It was as much for him as it was for them. He watched as Singh approached the wall, her eyes taking in some of the warm memories the locals had for Theo.
‘He was a good man,’ Pearce said, walking slowly behind her, his hands tucked into the pockets of his jeans.
‘I heard he gave his life to save Amy Devereux,’ Singh spoke, not turning. ‘That was very noble.’
‘Like I said, he was a good man.’ Pearce shrugged. ‘Good men sometimes do crazy things.’
Singh turned at the not-so-subtle reference.
‘I know we sort of got off on the wrong foot yesterday. I wanted to apologise—’ Singh began, but Pearce held up a hand.
‘Please. If I took any umbrage to a colleague giving me both barrels, I wouldn’t be very good at my job.’ He extended his hand again. ‘Truce?’
‘Truce.’ She took it, this time without the extra power.
‘So what brings you here?’ Pearce said, turning back towards the kitchen which sat just off the main hall. A table was pressed against the far wall near the door, a stack of paper plates and a few bags of groceries on top. Pearce’s leather jacket was slung over the chair, a small puddle of rain water beneath it.
‘Last night, there was an incident,’ Singh said, then saw Pearce’s expression. ‘You saw the news, I take it?’
‘I did,’ Pearce said with a sigh. ‘However, I was fully informed by your boss.’
‘Assistant Commissioner Ashton?’
‘Mark Harris,’ Pearce said, with a cheeky grin.
‘That man is not my boss,’ Singh snapped. ‘I’m sorry to hear you’ve spoken to him. His assistant has been trying to contact me all day.’
‘Burrows? He’s an odd man, isn’t he?’
‘Too right.’ Singh chuckled. ‘Although I’d rather deal with his creepy librarian shtick, than having Harris stare at my tits and pretend he’s interested in police work.’
Pearce couldn’t help but laugh and realised he was warming to Singh. He was sure that her abruptness would rub a lot of superiors up the wrong way, especially the male officers. But she was tenacious, and it was a characteristic he appreciated.
It was one he possessed himself.
‘Well he called me into his office this morning and demanded I help his task force.’
‘And?’ Singh asked, her piercing eyes locking onto his.
‘And what?’
‘Will you help? That’s actually why I came here.’
Pearce stopped just before entering the kitchen and sighed. He turned back to Singh with a resigned look on his face.
‘I’m nothing more than a fancy administrator these days. I sit in a cupboard, rifling through paperwork and working dead end cases. The Met don’t need or want me as a detective anymore. That’s been made perfectly clear.’
‘I do,’ Singh said, smiling. ‘I know that you don’t think Sam Pope is as dangerous as we do, but he is still breaking the law. He is still making a mockery of what our badge stands for. We will catch him that much I can promise. But if you help us, then maybe you can help him too.’
Pearce ran a hand through his grey stubble and took a moment. As much as he believed that Sam Pope was a good person walking a bad but necessary path, there would likely be a time when the net got too tight. When it did, he would need at least one ally on the other side.
One person who cared.
Pearce looked up at Singh, catching her hopeful glance and smiling his warm, pearly white smile.
‘Okay. I’m in.’
‘Fantastic.’ Singh’s face cracked in a gorgeous smile that could grace any magazine. ‘You know what, I will have that tea after all.’
‘Sugar?’
‘Just dip you finger in it,’ Singh joked, getting another chuckle from Pearce. As he wandered into the kitchen, Singh could understand why he was so revered at one point of his career. The man was as charming as he was authoritative and Singh felt a kinship with a man who wanted nothing more than to see the law used for good. It saddened her that she believed he had aided Sam Pope, but she knew that as a Detective Inspector, you were always swimming upstream.
Having an ally, especially one as experienced as Pearce to offer a branch was like gold dust.
As he returned with two mugs of piping hot tea, Singh sat down and allowed the natural conversation to flow, hoping that any insight he could offer, would be useful.
She had to catch Sam Pope.
She knew it.
Pearce knew it.
She hated the idea of putting him in an uncomfortable position, but she would test his loyalty to see which direction it pointed in.
Pope or the badge.
As the rain drummed against the window like impatient fingers, they began to chat.
Just under nine miles away, the same relentless rain had cleared the streets of Neasden. The roads that framed the estate like a moat were usually alive with activity, with large numbers of youths congregating in their gangs, grime music playing and a sense of menace hanging around them like a bad smell. On average, there was at least one stabbing a week within the square mile around the large estate, with unfortunate people being caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, or a casualty in a rivalry over being born in a different postcode.
It was all becoming senseless to Sean Wiseman.
As he walked with his head down, the rain slapping the back of his neck, he relived the last few evenings in his mind.
The attack on his car near Holborn.
The gun pressed against his head before Sam Pope put a bullet through his hand.
Weeping in the corner as people he had grown up with were shot dead through the window of their High Rise penthouse.
The lifeless eyes of Elmore.
The whole lifestyle had begun to feel worthless, a pathetic reason to live like gangsters to rally against a system that was built to keep them down. Wiseman agreed with some of the racist barriers his friend spouted about, but he never went as far as to kill to break them down. Whenever he questioned
