don’t just mean with Silver Command, ma’am. I mean all of us. Filing our updates together, keeping each other appraised of where we’re at. If nothing else, it’ll be good for morale.’
‘I agree,’ Gwen said. ‘It might even boost progress. For example, Heck, if you felt that one of the other teams – I’m not thinking of anyone specifically, of course – was making real headway on their case, and you were still on first base …’
‘I’m not sure that turning this thing into a competition between the investigation teams is necessarily the way we want to go,’ Gemma said.
‘Nevertheless, that’s what’ll happen,’ Gwen replied.
Gemma clamped her mouth shut, biting down on a riposte. Heck eyed her with interest; it was rare to see Gemma voice a concern and have it so airily brushed aside. He’d been wondering how he was going to cope having Gail Honeyford along, but now he wondered how Gemma would do playing second fiddle to Gwen Straker.
‘I don’t think it’ll be a case of competition,’ Reed said, ‘as much as mutual encouragement.’
‘So long as it gets the best out of everyone,’ Gwen replied, standing up. She turned to Gemma. ‘You ready? We’ve got a long session ahead.’
Gemma nodded. ‘I’ll not be a sec.’ As Gwen left the canteen, Reed sauntering after her, Gemma turned to Heck. ‘How are things going with DC Honeyford?’
‘Sweet,’ he said. ‘We went for a drink last night, and it’s just like we’ve never been apart. I think she and me are going to get on very well.’
Gemma nodded as if satisfied to hear this. Otherwise, there wasn’t a flicker of emotion.
‘Right … there’s no way to sugar-coat this,’ Gemma said to the assembled staff of Operation Sledgehammer. ‘You all know the crisis we’re facing in the police service at this present time. And you know that it’s a very serious crisis indeed.’
There were over seventy of them crammed into the conference chamber, and on a hot August morning like this, it was an uncomfortable crush. Fans whirred overhead, but it was stuffy and stale. Many jackets and ties had been removed; foreheads gleamed with sweat.
Gemma Piper, not atypically, seemed oblivious to this, looking cool and unruffled as she pirouetted back and forth in her slacks and heels, her only concessions to the temperature that her blouse’s sleeves were rolled to the elbows and her collar button unfastened.
In contrast, Gwen Straker was seated on a stool to one side, next to the conference room’s large VDU, fingering her collar uncomfortably. Alongside her, sat Director of the National Crime Group, Joe Wullerton. In his late fifties now, burly in shape with thinning salt-and-pepper hair and a thick if droopy moustache, he normally preferred cardigans and open-neck shirts to the grey suit he affected currently. It was smart enough, but it wasn’t ideal for these conditions and made him look awkward and restless.
‘In short,’ Gemma said, ‘money is tighter than a duck’s you-know-what. There are cutbacks everywhere. Many forces haven’t recruited since what feels like the Stone Age. People are having to work longer and longer just to get their pensions. And, inevitably, sections like ours are under ever greater pressure to produce, and I quote, “impressive results”.’
She paused. There was silence, the entire room, the brass included, paying rapt attention.
‘Now, you people here may consider that pretty unfair … I certainly do. Only a couple of days ago, the Serial Crimes Unit concluded the first part of its investigation into the Black Chapel. Not too long ago, we helped to halt a string of brutal underworld slayings and apprehended a notorious hitman.’
Heck listened alongside everyone else. He still felt the bruises from that last one.
‘I would certainly call those results impressive,’ Gemma said. ‘And you Coldies have an equal track record. In case any SCU officers are uninformed about this, in the last twelve months, Cold Case, under the command of Detective Chief Superintendent Straker here, have brought charges against eight individuals believed to be connected to historic homicides. But it seems, ladies and gentlemen, that none of this is quite enough.’ She paused to tuck ringlets of blonde hair behind her ears. ‘I recently attended a meeting at the Yard, wherein representatives of the National Police Chiefs’ Council put it bluntly to me that the Serial Crimes Unit either had to find some clear and visible way to reduce its overheads, or it had to increase its arrest and conviction rate dramatically, or, preferably, both. One other alternative was laid out for me – we discontinue operations.’
Mumbles of anger sounded, even though they’d all known this was coming.
‘What’s more, the whole of National Crime Group is under similar pressure.’ She glanced at Wullerton. ‘You want to say something about that, Joe?’
Wullerton sat stiffly upright, arms folded. ‘No, it’s fine, Gemma … you carry on.’
‘Director Wullerton is too self-effacing to mention it,’ she said, ‘but he’s been putting up a hell of a fight on our behalf. He recently put a forceful case to NPCC that if we lose the Kidnap Squad, the Organised Crime Division and the Serial Crimes Unit … all at the same time, then in one go we’ll have left our society significantly weakened in its battle against some of the most serious threats currently posed by the criminal underworld …’
There was silence again. Clearly, no one disagreed.
‘Unfortunately, it cut no ice,’ Gemma said. ‘However, two days after my meeting at Scotland Yard, I received a phone call from Detective Chief Superintendent Straker here, who advised me that she and her Cold Case team at the Met were facing an identical crisis. Do you want to take it from here, Gwen?’
‘Thanks, Gemma,’ Gwen said, standing up.
She peeled off her suit jacket and hung it from a hook on a shelf.
‘I won’t elaborate on any of this,’ she said. ‘We all know we’re under the microscope. However, our two units are in a more invidious position than most because we can’t just send staff out onto the streets to bump our stats the easy way. At least …’ she paused, ‘that was what I thought. But then it occurred to me that maybe there actually are some offenders out there, still at large, whose pursuit and apprehension would comfortably fall within the remit of the people gathered in this room.’
There was a stir of interest.
Gwen nodded to one of her Cold Case detectives, who hit some keys on his laptop. The VDU came to life, initially depicting a gallery of twenty thumbnail mugshots.
‘Unlike the FBI, in the UK we don’t keep an official list of the Most Wanted,’ Gwen said. ‘But that doesn’t mean there aren’t a number of fugitives from British justice wanted in connection with some very serious crimes who may still be living here – either in hiding, or under false names and identities.’
She turned to the screen.
‘My proposal, which I first made to DSU Piper and then to NPCC, was that SCU and Cold Case pooled their resources and drew up a list of the twenty Most Wanted fugitives
