Read Online London Large: Blood on the Streets by Roy Robson, Garry Robson - Free Book Online
Authors: Roy Robson, Garry Robson
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normal person over forty could understand; he loathed
his fast-track rise and his oily ‘yes maam’ routine; he loathed his ignorance
of the street and real people and his habit of bringing in sushi for lunch
every other fucking day; he loathed, when it came to it, everything about him.
H snapped out of his reverie
and looked across the room at the object of his loathing, still slumped in a
heap against the door.
‘It’s not him you hate,
really, guv’, the increasingly bold Amisha had ventured to tell him recently in
the car, ‘you’re projecting your own bad emotions and issues onto him. That’s
what it’s called:
projection.
’
‘Yes, well I’ll project him
out of a fucking window one day soon if he keeps on… He’s doing my nut.’
And here they were, now, in
this becalmed room. Himself, Amisha sitting quietly, Miller-Marchant still
regulating his breath and trying not to meet H’s eye and Hilary Stone,
glowering at all and sundry like a school governess from a 1930s film.
‘OK, Ladies and gentlemen,
are we ready to resume?’, she said, ‘There is, you may all remember, the small
matter of London burning down around our ears to contend with.’
‘I suggest we…’
Bang! The door flew open, no
knock. An underling surged in, wildly excited and breathless.
‘Excuse me, maam’, he
shouted, almost out of control, ‘but you need to see this. Something’s happened
south of the river. Something big.’
19
This time they were not
getting it second hand from social media. They had an officer on the ground,
streaming images from his experimental lapel camera to the incident room in
which they were now huddled. Images of what looked like more bad news.
The call had come in about
ten minutes before. Shots fired in Bermondsey, in and around the illegal
caravan site known locally as ‘The Island’. Not much was clear at the moment,
except that shots had been fired into the caravans, apparently from automatic
weapons, and that the wire fence around the site had largely caved in.
‘Get an armed response unit
down there, now’, barked Stone at the room.
‘Constable, hang back outside
the fence and set up a perimeter, wait until the armed guys arrive. Are there
any witnesses?’
‘Yes maam. We’ve got three
people saying a black van drove up and smashed through the fence. Whoever was inside
threw something out and sprayed the whole place with bullets as they backed out
and drove away. They were shouting something, but the eye witnesses didn’t
recognise the language.’
‘That’ll be Russian or
Albanian I should think, maam’, said H.
But she did not reply. She
was sitting now, and holding her head in her hands. H pulled a chair up close
to hers.
‘Hilary, you alright?’ he
said.
‘What now, H? More dead
bodies, another bloodbath? When’s it going to end? How are we going to stop
it?’
These were rhetorical
questions, H understood. Her focus was all on the screen, waiting for
confirmation that the armed response unit had arrived and for someone to start
to tell her what the hell was going on down there. Down there, south of the
river.
‘Always trouble down there in
your patch H’, she said. ‘I need you to be straight with me. Are you up to
this? I can’t send Miller-Marchant down there; they’ll have him for breakfast.
I’ll put him on the St James’ thing. We need to find out if they’re connected.
I want my best man down there. Are you up to it?’
‘Only one way to find out’,
said H, pulling on his coat.
He motioned to Amisha to
follow him.
‘Where we off to, guv?
Bermondsey?’, she asked.
‘Yep, by way of the boozer.
This can wait five minutes; whoever’s been shot down there’s not going
anywhere. I could strangle a pint.’
They hit the street and
headed for the car. As they were crossing the road Amisha’s gadgets exploded,
pinging and zinging for all they were worth. She handed her phone for the
second time that day to H. It was Hilary again, shouting,
his fast-track rise and his oily ‘yes maam’ routine; he loathed his ignorance
of the street and real people and his habit of bringing in sushi for lunch
every other fucking day; he loathed, when it came to it, everything about him.
H snapped out of his reverie
and looked across the room at the object of his loathing, still slumped in a
heap against the door.
‘It’s not him you hate,
really, guv’, the increasingly bold Amisha had ventured to tell him recently in
the car, ‘you’re projecting your own bad emotions and issues onto him. That’s
what it’s called:
projection.
’
‘Yes, well I’ll project him
out of a fucking window one day soon if he keeps on… He’s doing my nut.’
And here they were, now, in
this becalmed room. Himself, Amisha sitting quietly, Miller-Marchant still
regulating his breath and trying not to meet H’s eye and Hilary Stone,
glowering at all and sundry like a school governess from a 1930s film.
‘OK, Ladies and gentlemen,
are we ready to resume?’, she said, ‘There is, you may all remember, the small
matter of London burning down around our ears to contend with.’
‘I suggest we…’
Bang! The door flew open, no
knock. An underling surged in, wildly excited and breathless.
‘Excuse me, maam’, he
shouted, almost out of control, ‘but you need to see this. Something’s happened
south of the river. Something big.’
19
This time they were not
getting it second hand from social media. They had an officer on the ground,
streaming images from his experimental lapel camera to the incident room in
which they were now huddled. Images of what looked like more bad news.
The call had come in about
ten minutes before. Shots fired in Bermondsey, in and around the illegal
caravan site known locally as ‘The Island’. Not much was clear at the moment,
except that shots had been fired into the caravans, apparently from automatic
weapons, and that the wire fence around the site had largely caved in.
‘Get an armed response unit
down there, now’, barked Stone at the room.
‘Constable, hang back outside
the fence and set up a perimeter, wait until the armed guys arrive. Are there
any witnesses?’
‘Yes maam. We’ve got three
people saying a black van drove up and smashed through the fence. Whoever was inside
threw something out and sprayed the whole place with bullets as they backed out
and drove away. They were shouting something, but the eye witnesses didn’t
recognise the language.’
‘That’ll be Russian or
Albanian I should think, maam’, said H.
But she did not reply. She
was sitting now, and holding her head in her hands. H pulled a chair up close
to hers.
‘Hilary, you alright?’ he
said.
‘What now, H? More dead
bodies, another bloodbath? When’s it going to end? How are we going to stop
it?’
These were rhetorical
questions, H understood. Her focus was all on the screen, waiting for
confirmation that the armed response unit had arrived and for someone to start
to tell her what the hell was going on down there. Down there, south of the
river.
‘Always trouble down there in
your patch H’, she said. ‘I need you to be straight with me. Are you up to
this? I can’t send Miller-Marchant down there; they’ll have him for breakfast.
I’ll put him on the St James’ thing. We need to find out if they’re connected.
I want my best man down there. Are you up to it?’
‘Only one way to find out’,
said H, pulling on his coat.
He motioned to Amisha to
follow him.
‘Where we off to, guv?
Bermondsey?’, she asked.
‘Yep, by way of the boozer.
This can wait five minutes; whoever’s been shot down there’s not going
anywhere. I could strangle a pint.’
They hit the street and
headed for the car. As they were crossing the road Amisha’s gadgets exploded,
pinging and zinging for all they were worth. She handed her phone for the
second time that day to H. It was Hilary again, shouting,
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