A Bitter Taste Read online

  ‘No,’ said Sonja. ‘I noticed you leaving the clinic a while ago, when I was still seeing him. I was sure it was you, but you’ve changed so much . . . I told him we were old friends. He said you’d busted some East End villain and we just talked a bit and . . .’

  ‘I don’t do missing persons or matrimonial,’ snapped Berlin, bitterly aware it wasn’t true any more. ‘Anyway, you can’t afford me.’ Unless you’ve got the price of a loaf of bread and a pint of milk. She was really top-drawer these days. ‘Your kid’ll turn up, tired and hungry,’ she said, making an effort to appear sympathetic.

  Sonja stood, nearly upending the chair. ‘She won’t. I know her. She’s not coming back.’

  Berlin noted Sonja had lost the struggle to contain her agitation. ‘Then go to the police,’ she retorted. ‘What kind of mother are you, leaving a ten-year-old kid out there on her own?’

  ‘I’ve been looking all night,’ shouted Sonja. ‘I ran after her, but it was dark and she just seemed to disappear. I thought she would come back after a couple of hours. I just don’t know what to do!’

  She began to cry, her hands fluttering, birds with nowhere to rest.

  ‘For god’s sake, Sonja, turn off the waterworks,’ said Berlin. ‘Are you using?’

  ‘There’s a drought on,’ said Sonja, sniffing.

  Berlin knew she wasn’t referring to the lack of rain. Heroin had dried up throughout western Europe. Various theories circulated: a fungus had blighted the Afghani crop or the war was to blame or kingpin traffickers were trying to force up the price. Or it was that old favourite: a CIA conspiracy.

  Sonja laid her head down on the table as if she could no longer support its weight.

  ‘My baby’s gone, Cathy,’ she sobbed.

  ‘No one calls me Cathy any more.’

  ‘Okay then, Berlin. I’m begging you,’ said Sonja.

  ‘What about her dad? Maybe she’s with him,’ said Berlin.

  Sonja mumbled something.

  ‘What?’ asked Berlin.

  Sonja raised her head and wiped her face on the corner of the tablecloth. ‘I said he’s out of the picture. We haven’t seen him for ages.’

  There was something about the way she said it.

  ‘Who is he?’ asked Berlin.

  Sonja hesitated.

  ‘Well?’ demanded Berlin.

  ‘Cole,’ said Sonja.

  ‘Cole? Cole Mortimer?’ said Berlin, incredulous.

  Sonja nodded.

  Berlin walked to the front door and opened it.

  ‘Get out,’ she said.

  Sonja didn’t move.

  ‘Now.’

  Sonja stood slowly, then flew at Berlin. She had one more card and she played it. From the bottom of the deck. She got in Berlin’s face.

  ‘All right, I’m going. You were always a hard bitch. But don’t forget, it was you who put me here. It was you who gave me my first taste.’

  Berlin shoved her out onto the landing. ‘You were so fucked up you wouldn’t remember,’ she said.

  ‘And neither would you. Cathy!’ screamed Sonja.

  Berlin slammed the door.

  A seventeen-hour midsummer day was too much for Berlin. She drew the curtains against the light and cursed Sonja for lifting the veil on the past.

  When they had met, Berlin was already using, a seasoned party animal. Sonja was the British-born daughter of a Scandinavian consul. She had only just left school and was gagging to get on the scene. The age difference between them had seemed huge then; now Berlin was fifty-six and Sonja was fifty-one and it was insignificant.

  The fresh-faced blonde had eyes of a blue so pale they were milky. She’d recently moved into the tiny attic, the only space left in the decrepit West London Georgian terrace squat. It had been the parlourmaid’s room once. Berlin dubbed Sonja ‘the Nordic fairy’.

  When the Nordic Fairy had first wandered into the kitchen, she had stood wide-eyed watching Berlin and her tight band of ‘serious’ users cooking brown tar on small squares of aluminium foil.

  They loved smoking heroin then because of the ritual. It was easier to do with a partner too, which gave it a vaguely communal feel. They even decorated the toilet-roll tubes they used to inhale the fumes. They joked it was very Blue Peter: hello, children, in your favourite television programme today we’re going to have fun turning an old toilet roll into drug paraphernalia. Ask Mummy to explain ‘paraphernalia’.

  Later, when the squat was busted, some believed the Nordic Fairy’s old man had set it up. Sonja, Berlin and a couple of others had crawled through a skylight and made it across the roof to safety. Some weren’t so lucky, including Cole Mortimer.

  After that close call Berlin had ‘done a geographical’, the term addicts use for someone who trys to get clean by moving away from old haunts and associates. It had been a nice idea. She returned to her roots in East London and lost touch with her friends. But not her lover. Heroin.

  She’d heard later that Cole Mortimer did three years for possession and intent to supply.

  During long, stoned evenings in the squat, Cole had enjoyed recounting tales of his childhood to his fascinated public-school clients. He’d been dragged up in South London and his daddy wasn’t a diplomat or a Right Honourable, but a ‘knocker’ in an abattoir. Mortimer Senior was a Nat King Cole fan, hence his son’s name.

  One foggy, bitter morning he had taken his five-year-old son to work with him, to teach him where the food on his plate came from and the hard graft that put it there. Cole watched as his father crooned ‘Unforgettable’ while stunning the frantic beasts with a bolt gun before slitting their throats. With the hot, steaming breath of slaughter on his face the lesson Cole learnt was that where there was blood, there was money.

  He was a smart dealer with dark, pouty good looks and working-class cred, who kept his sadism under control in front of his upper middle-class mates. His history became infected with urban myth: it was said that when Cole was a kid a neighbour had pissed him off, so he dug a hole, put the neighbour’s cat in it with its head protruding, then ran the lawnmower over it.

  Berlin knew it was actually a pet rabbit.

  Proximity to evil gave the bourgeois crew Cole Mortimer ran with a sense of authenticity. It was just so cool to sit at your rustic hand-hewn table in the sixteenth-century gamekeeper’s cottage that had been in the family forever and smoke joints with handsome, unpredictable violence. Cole frightened them, and they adored it, especially when he strummed his guitar and quoted Bukowski.

  But when a fifteen-year-old girl nearly haemorrhaged to death after Cole raped her with a bottle, the judge hadn’t been swayed by his charms. He did a ten stretch. Berlin knew what hard time could do to someone like Mortimer. His spite would plumb new depths of depravity. She shuddered.

  The morphine caps were burning a hole in her pocket. She wasn’t supposed to take another for eight hours. But that would be about seven hours and fifty-five minutes too long.

  There are two kinds of pain: the kind that racks your body and the kind that wrecks your mind. She popped a cap and took care of the latter. It would be a quiet day.

  3

  Detective Sergeant Grant Xavier Kennedy was preoccupied. He wasn’t really taking in the murmured exchanges between the prosecution and the defence at the case conference. He had a pocketful of prescriptions for his wife and son that he had forgotten to drop in to the chemist and he had to remember to pick up something for tea on the way home. Even his kids would baulk at fish fingers again. Plus he’d been up half the night with his mum and he was knackered.

  When he heard the words ‘we have agreed on a recommendation to the judge’, he realised too late what had transpired. The lawyers shook hands and began to pack up their papers. Kennedy was suddenly seized with the urge to leap the table, take the prosecuting counsel by the throat and choke the life out of him.

  The word had gone out from the Crown Prosecution Service that where a trial would take more than two days, a guilty
plea to a lesser offence would be accepted. The CPS, known to coppers, amongst other things, as the Criminal Protection Society, had almost run out of money for the fiscal year. It was a good time to commit murder.

  Kennedy would dearly have liked to make the most of this window of opportunity. Instead he slammed his brief of evidence down on the table. The gesture was lost on the lawyers; they’d already gone.

  Kennedy went straight from the courthouse to the boozer across the road. The pub was heaving with happy crooks and miserable coppers, partners in the barn dance known as the criminal justice system. Kennedy ordered a double Scotch and a pint of Stella and immediately felt guilty because it was money he needed for the prescriptions.

  He weaved his way through the throng to a small, sticky table, where he sat down opposite Detective Chief Inspector Burlington.

  Burlington was known as Bertie, after the old music-hall song. It suited him, and not just because of his name or the fact he was from Bow; it was also well known that these days he resented rising before ten-thirty. Once he had been a serious thief-taker with a fearsome reputation. Now he just had a fearsome temper.

  Bertie was a big man in every way. Big body. Big mouth. Big head. Impervious to criticism. Untouchable.

  Kennedy knew he would always be in Bertie’s shadow; he was just ‘that skinny bloke with glasses’. It had its advantages, but sometimes it rankled. They were the Laurel and Hardy of the constabulary, but it wasn’t much of a laugh if you were always the fall guy.

  Bertie pushed away his plate, streaked with the remnants of a burger and fries, and glanced at his watch.

  ‘You were quick,’ he said. ‘Don’t tell me. They dropped it down to common assault and he went for it.’

  Kennedy knocked back his Scotch and nodded.

  ‘He was cautioned,’ he said. ‘Now he’s at the bar celebrating. How am I going to tell his ninety-three-year-old victim?’

  ‘Don’t worry, you won’t have to,’ said Bertie. ‘I just got a call from the station. She died an hour ago. But it’s taken so long to get to court they can’t say for sure it’s because of the attack.’

  They both knew it was. They drank up in silence.

  The tremor that infected Kennedy’s right knee grew worse as he thought about the old lady. He was a man in perpetual motion. He suffered not just from restless leg syndrome, but from restless mind and body as well.

  He saw Bertie glance at his juddering leg with contempt: a man who couldn’t even control his own limbs. Too fucking sensitive by half. That’s what his boss thought of him.

  ‘Move on,’ recommended Bertie. ‘We’ve got bigger fish to fry.’

  Kennedy fumbled with a packet of crisps to disguise his wretchedness. ‘What’s the latest then?’ he asked, affecting the callous indifference of a hard man. He doubted he was fooling anyone, let alone himself.

  ‘The intel is the logistics chain has been disrupted, but it’s not clear if that’s due to internal or external factors,’ said Bertie. His fingers plunged into Kennedy’s crisps and grabbed a handful.

  ‘Someone else might have their hands on the goods?’ asked Kennedy.

  ‘Yeah,’ grunted Bertie, crisps spraying from his full mouth.

  ‘So what’s the plan?’

  ‘High-level target interface and maximum leverage of all covert sources,’ said Bertie.

  ‘A good kicking then,’ said Kennedy, without relish.

  Bertie nodded. ‘First thing tomorrow,’ he said. ‘It’ll mean an early start, but needs must. A man’s work is never done.’

  They drank to that.

  4

  DS Kennedy didn’t go back to work after he left the pub. He went home to a three-bedroom terrace in Walthamstow, which barely accommodated his three kids, a mother with Alzheimer’s and a wife who was bipolar. His youngest boy had cystic fibrosis.

  Kennedy stayed positive.

  His mum had always described him as ‘a streak of nothing’. Which was exactly what he felt like. If he stood sideways you would miss him. His pallid complexion, mousey hair and frameless glasses completed the nondescript picture. Then there was the relentless jigging about, a tic he couldn’t control. But he was a good detective.

  When he was assigned to Serious Crime he was happy because he knew the overtime was good. Without that money the creaking edifice he called a family would collapse.

  The house was never quiet. Even in the middle of the night his mum would wander about in her nightie, turning on all the electrical appliances. He went into the kitchen to dig about in the freezer for tea. His wife appeared and gave him a wan smile.

  ‘How about beefburgers and oven chips tonight?’ he asked.

  He gave her a quick kiss, ignoring the fact that she was still in her dressing-gown. She handed him the day’s post. A pile of bills.

  The economy was in the crapper and no overtime was being authorised, although crime was on the rise and the community had lost confidence in the police. Kennedy had given up trying to understand the rationale of the government that employed him. It was the same everywhere.

  His mate at the Border Agency had told him he’d been ordered not to bring in any illegals rounded up in raids unless they’d been caught before and were already on the books. That way, the numbers didn’t rise. The Home Office was worried about how the stats would look.

  Kennedy had a lot of time for illegals. They worked long hours for little money, contributed to the economy and didn’t put a strain on the social security budget. We should all be illegal, he thought. The country would be a lot better off.

  He had followed this logic to its conclusion and discovered that illegality was not synonymous with immorality. It had made it that much easier to throw in his lot with Bertie. Not that he’d had much choice.

  Once the beefburgers and chips were in the oven he went into the sitting room where his boy was asleep, the machines that helped him breathe sentinel at his bedside.

  Kennedy put his hand gently on his son’s chest, just to feel the tiny ribs rise and fall. He wondered again at the mentality that would do violence to such small, fragile beings. He’d seen some terrible cases. He never even smacked his kids; it just didn’t seem right, a fully grown adult using force against a child. He rarely lost his temper, even when the little devils tried to wind him up.

  But he had lost it once at work, and once was enough. A smarmy paedophile had told him he wasn’t bothered about being locked up because his teeth needed attention and Her Majesty’s prison would be obliged to pay for his dental work.

  Detective Constable Kennedy had relieved the taxpayer of this burden by removing said teeth.

  Bertie had been the senior officer on duty at the station and had covered for Kennedy in the ensuing inquiry. After that there was no going back. Bertie sorted his promotion, and Kennedy joined Burlington’s crew as a detective sergeant.

  He belonged to Bertie.

  The rake-off from their joint ventures had been good. A man was supposed to take care of his family, and that’s what he had been doing. No one had got hurt. Yet.

  5

  Rolfey switched off the lights and illuminated the glowing neon sign that announced to the world NO DRUGS KEPT ON PREMISES. It had been a long day; too many walk-ins and new clients to whom he just couldn’t say ‘no’.

  He tried not to think about the letter from the General Medical Council stuffed in his pocket, requesting an interview at ‘his earliest convenience’ to discuss reports of apparent anomalies in his prescribing practices.

  The CDAO, the Controlled Drug Accountable Officer, which was him, hadn’t filed the correct reports with the CDLINS, the Controlled Drugs Local Intelligence Network. Some nosy bureaucrat at the CQC, the Care Quality Commission, had grassed him up. He was drowning in acronyms and paperwork. Patient care was a long way down the list of priorities for these bods.

  He set the clinic’s alarm and stepped outside. The warm, stale air of Whitechapel was ripe with the aroma of curry. He hadn’t eaten all
day, but he had no appetite. He was tired; exhaustion had seeped into his bones and he could never imagine being free of it. It wasn’t just work, it was everything.

  A gaggle of noisy medical students passed him on the way to the pub, their energy a reminder of his diminished state. He followed in their wake, emptying his pockets of change as he walked up the street, a soft touch for every polystyrene cup thrust at him and every grubby hand that tugged at his sleeve.

  The young students ignored the beggars. Their sights were set high, well above street level. They couldn’t wait to take the Hippocratic oath: first do no harm. They had no idea how difficult that could be.

  Even at their age he had lacked the ability to distance himself from his patients; his instructors had reproached him for his empathy. How could he expect to practise medicine with the necessary degree of objectivity if he identified with every patient?

  He had been a young fool then, which was bad enough. Now he was the worst kind, an old fool. A fool for love. It was a folly that could deliver or damn him. The current prognosis wasn’t promising. He followed the students into the pub.

  6

  Night was brief at this time of year, darkness stretched too thin. Berlin limped through the City of London, the so-called Square Mile. The nickname was misleading; the size was approximate and the bankers and financiers who populated it during the day were not known for being on the square.

  She hadn’t taken this route during her nocturnal wanderings since she nearly lost her life six months earlier. A routine job had become a nightmare of treachery after she ignored a directive from her erstwhile boss to shut down an investigation.

  Driven by her addiction to heroin and a stubborn attachment to the truth, she had led others into traps far worse than that which had finally ensnared her. She touched her ravaged throat. The physical scars bequeathed to her were the least of it.

  The heat of the day was still trapped in the airless lanes. Gargoyles squatted on ledges high above her, ready to spring. She knew they were there but didn’t look up.