His wild swing was stopped, a strong grip around his forearm.
As the panic subsided, he opened his eyes, staring straight into the unimpressed face of Sam Pope.
‘Careful,’ Sam warned. ‘You could have someone’s eye out.’
A sudden wave of relief flooded through Aaron and despite his best efforts, tears began to stream down his face. Sam gave him a few moments to compose himself, stuffing his hands into his coat pocket as the wind whipped through them.
As he finally calmed, Aaron realised that Sam was being true to his word and offered him a smile.
‘I don’t know how I can thank you for this.’
Sam smiled back.
‘You can open that door and make me a cup of tea.’
Chapter Ten
That very morning, Singh had awoken in her bed, her head pounding like a two-day hangover. While the bitter cold day tried its best to creep through the Roman blinds that covered her window, she tried to shut her eyes and force herself back to sleep.
All she could hear were the sirens.
All she could feel was failure.
She had returned home at just after four in the morning, a soul-destroying conversation with Assistant Commissioner Ashton had caused her to pack up her stuff and head home. The task force was less than twenty-four hours old, yet there were two dead, several injured, and no sign of Sam Pope.
Singh clenched her fingers around the duvet and squeezed until her nails dug through into her palm. It was no use and she sat up, her T-shirt hanging loosely from her frame. She lived alone, much to her delight and her parents’ chagrin. They were strict Hindus, wanting nothing more for her to be married to a wealthy man of their choosing. Her trail blazing career through the police, from the Armed Response to dangerous task forces, wasn’t exactly what they’d had in mind for their little girl. Still, as the years went by, their sadness at her loneliness was abated by their pride of her achievements.
Amara Singh didn’t fail.
The very thought of it drove her from her bed and to the floor where she performed a rigorous press-up and sit up circuit. Her frame, while small, was lean with muscle and her unbeaten record within the Met boxing club was well known.
And well earned.
After a smoothie, coffee, and a long shower, Singh opened up the folder she’d discarded on the kitchen table the night before. As she roughly attacked her wet hair with a towel, she sat at the table, flicking through the preliminary reports and photos of the crime scene.
The two 4X4 cars destroyed and bullet ridden.
The passengers similar.
Shaking her head in anger, she made a note to read the sergeant in charge of the Armed Response team the riot act. To allow a member of his team to be attacked was one thing. To allow Sam to mimic him and walk out of the front door was another entirely.
Her kitchen opened up onto a modern flat, with rich, wooden floor panels. The furniture was minimalistic, more out of ease than of fashion, and the walls were empty beyond a few framed certificates to honour her sparkling rise through the Met.
The only photos were of her parents.
Singh didn’t have the time for a relationship, nor did she harbour any desire for one. It had been a bone of contention for her first few years in the Met, a number of male officers assuming she was a lesbian due to her tough demeanour and lack of reciprocation to their advances. When she made it clear she just found them pathetic, they soon backed off. The married officers, especially the female ones, also looked at her with a raised nose, as if her life choices were selfish.
As a thirty-two-year-old woman, she was just fine on her own.
There had been the odd one-night stand, usually some unsuspecting colleague who thought they’d hit the jackpot. Singh knew she was attractive, her exotic looks complimenting her feisty attitude. But once they realised they were nothing more than a pastime, they soon left.
She didn’t need anyone to validate her.
Amara Singh didn’t fail.
It was that notion, repeated through her head that had got her through her original training at Hendon Police College. When they’d sprayed her with CS gas to see how she would react, she took long deep breaths through the pain, imploring herself to get through.
When they taught her self-defence, rough handling her to the mat, she told herself to get up.
Then, out on the job, when her and her partner, a PC Jack Wilson, were staring down a seven on two fight with a gang in Hackney, she told herself never to back down.
Every door she broke down, every rifle she’d raised with the intent to fire.
Every pair of handcuffs she’d slapped on a criminal.
Every step of her career.
She had told herself that she would not – could not – fail.
As it echoed in her mind again like a haunting memory, it drove her to change into a pair of jeans and a hoody, wrap up inside her puffer jacket, and head for the front door, car keys in hand and tapping in the address for a youth centre in Bethnal Green on her phone. There were a few missed calls, both of them from Mark Harris’s assistant, Carl Burrows.
She ignored them. The last thing she wanted to face was a smarmy politician leering at her and demanding a report.
In the pocket of her jacket was the device. She had demanded it after yesterday’s failure and was pretty sure Assistant Commissioner Ashton would be on-board despite circumventing the usual procedure for checking it out from the surveillance team.
She had a plan.
They needed a result. She needed a result.
Amara Singh didn’t fail.
It was time to start taking some steps to ensure that remained the case.
The front door closed behind them and Aaron shuffled through past Sam, his coat dripping with rain,
