There were some that thought it was part of a larger plan to split the Met, form it into smaller units, even privatise it, and the best way to ensure a satisfactory result was to drive it down into oblivion, and Davies was certainly doing a good job at that.
The forces were rallying in the Met. On the one side were those who wanted it to stay the way it was, only with competent leadership, sans Alwyn Davies. Isaac belonged to that group. Others wanted the splitting, the privatisation, but Isaac thought they were motivated by self, not out of any belief that law and order would gain from it, even if it could. The level of lawlessness in society was not looking good. Some areas of the city were under the control of gangs, even around Notting Hill, which sat right in Challis Street Police Station’s area of operation. So far their impact had been controllable, but not for much longer if the police force continued to be stripped of its best officers, and other areas of London had been entirely taken over by the gangs, some just hooligans with knives and guns, other with a religious intent, willing to kill at random those that they despised.
Richard Goddard, Isaac knew, sat somewhere in the middle. A decent man who cared about law and order, a man who hoped to be the commissioner one day, and whose plan was being thwarted by the forces of evil, or at least that was how Isaac saw them. How could any right-minded person in the police force want to dilute the most respected police operation in the world, namely the London Metropolitan Police? Even he, Isaac, had considered his options. He should have been a superintendent by now, Goddard a commander, and they had both played the game, but politics had got in the way.
‘We’ve no further information on the murderer,’ Isaac said. ‘The team’s out looking.’
‘The case against this man, watertight?’ Goddard asked.
‘The man admitted to killing him.’
‘Will it hold up in a court of law?’
‘Probably not if he changes his story, but we’ve not caught him yet.’
‘I give you a simple murder case, one murder, one murderer, and you can’t find him. What is it with your department?’
Isaac had been through this rigmarole before: the negativity, the criticism, and eventually the acquiescing and being able to sit down and hold a rational discussion about the Homicide department and its current workload, which was always an oblique way of discussing budgetary concerns, and the latest state of the investigation.
‘The case is proceeding well,’ Isaac said, although he was not convinced that it was.
‘Rubbish. You’ve no idea where or who this man is. We’ve known each other for a long time, you can be truthful with me.’
‘It’s true, the man has disappeared, and there is still the unknown about who he is, what he is. We’ve checked out the notebook that was with Bob Robertson, and then there is the computer theft at the hostel: both very suspicious.’
‘Do you think the man was hiding out?’
‘It’s crossed our minds, but on the street, living in those conditions? If he’s educated, the assumption would be that he had some money to live better.’
‘Where’s a better disguise than on the street?’ Goddard said.
‘Agreed, but it’s a harsh way to conceal yourself. It makes no sense.’
‘The man makes no sense. Looking at it logically is not going to solve this case. Have you checked all possible locations where this man could have disappeared?’
‘There’s one or two to complete. After that, we’re not sure where to go.’
‘Do you want to put this case on the back burner for a while?’
‘Not yet,’ Isaac said. ‘We’re not ready for that yet.’
***
It was strange, Big Greg reflected as he sat in a café not far from where his daughter lived. When he had been a tramp, smelly and dishevelled, his daughter had treated him with kindness, but now, the first time that he had seen her since his transformation, she had been abusive. He knew that he should not have touched the baby in its pushchair, not attempted to give her a sweet to eat, but it had been so many years since he had felt any fondness in his life, and if he could not have it from his wife, then perhaps from his daughter, who had been young when he had left, so much so that she had not recognised him. Back then, he had been fair-haired with it combed to one side and worn long, touching his shoulders. Now he had close-cropped hair with a neatly-trimmed beard.
He had to admit that in the weeks since his return from being homeless to being a viable member of society, his physical condition had changed immeasurably. The old clothes that he had worn, dumped in a bin not far from the hostel where he had completed his transformation, the smell that he had worn, long removed, along with the stains on his teeth. He had needed a couple of fillings as well as some serious hygiene work from a dental hygienist who was none too gentle with her prodding into his gums. He
