He stared at her, said:
‘I rang a check on our Mr Coleman and, guess what, he’s clean. Never been in trouble in his life, and just finished a course in computer studies.’
Falls didn’t like the sound of this, not one bit, snapped:
‘Hey, you saw him swaggering down the street, bumping into people.’
Lane pushed his sandwich away, the end of the bread had curled up. Like a bad rumour, he said:
‘He’s an intense young man, perhaps he was just preoccupied.’
Falls gave a bitter laugh, one that Brant would have been proud of, said:
‘Well, he certainly has plenty to be preoccupied about now.’
Lanelooked at her, his eyes a watery blue, like denim on its last legs, said:
‘It’s his birthday today’.
Boy, she was finding Lane a real pain in the arse, asked:
‘Whose birthday?’
Lane let out a long sigh, like a wounded animal, said:
‘Our suspect, he’s twenty-one today’.
Falls knew it was time to lay weight, said:
‘The Super is happy, the media will be delighted, we look good, we’re off that shitty detail, everybody wins.’
Lane was shaking his head:
‘That young man doesn’t.’
Falls had had enough of his whining, said:
‘Shit happens. He’ll get what, a slap on the wrist, maybe a nominal fine, and he’ll be a law-abiding citizen for the rest for his life. We’ve actually put him on the right road.’
Lane was now wringing his hands. She noticed his fingernails were bitten to the quick, he said:
‘Sergeant, you know that’s not going to happen, they’ll make an example of him, the press want it, the Super will demand it, that kid is looking at least two years.’
Falls stood up, warned:
‘You’re not thinking of doing anything stupid, are you, that would be a really bad move?’
Lane said, more to himself:
‘You know, I haven’t led a very distinguished career, but I’ve never done anything I couldn’t sleep about, I don’t want to end my time with that ruined life on my conscience.’
Falls put her face right in his, said:
‘Don’t fuck with me, Lane’.
And she got out of there. She was worried. If Lane came clean, not only would she lose her new stripes, she’d be thrown off the force and probably arrested. She was fucked if she’d let that happen. She’d need to see Brant and soon.
Roberts was in the corridor, summoned her, said:
‘Come into my office, we have a situation.’
Jesus, she thought, what now?
Roberts sat behind his desk, moved all his papers aside, said:
‘Last Friday night, in Balham, a group of vigilantes put some local hard cases in the hospital, shot one in the knees, broke the jaw of the ringleader.’
Falls, like most cops, secretly admired vigilante justice. It got the job done and reached the untouchables. She’d been on the fringes of the same justice herself and more than once. She knew for a fact that Brant frequently operated in such a manner.
She said:
‘So, we have one less gang of thugs to worry about.’
Roberts gave a grim smile, said:
‘Normally I’d agree with you, but one of the vigilantes got knifed, died of a subsequent heart attack. The man who brought him to the hospital was detained by a cop from Balham.’
Falls couldn’t see the problem. So one of the vigilantes bought the farm, as the Yanks say, so what. They were thousands of pissed-off citizens out there more than ready to pick up the cause.
Roberts wasn’t finished, continued:
‘The dead guy, get this… he was seventy-five years’
Falls laughed, said:
‘Pensioners kicking arse, it’s a new twist.’
Roberts was staring out the window, said:
‘His mate, the one who was detained, he had a fairly intriguing allegation.’
Falls couldn’t wait to hear it, said:
‘I can’t wait to hear it.’
Roberts turned round to face her, said:
‘He alleges that they were organized and led by… a cop.’
Took her a moment to digest this, then she said:
‘That’s impossible.’
Roberts expression suggested it was highly possible, he said:
‘I want you and Andrews to investigate this. If the press get wind of it, they’ll hang us out to dry. Go and see this guy who’d made the allegation and whatever it takes, make it go away, you understand me?’
She stood up, said:
‘Yes sir.’
She was at the door when he said:
‘Liz, be discreet.’
Using her first name showed the strain he was under and just how seriously he was taking this. Before tackling this, she had a call to make, Angie’s solicitor, an aggressive cop hater, would be the one to tell her about Angie and, with any luck, maybe even where she was staying.
She found Andrews in the gym, working out, of course, doing the heavy weights, building up the muscle. Falls said:
‘We have an assignment, of a rather sensitive nature. Pick me up in The Elephant and Castle in two hours.’
She didn’t wait for a reply.
Ellen Dunne, the darling of the Left and the scourge of the Met, had her offices in The Elephant and Castle. She was highly successful and could easily have moved to more impressive locations, but she knew it was good for her image to be in the war zone, kept her cred up to speed. Her secretary, who looked like a bull dyke, treated Falls with barely concealed hostility and said Ellen was busy. Falls knew the dance, the moves, said:
‘She’s too busy to see a black woman?’
The woman glared at her, rang through, and then:
‘She’ll give you five minutes.’
Falls gave her her best smile and said:
‘And you’ll be timing me, am I right?’
The secretary grunted.
‘Ellen Dunne had aged. The last time Falls had seen her was at Angle’s trial. Now, her hair was grey, lines ran down the sides of her cheeks, and her clothes seemed slept in. Falls figured, if you spent your life defending scumbags, it rubbed off. She sat behind a large desk, piled with papers, a cigarette burning in a flowing ashtray. She watched Falls approach, said:
‘You’re here to make my day, right?’
Falls liked Ellen, though she continually harassed the cops, made their lives hell, she had a basic integrity that was appealing. Falls said:
‘You look like shit.’
Ellen nearly smiled, she knew the crap Falls took as a woman and a black woman in the force. She countered:
