‘Might I recommend a vault with more trustworthy employees?’
She gave him a withering look. ‘Thank you for the sage advice, colonel.’ She took a slice of toast from the silver rack, bit in with a crunch.
‘Well.’ Patey steepled his fingers. ‘I won’t keep you from your breakfast. Do let me know if you or any of your’ – he searched for the word – ‘friends have similar issues they might require assistance in resolving.’
She dipped her head in acknowledgement. ‘Shall I make an announcement in the Commons, see if anyone’s interested?’
Alarm flashed across Patey’s features for a second before they both forced a laugh. Enough deniability to keep both of them safe from any possible inquiry into those gunshot wounds. And enough tangible association to bind them together in secrecy. Or mutually assured destruction, to give its proper name. She seemed to be making a habit out of those relationships.
* * *
Empty eye sockets stared at him.
A hollow skull; pale bones that could move unaided. A gun muzzle trained on his forehead, the slow trigger-pull.
Wallace awoke at the bang, eyes immediately darting around the room, trying to orientate himself. Was he dead? No, he could feel his own body, move his limbs. Saw the large plastic tube coming from his mouth, two red socks poking out the end of the bed sheets. Clocked the heart-rate monitor to his left reading eighty-five; saline drip to his right. Recognised the whole set-up from his mum’s stroke. Hospital. Pulled the pale green robe down at the neck, registered thin black spikes projecting from under his collarbone. They were too close to focus on, looked like stitches. Surgery, for a bullet wound. Shit. He remembered the night before, the ninja and his electric shocks. The blood flowing as he staggered towards the boat, seeing Boateng move, the woman arriving. Then darkness crowding his vision until he must’ve blacked out.
The room was neat, clean and only large enough for a single bed. One of those places they put the most difficult patients: infectious, delirious, violent. People with enemies. One of his mates had been isolated in a room like this when he got stabbed back in the day; police thought someone might come in and try to finish him off. Fed on the door, an alias in the ward register. Wallace assumed the same would be true now. Craned his neck to the doorway, felt the tube pulling in his throat. Through the crack he could see sturdy boots planted, plain dark trousers. Five-O.
Damn.
Wallace sunk back into his pillow. He was screwed, again. Where had Boateng got his information from? He checked back mentally. Maybe they’d traced activity on the mobile he left in the garage. Blamed himself for that slip. But how did they know about the docks? Had to be the Internet record – Neon, via the Boateng kid. He tried to hold back the fury. It can’t have been Neon’s fault, he knew not to tell. Could’ve been Miller with his boat, a stooge for the feds. But more likely Boateng junior. Once Wallace was out of here he’d find out for sure. And do the thing he knew best. Take revenge.
He thought a second.
Kofi. Yeah, that was the kid’s name.
Wallace let the rage seep away for now. It was only a matter of time. He couldn’t say the name out loud with a tube down his throat, but replayed it over and over in his head until it became a synonym for payback.
Kofi Boateng. A new name on the list.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Sunday, 16 July 2017
They strolled in warm sunlight along the path up by the Royal Observatory in Greenwich Park, drinking in the view over London, the Thames flowing sedately between the Old Naval College and Canary Wharf’s glinting skyscrapers. Kofi ran ahead, dribbling his football. Given the number of people around, Zac had encouraged the lad to work on ‘close control’. Etta held his right arm, the one that didn’t have a bullet wound in the shoulder. He’d been discharged from Lewisham hospital after three days, doctors telling him once more how fortunate he’d been that his mobile had altered the round’s trajectory, missing his lung. Stitches had come out a couple of days ago and there was some mobility in the joint now. His bruises were fading too.
‘How’re you feeling?’ asked Etta.
He shrugged, winced a bit. ‘Fine, pretty much back to normal. Still can’t quite hold the sax, but that’ll—’
‘I mean about Amelia,’ she said, cutting him off gently. ‘It’s five years on Friday.’
He kicked a stone off the path. ‘OK, I guess.’
‘Only OK?’ She studied him as they walked.
‘Yeah, only OK. You?’
‘I’m coping, I think. Main thing is that we talk about how we’re doing, you know? Tell me about “OK”.’
Wallace had been remanded in custody after his discharge from Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich. Surgeons removed a 5.56 mm hollow point which had mushroomed in his chest. The type of ammo used by Special Forces. Zac didn’t think there was much chance of tracing the sniper – the MoD had been no further help and the inquiry was with a local MIT now anyway. Krebs had called it ‘speculation’ that this was the same person who’d threatened Harvey Ash in his caravan and ordered them to prioritise other cases.
The first hearing date had been set for Wallace to have charges read: the murders of Ivor Harris, Trent Parker and Derek Howell. There was no record of his confession for the newsagent shootings in Peckham Rye Park on 21 July 2012. Wallace now denied having anything to do with it, and with Boateng’s mobile in pieces, no evidence existed to the contrary. Given the nature of the killings he was accused of committing, Zac and his team were confident of getting the murder charges to stick. He’d receive three life sentences: probably a minimum of thirty years before consideration for parole. Not a bad result in a business where lawyers tied you in knots until the best you could hope for was a verdict of manslaughter to put your suspect away: fifteen years on paper, six to eight served. That never felt like enough. But neither did thirty years for Wallace.
‘I wanted to bring him to trial for killing Amelia,’ he replied eventually. ‘Get the closure she deserved.’
‘You know the way you got his confession would be considered inadmissible. His brief would plead it was only given under duress, and in the absence of other evidence…’ She let the sentence hang unfinished.
Zac dug hands into his pockets. ‘Absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence.’
‘You don’t need to tell me that, I’m a solicitor. But the jury can only go one way without proof. You wouldn’t even have enough to charge him.’
‘But where was the evidence? Five years ago, I mean. That’s what I want to know.’
‘Time to let this go, Zac, move on. We know who did it and he’s behind bars. The rest is vanity, box-ticking. We should focus on Amelia, not Wallace. You’re lucky to still have a job.’