Fallen Angel (8 page)

It was a warm Saturday evening, and the sun still shone brightly as Stacey's car pulled up outside the slightly rundown, three-bedroom home in Streatham where she and Sophie lived.

As soon as she put the key into the lock, she could hear the sound of excited chatter and footfalls coming from inside. The door swung open, and she saw Sophie standing at the top of the stairs with a huge smile on her face. ‘Mum!' she squealed with delight, taking the steps two at a time as she ran down towards the hallway. But the girl's joy lasted only as long as it took for her to get close enough to see the look of sadness and regret on her mother's face. When Sophie spoke again, all the excitement had drained away, and her voice was flat and monotone. ‘You're not staying, are you?'

Deep inside her chest Stacey could feel her heart breaking as she watched Sophie struggling to fight back the tears that were welling up inside her. ‘I'm sorry, love,' Stacey began. ‘I just popped back to pick up a couple of things. I've still got some work to do … I won't be long. I promise I'll …'

But Sophie had already started to make her way back up the stairs. ‘It's not fair,' she sobbed. ‘You never spend any time with me these days.'

The shift-work patterns of life in the Metropolitan Police had always been disruptive, but ever since Stacey had made it on to the murder squad she had broken her promises to her daughter so many times that they now seemed almost meaningless. Although Stacey's parents had a home of their own, they were constantly round her house. This was both a blessing and a curse. It meant there was always someone on hand to look after Sophie but it also meant that Stacey was prone to work late because she never had to worry about child care.

‘I hate you,' Sophie hissed bitterly. ‘When I go to school, all my friends talk about fun things they did at the weekend with their parents.'

‘Sophie, please …'

‘They say, “What did you do at the weekend, Sophie?” And I tell them I did nothing at all because my mum loves her job so much more than she loves me.'

‘Now just wait one minute, young lady. My job puts food on the table. And the work I do is important because –'

Sophie spun round at the top of the stairs. This time her eyes held fire as well as tears. ‘More important than me?'

Stacey hesitated a moment too long. Sophie spun back around and continued to make her way towards her room. ‘And the worst part of it is that none of this would matter if we were a proper family,' Sophie muttered under her breath but still loud enough for Stacey to hear. ‘None of it would matter at all if …'

Stacey knew what was coming next: the words that cut her to the quick every single time she heard them. And
in recent months she seemed to have heard them more and more.

‘None of it would matter,' Sophie said again, ‘if I had a dad.' And with that she slammed the door of her room behind her.

Stacey fought to compose herself, closing her eyes and taking deep breaths as she closed the front door behind her. When she opened them again, her mother's face was peaking out from around the doorway to the living room. Penny Collins said nothing. She didn't have to. Her disapproval of the situation was written all over her face in giant capital letters.

When her mother finally made to open her mouth, Stacey held up a hand to silence her. ‘I don't have time for this, Mum,' she snapped. ‘I've got to get back to work.'

The evening traffic as she headed across South London was heavier than she had expected, and Collins found herself watching the clock on the car's dashboard and wondering if she would make it on time.

It was almost an hour before Stacey turned into the narrow driveway that led to the vast, uneven patch of scrub and woodland that was her final destination. She was almost twenty minutes late.

She parked her car and gingerly made her way along a footpath on the common, until she came to the ruins of a medieval manor house. All that remained was a scattering of worn red bricks marking out the floorplan of the once grand residence. In the centre of it all stood Jack Stanley.

‘I was beginning to think that you were avoiding me.'

Jack was tall and physically impressive, with thick jet-black hair and sparkling, piercing green eyes that shone like diamonds. He was dressed in designer jeans and an expensive linen shirt that fitted him perfectly. Two days' worth of stubble clung to his chin, and a large unlit cigar was clenched between his fingers. He struck a match as he moved towards her and lit the end, blowing out the first puff of smoke in her direction.

‘How long has it been, Stacey? A year? You haven't changed a bit. You're looking good, very good.'

Stacey said nothing but felt uncomfortable as his eyes looked her up and down. Jack began to close the gap between them, finally coming close enough for her to smell his cologne over the cigar smoke that lingered around him. ‘How's your dad?' Jack continued. ‘And how's that little girl of yours? Susie, isn't it?'

‘Her name's Sophie,' Collins replied. ‘She's good. And my dad's as well as can be expected. But I'm pretty sure you didn't call me every day this week to catch upon old times. What's all this about? I mean, even by your crazy standards you're acting pretty desperate.'

Stacey knew all about Jack Stanley's standards. She had known him for just about as long as she had known anyone in her entire life. As a young girl growing upon the Blenheim Estate, Jack had been a leading figure in the small gang of oh-so-cool older boys who hung around in the shadowy corners at night smoking cigarettes and passing around cans of cheap cider.

He and his friends had pretty much ignored her back then. It was only when puberty kicked in and Stacey made the transition from schoolgirl and gangly teenager
to stunningly attractive young woman that the eyes of Jack and his mates began to follow her around whenever she came into view. Then he would whistle and call out ‘All right, Princess' every time she went past, much to her embarrassment.

By the time Jack had turned twenty it was an open secret that he was making his living from petty crime – mostly burglary and car theft – though no one on the estate seemed overly concerned, because he always struck far from home. He had one or two minor run-ins with the law but was lucky enough to come away with nothing more than a couple of official warnings.

Things got more serious a few years later when the head of a gang of drug dealers was found stabbed to death on the edge of the estate. Jack was arrested and charged with murder within weeks but insisted he wasn't guilty; he was victim of a simple case of mistaken identity. Four days before the trial one of the main prosecution witnesses vanished off the face of the earth; two days later, two witnesses informed the police they would be withdrawing their statements. The case collapsed.

Everyone knew what had happened, and from then on Jack's reputation as a ruthless gang leader only grew.

Within five years Jack had moved away from the estate and into a house in the leafy South London suburb of Chislehurst. In his absence his lieutenants still ran the Blenheim Estate, which ensured that Jack retained a financial stake in every gram of smack, coke and weed, as well as every stolen video camera and cloned credit card that passed through the place.

By the time Stacey Collins joined the police force, Jack's
empire had expanded to include several other estates and a wide range of other contraband. When Stacey made detective, Jack became her secret weapon in the fight against crime.

The agreement between them was mutual. Stacey was an ambitious officer looking to get results, and Jack wanted to protect his investments. Therefore he would provide her with tips about the activities of rival drug gangs, point out good places to look for clues about the identities of unknown armed robbers and let her have samples of counterfeit currency being produced by foreign syndicates. On more than one occasion he even told her where to find the bodies of victims of contract killings.

It was a covenant with the Devil. Stacey's career went from strength to strength, and she rapidly gained a reputation as a hard-nosed detective who got results, but Jack benefited too. Most of his information led to action against gangs who were trying to muscle in on his patch, which resulted in a huge boost to his profits.

There were other advantages for Jack. He was given occasional, subtle hints about potential police investigations into his growing criminal empire, detailed explanations about the latest technology and how the police could use it to build cases against him – information that he then used when deciding how to focus his resources.

For the most part, Stacey managed to avoid doing anything illegal – not that she ever wanted Jack to know that. The hints about police investigations amounted to little more than underworld gossip. The information about new technology came from sources available to the public
if they looked hard enough: the Internet, technical journals, law reports and court cases.

But Stacey knew that when you made a deal with the Devil, you were putting your soul on the line, and one day he would come along to collect. She had tried time and time again to cut her ties to Jack, which was why it had been so long since she had seen him, but it had proved almost as impossible as cutting her ties to the Blenheim. You can take the girl out of the estate, but you can't take the estate out of the girl.

Jack had a similar problem. He had made so much money in his criminal career that he could easily afford to go legit, but the adrenalin rush he got from criminal activity had proved every bit as addictive as the drugs his gang sold on the estates he controlled.

The question of why Jack had wanted to meet with Stacey so urgently was still hanging in the air, so she repeated it. ‘So what's all this about?'

He tried to smile, but it came out as a slight sneer. ‘Well, I don't get out much these days, so I thought I might as well combine seeing you with a little bit of sightseeing.'

‘Really?' Stacey looked around her. There was nothing to see but rubble. ‘Maybe I'm missing something, but isn't that sort of thing usually a lot more rewarding if you go somewhere more interesting?'

‘Not always the case, Stacey,' Jack replied. ‘This place is supposed to be haunted. I'm pretty sure that ghosts only come out at night. And I don't think either of us would want to miss those, would we?'

They stared at each other for a few moments. Finally
Stacey broke the silence. ‘No more games, Jack. What do you want from me? I'm guessing it has something to do with that depot robbery.'

‘What robbery was that, then?'

‘Don't play the idiot. It doesn't suit you, not any more.'

Jack eyed her suspiciously. ‘You on the job or something? Is that the reason you agreed to meet me, to question me about the fucking depot job? You trying to pull the wool over my eyes?' He took another draw on his cigar and let the smoke escape from his lips slowly. ‘That's not the way our arrangement works, sweetheart, and you know it. We both have too much to lose for either of us to ever turn on the other.'

‘Jesus, Jack, it's got your fucking MO all over it. And if that's as clear as a bell to someone like me, it's only a matter of time before the Flying Squad realize it too, if they haven't already.'

Jack smiled. ‘You trying to tell me something, Princess?'

‘I'm just telling you what you already know. And don't call me that, I always hated it. Even when I was a teenager.'

Stacey took a deep breath. If she was going to get what she wanted, she was going to have to start again. ‘Listen, Jack. I've had a hell of a week. I don't know why you called me, but the only reason I agreed to meet with you is that I need something. I need a favour. You've heard about this kid being kidnapped and murdered.'

Jack brightened up and smirked big and wide. ‘Yeah, of course, it's all over the place.'

‘Well, here's one thing you haven't heard. Something you won't hear anywhere and you need to keep a hundred per cent confidential. You understand me.'

Jack's voice was suddenly serious. ‘Okay.'

‘The final money-drop for the kidnap, it was on the Blenheim Estate. Block C.'

‘You don't think –'

‘That it was down to you? Of course not. Don't be ridiculous. But you and I both know that nothing moves in or out of the estate without your people knowing about it. If this guy had set up a drop, he must have been hanging around scoping it out. Your people must have seen something.'

Jack moved thoughtfully to his right, sat down on a low pile of bricks and ran his fingers through his thick dark hair. ‘This drop-off, was it arranged for around 5.30 p.m. last night?'

‘It started at 5 p.m. and was given the runaround to the Blenheim Estate, so they would have been there, say, 5.30, 5.40.'

‘Some of the guys got spooked because there was a bunch of armed coppers milling around just after that. And now there's a bunch of uniforms and forensic guys around there.'

‘Now you know why. You think you can help me out?'

Jack stood up, brushing the dust from the seat of his jeans with the back of his hand. ‘I don't know, Stacey. What's in it for me?'

‘Be serious, Jack. This is different. We're talking about someone who goes around killing kids here. I was always led to believe that you took exception to that kind of thing, that you'd be eager to help out in any way you could.'

‘I need a favour.'

Stacey felt a tiny chill run down her spine. ‘What?'

Jack took another long final drag on his cigar, then dropped it to the ground and crushed it with the heel of his boot. He looked up at Stacey. ‘There's an informant in the outfit. I'm certain of it.'

Stacey knew all too well never to speak to Jack about particular deals or people for fear of being drawn too closely into his organization. Their arrangement worked only if she kept her distance from him.