth twisted into a demonic smile…
