The Undead. The First Seven Days (112 page)

With strong white coffee, heavily laden with sugar I fish out my packet of rolling tobacco and papers.  Duty free of course, bought cheap from a lad on the last security gig I worked.  I wouldn’t have dreamt of buying dodgy duty free a few years ago, but like I keep saying, times are hard.  I guess it would be okay to smoke in here, Lord Fatty has told me nobody else is allowed in.  But it wouldn’t look good if someone turned up on my first day and found me puffing away in their kitchen so I head outside to the patio table and stretched my legs out.

Brooding over the coffee and chain smoking I took in my surroundings, at first feeling pleasantly satisfied that I had secured such an easy gig.  Free board, a nice big house, transport and being paid too.  Not bad, but then it didn’t take long for the dark thoughts to start penetrating.  Comparing to what I once had, to what I once was.  Feeling like a fool for being sat here aged thirty-eight and being grateful for this shitty security job when I was something special before it all changed.

I was something.  I was flying.  Two years on the beat and I passed my probationary period with flying colours, moving onto response cars and cutting my teeth with the constant high crime of inner city London.  Riot training courses at three years’ service and I did my share of the annual anti-capitalist riots, football games and carnivals.

  By five years’ service I was on the Armed Response Vehicles then moved up into the Tactical Firearms Teams.  Nine years’ in and I was taking my detective exams, passed high and moved onto divisional Criminal Investigations reactionary departments.  Then onto the pro-active units where we would go hunting, those were the best years by far.  Dressed like a slob and catching bad people doing bad things.  I was never bent or corrupt and never took a bribe.  It was violent and gritty and everyday we’d have a roll around on the floor with someone.

  Then I moved onto Major Crime teams, working through the various teams for Murder, Serious Assault and then finally; Sexual Offences.  Which is where it all went horribly wrong.  Funny how small choices can fuck up the rest of your life.  ‘If’ I’d stayed on the murder squad, or stuck with the divisional work I would never have ended up like this.

  But I didn’t, I wanted to work my way through all the teams.  I loved it and couldn’t get enough.  The overtime was always there and the people I worked with were dedicated.  Even when my marriage fell apart I kept working, the team supports you through things like that, like a family.  You spend more time with them than you do your real family.  You rely on them and they rely on you.  But I did end up on the sexual offences team and I did end up going after that fucking child molester.  And being the dedicated hard working idiot that I am, I bloody caught him.  Even now two years on and the images of what he did to those kids still flashes through my mind.  Some people are born evil and some are made.  He was rare.  He was both.

I snap out of my darkness and realise where I am, telling myself to get a grip and accept the reality of what now is the truth.  I’m here and that’s all there is to it.  I’ve got months of peaceful living ahead of me.  I can read as much as I want, hell I can even use this time to get in shape again.  Get back to the level of fitness I had when I was on the gun crews, eat healthy and cut back on the booze and smoking.  Feeling slightly less self-pitying I head back into the house to continue my unguided tour.