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  The knot in her gut twisted tighter. ‘What did he want?’ Her voice was a croak, and swallowing was difficult.

  ‘He asked me about our relationship, and I confirmed I was your assigned psychologist when you were a child. But I also reminded him that was as far as I would go. I might be retired but I still respect patient confidentiality.’

  ‘Why’d he want to know about you?’

  ‘He wasn’t interested in me, Kerry. He wanted to know about you.’

  When she first applied to join Cumbria Constabulary, she’d declared her medical history, but the fact she’d undertaken grief counselling as a child had never been an issue. Her current mental health and acumen had been deemed well through the psychological testing she’d been subjected to during the recruitment process. Did Porter hope to use her childhood issues against her in whatever agenda he was working?

  ‘It wouldn’t matter if you divulged everything from our sessions,’ she began, but sensed there was more to come. ‘But that isn’t what he was digging for, was it?’

  ‘He asked if we’d been in contact more recently.’

  ‘What did you tell him?’

  ‘Well, Kerry, I assure you I had no need to lie on either of our behalf. I admitted to speaking with you regarding a private matter, of which he’d no business enquiring.’

  Kerry exhaled, and it was probably audible at his end of the line too. It sounded too much like a sigh of relief. ‘I bet he didn’t leave things at that, though?’

  ‘No, he was persistent. He mentioned having some concerns regarding your current state of mind and if you’d shared any similar concerns with me.’

  Kerry waited.

  ‘I reminded him we spoke about a private matter. But, Kerry, that was as much as an admission to him. I tried dissuading him from pursuing matters any further by telling him you’re not mentally ill, if that was his concern. I told him you were only dealing with a recent trauma in your own fashion, and all you needed was a little time to process and come to terms with it.’

  Her eyelids screwed shut.

  ‘Like I said, I hope I didn’t speak out of turn?’ Ron knew he’d said too much. His call wasn’t a warning, it was an attempt at gaining forgiveness for blabbing and soothing of his guilt.

  ‘No…it’s fine.’ Her tone hinted that it most certainly wasn’t. She caught herself, though. Doctor Ron, the sweet man, had only tried to protect her, and she couldn’t be disappointed, let alone angry with him. She opened her eyes. ‘Honestly, Ron, it’s OK. I don’t know what he was angling for, but I’m pretty sure he didn’t get it. Did he…’ Something troubled her more than the fact Porter had contacted Ron, it was how he knew whom to contact. She’d never included Ron’s personal details on the forms during the initial police recruitment process. ‘Did he say how he knew you were my psychologist?’

  ‘He didn’t. I assumed it was something you’d shared with him…’

  ‘Hmmm. That has to be it,’ she lied, because she wanted Ron off the phone, and feeling no guiltier about betraying her confidence than before. Beyond her parents, and neither of them would have been as helpful to Porter, there was only one other person who could have given the DCI his name. ‘He didn’t…by any chance…mention my fiancé did he?’

  ‘You have a fiancé?’

  ‘Yes.’ She did have, past tense. ‘Adam Gill?’

  ‘No. That name wasn’t mentioned.’

  Kerry sniffed. It didn’t clear Adam of betraying her. She’d left him because he told her he couldn’t handle her life. So why bloody meddle in it? Why couldn’t he just leave well and good alone?

  ‘Can I now be an impertinent caller?’ Ron said, and without waiting for permission, continued any way. ‘I just read the sub-text in your last question. Are the hallucinations you told me about having a negative impact on your personal relationships?’

  ‘Things are a little strained,’ she admitted.

  ‘Little Kes. Kerry. I’d never do anything to harm you on purpose; if I’ve hurt you by opening my big mouth to your boss, I’m sorry. But hopefully there was something good I did do for you. Do you remember when last we spoke? I advised you to see your GP, who could prescribe you a course of mild antidepressants. Did you take my advice and see someone?’

  ‘Yes.’ She thought about Elias Price. ‘I spoke to a specialist and it was a great help.’

  ‘That’s a good thing then. I’m pleased you did that, Kerry. Stick with it, and I assure you things will get better soon.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, mentally crossing her fingers, ‘I intend sticking out the full course.’

  Ron wished to say more, but she didn’t want caught in the lie. If he asked what kind of medication she’d been prescribed she couldn’t even hazard a guess. She made a quick goodbye, hung up.

  It was early evening. She’d been gone from work far too long, and sneaking back in was going to be difficult enough without Porter snooping on her. But returning to the nick was unavoidable if she hoped to further her case. The only way she could divert Porter from whatever messed up agenda he was following was by catching Jermaine Robson, and handing him over as a trophy to the DCI.

  39

  She didn’t make it to the nick before Swain leaped out from the roadside directly in front of her car. He was semi-translucent, but a figure diving in front of a moving vehicle ensured an instinctive reaction. Kerry hit the brakes, and the car slewed, almost striking a parked van. Swain’s lower body was engulfed within the engine compartment of her car. He was unaffected, and rushed across to the driver’s side.

  ‘I’ve been waiting for hours. What the bloody hell kept you, Kezza?’

  ‘Are you bloody stupid? You almost made me crash!’

  ‘Think yourself lucky I’ve no animosity towards you, or I’d have jumped out when you were going much faster.’ Instantly, Swain swept through her and into the passenger seat. She felt the itchy tingling of his passing, and shivered at her core. ‘Turn round,’ he ordered bluntly. ‘You don’t want to go in the nick. Your arsehole of a boss is on the war path.’

  ‘I have to go in. I need to report—’

  ‘If you want to get Robson, we have to go right now. It’s been hours! I’ve waited long enough!’

  ‘I thought spirits were supposed to be timeless?’

  ‘What? Are you kidding me? It’s the flaming opposite! Every second feels like an eternity to me right now! Turn around, get moving. I’m telling you, Kezza.’

  The police station was in sight. One more right turn and she could be down the ramp into the basement car park. If she hoped to save her career, she should report to Porter, explain her domestic situation and blame it for her recent erratic behaviour, and promise that now she’d ditched Adam she would get her act together. Surely Porter would give her a break under the circumstances?

  The car was already almost sideways across the street. She threw it in reverse and pulled a quick Y-turn, and sped away from the nick.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘I’ll tell you when we get there.’

  ‘Tell me now, Swain.’

  ‘Why? So you can call in the cavalry? Fuck that! I’ll show you where to find him, Kezza, but if any other filth shows up, the deal’s off.’

  ‘Just tell me where he is, right now, or the deal is off!’ Elias Price told her that her power was greater than Swain’s; otherwise why would he try bullying her? He told her to stand her ground, enforce her boundaries, and…well, more or less he’d encouraged her to show the bastard who was boss. ‘You need me more than I need you, Swain. If we don’t get Robson now, well it’s inevitable another of my colleagues will in the next few days. You’ve promised to tell me about the Fell Man, and what happened to Sally, but if you don’t, well, I’ll be no worse off than I am now. So here’s the new deal, Swain-o. You show me where Robson is, or you can bugger off.’

  ‘Take a right turn,’ he said, wafting his cuffed hand at the windscreen.

  She was unsure if he was surrende
ring to her demands, or was still the arrogant piece of dirt he’d always been. It didn’t matter. Kerry took the right turn.

  ‘Keep going. Don’t you have a siren you can use to get us through this traffic?’

  ‘This is my own car,’ she reminded him, ‘it doesn’t come with lights and sirens.’

  ‘So put your bloody foot down, and hit your horn. Bull your way through, Kezza. Trust me, they’ll get the hell out of your way.’

  He was right. In life he’d driven without the benefit of blues and twos, but nobody would ever have held him up, she’d bet. She flicked her main beam on and off, repeatedly hit the horn. Vehicles moved aside. They soon forced a path through the early evening traffic, and Kerry realised they were heading for Blackfriars Bridge. Swain kept quiet, staring intently through the windscreen until they were over the Thames. ‘Take a right on Stamford Street, and keep going till we get to Waterloo Station.’

  ‘Back towards your old stomping ground?’ She took the right turn as instructed. The road ahead was quieter, and she stamped down on the throttle. Typically, when she wanted to see a police car, there wasn’t one in sight. If she was pulled over, she’d flash her warrant card, and demand the patrol car follow hers, whether Swain liked it or not.

  Once they were beyond Waterloo, and on Lambeth Palace Road, Swain directed her along the Embankment.

  ‘Are we going to Nine Elms Lane? Just tell me, and I’ll get us there.’

  ‘Where’d you expect Robson to be?’

  ‘Yeah, well, it took you long enough to figure it out, didn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t need your criticism. I was the one who had to listen to those whining bastards for hours before they slipped up.’ He was talking about Funky and Kingston James. ‘They didn’t say where Robson was, cause they didn’t have a clue. But they mentioned names of other Nine Elms tossers, so I paid them a visit. Took ages before one of them mentioned going over to the Power House. I hitched a lift and found the bastard, then came back for you. I didn’t expect to be stood up like that, Kezza.’

  ‘Robson’s hiding at Battersea Power Station?’ Kerry glimpsed his sly sneer. For years the iconic twin-chimneyed power station had been a landmark on the London map. It had sat obsolete, but in recent years the riverside Victorian power station had undergone radical reconstruction, to house luxury flats, shops and dining and entertainment venues. It wasn’t a location where a fugitive could lie low these days. ‘He’d be better suited to a kennel at the dog and cats home,’ she said, and was rewarded with a wider sneer from Swain.

  ‘Speaking of which,’ he said, ‘when you get past the dog pound, take a right on Prince of Wales Drive and under the railway.’

  It took minutes to get there, and once they were out of the underpass, and at Queen’s Circus, Swain told her to go right on the roundabout. He had her park the car on double yellow lines on a side street between some recently constructed executive class apartment buildings on Queenstown Road, in sight of Chelsea Bridge. At first Kerry suspected Robson had taken refuge in one of the vacant flats, but that wasn’t it. Swain alighted the car, without needing to open the door, and headed down the side street, and she hurried to keep him in sight. As she jogged, she dug in her bag for her phone, considering calling Korba and asking him to meet her ASAP. But before she called for back up, she should check Swain hadn’t brought her on a wild goose chase.

  More construction was in progress. Hoarding and scaffolding surrounded her. Plastic and canvas sheets snapped in the evening breeze coming off the nearby river. There was a brief view of two of the massive chimneys on the power station, red lights blinking at their tops, but then she took another right, and an immediate left onto an old cobbled road in need of resurfacing. Directly ahead was the raised embankment of the railway, and she went right where a row of Victorian bridge arches had been converted — decades earlier by the dilapidated state of them — as retail units. Swain, twenty feet ahead, abruptly halted, and waved urgently for her to duck. There was nowhere to hide except in a shallow alcove at the beginning of the bridge. Underfoot there was a bed of trash, and the stench of urine billowed, overwhelming her. She flattened herself in the alcove, craning so she could see what had alarmed Swain. At first she saw nobody else, but from Swain’s body language — bent at the waist, fists clenched — he was poised to attack.

  She knew of this place from intelligence gathered on the Nine Elms Crew. One of the arched units once housed a gymnasium, old style, where hulking men pumped actual iron. It had been a recruitment ground for doormen when Jermaine Robson took command of the local clubs and pubs, and also an outlet for the sale of anabolic steroids and cocaine. It bore the unoriginal name of the Power House, being in the shadow of Battersea Power Station’s chimneys. After several successful drug raids, the gym had been closed down but apparently the derelict building was still used by Robson’s gang for other reasons.

  Two young men emerged from the Power House. On the back street, hidden by the glistening bulwarks of the ultra-modern luxury apartment blocks, no expense had gone into repairing the street lighting. A lamppost cast a dim glow over the men, but not bright enough to identify them. Kerry was familiar with Robson’s face. She’d studied his mug shots plenty of times, and had seen him in the flesh a few days ago when he’d arrived to check her out outside Funky’s flat. From what she could tell of the two men exiting the unit, neither was Robson. They looked youthful, dressed in the ubiquitous gangster uniform of baseball caps, hoodies, baggy pants and trainers. They spoke rapidly, in gang patois that was difficult to follow, to somebody still inside the arched unit, before strutting across the street to a car parked in the shadows. The engine roared, and the lights came on, and the car shot towards Kerry’s hiding place. It swept directly over Swain.

  With nowhere to go, Kerry could only avert her face, and hope. Thankfully the two men in the car failed to notice her, and the car continued to the corner, took a left and sped up the incline between the new apartment blocks. Taking a peek towards the unit they’d emerged from, Kerry could see nobody else. Nobody alive. Swain had survived being ploughed over. He was tilted forward, his hands clenched at his sides, head extended on his taut neck. He thrummed with hatred, reminiscent of an aggressive pointer dog.

  She still didn’t have eyes on Robson, but Swain’s reaction was enough. She pulled out her phone and rang Korba.

  He replied, but she cut him off immediately. ‘Danny, listen to me. Don’t ask questions; just trust me. I’ve got Robson, but I need back up to bring him in. I’m on a backstreet off Queenstown Road, next to the railway lines alongside Battersea Power Station.’ Korba butted in for clarity, and she spoke over him. ‘Yes, outside the old Power House gym. But you have to come in via Queenstown Road where the construction site is. Get a TPU over here now.’ A TPU, or Trojan Proactive Unit, was the name given to the armed response vehicles on high-visibility patrols in crime hotspots. She couldn’t swear Robson was armed, but it was a high probability, so having the support of armed officers was a prerequisite before arresting him. Korba bleated at her to wait for back up, promised he was on his way too. But as with every arrest scenario, the situation was fluid.

  Jermaine Robson stepped out from under the arch, puffing on a cigarette that lit his face with a red glow with each inhalation. He was totally oblivious of Erick Swain.

  Expecting Swain to launch at his enemy in a frenzied attack, Kerry made the mistake of leaning out of the alcove. Had she intended warning Swain to stop, to back off…what? It didn’t matter, because Robson caught a glimpse of movement, and swung towards her on high alert. He was a fugitive, and suspicious of everyone. He began walking slowly towards her, head tilted as he tried to make her out in the dimness. If she was cornered she’d be at his mercy, and it would be minutes before the TPU arrived, enough time to be severely injured or worse. She was equipped with handcuffs and PAVA, and they were both on the sling harness she could conceal under her jacket. Unfortunately her harness was in the GaOC office, along with her
radio and extendable truncheon. Her only tool of officialdom was her warrant card, buried in her handbag, and Robson wasn’t the type to pay it any respect.

  She stepped out of hiding. ‘Police! Stop right there, Robson, and get down on the ground! Now!’

  He halted, dropping his cigarette at his feet.

  He was a very dangerous man, suspected of as many gangland slayings and beatings as his rival, Swain, and physically Kerry was no match for him. He was controlled by primitive instincts, and when cornered that meant one of two responses: fight or run. To her relief he sprinted, angling directly at her, swiping out a long arm to shove her aside. She jerked backwards, avoiding impact, and then Robson was past her and hurtling for the side street between the new apartment blocks.

  Her relief was short lived.

  He was escaping, and it was her duty to pursue.

  40

  The side street where she’d parked her car hadn’t felt as steep jogging down it, but racing up towards Queenstown Road, flashes of pain in her knees accompanied every step, and her breath was ragged in her throat. Galvanised by adrenalin, Robson didn’t seem to be as hindered. He flew up the hill; each long stride gaining him a lead on Kerry. As she ran, she juggled her phone, attempting to update Korba, but it was a frustrating task. She managed to hit his number, but running, gasping for breath and issuing new directions was almost impossible. In the end, she left the line open, and ran, shouting now and then and hoping the DS could make sense out of it all.

  Robson could have turned around and beaten the crap out of her long before an armed response vehicle could arrive, but he was under the impression he could already be surrounded, so didn’t as much as pause. He charged across Queenstown Road, at the same time that Kerry pounded past her car. She was tempted to jump inside it and give pursuit, but if Robson got off the main route she’d lose him in seconds. She ran on, trying to drag in the oxygen needed to energise her straining muscles.