Luke Delaney - The Network

‘No way,’ the man protested. ‘I’m not taking the fall for you.’

Conway was about to reprimand him before another dissenting voice cut him short. ‘We need to get rid of the pig. Without the pig, they’ve got nothing.’

‘Yeah,’ the other balaclava agreed. ‘We have to do him.’

Sean could feel his heartbeat accelerating before Conway tried to restore order. ‘Don’t be damn fools. Kill a cop and be hunted down like a pack of rabid dogs and spend the rest of your lives behind bars? Even with him alive they’ve got nothing. Now clear out the house.’

‘Fine,’ the lead balaclava,’ answered, ‘but you’re on your own, Conway. Time to save my own skin.’

‘You can’t desert The Sanctum.’

‘The Sanctum’s finished,’ the balaclava told him. ‘Now it’s every man for himself.’

Sean felt the men standing behind him release their grip and quickly follow their new unelected leader out of the room, heading towards the exits from the house, leaving him alone with Conway.

Sean sprang to his feet, the stiffness in his knees and the ache in his shoulders forgotten as his right hand fired towards Conway and gripped him around the throat, his fingers holding him firmly around the trachea. As he increased the pressure of his grip, Conway’s eyes bulged with dammed blood. It was the first time Sean had sensed fear in the man and he liked it.

‘I saved you,’ Conway managed to whisper, his voice raspy and distorted. ‘They would have killed you if it wasn’t for me.’

‘I owe you nothing but contempt,’ Sean told him, his grip tightening so Conway could barely speak or breathe.

‘What are you going to do? Kill me? Then do it. Do it. You haven’t got the courage,’ Conway spat at him through his collapsing windpipe, flecks of his spittle flying through the air across the short distance between them and spraying into Sean’s face.

Sean pushed Conway down on his knees and released his grip. ‘Kill you? You’re not worth it. You’re not worth anything.’ He grabbed him by the collar and pulled him back to his feet, spinning him around and pushing him towards the door, looking over his shoulder at the boy and girl huddled under the blanket. ‘You two wait here. Someone will come for you.’

‘Are we in trouble?’ the boy asked, his eyes full of terror as Sean could hear the sounds of cars and vans screeching to a halt outside the house.

‘No,’ Sean answered without emotion. ‘You’re not in trouble. None of you are.’ He shoved Conway in the back without speaking and marched him towards the front door as the usual mix of uniformed and plain-clothed police flooded into the house while others ran amok outside chasing down the fleeing disciples of The Sanctum.

As he headed down the hallway two determined-looking uniforms came towards him shouting their commands. ‘Police. Get up against the wall — hands high and legs spread.’ Sean pushed Conway against the wall and kicked his legs into position. ‘You too, you bastard.’

‘I’m Old Bill,’ Sean shouted. ‘Undercover Officer.’

‘Then let’s see some I.D.’

‘I don’t have any. Like I said — I’m undercover.’

The uniformed officer was about to speak again until a voice Sean recognized cut him off. ‘He’s alright, boys. He’s one of us.’ Sean looked around to see the man who’d tried to attack Conway in prison all those weeks ago walking casually along the hallway towards them, his warrant card hanging from a thin metal chain around his neck.

‘Thanks, Nathan,’ Sean said before turning to the uniformed officers and pushing Conway towards them. ‘Here. You can have this one. Cuff him and get him back to whatever nick you’re using.’ They cuffed Conway without further discussion and marched him from the house. Sean reached the front door in time to see Conway being driven away in the back of a police car as he looked back and smiled towards him.

‘You alright?’ DC Nathan Hansen asked. ‘Haven’t seen you since our little play fight in the prison yard.’

‘I’m fine,’ Sean half lied.

‘I see our little act convinced them you we’re one of them then.’

‘Apparently so,’ Sean answered.

Sean eased the big old Ford Zodiac through the ever-swelling London rush hour traffic heading for Victoria and New Scotland Yard where he knew DS Chopra would be waiting for him in the little back room in the SO10 office. The de-brief would take a few hours at least, during which Chopra would pretend to be listening to a break-down of how he thought the undercover operation had gone, while really he would be dissecting Sean’s psyche with every word he spoke — looking for signs he was about to tip over the edge, dragged to the brink of insanity by the unrelenting stress of being someone else — never knowing when or if the organization he was infiltrating would unmask him.

It would be late before he got home — late before he could stand in a burning hot shower and try to wash away the lingering remnants of Justin Cramer, John Conway, The Network and The Sanctum, although he knew he would never truly forget them. He’d carry them with him forever — remembering them from time to time, particularly when he touched investigations of similar crimes or met similar offenders. But they wouldn’t haunt him, unlike the faces of the children he’d seen in the films and at the house, their innocent co-operation and naïve complicity in repulsive acts. He saw their faces in his past and knew he’d see them in his future. For anybody else it would be considered overexposure to traumatic events, but cops just called it experience. With each experience he grew in some ways, but died a little more in others as each investigation stripped him of another layer of genuine human compassion, hardening the shell that grew around him, insulating him from the world he had to deal with, pushing him away from everyday people and their everyday lives. As soon as he finished the de-brief and escaped from The Yard he’d begin the process of clearing out his mind of the last few weeks and he was already looking forward to some more mundane police work, although he knew it wouldn’t be enough for him — not long term.

He shook the nagging thoughts from his mind and pictured Kate. He’d already called her from a payphone, deliberately not apologizing for his apparent disappearance, instead promising to explain why he’d had no choice if she’d agree to see him again. She’d been cold at first, but had relented and warmed as she’d felt the genuine urgency in his voice. She’d agreed to meet him back at his flat, no matter how late, the physical desire to be with each other laying waste to any doubts either of them might have. The moment he’d heard her voice down the phone he knew she was the one — knew they would be together forever. A cop and an A amp; E doctor — what could work better? Someone he could love without bullshitting all the time. Someone who saw the same hard edges of the world he saw almost every day.

He broke out of his daydream just in time to see the red light of a pedestrian crossing, hitting the breaks hard to stop the big old car in time and watch as a young mother led her two children across the road in front of him — one boy and one girl aged about nine and ten. The girl smiled at Sean through the windscreen. He smiled back.