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  Chloe coughed to clear her throat and said, ‘Was he your best friend?’

  He dragged on his cigarette before replying. ‘We’ve been mates since primary school,’ he said. ‘A year ago we moved in here. He was like a bruv to me and he shouldn’t be dead. And to think it was one of our own who lobbed the bottle.’

  ‘Did Ryan have a family?’ Chloe asked.

  He gave a short, sharp nod. ‘Parents and a younger sister he thought the world of. They live in Catford. I need to tell them, but I’m not sure I can.’

  He stared out over London as he wrestled with his emotions. Chloe wondered if he was regretting taking part in the riots. Ryan would still be alive if the pair of them had stayed out of trouble. It was something that was bound to stay with him for the rest of his life.

  For several minutes he didn’t speak and neither did she. Eventually, he turned to her and said, ‘So what’s your name?’

  ‘It used to be Alice Miller,’ she replied. ‘But now it’s Chloe. Chloe Tate.’

  He looked puzzled, but didn’t bother to ask for an explanation. ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Twelve. Nearly thirteen.’

  ‘And where do you live?’

  ‘Somewhere near here. But I don’t know the address.’

  ‘Have you got a phone?’

  ‘I left it at home.’

  ‘So how are we supposed to contact your parents?’

  ‘It’s just my mum. My dad’s dead.’

  ‘OK then, so where is your mum now?’

  ‘She went to work. Her boyfriend came to pick me up to take me to his flat. But he was attacked by a group of men who carried him off. I couldn’t get back into my house so I started to run because I couldn’t think what else to do.’

  He was frowning now and shaking his head. ‘Bloody hell,’ he said. ‘You’ve had a rough time of it.’

  Chloe felt tears spike in her eyes. ‘Please help me find my mum,’ she said, her voice thick with emotion. ‘Please.’

  ‘I’m going to,’ he said. ‘It’s why I let you come up here. Give me her phone number.’

  ‘I don’t know it.’

  ‘Then where does she work?’

  ‘A place called Wandsworth.’

  ‘Oh, come on, kid. I need more than that. Where in Wandsworth does she work?’

  Chloe hesitated a moment before blurting it out. ‘She works at the police station.’

  Wesley’s expression changed in an instant and she didn’t like what she saw.

  ‘Are you telling me your mum is a fucking copper?’

  Chloe nodded, and felt a cold panic tighten in her throat.

  ‘I don’t fucking believe it,’ he seethed. ‘My best mate is dead because he took pity on a copper’s daughter.’

  ‘It wasn’t my fault he died,’ Chloe sobbed. ‘I didn’t start the fire.’

  He leaned towards her, his face inches from hers. ‘But it was because of you that we went into that shop. If we hadn’t, he would still be alive.’

  She chose not to respond this time and took a step back from him. She thought he was going to carry on yelling at her, so it came as a relief when he suddenly straightened up and stormed back into the flat, muttering angrily to himself.

  Chloe remained on the balcony because she was too afraid to follow him inside. Her skin was clammy with dread and she no longer believed that Wesley was going to help her.

  She now feared that he might decide to hurt her instead.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  The questions were piling up inside Anna’s head as she and Benning walked out of Gavin Pope’s house.

  Was Mark Rossi really a womaniser? How many affairs had he actually had? And was it possible that a wronged husband had kidnapped Rossi’s son as a form of retribution?

  It was a well-documented fact that husbands who found out their wives had cheated on them were notoriously unpredictable. The annals of crime were full of cases where heartbroken spouses had punished their unfaithful wives or the men they had got involved with.

  Anna herself had brought to justice two men who had gone down that road. One had stabbed his wife to death in a fit of rage. The other had exacted revenge on his wife’s lover by first killing his pet dog, and then subjecting him to seven months of extreme harassment during which he ransacked the man’s home while he was away and threatened to harm his children.

  It was therefore something that Anna would have to consider with both Gavin Pope and Roy Slater. Had either man thought it was a good idea to snatch Jacob Rossi so that his father would suffer?

  She mentioned this to Benning when they were back in the car and his response surprised her.

  ‘I feel bad because I didn’t extract this information from Pope and his wife when I first interviewed them,’ he said. ‘I obviously didn’t push them hard enough, and I should have.’

  ‘The situation is very different now,’ Anna pointed out. ‘Jacob had only just gone missing. Now he’s dead and they’re having to answer some tough questions.’

  ‘Even so time has been wasted. And there’s another suspect in the frame.’

  ‘And the sooner we can speak to him the better,’ Anna said.

  She took out her mobile and called DI Walker on speakerphone. Pope had given them Slater’s address in Rotherhithe and she had passed it on to Walker with instructions to send someone straight to his home.

  She then briefed Walker on what Pope and his wife had told them. ‘Let’s not mess about,’ she said. ‘Just have Slater brought in to be questioned and find out whatever you can about the guy in the meantime. Pope claimed he’s a compulsive gambler and if that’s true then maybe he thought that kidnapping Jacob would be a way to solve any money worries he might have. That would be plenty motive.’

  She went on to say that Pope had provided them with a DNA cell swab, which would be compared with any forensic evidence found in the cellar and on Jacob.

  ‘On the subject of forensics we managed to pull some strings,’ Walker said. ‘The team have finished up at the pub in Camberwell and a couple of the CSIs are going straight over to Neville Quinlan’s flat. DS Prescott will arrive ahead of them with a warrant so it shouldn’t be a problem.’

  ‘That’s great, Max. Anything else that I should know?’

  ‘Well we have come up with one other person of interest,’ Walker said. ‘It’s a woman by the name of Michelle Gerrard who has been particularly savage about Mark Rossi on social media. She posts more abuse on platforms than anyone else and seems to really have it in for him.’

  ‘We need to check her out then,’ Anna said.

  ‘The wheels are in motion, guv. We’re trying to get an address. The only thing we know about her right now is her name. But she does stand out from the other trolls who regularly slag Rossi off. I’ll let you know when we’ve got more.’

  ‘Good. We’ll have another case conference when I’m back. I’m guessing that by then the media will be chasing the story so we’ll have to think of drafting a press release and maybe even organise a presser. It might be a way to generate some leads.’

  ‘That’s assuming we can get more than a snippet of airtime on the news,’ Walker said. ‘The coverage of the riots is like nothing I’ve ever seen and the death toll is rising by the minute. And you should see the stuff that’s appearing on social media. There are dozens of gruesome videos shot on phones, and all manner of hashtags are trending. I’ve seen riots2019, taketothestreets, clobberthecops and letslootlondon. It’s fucking unbelievable.’

  With the call on speaker, Benning heard every word, and as Anna hung up he was already checking online through his phone.

  ‘I see what he means,’ Benning said. ‘Take a look at this.’

  It was footage from a mobile phone that had been uploaded to YouTube. It showed a group of masked youths pulling a police officer from a squad car and beating him up in the road.

  Anna’s eyes filled with a dark fury as she watched it and she felt her chest contract with every brea
th.

  ‘There are lots more clips like that,’ Benning said.

  Anna couldn’t resist checking some of them out before heading back to Wandsworth. The images were uncensored and shocking in the extreme.

  The inside of a department store where rioters were stuffing goods such as jewellery and boxes of perfume into carrier bags.

  A residential street where it appeared that every car parked outside the homes was on fire.

  Two men in hoodies dancing on the roof of an abandoned ambulance.

  A young black woman kicking and screaming as three white youths dragged her into an alley while a crowd looked on and cheered.

  The moment a petrol bomb landed on the ground beneath a police horse and engulfed the animal in flames. The officer dismounted and tried to put the fire out with his hands, but was forced back as the horse went wild.

  The last clip ended abruptly before Anna learned the fate of the officer and his horse.

  She handed the phone back to Benning. ‘That’s enough. If I watch any more I’ll probably be sick.’

  Her hands were shaking as she switched on the engine and engaged first gear.

  ‘This is worse than I imagined it could ever get,’ Benning said. ‘Those people are like packs of wild animals.’

  ‘All London needed to explode was a spark,’ Anna said as she started driving. ‘That spark was the fatal shooting of a pregnant woman during a police raid. It’s exposed just how much bitterness and resentment has been bubbling away beneath the surface. Hatred of the police in deprived areas, friction between whites and blacks, a growing distrust of those in authority, and a belief that the future is looking increasingly bleak. Seems to me that as a society we fucked up big time by not learning the lessons from 2011.’

  ‘But even before then we had the mass riots in Brixton during 1981 and 1995,’ Benning said. ‘And yet nothing has really changed since then and now. That’s the shame of it.’

  Yet again Anna had to force herself to stop thinking about the riots. She was reminded of how hard she struggled to focus on the job during all those years Chloe was missing. Her daughter never really left her thoughts, and as a consequence her performance during investigations was often below par.

  This was different, of course. It was less about the pain of emotional involvement and more about trying to ignore, and avoid, the shocking events that were taking place all around her. But she had to. She owed it to Jacob Rossi’s parents to stay focused so that she could bring to justice those responsible for his death.

  ‘I’ve not had time to go through your case notes,’ she said to Benning. ‘You told me there was nothing suspicious on Neville Quinlan’s phone and computer. What about Pope? Did you check his phone and digital footprint?’

  ‘I’m sure I asked one of the team to sort it,’ Benning said.

  Anna threw him a glance. ‘Are you saying you’re not certain?’

  He looked embarrassed. ‘I’m saying that I haven’t been able to keep track of things since coming over to Camberwell. And when I went back to Bromley I didn’t hang around long enough to get updates on all the action points.’

  ‘What about Mark Rossi’s phone?’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Did you examine his call list?’

  ‘I didn’t see the point. We didn’t suspect him of kidnapping his own son.’

  If it had been anyone else Anna would have given them a mouthful. But because of what she knew about Benning she chose not to pursue what she regarded as shortcomings in the investigation. Instead, she reached over and switched on the radio.

  But Benning immediately switched it off again.

  ‘Look, I don’t want you to think that I’m a shit detective, ma’am,’ he said. ‘But there’s a reason I’m not firing on all cylinders and perhaps that’s why we weren’t as far forward with the case as we should have been.’

  ‘You’ve already told me that the riots caused logistical problems,’ she said. ‘And I know that to be true because those problems are still with us.’

  ‘Well actually there’s more to it than that.’

  When Anna failed to respond after several seconds, Benning said, ‘The fact that you seem to be showing a remarkable lack of curiosity leads me to believe that you already know about my situation. Am I right, ma’am?’

  Anna saw no point in lying. ‘Your boss thought we should know,’ she said.

  ‘Did he call you?’

  ‘He spoke to Nash, and Nash told me on the understanding that I didn’t mention it to anyone, and I haven’t.’

  ‘So what exactly did he tell you?’

  Anna kept her eyes on the road, and said, ‘That you were recently diagnosed with early onset dementia and that this could well be your last case.’

  Benning expelled a long breath. ‘Well I suppose it’s only right that you’re across it. But I want you to know that I’m a long way from losing my marbles so you don’t have to worry about me not being up to the job. I’ve been told that the decline of cognitive functions will be gradual.’

  ‘I’m not worried about that,’ Anna said. ‘I know these things can be slow to progress.’

  ‘Exactly. And please don’t offer me your sympathy or treat me any different to anyone else on the team.’

  Anna allowed herself a slight smile. ‘Message received loud and clear, Detective Benning. I see no reason why your unfortunate situation should be an issue during the investigation. Or why anybody else should become privy to it. Agreed?’

  ‘Agreed. Thank you, ma’am.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Chloe finally found the courage to come in off the balcony. This was after several minutes of crying and shivering in the cold.

  Wesley had closed the door behind him, but to her relief he hadn’t locked it. She stepped inside and cast her eyes uneasily around the living room.

  There was no sign of Wesley, but as she shut the door behind her she heard what sounded like a voice coming from the kitchen.

  Chloe drew in a deep, shuddering breath and fought to hold down the panic. Wesley’s angry words were still ringing in her ears. He blamed her for what had happened to Ryan.

  My best mate is dead because he took pity on a copper’s daughter.

  She had told him that it wasn’t her fault, but in a way it was and she felt bad about that.

  But what to do? That was the question she faced as she stood in the living room and stared through the doorway into the hall.

  The kitchen was just to the left. She had a choice. Let herself out of the flat – if she could – and go back out onto the streets to fend for herself. Or try to talk to Wesley. Let him know how sorry she was over Ryan and plead with him to help her.

  She was in no condition physically and mentally to go it alone. She was gasping for a drink and desperately needed to pee. She was also freezing cold as well as in pain.

  Without coming to a decision, she started taking tentative steps towards the doorway. When she reached it, she poked her head out into the hall and looked towards the kitchen.

  She saw Wesley straight away and realised that he wasn’t talking to anyone. He was sitting at the table sobbing loudly into his hands.

  But he must have sensed her watching him because his head shot up and their eyes met.

  ‘You don’t have to be afraid, kid,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to harm you. I promise. Ryan would never forgive me if I did.’

  She ventured nervously into the hall, and as she approached the kitchen, Wesley wiped his eyes with a sleeve and stood up.

  ‘The front door is unlocked if you want to let yourself out,’ he said. ‘I won’t try to stop you. But if you do the sensible thing and stay I’ll make you a cup of tea.’

  ‘Will you help me to get in touch with my mum?’ she asked him.

  He nodded. ‘It might not happen for a while. I’ve been trying to get through to the emergency services, but it just keeps ringing. I want the fire brigade to go to the gift shop before Ryan is nothing
more than a pile of ash.’

  Chloe entered the kitchen while Wesley crossed the room and started to fill the kettle.

  ‘You might as well take your coat off,’ he said. ‘The heating’s on so you’ll soon get warm. And by the way I know it’s not your fault that your mum’s a copper. We don’t get to choose our parents. My old lady was a prossy before she OD’d on H.’

  Chloe didn’t understand what he meant, but she didn’t see the point in saying so.

  She removed her coat, placed it over one of the chairs, and said, ‘I need to go to the toilet.’

  ‘Back down the hall,’ he said. ‘Last door on the right.’

  Chloe felt better after she had emptied her bladder and rinsed the taste of smoke out of her mouth. But the sight of herself in the mirror sent her heartbeat rocketing again.

  Dried blood covered a nasty gash on her chin and there was a bruised lump in the middle of her forehead. The rest of her face was smeared with dark red blotches. The skin around her eyes was swollen and her blonde hair had streaks of black running through it.

  She would have had to undress to check what damage had been done to her elbows and knees so she didn’t bother.

  Instead, she gulped down a sob and told herself that she had to be brave. She looked a mess and she was scared out of her wits. But at least she was alive.

  There was a mug of tea on the table when she returned to the kitchen.

  ‘I put milk and sugar in it,’ Wesley said. ‘Is that OK?’

  She nodded and sat down. The tea was hot and sweet and the best thing she had ever tasted.

  Wesley watched her drink it as he sipped from a bottle of beer.

  Even though they were high up and all the doors and windows were closed, they could still hear the sirens outside.

  After about a minute Wesley spoke, his voice wavering with emotion.

  ‘The truth is I’m to blame for what happened to Ryan,’ he said. ‘I persuaded him to hit the streets again today. He wasn’t keen after we nearly got collared yesterday by the filth.’

  Chloe said nothing. She could tell he wanted to get it off his chest.