Stephen Leather: Tango One

"Am I in some sort of trouble?" asked Warren, suddenly concerned.

The man shrugged.

"Not that I'm aware of, sir, but then they don't tell me much, me being a driver and all." He looked at his watch.

"Best not to be late, sir."

Warren nodded.

"Okay, okay," he said and closed the door as the man went back to guard his car.

He walked slowly into his bedroom and took off his dressing gown. His police uniform was hanging from the key that locked the wardrobe door.

He reached out and stroked the blue serge. Warren had thought long and hard before applying to join the Metropolitan Police. He'd had a few minor convictions when he was a teenager, mainly joy riding and stealing from cars, and he'd been up front about his past during the many interviews they'd put him through. However, in the wake of a slump in recruitment, the Met had been forced to drop its requirement that applicants had a completely trouble-free past. They were especially keen on Warren as he was West Indian, and were currently bending over backwards to increase their intake of ethnic minorities.

It was racism, albeit acting in reverse, and Warren figured that he might as well take advantage of it. However, the presence of the man in the blazer waiting in the car outside suggested that his entry into the ranks of the Metropolitan Police wasn't going to go as smoothly as he'd hoped.

Christina Leigh lit her first cigarette of the morning, inhaled deeply, then spent a good thirty seconds coughing as she walked slowly towards the kitchen, wrapping her robe around her.

"Tomorrow I'm giving up," she promised herself for the thousandth time.

She switched on the kettle and heaped two spoonfuls of Nescafe Gold Blend into a white mug. As she took a second pull on her Silk Cut she frowned at the clock above the ten-year-old refrigerator.

"Eight o'clock?" she muttered.

"How the hell can it be eight o'clock already?" She hurried back into the bedroom and took her blue uniform out of the wardrobe and laid it carefully on the bed. Her regulation shoes sat on her dressing table, gleaming under the fluorescent strip light above her mirror, and her hat hung on a hook on the back of the door. She picked up the hat and sat it carefully on her head, then adjusted the angle. Try as she might, it didn't look right and she wondered whether day one at Hendon would involve teaching recruits how to wear the bloody things. At least she didn't have to wear the same silly pointed helmets as the men. The doorbell rang and she jumped.

She rushed to the door of her flat and flung it open. A grey-haired man in his early fifties smiled down at her. He was wearing a dark blue blazer and grey trousers and must have been almost seven feet tall, because Tina had to crane her neck to look at his face.

"Whatever you're selling, I really don't have the time," she said. She took a quick pull on her cigarette.

"Or the money. And how did you get in? The front door's supposed to be locked."

"Didn't anyone tell you that smoking in uniform is grounds for dismissal?" said the man in a soft Northumbrian accent.

"What?" said Tina, but as soon as the word had left her mouth she realised that she was still wearing the police hat. She grabbed it and held it behind her back.

"I'm not a cop," she said.

"Not yet. A police officer, I mean. I'm not actually a police officer." She leaned over and stabbed the cigarette into an ashtray on the hall table.

"What do you want?"

The man smiled at her, the skin at the side of his eyes creasing into deep crow's feet.

"Christina Leigh?"

"Yes?" said Tina hesitantly.

"Your chariot awaits."

"My what?"

"Your car."

"I don't have a bleedin' car. I barely have enough for a bus ticket."

"I'm here to drive you, Miss Leigh."

"To Hendon?"

"To an alternative venue."

"I'm supposed to report to Hendon half past eight." She took a quick look at the watch on her wrist.

"And I'm running late."

"Your itinerary has been changed, Miss Leigh, and I'm here to drive you. You won't be needing the uniform, either. Plainclothes."

"Plainclothes?"

"The sort of thing you'd wear to the shops." He smiled.

"I wouldn't recommend anything outrageous."

Tina narrowed her eyes.

"Am I in trouble?" she asked, suddenly serious.

The man shrugged.

"They treat me like a mushroom, miss. Keep me in the dark and ' "I know, I know," Tina interrupted.

"It's just that I had the course work, I've read all the stuff, and I was up all night polishing those bloody shoes. Now you're telling me it's off."

"Just a change in your itinerary, miss. That's all. If you were in any sort of trouble, I doubt that they'd send me."

Tina pounced.

"They?"

"The powers that be, miss. The people who pay my wages."

"And they would be who?"

"I guess the taxpayer at the end of the day." He looked at his watch.

"We'd best be going, miss."

Tina stared at the man for a few seconds, then nodded slowly.

"Okay. Give me a minute." She smiled mischievously.

"Make-up?"

"A touch of mascara wouldn't hurt, miss," said the man, straight faced.

"Perhaps a hint of lipstick. Nothing too pink. I'll be waiting in the car."

Tina bit down on her lower lip, suppressing the urge to laugh out loud.

She waited until she'd closed the door before chuckling to herself.

By the time she was opening the wardrobe door she'd stopped laughing.

The arrival of the grey-haired stranger on her doorstep could only be bad news. The day she'd learned that the Metropolitan Police had accepted her as a probationary constable had been one of the happiest in her life. Now she had a horrible feeling that her dreams of a new life were all going to come crashing down around her.

The driver said not one word during the forty-minute drive from Chelsea to the Isle of Dogs. Jamie Fullerton knew that there was no point in asking any of the dozen or so questions that were buzzing around his brain like angry wasps. He'd find out soon enough, of that much he was sure. He stared out of the window of the Vectra and took long, slow breaths, trying to calm his thumping heart.

When he saw the towering edifice of Canary Wharf in the distance, Fullerton frowned. So far as he knew, none of the Metropolitan Police bureaucracy was based out in the city it was a financial centre, pure and simple. Big American banks and Japanese broking houses and what was left of the British financial services sector.

The Vectra slowed in front of a nondescript glass and steel block, then turned into an underground car park, bucking over a yellow and black striped hump in the tarmac. The driver showed a laminated ID card to a uniformed security guard and whistled softly through his teeth as the barrier was slowly raised. They parked close to a lift, and Fullerton waited for the driver to walk around and open the door for him. It was a silly, pointless victory, but the man's sullen insolence had annoyed Fullerton.

The driver slammed Fullerton's door shut and walked stiffly over to the lift. To the right of the grey metal door was a keypad and he tapped out a four-digit code. A digital read-out showed that the lift was coming down from the tenth floor.

The driver studiously ignored Fullerton until the lift reached the car park and the door rattled open.

"Tenth floor, sir," said the driver, almost spitting out the honorific.

"You'll be met." He turned and headed back to the car.

Fullerton walked into the lift and stabbed at the button for the tenth floor.

"You drive carefully, yeah?" Fullerton shouted as the door clattered shut. It was another pointless victory, but Fullerton had a feeling that he was going to have to take his victories where he could.

He watched as the floor indicator lights flicked slowly to ten. The lift whispered to a halt and the door opened. There was nobody waiting for him. Fullerton hesitated, then stepped out of the lift and stood in the grey-carpeted lobby, looking left and right. At one end of the corridor was a pair of frosted glass doors. Fullerton frowned. The lift door closed behind him. He adjusted the cuffs of his white shirt and shrugged the shoulders of his dark blue silk and wool Lanvin suit.