Boateng turned away, pissed off. Because he knew she was right. He swallowed his pride and told her so. He was fortunate to have avoided disciplinary proceedings. He and Jones had stuck to the story about the Glock belonging to Wallace. He’d denied it, of course, but he denied everything else too. Forensics tied Wallace to the pistol and it became no more than a footnote in the case they were putting together. The angle grinder found at the docks was a match to the wounds on Parker and Howell, where Wallace had made less effort to cover his tracks. Connelly and Malik thought they should push for attempted murder – of a police officer – to be added to the list of charges against Wallace, but that fell into the ‘harder to prove’ category and Boateng had vetoed it given the strength of their other cases.
Explaining his presence at Trinity Buoy Wharf had been trickier. Had to have a quiet word with the Grant family on that. Neon’s mum had been terrified that charges would be brought against her for aiding and abetting a fugitive. She told the police that Wallace had intimidated them into it, on Zac’s advice. Coupled with his statement that the Grants had volunteered information on Wallace’s Internet use to Zac that night, they were off the hook. He still faced a bollocking from Krebs for not calling in help earlier at the docks, but he cited urgency in tactical decision-making and the boss was getting applause from her superiors, so basically everyone was happy. The trade-off for all that was a feeling of unfinished business. He kept thinking about Wallace’s words that night: The man you want is the one who sold me the nine. One of your lot. Same guy that made sure I never got caught.
They went on in silence awhile before he spoke. ‘I have to find this Kaiser. If he’s one of us – if he’s police – I can’t let that go.’
‘What did I just say to you?’
Zac stopped. ‘Could you live with it if a colleague of yours was involved in Amelia’s death?’ He looked at her, but she was searching the crowd for their son.
‘Kofi!’ she shouted. ‘Don’t get in people’s way! Come back to us.’
Zac waited for her answer. It didn’t come.
‘You’re a good man.’ She squeezed his arm. ‘But you’re damned stubborn.’
He gave a small laugh. ‘I prefer dogged.’
‘Inflexible,’ she countered.
‘Single-minded.’
Etta gave him a playful punch. ‘There are more than fifty thousand people in the Met. Human nature and the law of averages says there’ll be a few rotten apples in there. You guys have a whole department whose job it is to pick them out. It’s not your responsibility, Zac, there have to be some limits. Take it to the DPS.’
‘But they won’t listen to me, cos—’
‘You haven’t got any proof. So, you can bang your head against a brick wall for another five years, or you, me and Kofi can get on with our lives together.’
He glanced across to see their boy dribbling back towards them, tongue protruding in concentration. He turned and kissed her. ‘Sounds good to me.’
‘Which option?’
‘Both.’
Etta smiled, shook her head. ‘Come here,’ she said, pulling him into a hug. Kofi ran over, flung his arms around them. ‘Just don’t go putting yourself in danger for the sake of your own ego, do you understand me, Zachariah?’
‘Would I do that?’ He cracked a grin.
Kofi looked up at his father, squinted into the sun. ‘Can we play, Dad?’
Zac flicked the football up into his hand, nodded at the park below. ‘Course we can. Let’s go.’
‘Yes!’ Kofi snatched the ball off him and dribbled away, shouting something about beating his dad again.
Zac and Etta watched their boy run ahead. She slipped an arm through his and they began walking together.