‘Whenever Regina and Princess go to the States for treatment, Mario stays here and works. He’s always sad. He’s missing so much of his little girl’s life, which is doubly awful seeing as they don’t know how long her life might be.’
Jack couldn’t imagine how painful it must be for Mario not to be with his little girl for every second of her medical treatment. He was certain he couldn’t be away from Hannah. ‘It’d be good to catch up with them. Are they coming to the wedding?’ Jack had been hit by a wave of guilt. ‘I should call him. Do you think?’
Maggie placated him by saying that Mario had a wonderful family who looked after him. He was rarely on his own. And yes, they were coming to the wedding. ‘It’ll be lovely to see little Princess.’ Tired tears appeared in Maggie’s eyes. ‘Apparently, she’s getting some good movement back into her left arm.’
Jack sat next to Maggie and adopted the same slovenly position she’d chosen. ‘Makes you realise that most parents have nothing at all to complain about.’ But his gentle words quickly turned to sarcasm. ‘Talking of prima donna parents who can’t cope with their perfectly healthy kids... how’s Wetlock?’
Maggie deftly dragged herself upright, without spilling a drop of her wine. ‘Well, Jack, you’ll be thrilled to hear that he’s not coping. Tania continues to disappear and take drugs at every opportunity, and he continues to be out of his depth. For a man capable of understanding the intricate workings of the cardiovascular system, he’s shit at understanding his little girl. He just throws money at the problem — like getting her that flat — but that just makes things worse by distancing them more, but he has no idea how to be around her. He’s embarrassed by her, actually, that’s the problem. She’s not the daughter he wanted, and he hates the idea of others knowing he’s failed.’ Maggie paused for Jack to offer some consoling words, but they didn’t come. She glanced to her right, about to tear a strip off him for being silently smug, but Jack was fast asleep by her side.
By 6 a.m, Jack had given up on any kind of proper sleep.
Maggie had covered him up and left him on the sofa, but he’d woken with a crick in his neck just twenty minutes later and headed upstairs to bed. Since then, they’d both been awake on and off throughout the night, taking it in turns to see to Hannah. She’d had a cough and a slight temperature for the past two days, and at night, she became an over-dramatic coughing and sobbing machine, who just needed to be in somebody’s arms. Calpol helped to send her back to sleep, but only for an hour at a time and then they were stuck until she could have another dose. Between them, Maggie and Jack walked miles up and down the landing, squeezing Hannah against their chests as she stared at the ceiling, wide awake but content because she was being held.
Maggie appeared in the kitchen doorway as Jack was attempting to make porridge in the microwave for the first time ever. She took over as this was easier than teaching him how to do it properly. ‘Maybe Princess could be a bridesmaid with Hannah?’ Maggie could see how much their conversation from last night had been playing on Jack’s mind. ‘Is that a terrible idea?’ Maggie planted one long, firm kiss on Jack’s lips. She loved how things played on his mind until a lovely, heartfelt solution came to him.
‘It’s not a terrible idea, Jack, it’s an amazing idea. But the truth is, she may not be well enough to come. She has good days and bad days. And she can’t walk, of course.’
‘She can be in her pushchair. Ooh, Hannah can push her down the aisle!’ Maggie returned to making the porridge as Jack’s enthusiasm ran away with him. ‘Princess could sit in that little red car of Hannah’s and Hannah could push her!’
A giggly scream came from the doorway. Hannah was bouncing about on Penny’s hip, waving her arms in the air and laughing with her mouth wide open. Maggie and Jack glared at her through furrowed brows. How dare she look so fresh after the night they’d had? Jack broke first. He took Hannah in his arms and told her what a good girl she was for laughing at his idea about Princess and the red car. ‘Hannah loves the idea of pushing Princess down the aisle, don’t you, lovely girl, so it’s two against one now, Mummy.’
Maggie smiled, but it wasn’t real. Her medical knowledge was a gift, but sometimes she wished she didn’t always know the horrible truth. She’d love to believe the dream of Hannah pushing Princess down the aisle in her little red car. But it would never happen.
After his shower, Jack was buttoning his shirt in front of the mirror when he remembered that he wasn’t going to Ridley’s briefing this morning, he was going to Steve Lewis’s at the Drug Squad offices across in Staines. And the Drug Squad ‘uniform’ was more casual than Ridley’s team’s. Jack reassessed his attire and changed into jeans, a plain T-shirt and his leather jacket. He also wore the sturdy work boots he’d treated himself to when he was in the Cotswolds, not least because they made him half an inch taller.
Maggie had left the car as she’d decided to run off her bad night’s sleep. Jack used to wish that he had her motivation to keep fit, but not anymore; now, he was happy to sit back in the warm blast of the car’s heaters.
Jack had been to the Drug Squad offices in Staines once before, many years earlier, and it hadn’t changed at all. The building still looked like nondescript offices, with only the high fence and security gate suggesting it was anything more. As Jack pulled up at the gates, a female voice spoke to him through a speaker mounted on a metal pole, asking for his name and the name of the person he was here to see. She then asked Jack to hold up his ID to the camera set on top of the speaker, before opening the gate and instructing him to drive round to the second set of double white doors, where someone would meet him.
As Jack followed the single road around the building, he saw a man in a hoody standing halfway up a set of steps. The man lifted his arm, signalled towards the parking area, then waited for Jack to join him. ‘You’re thirty minutes early, Jack. DCI Lewis isn’t here yet. Come on up — you can sneak into the back of Josh’s briefing whilst I make a cuppa.’
Jack followed the man in the hoody — whose name he hadn’t been told and didn’t ask for — along a bright, freshly painted second-floor corridor. To their right, a wall of waist-high windows overlooked the car park and to their left, evenly spaced posters instructed passing officers to ensure their weapons were secured and locked away at the end of each shift. The Drug Squad had never appealed to Jack — far too much testosterone was required to make the grade.
The man in the hoody paused outside a communal kitchen. ‘Blue door at the end. I’ll catch you up. Tea or coffee?’
Jack requested a white coffee with no sugar, then continued down the corridor as instructed.
Beyond the blue door, Josh stood at the front of a full briefing room. Jack slid in and leant against the back wall. Josh was wearing black combat trousers and a black T-shirt which was almost splitting at the seams where it stretched across his biceps. He still wore his beanie hat concealing a thin wire that stretched upwards from his blue hearing aid. The rest of the room was filled with carbon-copy men in jeans, hoodies, tight T-shirts, several ponytails, lots of three-day stubble and the odd tattoo. It was a uniform by any other name and one that Jack was only halfway to achieving, but at least he didn’t stand out too embarrassingly.
‘You’ve all read the latest report in the front of the file.’ Josh glanced up and his eyes immediately found Jack standing at the back of the room. Josh handed a file to a guy on the front row. ‘For DS Warr at the back.’ Without looking, the guy passed the file over his head to whoever was behind him. As Josh continued, the file made its way into Jack’s hands. ‘A short recap...’ Josh smiled and nodded in Jack’s direction, indicating that this was for him. ‘To date, we have 2,500 crimes linked to this gang, from speeding fines to murder. Twenty-nine people, all linked to this operation, are now dead... not including your two ladies, Jack. Three hundred and seventy-two robberies, 108 assaults, over 300 weapons offences. The guys at the top are smart and we’ll only catch them by turning the guys at the bottom. DS Warr’s team is investigating the murder of a lady whose property had been taken over by this gang or one on a par with it. This was an active hub until a fire brought the emergency services in and her body was found. Now...’