The Last 10 Seconds

‘Not to me there aren’t,’ I’d said coldly, leaning over the desk, getting in far too close to him. ‘That bastard killed my brother, and now he’s walking round scot-free, boasting about it, and still making his living from crime. What does he need to do to get you interested? Assassinate the fucking Queen?’

As unflappable as always, Captain Bob had told me to calm down and sit down. ‘I will pass on your information to the powers-that-be, but it’s precisely because this is so personal to you that I can’t authorize it. Look at you, Sean. It’s almost fifteen years since your brother died, and you’re still full of rage. You’ll never be able to approach the situation objectively and gather evidence without blowing your cover.’

‘I will. Just give me the chance.’

‘No. I can’t.’ There was a finality to his words, and I knew he wasn’t going to budge.

‘Will you use someone else, then? I’ve got evidence that he’s still heavily into the drug trade.’

‘How have you got evidence?’ he demanded, looking pissed off.

‘How do you think?’ I countered. ‘Because I take an interest.’

‘I’ll see what I can do, but I’m telling you this, Sean.’ He pointed a long, bony finger at me. ‘I don’t want you spying on Tyrone Wolfe or any of his associates any more. If I hear that you are, I’ll have you up on it. I promise you that. I don’t want your personal life interfering with the job.’

There was nothing else I could do at the time. But when, three months later, there was still no infiltration job authorized against the Wolfe crew, I knew I was going to have to do it myself, and do it alone.

And that, unfortunately, is exactly what I did.

Eleven

It should have been a good afternoon for Tina Boyd. The arrest and charging of Andrew Kent, not to mention the evidence that had been discovered as a result of the search of his apartment and laptop, was a massive result for the team, and there was an atmosphere of excitement bordering on euphoria in the incident room as the necessary paperwork was completed, and the first stage of the case against him closed off.

But Tina wasn’t sharing in it. Instead, she felt a heavy, black gloom descending on her as she sat in her shoebox-sized office in the far corner of the incident room, listening to the noise and banter outside the door, feeling like the perpetual outsider she was. It wasn’t that she thought Kent was innocent. She didn’t. She’d felt the odd twinge of doubt during the course of the interviews, but that was more down to what she was now convinced were his Oscar-winning acting abilities. Only once in all her years as a copper had Tina ever seen someone play the part of an innocent man as effectively as Andrew Kent. That was a guy they’d arrested on suspicion of murder during her first stint in Islington CID, after his wife had gone missing following a series of violent arguments, and he’d turned out to be telling the truth.

Tina, though, had concluded that there was too much evidence against Kent to suggest he was innocent. It was humanly possible, of course, that the hammer and the laptop containing footage of the murders could have been planted, but only by the murderer himself, or someone working with him, and how would he have even known who Kent was? Only the members of the inquiry team knew Kent’s identity, and they’d only discovered it in the past few days. In that time he’d been under almost constant surveillance, making planting evidence both risky and difficult.

It was too far-fetched a theory to waste time on. And it wasn’t what was making Tina unhappy. What was depressing her was the fact that a seemingly ordinary man like Andrew Kent – someone who’d never been in trouble before, who’d had no known psychiatric illnesses, who looked like he wouldn’t harm a fly – could commit such utterly inhuman and barbaric crimes. Earlier that afternoon she’d called the managers of three of the companies who’d used his services in the past year to tell them that Kent had been arrested and charged with murder, and that officers would be coming round to take statements from them, and all three had expressed total shock. One of them had even commented on what a nice guy Kent was, describing him as friendly, polite, a great worker. None had used the classic ‘serial killer’ soubriquets of ‘quiet’ or ‘withdrawn’. They’d liked him. It had shown in every one of their voices.

Yet somehow he’d felt the urge to take a ballpeen hammer and smash it into the face of his victims again and again until there was nothing left but pulp, and then rape them as they lay dying.

It was this that was tearing Tina apart. The fact that people could be so terribly and inexplicably evil, and that every time she, as a police officer, helped to bring one to justice, another popped up, hydra-like, to take his place – except this time Kent had raised the bar still further, almost as if he was trying to outdo all those who’d gone before.