London Large: Blood on the Streets Read online

  They hardly noticed him. Discreet. Invisible. Unknown. Just what his employers wanted and had always paid through the nose for.

  But this was the man who was about to turn the world upside down. By the end of the day he would be one of the most famous dead people on the planet. Not quite Michael Jackson famous, but not that far behind.

  He watched a bead of sweat run down his victim’s cheek, sensed her nervousness and relaxed into his paper. What fun he would be having later.

  He was in truth a clinical executioner; he’d had plenty of opportunities to complete his mission on the walk to the train station. But something had changed in him just lately. Something profound, something big - a St. Paul-on the-road-to-Damascus kind of change.

  The deaths of the last few people he had been paid to kill had all looked like accidents, with the occasional suicide thrown in for good measure. But instead of just doing the day job and collecting the readies he had stalked his victims, watching their habits and foibles and thinking about who they were, what they were like, wondering about the impact of his activities on their loved ones.

  It wasn’t that he was any less of a blood curdling, psychopathic pleasure killer, but that he had come to get more of a kick out of his activities if he took his time.

  But this wasn’t the only change. After a lonely life at the margins he had started to crave recognition. He had hung around in the shadows for so long. Why should his art be hidden away in the back streets of Central Asia when he could display his skills in plain view on the streets of London? This once shadowy hitman was no longer immune to the all-pervading celebrity mania of his time: he wanted recognition, of a kind.

  When he saw Tara meet up with her sister at the gates of Buckingham Palace his eyes sparkled with delight. Now he had the flavour. Big time. Two for the price of one. Two beautiful English ladies. Buckingham Palace. This was his moment. This was his time.

  All ideas of subtlety, of making the whole thing look like an innocent mishap as per instructions, had vanished from his mind as he followed the sisters into the park. He circled the other side of the lake, like a cat, oblivious to the world, before it pounces and rips the bollocks off the pretty Robin at the end of your garden. He prowled past Duck Island and reached the top of the lake.

  Tara and Jemima sat down on a bench.

  He stalked past the top curve of the lake. His head was in another place. He felt as alive as he had ever felt.

  Tara held her sister’s hand and began to cry.

  He was now closing in on them, on the same side of the lake - the home straight. Still unnoticed, he hid in plain sight, blending into the surroundings like a praying mantis.

  3

  Aliyev slid stealthily past the throngs of tourists queuing at the overpriced burger stall. The whiff of sizzling beef shot through his nostrils and his blood lust went into overdrive. He strode purposefully towards his victims. In his mind’s eye only two people now existed.

  He heard Tara muttering something about a big secret as he loomed large over them.

  ‘Hello Tara’ he said with a friendly smile, ‘Do you want to let me into your little secret?’

  Tara looked into his cold, murderous eyes. A chill ran down her spine. Her flesh crawled. Her hair stood on end. She was in no doubt of his intent. But surely not here, in the open, in St James’ Park for God’s sake? Surely they wouldn’t be that stupid. Surely?

  She was wrong.

  The blade appeared as if from nowhere. The polished steel glistened in the autumn sunlight as it entered the left side of her skull and passed effortlessly through the temple bone and into the cerebrum. Death was instantaneous. The knife sliced upward in a smooth circular motion to split her skull in two, and the flaccid grey matter that holds all our dreams and hopes, our very selves, spilled to the floor.

  Aliyev had never been one to waste time. When the moment was at hand efficiency and ruthlessness were his watchwords. No messing about. But this time it had to be different. This time he wanted to put on a show, as he yanked what remained of Tara’s head across the back of the bench and slit her throat with the skill and precision of an expert butcher. The knife went swiftly through her Adam’s apple as a crimson tide gushed forth.

  He glanced around to take in the reactions of his audience. Tourists stared in disbelief, rooted to the spot, unable to comprehend the horror they were witnessing. The ducks quacked loudly and flapped their wings in excitement, as if they had just seen the final scene of some magnificent drama. But this was only Act One. Now he really had the flavour - he was gagging for it.

  With terrible intent he moved back twenty yards - which was roughly the range at which he had practised his knife throwing skills thousands of times before, in his previous life in the unregulated circuses of Central Asia. Jemima stared, paralysed by horror, as the steel flew through the air at astonishing speed towards its ordained destination.

  The knife plunged into her skull just above the eyes. Another bullseye.

  Aliyev stood triumphantly admiring his artwork. Two dead bodies oozing crimson lay entwined on a bench in the Queen’s own park. What a day’s work. He turned to see the effect on his public as a loud voice screamed from behind him.

  ‘Hands up! ... Hands up now.’

  Jack Thornton and Mike Richards were plain clothes members of the Queen’s protection unit who secretly patrolled the area outside the Palace. A couple of battle hardened cops who had seen plenty of action in their time. They’d been doing this job three years without incident.

  It was better than a desk job: nice bit of fresh air, good money, no hassle. But not today. Today they would have to bite on something that would not be so easy to chew.

  ‘Jesus Christ! Jesus fucking Christ - what the fuck is happening you sick bastard?’, screamed Jack.

  Aliyev looked round, unfazed, at the sight of two plain clothes coppers pointing their pistols directly at him, the broad smile still beaming, the eyes still sparkling with delight.

  He had learned three golden rules during his life of murdering for fun and profit: move fast, always strike first, be ruthless.

  Diving towards the lake, in a single motion he twisted and retrieved his handgun from the inside pocket of his jacket. The first shot of the day in St James’ Park smashed through Jack Thornton’s skull; the policeman went down like a sack of spuds.

  The second shot of the day smashed through Aliyev’s rib cage. So did the third, fourth and fifth. The sixth blew a hole in his skull. He was turned into a leaky sieve as holes opened up all over him in rapid succession, ripping through his flesh, shattering his bones, mashing up his internal organs. He was dead before he hit the ground.

  Mike Richards surveyed, stunned and disbelieving, the four scattered bodies. The lush green grounds of Her Majesty’s Gardens were turning red.

  ‘Fucking hell,’ he said.

  4

  The light pierced H’s eyes. Like a corkscrew. Like the corkscrew he had in his hand when he’d slumped onto his bed three or four hours earlier.

  Detective Inspector Harry Hawkins, known as ‘H’ to his dwindling number of friends and multitudes of enemies alike, was stirring in his pit. His head didn’t hurt - it never really hurt anymore, as such - but he was bone-tired and his mouth felt like the inside of a Turkish wrestler’s jockstrap; he was not a happy bunny. More light flooded the room. Someone had opened the curtains and let in another day. Another day he didn’t need.

  ‘Fuck me, Liv, is that really necessary?’

  ‘Your driver will be here in twenty minutes. Breakfast on the table in ten. Liven yourself up, big man.’

  H slouched towards the bathroom for his morning routine. The long, sore two minutes relieving himself at the porcelain bowl: check. The quick rinse of the jockstrap and sluice of cold water across the face: check. The shock of seeing the shattered, lined, reddened, eye-pouched mask in the mirror where his face used to be - were there any traces at all left now of the handsome young warrior? - check. The comb-over o
f the thinning, blasted, straw-like thatch: check.

  H was on the move.

  Sitting down at the table and craning to kiss his Olivia he became aware, with something like joy, that it must be a Monday morning. The heart-attack-on-a-plate announced it. He was only allowed this once a week now: eggs, sausages, bacon, liver, fried tomatoes, chips and beans, two thick buttered slices, piping hot tea with two sugars. As breakfasts go, this was the absolute dog’s bollocks.

  Settling to his task and digging in, H reflected fuzzily for a second or two on his good fortune. Olivia. What had he done to deserve a woman like this, at his time of life, with his track record, with his issues? She was his rock, his compass. Unflappable, normal, beautiful Olivia, daughter of the suburbs. He doubted now whether he could face up to the murderous chaos that London was becoming without her.

  ‘More tea, H?’

  ‘Yes please, doll. And put the radio on will you? Might as well see what’s happening in the world.’

  ‘H, you don’t want to know what’s happening in the world, trust me. Eat your breakfast.’

  H gave her the look. There was no arguing with the look. Olivia switched the radio on.

  ‘…the gangland war that has pushed London’s murder rate to record levels. Just who is in charge of London’s streets? Give us a call now with your view of the crisis, on…’

  H gave a low, bottomless groan and pushed his plate away. Olivia switched the radio off. She was not one to say ‘I told you so.’

  ‘What do you have on today then H?’

  ‘Going to Bermondsey this morning - I need to talk to Confident John. There’s bound to be more tit-for-tat bollocks between these Russians and Albanians. Hardly a day goes by now without something. If we don’t get on top of this soon…And then the office this afternoon. Some sort of meeting, or “workshop”. Complete fucking waste of time. Amisha will know what it is.’

  Ping! Olivia checked H’s phone. He was not one to pay much attention to it himself.

  ‘Your driver says two minutes.’

  5

  Amisha Bhanushali hit the bell just as Olivia reached the door and pulled her gaze, as if with some effort, away from her phone. Her outstretched hand was ignored. Another morning ritual.

  ‘H, your driver’s here’, Olivia shouted over her shoulder. She always and only referred to Amisha as ‘driver.’ The high-flying daughter of ambitious Indian immigrants from Gujarat, she strode confidently into the flat. Beautiful, poised and ‘posh’, educated at Cambridge and 28, she had been H’s partner now for almost a year.

  She was the new sort of copper, but she triggered the old sort of jealousy in Olivia.

  Amisha entered and headed for the kitchen. ‘Morning guv’, she said.

  ‘Morning Ames. Have we got time for a coffee? What’s happening?’

  ‘Good or bad news first?’.

  ‘Bad.’

  ‘Well, the media’s still up in arms. London-as-Syria is a common theme. Law and order in meltdown. That sort of thing. Where are the police, what is to be done? They’re calling for someone’s head. And you’re mentioned by name here and there. My guess is you’ll be trending on Twitter by this afternoon.’

  H let out his second groan of the morning, like a shattered old dog waiting to be put out of his misery. The ‘T’ word. Nothing wound him up, or got him down, like this mindless digital mob rule. He didn’t know how Twitter worked, but he knew two things: he was clearly accumulating more and more enemies, and he couldn’t name or put faces to them. Give him a cornered villain brandishing a crow bar any day. Any fucking day.

  ‘Why? What now?’

  Joey Jupiter is all over you again. He’s recirculating the ‘slag’ clip. And this time it’s had a lot more views.’

  ‘You mean more people have watched it?’

  ‘Yep. Over 200,000 on Youtube. You’ll be famous soon at this rate.’

  Six weeks before H had been blissfully unaware of this ‘celebrity blogger’, as Amisha called him. Now the ‘jumped up, soppy little two-bob wanker’, as H called him, had become his nemesis. And for what?

  A few years before, on a bender with a few of his old muckers from the Falklands, someone had filmed H, in full flow, on the subject of his ex-wife. H thought it was just pictures being taken. Next thing he knew he was on Youtube, ranting good humouredly but out of context about ‘harridans’ and ‘slags’ and ‘ducking stools.’ All a bit drunkenly embarrassing, but soon forgotten.

  Until six weeks ago, when the clip turned up on Joey Jupiter’s blog. ‘Is this’, wrote Jupiter, ‘really the sort of man we want “protecting” Londoners in the 21st century? How can this dinosaur be expected to treat the female half of the population with any respect?’

  And so it began. For the last month H couldn’t scratch his arse in public without Jupiter, and his quarter of a million ‘followers’, getting on his back. And now, with these Eastern Europeans running riot and turning the streets of the metropolis red with each other’s blood, it seemed like Jupiter and his minions were on H-watch twenty four hours a day, blogging-tweeting-texting-messaging for all they were worth about his shortcomings - as a man, and as a detective.

  ‘I’ll rip his bollocks off for him if he ever gets round me’, said H.

  ‘I don’t doubt it for a second, guv. Will you be saying that at the press conference this afternoon? Shall I feed it through to the PR people?’, Amisha asked.

  ‘Turn it in Ames, I’m not in the mood. Finish your coffee.’

  Two minutes later they were in the car, H behind the wheel, and heading north out of Eltham towards Bermondsey and their meeting with Confident John Viney. It seemed, for a while, like it was going to be another ‘normal’ day of fear, loathing, blood, guts and Eastern European corpses.

  6

  ‘I don’t know why Olivia always calls me your driver. You haven’t let me behind the wheel in six months’, Amisha said in mock exasperation.

  ‘I don’t need to be driven around just yet, thanks, nor wheeled around in a buggy nor spoon-fed porridge nor have my arse wiped because I’ve shat my nappy. There’s still a little bit of lead left in this old pencil, don’t worry about that. Focus on your screens. What’s happening? Any good news from Joey Jupiter?’ As much as he hated him it was difficult for H to ignore Joey and company.

  But Amisha had already tuned out of the conversation, her face now rapt and trancelike in the backlit glow of her phone and tablet, her eyes scanning the never ending streams of information. It seemed to make her happy. It seemed to make them all happy, as far as H could tell. ‘Good, that’ll keep her quiet’ he thought, as he gunned the car towards Bermondsey.

  Bermondsey. Last of the old-school London manors, bastion of the world that H - and a good proportion of the villains it was his lot to badger - had come out of. Or so it was always said. Truth was, his old stomping ground was changing, and changing fast. Like everywhere else. A lot of the old faces had melted away. Confident John, though, had stayed put, supporting the few pubs that were left, running his book and keeping his ear close to the ground. He wasn’t exactly a grass, but he and H went back a long, long way, and if anyone knew what the Albanian firm which had taken up residence in the area were up to it would be him.

  This thing between them and the Russians had driven H closer to the edge than he’d ever been. For years it had been a fairly predictable struggle for control of Soho - drugs, people and sex trafficking, the usual things. But these last couple of weeks the dogs of war had well and truly been let slip, and the bodies had been piling up like they hadn’t since…nobody knew when.

  These fucking psychopaths and their endless fucking vendettas.

  Close to two dozen murders in less than a month, and a queasy panic beginning to grip the city.

  H had drawn the short straw on this one and found himself in charge of the investigation. A proper shit sandwich, with all the trimmings. But now he was determined to do a last bit of proper coppering before they put him out to pasture. G
et these bastards sorted out…

  ‘Guv’, said Amisha, ‘you’d better hold onto your hat. Something big’s kicking off…Christ on a bike…the Internet’s just exploded!’

  ‘What, what is it?’

  ‘Some sort of bloodbath…in St. James’ Park.’

  ‘St. James’ Park? For fuck’s sake! Quick, turn the radio on.’

  How quaint, he’s still living in the old world.

  ‘They won’t have it yet. It’s only just happened. Social media’s driving this one. Some tourists have stumbled across a bloodbath. It’s a Twitterstorm, #slaughterinthequeenspark. Jesus - look at this! There’s bodies everywhere. Guv…you’ve got to see this.’

  H’s head was spinning and he found himself short of breath. This was all he needed. The beeping and pinging of Amisha’s gadgets was driving him nuts. A bloodbath? Bodies everywhere? In the Queen’s own park? Just after breakfast time? Fuck!…we’re losing it. Is nothing sacred anymore?

  He’d have to hit the ground running on this one, or someone would be having his guts for garters.

  Ping! His own phone piped up. He swung the wheel and headed towards Westminster Bridge before he answered it. Confident John would have to wait.

  7

  H cranked up the siren and put his foot down before taking the call from his guvnor, Chief Inspector Hilary Stone. A smooth operator if ever there was one. It wasn’t that long ago that he’d been her boss; before, inevitably, she was promoted above him. It was the first time in his not-so-glittering career that he’d had a female boss. He was still coming to terms with it.

  He had a grudging respect for her ability to work a room of superiors and high flyers like a newly elected politician on overdrive. Always neatly dressed, an ability to make other people think they were important and an easy eloquence allowed her to climb the greasy pole in a way H never could, not that he could ever have been bothered.