Brown accused him in his strong Glaswegian accent – his hair still cropped exactly as it had been in his days as a Royal Marine before a shoulder injury had forced him to retire when he was only twenty-one. He had a tough, unpleasant-looking face, other than his striking green eyes, all enhanced by a muscular body that made him appear shorter than his five-foot-ten inches. Since joining the Met four years previously, he’d established a reputation amongst his peers and the lowlife of Newham that was to be feared. ‘I heard you actually volunteered for this shit,’ he continued, stuffing his newly acquired drawers with kit.
‘Maybe,’ King played it cautiously, heading deeper into the office.
‘Just like you did,’ PC Renita Mahajan laughed at Brown who pulled a face of disgust.
‘Did I fuck,’ he insisted. ‘First rule of being a police officer – never volunteer for fucking anything.’
‘Well I volunteered,’ she proudly admitted, her bright smile adding to her attractiveness before she pushed her shiny, short black hair out of her face and returned to emptying the previous incumbent’s hordes of paperwork from her desk’s drawers and throwing them into a confidential waste bag. At only five-foot-five and the tender age of twenty-three, she made up for her shortcomings by remaining strong and athletic, fearless and tenacious. She had only three years’ service with the Met, but she was already confident and capable way beyond her years. ‘Better than driving around in a patrol car all day with some old fart who doesn’t want to get involved any more, delivering messages and taking crime reports.’
‘You’ll be wishing you were back in that patrol car soon enough when you’re walking around the Grove Wood Estate in the middle of the night on your own, hen,’ Brown smiled evilly.
‘Ignore these two,’ Danny Williams, the final member of the team, advised King. ‘They think they’re Laurel and Hardy.’
‘Who?’ Brown spat the question. Williams ignored him as he tried to close the tall metal locker he’d filled with equipment with no success, ramming it with his sizeable shoulder in frustration, before giving up and turning to King and straightening to his full six-foot-two, his lithe, athletic body augmented by his mahogany skin. He kept his Afro hair cropped so nothing would distract from his undeniably handsome face, although at only twenty-four some boyish features still remained.
‘We all volunteered,’ Williams ended the argument, ‘and so did a shitload more people, but we got picked because we’re the best.’
‘Aye,’ Brown interrupted. ‘Six months of this shit and I’ll have earned enough brownie points to fuck off to the TSG. Borough policing’s strictly for mugs. Territorial Support Group’s the real show.’
‘It’s the CID next for me,’ Williams explained.
‘And you?’ King asked Renita, who continued tidying her desk for a few seconds while she thought.
‘I don’t know,’ she shrugged. ‘Promotion maybe. What about you?’
‘I haven’t thought that far ahead,’ he admitted before Brown answered for him.
‘Have you not heard?’ Brown grinned. ‘Sergeant King here’s on accelerated promotion. Oh, he’s strictly just passing through on his way to the top.’
‘You’re on accelerated promotion?’ Renita asked, suspicious.
‘That’s the rumour.’ King knew he’d need to quickly earn their respect. ‘If that’s the way I want to go.’
‘If?’ Brown almost shouted. ‘Listen, pal – take some advice. Never look a gift horse in the mouth. Fucking accelerated promotion – easy life, eh.’
‘We’re not pals yet,’ King warned him. ‘Let’s start with Sarge and see how we get on, eh?’
Brown eyed him silently for a few seconds before answering. ‘Aye. Fair enough.’
Williams calmed the tension. ‘So what’s the score – what’s the brief with this estate policing unit?’
‘What you been told?’
‘Only what Inspector Johnston told me,’ Williams explained. ‘Police the Grove Wood Estate and sort it out. I was hoping you could be a little more specific.’
King moved deeper into the office and dumped his heavy kitbag onto the only desk that hadn’t been taken. ‘Fair enough,’ he began. ‘The estate’s in a shit state. Local criminals and yobs seem to run the place. Reported crime’s through the roof, so God only knows how much unreported crime’s going on.’
‘Powers-that-be won’t like that,’ Renita added.
‘Safer Neighbourhoods Team tried to get on top of it, but failed,’ King continued.
‘SNT,’ Brown scoffed. ‘They couldn’t get on top of a whore.’
King ignored him. ‘Our job, to put it bluntly, is to kick some arse – within the confines of the law, naturally.’
‘I like the sound of that,’ Williams joined in.
‘Can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.’ Brown once more grinned his evil grin.
‘I said within the confines of the law,’ King reminded him.
‘Aye,’ Brown argued, ‘but the local slags know the law better than most barristers. We want results, we’re going to have to bend things a little. Know what I mean?’
‘No one minds things getting a little bent,’ King agreed. ‘But it better be for the right reason and the right person. I don’t want anyone overstepping the mark. Very low-grade stuff and only when there’s no question of them being guilty. No stitch-ups – even on the local faces. We’re better than that. Someone tosses a stolen phone when they see you coming and your evidence says you found it in their pocket when you searched them – hey, so be it. No one’s going to get too worried about it, but no more than that. Everyone understand?’ Everyone nodded in agreement, except for Brown who just shrugged. ‘Good,’ King left it.
‘As I’m sure you all know by now, there are several fairly notorious drug dealers in the estate and at least one prolific handler,’ he explained.
‘I’ll soon take care of them,’ Brown crowed before King cut him down.
‘No you won’t,’ he ordered. ‘None of you will. Our job is to take out all the little shits who’ve been making life hell for everyone on the estate. Later on maybe we can move on to bigger fish, but right now we sort out these little bastards who are beginning to feel untouchable. The CID can deal with major crime. Our brief is to get the streets back.’
‘The bloody CID?’ Brown asked in his own unique way.
‘Yes,’ King answered – the fact he was losing patience plain to hear in his voice. Brown just shook his head. ‘Now, I spent half of yesterday in with the Intelligence Unit getting the info on who’s who on the Grove Wood and I’ve identified the people we should be looking at.’ He pulled a folder and some Blu-tack from his kitbag and spilled the photographs from inside over his desk. As he spoke he stuck mugshots of the people he discussed to the closest whiteboard.
‘Let’s
